Who Has a Tractor?

[Rich Riddle]

We have a small farm.....and it appears as though you need decent tractors, other wheeled vehicles, implements, etc. to have a small farm. What tractor do you have, what size, and what attachments or implements do you find most useful?

[Maurice Mcmurry]

It's been covered extensively here. Looking for the latest...

• Forum
• Forum Info and Community Discussion
• Off Topic Forum
• Compact Tractor

[Tom M King]

Utility tractor is a 1979 John Deere 2640 with front end loader, and reverser transmission. 70 hp-a low end category 2. I wouldn't want a smaller one if you have to shape dirt. When we first got this place, I bought a 35 hp tractor, but we had a lot of dirt to shape, so I bought the larger one. The 35hp was new, bought in 1980, but that was the last new tractor I ever bought. I've been running that John Deere for over 30 years, and have built our farm with it. We have 163 acres, with pasture, riding rings, and miles of trails, and at that, this tractor is the minimum size. If I knew now what I did when I bought that tractor, I would have looked for a 90 hp, but I've made out with that one.

The size of your spread will determine what size tractor you need.

I have a long list of implements, of which I wouldn't want to be without one of. It will depend entirely on what you want to do with it, to figure out what you need. Need more info. I would say a front end loader is a must have.

[Rich Riddle]

I have about fifteen acres total but will be shaping dirt. That said, I already own a Case 1845C skid steer, so that will be used for shaping dirt. I purchased the 1845C to cut in a road. The irony is that the 1845C might bring more money than when I purchased it.

[Ronald Blue]

There are many attachments available for your skidsteer. Obviously there are things a tractor can do better. You won't pull a baler with it or mow hay. So what are you thinking you need. There are many brands out there. Front wheel assist is one thing you definitely want. Especially if you have a loader.

[Bill Dufour]

If you get a FEL you have to have power steering. It is possible to add electric power steering from a car.
Bill D

[John K Jordan]

We have a small farm.....and it appears as though you need decent tractors, other wheeled vehicles, implements, etc. to have a small farm. What tractor do you have, what size, and what attachments or implements do you find most useful?

This is more than you asked for but there are a lot of factors. My use is undoubtedly different from yours.

The implements you add depend on how you use the tractor and what other equipment you have or plan to have. And maybe the size of your property. And whether you'll be playing or farming.
And of course, how much money you want to spend. I almost always buy new since I don't want to buy someone else's abuse and lack of proper maintenance.

I have a 27 acre farm with fields, woods, flat and hills, driveways, trails, horse training areas, etc. I keep horses, llamas, alpacas, mini donkeys, chickens, guineas, and hatch and raise peacocks. I couldn't maintain anything without the tractor.

I bought a Kubota L3830 in 2003 and use it almost daily. This tractor is the HST model - extremely valuable if you do a lot of maneuvering instead of just driving it in fields or grading drives at a constant speed.
Don't even consider a tractor without a front end loader. This tractor has two other incredible features - it will accept standard skid steer implements on the FEL so I can quickly switch out attachments. Also has adjustable links on the lower arms of the 3-point hitch - saves SO much time when attaching implements.

First, enhancements to the tractor:
The most useful enhancement I've added to the tractor are the "Top and Tilt" valves and cylinders. This lets me change the angles of anything connected to the 3-point hitch without getting off the tractor. I can interactively adjust the yard box or rake or grading blade or even bushhog without getting off the tractor. After using it for just a little while I would NEVER want a general purpose tractor without it. With Top&Tilt and a yard box I created a 1/4 mile driveway to the house. (I wanted to block off the original drive to fence in some fields.)

Another simple enhancement was to weld two grab hooks for 3/8 chains on the top of the bucket on either side and a slip hook at the top center. These are invaluable for so many things, such as pulling on trees, carrying awkward loads, and carrying logs with a couple of skidding tongs on short lengths of chain to set on the sawmill. And of course, skidding logs out of the woods, driving backwards (my preferred method.)

Another enhancement, if your tractor allows it, is to turn the rear tires around so they track a little wider and fill them with (non-corrosive) fluid for weight for traction and stability.


Tractor Implements:

Most used these days:

Yard box. The Top&Tilt makes this far more versatile
Landscape rake for smoothing maybe 3/4 mile of gravel and dirt lanes.
Pallet forks. Use with tractor and skid steer.

