Quick answer: Start smaller than your acreage suggests — 20 to 40 acres in year one even if you own ten times that, and rent or custom-hire the rest until you know what you are doing. Decide who you are selling to before you buy anything, because the buyer determines the bale type and the bale type determines the whole equipment line. Buy in this order: tractor, mower, rake, baler, then handling. Round bales are the cheaper, lower-labor way in. Expect a used four-machine line to cost more than most beginners budget, and expect year one to teach you more about weather judgment than about machinery.
There is a version of getting into hay that works, and it looks almost nothing like the version most people picture. The picture is: buy a farm, buy equipment, make hay, sell hay. The version that works is: figure out the market, start on a fraction of the ground, borrow expertise, and let the acres pull the equipment along behind them.
This guide covers the part almost no one writes down — the sequence, the whole equipment chain, what a realistic first-season budget looks like, and how many acres to actually begin with. It links out to deeper guides on each individual decision rather than repeating them. If you have not yet settled the most basic question of all, start with buy hay or bale your own, because for a small herd the honest answer is often "buy it."
Step 1: Decide who is buying before you decide what to buy
Everything downstream depends on this. Horse people, beef cow-calf operators, dairies, and small hobby farms want different bales, in different sizes, at different quality levels, delivered in different ways. Get this backwards and you will own a machine that makes a product nobody near you wants.
"If it were me I'd decide what kind of hay i want to grow and who the intended market is. Then determine a small fraction of the acres to get started on and cash rent the rest. If you like making hay you can build your acres and equipment line over time." [sic]
— mstuck21 · HayTalk thread 97324
The market question is also intensely local, and the answer changes what "the right bale" even means. In one region 4x5 rounds are the safe default because most buyers cannot handle bigger; two states over, everyone wants 5x6 because they would rather move fewer bales. Neither is right in the abstract:
"My take is it depends on location. Most everyone in my area, especially my bigger customers, want a 5x5, 5x6, or even a 6x6. Probably just so they don't have to handle as many bales."
— Hawkins2015 · HayTalk thread 100833
There is a real market at the small end too, and it is often underserved. Hobby farms with compact tractors physically cannot lift a big bale:
"The thought on the 4x4 bales was to cater to the small hobbie farms in the area. Most have sub 25hp compact tractors that can’t lift a big bale. Plus they only have a couple calves or goats or sheep. A full size bale could be sold to anyone though" [sic]
— Coniberty Acres · HayTalk thread 100470
Do this before you spend a dollar: call five potential buyers within your delivery radius. Ask what they buy, what size, what they pay, and who they buy from now. Go to a local hay auction and write down what actually sells and for how much. Then plan the equipment around that answer. Our guides on how to sell hay and how to price hay cover the mechanics.
Step 2: Start on a fraction of your acres
This is the single most repeated piece of advice on hay forums, and the single most ignored. It applies whether you inherited 174 acres or bought 60.
The reason is not that beginners are incompetent. It is that hay is a timing business, and timing judgment takes seasons to build. One grower who runs a hay business alongside a full-time job explained what the second year of skill actually consists of:
"There's a couple requisite things you need to know. Do you intricately know your equipment inside and out? If your baler goes down in the field, do you have the confidence and knowledge to diagnose it there on spot and possibly fix it as well? Do you have people in the area you can borrow equipment from if you have a breakdown?" [sic]
— Hayjosh · HayTalk thread 100569
And then the harder half, which no amount of money buys:
"The second part is the harder part, it's the intuition and "spidey sense." It's looking at the weather forecast and maybe understanding the window they've got coming up isn't a safe gamble because the forecast was constantly changing up to that point, or that you're noticing the humidity is going to be too high, or the breeze too low, or not enough sun, etc, and that you have to tell a custom customer that it's not a good time to bale even if they're insisting." [sic]
— Hayjosh · HayTalk thread 100569
His recommendation to someone eyeing 50-plus acres of small squares in year one was blunt, and it is the number worth anchoring on:
"I really wouldn't recommend doing more than 20 acres right now, because even that will keep you busy when just starting out. Also if you're saying you work a lot, haying takes a lot of time. I work a full time job off farm and am a one man army with my haying, 40 acres in squares is about where I maxed out and life wasn't fun anymore." [sic]
— Hayjosh · HayTalk thread 100569
Note the asymmetry: 20 acres of small squares is a lot of work; 20 acres of rounds is not. Bale type changes the labor math more than acreage does.
