What would you do?

I am doing some baling for somebody on halves. The other person called me a week ago saying she was getting nervous because here it is the beginning of June and we had not cut the hay yet and that she wanted 3 cuttings this year. I told her don’t get nervous we will get it done soon. Well, last weekend I saw a nice 4 day window with no chance of rain so I cut her hay on Saturday. Sunday I woke up to an un-forecasted rain storm. I check the hay Sunday evening and it was surprisingly dry. I raked the hay on Monday and the sun ended up going behind the clouds and never came out again. I tried baling the hay but it was to wet. I checked the hay today and it was the same as Monday. Now it is raining again and forecasted to rain for the next few days. I do not know if the hay will be any good for our horses. How would you handle this with the other person?

Thanks for the advice.
TJH72

You both agreed to the principle of halfs. Half of excellent hay, half of mediocre hay, or half of much rain-on hay. No matter, you still do it as agreed. Tom

Get the hay dry and bale it. If it's good, feed it. If it's not, sell it for construction hay.
Halfs are halfs, good or bad. Such is life.

Rod

Half is half. Do the best job you can with it, nobody wins when the hay gets wet but weathermen lie. I get a few people that fuss about price every year when they ask for a quote, but thats why I get what I get when selling hay.

I've been there. Half is Half no mater what the condition. There was nothing you could have done. If it happens to rain on your hay again down the road don't rake it. I understand you couldn't help it this time.

Yeah, she"s gonna be pi$$ed. And she"ll be wrong.

I find it amusing that she "wanted 3 cuttings this year". Is her hay that good? Does she lime, fetilize, and plant when necessary? Sounds like she"s pretty pie-in-the-sky, and I suggest not dealing with her in the future.

Do you have a tedder? Because that will help you dry the hay A LOT.

Halves is halves, too bad it got rained on, but that's farming. You can't bale it until you cut it and you can't control the weather 100%. Making hay especially here in Michigan is about the most weather sensitive crop on a farm. Anyone who has done much of it has had it rained on and even lost a cutting once in a while.
Paul

Sounds to me like your HALF was rained on to.

Half the pie or half the pile.... how SHE handles the situation would dictate whether I dealt wth her in the future. We only feed hay to our horses so as close to perfect condition is a must. However, to avoid sticking a neighbor with a crop, I had him roll some hay that was rained on a couple of times. Just fed it to the gelding and stallion along with a little mineral pellets.


Dave

Pick up your toys and go home.

If she wants to tell ya how to do your work, she can do her own hay herself.

I wouldn't put up with that for a minute.

Allan

Tell her that if making lots of money from growing hay was easy, every body would be doing it.

Some people wouldn't be happy no matter how you did it, I had an old widow, friend of the family, that I was renting hay ground from. I paid the taxes on her land and was supposed to be able to farm it at my own discretion. Well one day she decided that the one small patch, roughly 5 acres was ready to be mowed and that I wasn't working hard enough to get it done. Well she hopped on her dead husbands tractor with the brushhog on it and mowed it. This really pi$$ed me off as I had paid her in advance for the use of the fields. So right or wrong, the field that I had seeded that year got mowed and roundupped and I have never done any sort of business with her since. My advice, get out and let her see what she gets by herself.

My advice, don't do hay on the shares! It always seemed to rain on any hay we used to do on shares. Our fault of course, even when we listened to landowners and mowed when they wanted us to. Pack up and leave unless she is ok with the situation.

Bale it up and if its not good enough for you or her to feed then sell it to a feedlot for grinding hay or to the state for mulch hay.tke the money give her half and cut your loses.Hopefully second cut will be better.

Thank you for all of the advice. I told her I will not be doing her hay any longer.

Thanks again,
TJH72

I didn't hear you say she was griping about the rain. Half is half no matter what and she pressured you to cut before you normally would have. The rain goes with the territory. You did the best you can. Now if she is griping, then you can cut her loose if don't need the business or the hay or the stress. It doesn't take more than a paragraph to write up a basic share agreement and you don't warrant anything including hay quality, timing, # of cuts, cut and bale on your schedule and not hers, etc. If she is really griping and/or wants an adjustment then no one else will want to cut her hay either cause no one can make her happy. I wouldn't stand in the way if she wanted someone else to cut it.

You didn't say if this is alfalfa, brome, or prairie hay, etc. The only thing late brome or prairie does that got wet is lose a little protein. My horses eat anything for hay and roughage. I put a protein tub out for the winter anyway and we feed some grain some times so I'm not worried about protein. I'm last on the list/low man of the totem pole with our brome cutter/baler. Prime cutting time is June 1st. He probably won't get to it till after wheat harvest and sometime in July. Lose a little protein but my mustangs and burros eat anything and don't waste much so what the hay. Alfalfa can lose some leaves and stuff so you definitely have to be on the ball with alfalfa.

We just got 4" of rain and hail monday night. The wheat was about a week or so away from cutting. Now it is knocked down and it probably won't mature for couple weeks now. What wasn't knocked down by the hail will have less test weight. I left the hail insurance price up about $7 a bushel and it is at 5.80 now. There is a chance we might come out ahead with the hail insurance. Go figure. There has been other times where insurance paid better than if there was no crop damage. The bummer is that just a few miles north or south there wasn't much hail damage.

Seems like a win-win situation for everyone next year. She will be glad you are not putting up hay on her land and you should feel the same. She will not have any problem replacing you, can you find more hay land for yourself ?