Used less often:

Rotortiller (6'wide) use seasonally
Post hole digger with 9" and 12" augers. Great for fencing.
7' grading blade - great for ditching and shaping gravel/dirt lanes. Benefits greatly from Top&Tilt.
Subsoiler/single point plow. Great for breaking up hard dirt, say for putting in a shallow low voltage electrical line
Hydraulic fence post driver. It will easily drive a 7" PT fence post 3' into the ground. It is there to STAY. The Post hole digger will also work but the post won't be as sturdy.
250' of heavy duty steel cable and snatch blocks for pulling trees when cutting so they fall in the desired direction.

Never used:

Carrier for the 3 point hitch. I use the forks instead. Sold the carrier.
Backhoe with subframe. Quit using when I bought an excavator. Do NOT get a backhoe that attaches to the 3 point hitch. Many have caused serious damage to the tractor. I''ll sell it in the spring.
Bush hog. Quit using it when I bought a couple of big diesel powered zero turn mowers. Sold the bush hog.

Things I rent or borrow:

Seed drill, twice a year, for pastures.
Fertilizer and lime spreader.
Equipment to cut and bale hay.
tractor_P6051251e.jpg

Non-tractor equipment.

I'd use some implements more if I didn't have other equipment.
I use 25hp diesel zero turn mowers that cut 5' at once. Perfect for fields, trails, around fencing, even the yard. Strong enough to cut 1" or larger diameter brush.
mower_ZD1211_20190807_153226.jpg

If you intend to take down trees, construct roads, shape dirt, dig up and move big rocks and bury utilities nothing beats an excavator, even a small one.
The excavator can take down even large trees without the danger of a chainsaw. With a thumb and a narrow bucket is so useful for clearing overgrowth, cleaning up downed trees, dig up stumps. Dig big pits for burning piles of logs and brush. So far I've dug 1000 ft of trenches to bury electrical cables and water lines, cut roads and switchbacks, moved some incredibly heavy rocks. I quickly cleared over 50 beetle-killed pine trees which fell across my favorite horse and 4-wheeler trail.
trackhoe_trench2.jpg

A backhoe attachment on a tractor will do some of this but much slower and can't dig as deep. It is fine for footers, septic system, small stumps, etc.
stump.jpg

I'd hate to live without a skid steer. Just yesterday I added a tracked Kubota to my wheeled John Deere.
tracked_skid_steer.jpg

And this is not equipment or an implement but it's hard to run a farm without big trailers. I have 16 and 18' flatbed trailers, both gooseneck and bumper pull, and a 14 ton dump trailer, livestock trailers, and some others. The trailers needed might depend on what you do on the farm and if you ever have to move loads of logs, gravel, or move equipment to another site or take it somewhere for service you can't do yourself.

BTW, something I'll never get for a tractor: a belly mower. A friend has one and it's slow, doesn't cut that well, and is a pain to remove and reinstall. The zero turn mowers will literally run rings around it and do a much better job.

I just saw your comment about shaping dirt. My serious dirt shaping got so much easier with the excavator, skid steer, and the tractor. The excavator to break up the hard stuff, do the initial shaping, and make big dirt piles to move. It's real slow moving the dirt.
The skid steers move the dirt. The wheeled skid steer with a heavy load in the bucket is also excellent for compacting in small lifts to prep building sites, etc. Also rough smoothing and spreading gravel.
The tractor does the final smoothing and shaping. For a building I use a rotating laser level is all stages from grassy hillside to putting up the building.

JKJ

[Jim Becker]

John makes a lot of good points and "a tractor" by itself may or may not be the best solution depending on how much ground work you will actually be doing. A TLB tractor can do a whole bunch of work, but it's general purpose and therefore, is going to have compromises.

My sub-compact Kubota BX-22 wouldn't be appropriate for your larger property and heavier needs. But even so, it's paid for itself several times over in the 18 years I've owned it!

[Mitch schiffer]

I have a bobcat 763 skidsteer and I definitely wouldn't want to have to do without it. I have forks a few different size buckets and a log/brush grapple. I have also had several different mini and one slightly larger excavators. The excavators are great if you are developing a property. I have since sold the excavators since I'm not doing that as a business anyone and I don't have much land of my own.

[Tom M King]

Hopefully, in Virginia you're close enough to an Agri Supply. With that size spread, you can get by fine with a Category 1 tractor, and Agri Supply is hard to beat for Category 1 implements. That's what I started with, and did a lot of work until I finally decided I needed bigger if I was ever going to get done here.

Even now, I still hit Agri Supply a couple of times a year.

[Ronald Blue]

If you get a FEL you have to have power steering. It is possible to add electric power steering from a car.
Bill D

Bill there hasn't been a tractor of size made without power steering in years. At least as far back as the 70's and sold here. Most are hydrostatic power steering these days.