When a new owner with 174 inherited acres asked how to equip for the whole thing, the advice came back the same from several directions — start on a slice, rent the rest, and let cash flow from the rented ground fund the learning:
"Perhaps with you given cash, you could start with10-20 acres, develop your market (if not already established). Renting out the rest of the acreage for cash flow purposes" [sic]
— r82230 · HayTalk thread 97324
If you are on the other side of that transaction — renting ground rather than renting it out — see renting hay ground.
Step 3: Know the real equipment chain
Hay is not one machine. It is four jobs that all have to happen inside the same weather window, and every one of them needs iron. Beginners budget for the baler and get blindsided by the rest.
| Job | Machine | Can you skip or hire it? |
|---|---|---|
| Cut | Sickle mower, haybine/mower-conditioner, or discbine | Easy to custom-hire; also the easiest to start cheap |
| Dry / spread | Tedder | Optional in dry climates, near-essential in humid ones |
| Gather | Rake (wheel, rotary, or bar) | Required. Cheapest machine in the line |
| Bale | Round or small square baler | Custom-hire year one is a legitimate strategy |
| Move & store | Loader tractor, spear or grapple, trailer, shed | Cannot be skipped — bales do not walk |
| Pull all of it | Tractor(s) with enough PTO horsepower | Cannot be skipped |
A partner in a 200-acre operation laid out what used pieces run and what a full line looks like after decades of accumulation:
"You are going to need a mower conditioner $8000 to $12000 used baler $10000 to $15000 tedder 4 basket $3500 used rake $1000 to $3000 used. Tractors one 80 to 100 hp $10,000 to ? one 60 HP loader tractor $10000 to ?. Wagons or trailers $1500 to $4000 depending on size." [sic]
— Beav · HayTalk thread 97324
He then put a number on the fully-built version, which is the number worth seeing so you do not mistake a starter line for a finished one:
"If you matched our equipment you be north of $250,000." [sic]
— Beav · HayTalk thread 97324
Those figures are a snapshot from one region and one year, and used-equipment prices have moved sharply since. Treat them as proportions, not quotes: the mower and the baler are the big two, the rake is nearly free by comparison, and the tractors quietly cost as much as everything else combined.
The order to buy in
If you are assembling a line over two or three seasons rather than all at once, this order minimizes the chance of owning something you cannot use:
- Tractor first. Everything hangs off it, and buying a baler your tractor cannot turn is the classic expensive mistake. Size it for the baler you intend to end up with, not the one you can afford today. See tractor HP for a round baler.
- Mower second. Cutting is the job with the tightest weather dependency and the one custom operators are least reliably available for on your day. A tired old haybine will make hay; see disc mower vs mower-conditioner before you spend real money.
- Rake third. Cheapest machine in the chain and completely non-negotiable. Rake selection guide.
- Baler fourth. This is the piece it is most reasonable to custom-hire in year one, and the piece where buying wrong hurts most. How to buy a used round baler.
- Tedder and handling last, as acres and humidity demand. Hay tedder guide.
One caveat on tedders: on bigger acreage a small tedder becomes the bottleneck fast. As one grower put it about 174 acres, "6 basket tedder will be a must. You will be forever with a 4 basket."
Step 4: Round bales are the cheaper way in
If you have no strong reason to make small squares, make rounds first. Rounds need less equipment, far less labor, and are more forgiving of a weather window that closes early.
"If I was going to get started on that many acres I would round bale it to learn more about hay making. Would not be as much money per ton as square bales, but a lot cheaper to start out equipment wise and take a lot of the weather worries and labor worries out of it." [sic]
— MtnHerd · HayTalk thread 97324
The trade is real — small squares generally bring more per ton — but small squares also require an accumulator or a crew, wagons, a barn with a loft or equivalent, and a body that tolerates it. And they punish a missed weather window harder, because a rained-on square bale is worth far less than a rained-on round.
