How many sqft in a bale?

[chickenwhisperer]

once I get my soil in better shape, Im gonna seed a section of my yard with some orchard and oat grass seed I ordered.
I have some space to work with, not acres or anything, but a few thousand sqft.
What do you think the plot size needed to GROW a bale or 2 worth of hay is???

 

[seedcorn]

Depends on how tall you let it get, how good of stand you get, how big of a bale you are making (square bale, round bale or large square bale). IF everything goes well, you wind row it, you will get about 1-2 small square bales out it if you are using a baler.

 

[chickenwhisperer]

Yeah, no baler or farm-type equipment.

I just want to grow a bit of hay for the rabbits . . .

Some folks on BYC gave me some great reference ideas and starting points.

I am planning on making my "pasture" about 6-8K sqft, and if I get a few bales-worth, that would be great.

I will have to use the old-school wind-row method of course, but the sun is hot here in Sunny California, so in theory my hay should dry pretty fast then it can go into large cardboard boxes.

I might tie it all up into small little rolls too, I picture hay-length 2ft rounds stacked like firewood . . .

 

[digitS']

One year, when I lived in the country, the baler broke. There was only the little field left, just up the hill from my place. Naturally, the baled hay on the other ground had already been promised to others.

So, I hauled 3 1/2 acres of oat and vetch hay down to the corral, pitch-forked into the back of the pickup. It was just stacked on pallets and covered with a tarp as I'd have done with baled hay.

My fenced garden was too large for me to make real good use of and I planted about 1/3rd of it to alfalfa. It produced real well but I had to cut it with the scythe because I couldn't do much with the tractor on only 5,000 square feet.

I never weighed how much the yield was but ball-park for 2 cuttings on similar ground would be 5 tons/acre. So, I was probably taking about 1/2 ton of alfalfa hay off that little piece of ground - at least, I imagined it so .

If the land had been at a little lower elevation, there would have been a 3rd cutting.

Steve