[Greg Parrish]

65 acre tree farm with a 10 acre lake and a smaller 1.5 acre lake. We use a JD 5045 tractor, JD 310K 4x4 backhoe, JD 540 zeroturn mower, JD 615 gator and Polaris Ranger 1000 for maintenance. For the tractor, we regularly use a post hole auger, mower, harrow, lift boom, scrape blade and tow bar. Occasionally we use a dirt scrape pan or plow, but it's been years on either. In the past, we've had a Massey Ferguson 245S and a couple of older Ford 8N gas engine tractors. No comparison between those old Ford 8N's and the current JD 5045. For our place, the Ferguson 245 was probably better sized, but not nearly as nice of a tractor as the current JD.

Many things we would have used the tractor for before, we now use other equipment like the backhoe. Honestly, I wonder how we ever made it before owning a backhoe. Our first backhoe was a small Terramite T5 backhoe. We did a lot of work with that little machine but it was truly undersized for our usage. The 310K is more up to task but even with it, I regularly wish we had more power. LOL

Growing up I learned to handle almost every task out there with my grandfathers old Ford 8N 1950's gas tractor. It didn't have great working breaks and it was fairly underpowered for many tasks, but somehow we got it done and I'm still here to talk about it. But now, with a decent sized zero turn mower, the gators/rangers and backhoe in the mix, the tractor is suddenly one of our least used pieces of equipment.

Good luck on your equipment choice. No matter what you get, it will probably be like wood working equipment and will evolve over time with usage.

[Jim Becker]

Hopefully, in Virginia you're close enough to an Agri Supply. With that size spread, you can get by fine with a Category 1 tractor, and Agri Supply is hard to beat for Category 1 implements. That's what I started with, and did a lot of work until I finally decided I needed bigger if I was ever going to get done here.

I agree...there is a lot of value in "house brand" 3 pt attachments that are readily available for Cat 1 tractors and throughout the country, there are various "farm" store chains that make them available, sometimes even in match paint colors to your "tractor color of choice". Sometimes used implements come up for a good deal, even if a little cleaning and paint is required. I did that with a Wood rear blade. It was ugly, but only $150 used. 'Took the rotext to it to remove any rust and dirt and repainted it to look like a new implement. Sold it for $250. I actually sold all of my attachments prior to moving to this smaller property and frankly, I sold them for "really close" to what I originally paid for them or in the case of that rear blade, for more.

[Tom M King]

I don't know how small they make rotary cutters (Bushog) with two tailwheels, but if you can find that option with whatever size cutter you get, it is a lot better than a single tailwheel. One problem with single wheel bushogs is scalping uneven ground because one side will go lower to the hump. Two tailwheels makes one almost as good as a finish mower.

Options you want, probably already mentioned in this thread but called different names, are telescopic drag links, and at least two remotes. I have two remotes on my big tractor, and would be better served by three, but you won't be pulling a batwing mower, or hydraulically controlled grading blade probably. Those are the only things I really could use three remotes for. A remote is a lever beside the seat that controls hydraulic quick connect outlets on the back of the tractor.

A hydraulically controlled toplink is a good thing (also called something else earlier here) with a box blade. You can use one remote for that.

And speaking of box blades, don't get one that's too large for your tractor. You want to be able to drag it with the bucket full without stopping the tractor. That was the reason I bought the 70 hp tractor to start with. A box blade would stop the 35hp tractor. Then I'd have to raise the blade, which leaves a hump to have to deal with. Any hump left when grading wastes a LOT of time compared to just dragging something smooth to start with. The 70 horse tractor will roll dirt over the top of a 7' box blade without stopping.

[Jack Frederick]

You mention “small farm” as your impetus to get a tractor, but what is your small farm. How much work are you looking to do and how much land do you need to move. Most of the answers so far cover “real” machines for heavy work or at least capability. My place is small and I have Kubota BX’s, the 2660 and 23. They could not begin to do the work taht John requires, or at least you have to be patient getting the work done. the backhoe on the 23 is terrific, but it is like emptying Lake Tahoe with a tablespoon. On the 2660 I have the FEL, Box blade, 60” mid mount mower, ratchet rake, 42” tiller, bucket forks which I made, and hooks, as John suggested. The 23 stays as a FEL and BH. I had a 48” bush hog but after a few years of knocking down the rough stuff I got the place to where the MMM can handle it. I was happy to get rid of it as it was kind of a situation where the implements seemed to be driving the tractor. Not a good place to be. This spring I’m going to sell the tiller. In my soil it creates a hard pan at the base of its reach.