Rounds also bring the net-wrap decision, which is worth getting right at the start rather than converting later. Net wrap makes bales faster, sheds water better, and holds shape in storage compared with twine; see net wrap vs twine. If you are buying a used baler, note that a twine-only machine is cheaper up front and a net attachment is not always a simple retrofit. One custom baler who has run both since the 1990s was direct about which way he would go: "I'm accustomed to using netwrap & would stop rd baling if I had to revert to putting twine on my rd bales."
Step 5: Build a first-season budget that includes the boring line items
The classic beginner budget is equipment plus fuel. The classic beginner surprise is everything else. When one forum member posted an ambitious multi-million-dollar hay expansion plan, the first substantive reply was a list of what he had left out:
"I don't see any inputs like seed, fertilizer, and herbicide... Nothing in there for twine, net wrap, or fuel. Keep tickling the calculator..." [sic]
— stack em up · HayTalk thread 28937
Your year-one budget needs, at minimum: seed or stand renovation, soil test and fertilizer, herbicide, fuel, twine or net wrap, repairs and parts, insurance, storage, and a genuine contingency. Repairs are not optional on used equipment — they are a recurring line item.
For a revenue sanity check, anchor on published prices rather than the best number you heard at the co-op. USDA NASS reported the U.S. average price received for all baled hay at $181 per ton in June 2026, with alfalfa at $198 and other hay at $141. Those are national averages across all package types and qualities — your local market may be well above or below — but they tell you the order of magnitude you are working in. Multiply by your realistic yield (see hay yield per acre) and your starting acres, and see whether the equipment payment survives.
Run the same check against custom rates. If a custom operator will bale your hay for less than your cost of ownership per bale, owning is a lifestyle decision rather than an economic one — which is fine, as long as you know that is the decision you are making. Most land-grant universities publish an annual custom rate survey. Iowa State's 2026 Iowa Farm Custom Rate Survey (FM 1698, revised March 2026, based on 205 responses) gives a useful order of magnitude for the whole chain:
| Operation | Iowa 2026 average | Reported range |
|---|---|---|
| Hay mowing | $15.45 / acre | $9.50 – $21.00 |
| Mowing / conditioning | $17.30 / acre | $10.00 – $25.00 |
| Raking | $9.90 / acre | $7.50 – $15.00 |
| Tedding | $11.85 / acre | $8.00 – $15.00 |
| Large round bales, without wrap | $13.15 / bale | $10.00 – $20.00 |
| Large round bales, with wrap | $15.75 / bale | $12.00 – $20.00 |
| Small square bales | $1.00 / bale | $0.50 – $1.50 |
| Moving round bales to storage | $3.25 / bale | $1.50 – $5.00 |
Those are Iowa numbers for one year; check your own state's survey, and expect real quotes to sit anywhere inside those wide ranges depending on distance, field size, and how busy the operator is. But the shape is instructive. Mow, rake, and bale a field of rounds through a custom operator and you are looking at roughly $27 an acre for the cutting and raking plus $13–$16 a bale — a number you can compare directly against a $10,000-plus baler that has to be paid for whether it rains or not. Our custom baling rates guide covers what drives the spread.
One more thing that table quietly tells you: the average round-bale rate with wrap runs about $2.60 above the rate without it. That is arithmetic across two separately surveyed line items rather than a published wrap charge, but it is a reasonable sanity check on where wrap sits in your per-bale cost — a real line item, and a small one next to iron and fuel.
One piece of perspective on ownership cost from a Texas operator who tracked a baler across its whole life — bought used, sold used, twice:
"My actual rd baler costs for 56,000 bales is a lot less than $1 per bale even including cost of repair parts. I seriously doubt one can survive in today's high $$$$$$$$$ tractors/equipment/parts, netwrap prices while custom baling for any where near those low rd baler costs per bale" [sic]
— Tx Jim · HayTalk thread 103525
That is the argument for buying a good used machine and running it a long time. It is also a warning: those economics came from a machine bought at 2007 prices and sold in 2024, and they are much harder to reproduce now. New equipment prices have moved faster than hay prices:
"Equipment I bought 4-5 years ago has risen in price over 60% in a lot of cases. But around here hay and custom rates haven't hardly moved."
