Machinery
The custom guy sent his bill for custom chopping and it was like $1400 an hour. He comes with pack tractor, 3-4 trucks and the chopper is the biggest they make so making pretty big swat. Does $1400 seem reasonable?
8
$9/ton includes 980 claas cutter, trucks ,fuel , 4 wheel drive packing tractor and in our area corn averages 20 ton acre
Might be a little late but we pay $7.75/ton for corn chopping (including kp) and $.25/ton/loaded mile for hauling. Feedyard takes care of the pack tractor so I cant speak for that.
Most guys around here run $9/ton corn and $325/hr plus $80/hr/truck and $80/hr packing tractor. Seems high and one guy buys a new chopper almost every year.
If it is more than $100 an acre, you are getting dinged pretty good. Maybe with packing tractor a little more. Is he supplying the fuel? Big dairies here are by the ton, usually $5/ ton. Has to be scale verified too. I would be willing to haul my stuff 600 miles to get 40k to chop 320 acres
Guy around me charges a guy $1200-$1300 for a 10’x200’ bag. We started chopping 3 years ago just went out and bought our own stuff so we didn’t have to rely on someone. Big expense for something you only use a week a year but it’s done when it needs to be.
Our dad pays the bill, but for us it seems like it's around $13000 for a 300' bag. 3-4 large wagons, claas 960.
2
I would say you were charged about what we were. Our guy charges based on cutter head time for the chopper and overall time for the wagons and crew. I know my dad complains that we could almost buy a chopper and cheap wagons and do it ourselves for what it costs.
It was over 40k to chop roughly 320 acres of corn last fall. Don’t get me wrong it was a big dam pile but seems high. If I need to start looking else where need to start now but looking at what you paid it’s probably not far off