Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Rural Living Hay Hauling (hey Wabigoon)

Cheapest that I ever paid was either $0.22 or $0.23 at Timberlane DX in Boone.

Where I grew up, there were a couple of brothers that contract cut, rake, bale, and would haul your hay for you. These fellows would do over 200K bales in a year. They hired us high school fellows to haul. Getting on with them was money in your pocket, but it was work. Sometimes you hauled 7 days a week.

When I started hauling hay, we got a nickle a bale and you used your own truck.... 3 cents a bale if you used the owners truck. I used Dad's long wheel base pu and could haul 42 bales at a time....$2.10 per load. If it was really bad, I'd hire a guy and give him 2 cents and I'd keep 3 cents.

Then it went to a dime using your own truck. For a high school kids, we was making some good money. During the summer, on a average week, you could make $120-$150.

Only time I got 25 cents per bale..... Hauling about 10 miles and had to put it in a loft.

Never had the “opportunity “ as a lad to move bales, but I’ve moved more than a couple the last 42 years since I got my first hoss.


ALL squares are picked up in the field or you’re out of luck or pay high rates. Had to prepare my crew and have them available on short notice. Hay windows here are small and often shut real quick like.

I always wanted to be the driver!

Company I hauled gas for had a station in a war.
It went on for about 2 weeks, they were selling at a loss after 1 week.
We were also in the wrecker business, my boss told the wrecker guys,
"Go over to the station beside ours, buy gas off them after every call.
If the [bleep] want to sell it at a loss, we will gladly buy all we can."

Once the owners realized what was happening, the war was over!

I wanted to be the counter......1, 2, 3, 4........

Too much responsibility!

When you haul by yourself..... you are the driver, counter, loader, stacker, unloader, and barn stacker. You learn to multitask real fast.

When I would hire someone.... I drove and loaded one side, while the helper loaded the other side. It was easier being the helper. In the end, you made about the same money, whether you worked by yourself or had a helper. The helper just made a bad job (stacking in a loft or having to stack really high in a barn) a little easier.

When you hauled hay all summer, two a day practices weren’t cshit. It would kill the fat fuucks that sat in the AC all summer. I loved two a days for that reason. I enjoyed watching the fat boys suffer.

Wasn't too bad bucking bales in the filed and loading them,but once we got to the upper level in the barn closer to that tin roof in late July , it was sure toasty

Counter?

The stack always told the count.

Depending if we went 4 or 5 high w a tie math was pretty simple.

Most of the time, you are correct. . What happens when you are coming out of a bottom field and have to climb a hill and some of the stack fall off the top of the truck or off the trailer. Cant stop on that steep of a hill, got to keep going. Tying it on helps, but sometimes even that doesn't get you to the barn with all the load. You know what you started out with, but not always what you got to the barn with. You learn to always count what you put in the barn, that's what gets you paid.

Fill up a small barn/shed with hay, then move to another..... how many bales are in the smaller barn/shed? Maybe it already had some bales in it, so how many bales did you put in there to top it out? Man that's paying you wants to know, so you have to keep count.