— chevytaHOE5674 · HayTalk thread 101429
Step 6: The hybrid year — hire the hard parts, own the easy ones
The most useful first-year pattern is not "buy everything" or "hire everything." It is to hire the expensive, judgment-heavy operations and own the cheap ones, then insource one job per season.
One first-year owner described exactly that on 60 acres — he leaned on an experienced custom operator, supplied his own labor and loader tractor, and used the season to learn:
"I got in with a medium sized custom farmer who has been in the game a long time. I leaned on his knowledge and also his equipment and skills. I have to agree with the first comment that the entry price for equipment will be > 50K, and that if you are going into something longer term you might not always want the cheap equipment with higher long term maintenance issues." [sic]
— BisonMan · HayTalk thread 97324
His plan for year two is the template — pick the single machine that most limits you and buy that one:
"Next year I'd like to outsource a little less. I might pick up a small square baler and basically do that part on my own. It's just as cost effective at the moment to have him come over and do the mowing and raking, but not sure." [sic]
— BisonMan · HayTalk thread 97324
He is also candid about the two things that surprised him, and both are worth planning for:
"I also found my hay wasn't quite the primo hay I thought it would be, and margins were pretty tight. Part of that is that I was paying a guy to help me, but the cheque you gotta cut for machinery is large. I would only count on perhaps 2 cuts of hay year 1, and maybe a cut of forage." [sic]
— BisonMan · HayTalk thread 97324
Two cuttings in year one, not four. Plan the budget on that.
Step 7: Fix the stand before you blame the equipment
A surprising share of first-year disappointment is agronomy, not machinery. Ground that has been idle, overgrazed, or in another crop rarely produces a sellable first cutting without work.
If you are killing off an existing stand to reseed, one pass is usually not enough:
"kill it twice separated by 3-4 weeks"
— Hayman1 · HayTalk thread 99122
And you cannot manage what you cannot name. As one grower told a beginner planning a spray program: "you really need to be able to identify your weeds." Walk the field with a county extension agent or a good agronomist before you buy chemical.
The broader principle, aimed at a newcomer building a plan on optimism:
"One thing I would definitely NOT do is spend your money based on "hope," especially when there's plenty of established agronomy science stating otherwise." [sic]
— Hayjosh · HayTalk thread 99122
Also check the ground against the crop you want. Alfalfa gives the most cuttings and the best price, but it is fussy about drainage — "Alfalfa doesn't play well with real wet feet," as one Michigan grower put it about heavy, water-holding soil. Match the species to the field, then see establishing an alfalfa stand if alfalfa is the answer.
And be honest about your season length. The number of cuttings you can get is set by your frost dates and your climate, not by your ambition. Growers in the same state, 200 miles apart, reported wildly different realities — three to four cuttings in one place, "sometimes lucky to get 1 dry cutting" in another. Check your local first and last frost dates before you build a revenue model on four cuttings.
Step 8: Expect the weather to be the boss
Every experienced grower eventually says a version of the same thing to every newcomer with a spreadsheet.
"Mother Nature bats last."
— Fossil02818 · HayTalk thread 28937
And on the temptation to scale fast because the math looks good on paper:
"To get that big that fast is a good plan for a massive failure."
— hog987 · HayTalk thread 28937
The practical version of that warning is about cash flow, not pride. Equipment payments are fixed; hay years are not:
"A lot of people get into hay, buy new equipment, can't cash flow it and have to sell. Personally speaking I have less than 60k in a 200 acre operation." [sic]
— hillside hay · HayTalk thread 43234
His view of used iron is worth hearing too, because "cheap equipment is a trap" is only half true: "I wouldn't say that cheap equipment necessarily brings headaches... You have to know where the wear points are make good decisions at auctions and personal sales." The skill you are buying with a used machine is your own. And he lands on the same starting number everyone else does — "20 acres is a good start."
Keep the off-farm income for the first few seasons. Buy iron that is paid for. Then grow.
