Thousands of farmers in recent years have given up on farming and closed down their farms. Family farms are a thing of the past. They cannot keep up with the "mega farms" that produce meat and milk on a commercial scale. Yet, that has not seemed daunting to you. You decided to charge right into farming without knowing much about it. That is a very risky thing to do, but also very encouraging to other small farms. As you get started, you will need forage equipment. Here is a crash course in what forage equipment is, and what pieces you should start with.

What Forage Equipment Is

You know that the word "forage" means to search and gather food. You also know what "equipment" means. You kind of have an idea of what forage equipment means in the separate sense of the two words, but you do not know what it really is. In short, forage equipment is any equipment used to gather hay or grasses together to feed your farm animals or sell to other farms.

What Equipment You Definitely Need Right Away

First and foremost, you need a tractor. A tractor does a lot of the heavy work on your farm. Without it, you will not be able to use a lot of the forage accessories that attach to your tractor. You will also spend excessive amounts of time in your fields trying to do all the work by hand. Your ancestors spent eighteen hours a day farming, and you could easily be doing the same if you do not have a tractor.

Attachments shorten the amount of time you spend in the fields. Along with your tractor, you need a baler, a mower, and a rake for the attachments. These attachments allow you to cut down the hay or grasses in your fields, rake it up into easily-gathered piles, and then bale it with the baler into either round or square bales. You can bag the bales, haul the bales to the barn, or leave it in the field to gather up later.

Spending Limitations

The above forage equipment mentioned are just the basics. They will help you keep your budget low when you start buying equipment for your farm. If you do not have enough to buy a tractor and the three previously-mentioned attachments, make sure you at least have a tractor and a mower to cut down the hay or grasses. Companies like Bane-Welker Equipment sell everything you need to get started.

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