Combines coustom combiners quiting

I can't believe that they are making any money at that price either. When I do custom work I charge $25 per acre, and most of the time the guys I work for are hauling with their own truck.

The going rate around here is still 13 13 13. $13 per acre, 13cents a bushel to haul, and 13 cents per bushel over 60 bpa. It may go up this year though. You would have to be on crack to hire someone for $25 per acre, that is totally outrageous.

Most guys down here in Aust. would be jumping for joy if they were recieving $15(US)_acre for just stripping wheat. Going rate down here is around $12(AUS)_acre and I know of guys stripping for under $10(AUS) to get work. Sure makes it hard for guys trying to pay off $350,000(AUS) combines. Mind you just to clarify, for those guys that haven't been down here. Wheat yeilds in Nth areas where I am, vary anywhere between 20 bushell's up to the mid 50's in a better season, so as such we can cover a lot more acres than you guys with your 80 bushel plus crops. Plus that price only includes stripping, not cartage.

I have two friends in this business calling it quits after this last harvest. We were only able to charge 3-13's on dryland this year when it should be at least 3-15's. When I harvest irrigated grains such as malt barley, oats I charge a flat 26 dollars an acre for the cutting and $.30 a hundread on the hauling up to 10 miles. It is a very hard business to survive in any more us american harvesters cant compete with the canadians here on our home turf. You will see more and more custom cutters calling it quits along with more and more farmers if these prices of the crops dont rise to compensate for the rise in fuel and equipment costs.

we dont custom combine for a livin. we like to custom cut for area farmers. we where getting 12 bucks an acre. now the custom cutters where getting 15 an acre. my .02

Just wondering, what is the advantage that the cutters from Canada have over the home boysIJ

I don't know about advantages. But the going rate in southern Ontario where I cut is $30-35_acre. I charge $32_acre which includes one MX170, and a small Brent grain cart.

Probably has something to do with the exchange rate. A US dollar is worth about $1.50 up here.

Is that $30-$35 per acre, Canadian fundsIJ

Whoa! Hold on there kidroff! You hafta realise that the whole country isn't made of huge, square, flat wheat fields. I have no idea where you're from but I suspect it's wheat country. We charge around $25_acre but the fields we cut here in WI are more often than not small, irregular shaped, and hilly. In those condiditons, we figure we spend almost 50% of our time turning on headlands and unloading since you can't hardly unload on the go. When we rarely get into a large, square field with good going and CAN unload on the go, we can almost double our acres_hour. Remember, it's not ACRES that wear a combine out, it's HOURS. So when it takes twice as many hours for us to cut 1000 acres as we could out west, we naturally have to charge more per acre. When I hear numbers like $13_acre, I cringe! To top it off, we aren't making much at $25 - we really should be charging closer to $28_acre to cover expenses and make it worth our time! As the wise man used to say on Kung Fu - "Open the mind's eye, grasshopper!" Take care- Tom langan