A realistic year-one plan
| When | Do this |
|---|---|
| Fall / winter before | Soil test. Call five buyers. Attend a hay auction. Check frost dates. Decide bale type. |
| Winter | Shop equipment off-season when prices are softest. Buy the tractor first. |
| Early spring | Fertilize to the soil test. Address weeds. Line up a custom operator as backup — and as plan A for baling. |
| First cutting | Start on 20–40 acres. Ride along with someone experienced if you possibly can. |
| Mid-season | Track hours, breakdowns, and cost per bale honestly. This is your real business plan. |
| After the last cutting | Decide which single machine to insource next year. Store bales properly — see storing round bale hay. |
Where net wrap fits in a startup budget
Wrap is one of the few costs in this whole list that is genuinely predictable, and one of the few places a small decision compounds across every bale you make.
Two practical notes for a first season. First, budget for it explicitly — it belongs on the input line beside fuel and fertilizer, not as an afterthought, and running out mid-field on a Saturday is its own kind of expensive. Second, buying the cheapest roll available is usually a false economy in year one specifically, because a beginner has enough variables already; net that tears or feeds inconsistently turns into a baler problem you will misdiagnose as a machine problem.
Our wrap is DLG-tested (Report #7439) for consistent strength across the full roll width, so wrap behaviour is one thing you can take off the list of suspects while you learn everything else. Widths, lengths, and current pricing are on the net wrap product page. If you are still choosing between wrap and twine for your first baler, net wrap vs twine lays out the trade.
The bottom line
Find the buyer first, then buy the equipment that serves that buyer. Start on 20 to 40 acres regardless of how much ground you own, and rent or custom-hire the rest until the acres have taught you the weather. Buy in order — tractor, mower, rake, baler, handling — and buy used and paid-for rather than new and financed. Make rounds unless you have a specific reason not to. Budget for the boring inputs, plan on two cuttings in year one, and keep the off-farm job. Do that and year three looks like a business instead of an auction listing.
Frequently asked questions
How many acres do you need to start a hay operation?
Fewer than you think. Experienced growers commonly tell beginners to start on 20 to 40 acres even when they own far more, and to rent out or custom-hire the balance. One full-time-employed grower described 40 acres of small squares as the point where "life wasn't fun anymore" working alone. Rounds scale much further with the same labor than small squares do, so the honest answer depends on bale type as much as acreage.
How much does it cost to start a hay operation?
More than the baler. A used four-machine line — mower-conditioner, baler, tedder, rake — plus at least one capable tractor and a loader tractor is the realistic minimum, and the tractors often cost as much as the implements. Beginners frequently arrive with a $50,000 budget for 150-plus acres and are told it will not cover it. Beyond iron, budget for seed, fertilizer, herbicide, fuel, net wrap or twine, repairs, insurance, and storage.
Should I make round bales or small square bales first?
Round bales, unless your market specifically demands squares. Rounds need less equipment, far less labor, and tolerate a shortened weather window better. Small squares bring more per ton but require an accumulator or a crew, wagons, and loft storage, and a rained-on square bale loses more value than a rained-on round. Many growers start in rounds to learn hay making, then add squares once the market and skills justify it.
Is it cheaper to hire a custom baler than to buy equipment?
Often, in year one — and that is a legitimate strategy, not a failure. Iowa State's 2026 custom rate survey averaged $17.30 per acre for mowing and conditioning, $9.90 for raking, and $15.75 per large round bale with wrap. Compare your local rates against your true cost of ownership per bale, including depreciation, repairs, and your own time. Hire the expensive, judgment-heavy operations while you learn, own the cheap ones, and insource one machine per season.
What is the biggest mistake new hay producers make?
Buying more equipment and taking on more acres than the first season can support. Financed iron creates fixed payments that a bad hay year cannot cover, and that is the failure mode experienced growers watch happen repeatedly. The second biggest is planning around agronomy that has not been checked — building a revenue model on four cuttings when the frost dates allow two, or seeding into a stand that needed killing twice.
This guide is maintained by the XES Netting team — a bale net-wrap manufacturer. Every farmer quote in this post is verbatim with a thread link, so you can go read the originals; [sic] marks spelling as posted. Equipment prices quoted by forum members reflect their region and the year they posted — treat them as proportions rather than current quotes. Consult your local extension office and a lender before committing capital.
Featured photo: John Deere 7420 and 567 baler 2 by Bill Burris, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
