I'm new to this and have no idea about trucking. I am looking for someone to haul hay from our farm to other states and I was wondering if it was possible to do that without a broker? And what are rates now a days? Thanks in advance.

Where are you from? I'm assuming you live near grain elevators? Or John Deere, Case IH dealers? You might ask around at a local elevator, etc and see if there is anyone that hauls hay. There are usually guys in farming communities that have a truck/trailer that do trucking on the side.


I wouldn't have a clue how much rates are for guys that haul hay.

No broker is needed. Many carriers, including me will want paid COD or at time of pick-up. Rates vary widely depending on the locations and form the hay is in and even time of year. Five foot round bales are more expensive (when loaded two wide) because they are over dimensional. I generally don't mess with them. I don't mind doing square bales or 4 foot round bales, though. I've run square bales from Holtville, CA to Granbury, TX for around $2 a mile and I've done four-foot round bales from Mississippi to Illinois for around $3.15a mile.

nice pics but what weight you got on two trailer axles ,in new zealand we allowed 15ton that metric 15,oooks .on two axle trailer. need at least 7 axles all up for 44tons.allowanses let us go to 45.5 tons .

Mitch, the trailer in the picture is a spread axle, meaning more than 34,000 allowed on that axle group. In the round bale picture, the 4foot bales aren't real heavy if they are dry, so that load should be somewhat under gross depending on how heavy the tractor is. By the way, I love those fenders over your drives Musicman.

must be hard on your tyres cating that weight on them then

Mitch, he's talking 34,000 pounds (15,450 kilograms) per set of 8 drive tires. The trailer tires put close together can haul 34,000 lbs, and spread like in the round bales picture can hold more than 34,000. It's not hard on tires, in eastern Canada they can legally go to 39,000 pounds.

I have a brother in law that farms, grows hay, and trucks it; but sorry, I know nothing about it.

The round bale loads, because they were "squatty" as the locals call them, meaning wet and starting to rot on the bottom, were around 40k pounds or so. I had to spread the axles with those loads because with them together, I had about 35,500 on the trailer, which is a no-no in most states. Spreading the axles allows 40k total on the spread and also shifts the weight distribution so that a little additional weight is put on the drives. The square bale loads I brought out of Southern California, and since I have a 53 foot trailer, have to have the axles together in order to meet the state's length requirement (no more than 40 feet from kingpin to the center of the rear axle in the trailer). With the axles together like that, I was way overweight, but didn't have to cross any scales to get into Arizona, so I kept them together to at least look legal and meet the length requirement. The tarped loads were about 45k pounds total.

Driving with 10' 1" spread is hard on tires if you have to make many turns on pavement. For that reason, I keep them together at all times unless the load requires me to spread them. I've gotten over 220k miles on these tires so far, though the shoulders are really starting to wear, especially on the front axle, which takes the brunt of the scrubbing created with making turns.

Thanks Graintrain. A buddy of mine is an amazing aluminum fabricator and owns a machine shop. He builds custom aluminum motorcycle frames for the bulk of his business, so I figured he'd do a good job on truck fenders, and he far exceeded my expectations. It was kinda like asking Michelangelo to finger paint a picture of grass, but luckily Brett was willing to slum for a few days during his seasonal slowdown. Unfortunately, we designed and installed the fenders before I bought my Reitnouer and didn't realize how low the front of the trailer sits with its 30" kingpin setting. The result is that it has dented the deck in front of the 5th wheel and ripped off one section on each side over the rear axle. I'm selling my Reitnouer and getting a 2014 Revolution step, and I'm hoping I'll be able to rehab my fenders.

Here's a pic of the work in progress: