Buying Advice Please help newbie with tractor/backhoe advice

   / Please help newbie with tractor/backhoe advice #1  

mitchelli

Member
Joined
Sep 7, 2009
Messages
26
Location
Grants Pass, southern Oregon
I love this forum and all the great advice! I have been reading for months, and it is time for me to get serious as Spring is here. I have 6 acres of forest and field, about half and half. We have already dropped about 50 trees and want to drop another 50. Mostly pine up to 24". So I need to dig up 100 stumps. Plus my land is really wet, so I need to dig thousands of feet of french drain. Third, this is a new home, so we need to landscape the house. Maybe dig a pond and a big garden and lots of loader work. Have been looking at Kubota L2800(18,385),Kioti CK30(19,900), Mahindra 3316(19,260). All those prices are w/FEL and are prices I got on first visit to dealers in Medford and Grants Pass, Oregon. Backhoe would add about 7,000 to them all. Looking at the trenching and stumps to be dug, how much tractor do you think I need and will the backhoe do the job knowing once these jobs are done, I don't know how much I will use a BH once all these initial jobs are done. Mostly will use FEL and Bush Hog and maybe box blade to level off most of my property. Thanks in advance for any thoughts ps: If I thought it would do the job, I would be happy with A BX-25...I just don't think that would be tough enough to dig 100 stumps.
 
   / Please help newbie with tractor/backhoe advice #2  
Digging stumps is not a simple matter of hooking with the backhoe and ripping them out of the ground, especially if the trees were close together and the roots interlaced. I had a Woods 7500 backhoe on my L3010 and hated stumps. Now I have a KX121-3 mini excavator and I still hate stumps.

In fact, the only time I really enjoyed dealing with stumps was pre 9/11 when I could mix up a cocktail thanks to my Marine Corps training and blow the suckers out of the ground with cratering charges! Explosives these days tend to result in unwanted attention. Still, stumping with a mini-ex is better than stumping with a backhoe by a factor of at least 50.

There is a huge disparity between your initial needs and your maintenance needs. Unless you're less than solvent I'd check into the possibility of buying a used excavator for those stumps and drainage issues, then trading it in on a B series tractor. The BX, given your comments about brushhogging and leveling of the land, is too small.

One last thing when it comes to buying a tractor. If your dealer rents, many will deduct most or all of the rental price if you end up buying from them. They want happy customers with tractors appropriately sized for the intended tasks. So you might be able to rent a B series for a week, then decide it's too much (or little) and end up purchasing a BX or an L. Not all dealers do this, but it's worth asking.

Pete

PS: Seriously, forget about the fun associated with explosives. It's just bad mojo these days!
 
   / Please help newbie with tractor/backhoe advice #3  
Hi. If i was on my land I would pay for someone with an excavator to take out the stump( in a few hours an excavator will do a lot of stumping ) A 24 in. stump is very hard to pull out even for an excavator. You will brake any tractor in doing so (my opinion). Imagine the pressure you will need on your pins and joints (I would not do that to my new tractor) An excavator is 20 tons of steel and as lot of hydraulic force. For draining you should have fun ( I mean working) digging....with any of the other tractors. Good luck
 
   / Please help newbie with tractor/backhoe advice #4  
I'd love to just have 24" Pine tree stumps to deal with. Try dealing with 36" Oak stumps. After digging a hole with the 455 crawler (loader/hoe) nearly big enough to fit said crawler in and still not able to remove the stump, I gave up. Trying chemical methods now.
 
   / Please help newbie with tractor/backhoe advice #5  
I would hire the stump removal out in the direct vicinity of the new house to be built. The others I would hire someone to grind down. What would you do with all of these stumps anyway?

I would then buy a small tractor appropriate for your landscape and play.
 
   / Please help newbie with tractor/backhoe advice #6  
I am in a similar situation so I rented a Bobcat CT 230 (same as Kioti CK30) last weekend. During two whole days I probably dug out about six 4"-8" maple stumps. It sucked. It was very obvious that for those projects I would need a far larger tractor/bh, but for my maintenance needs I need a B series at most. The bh was great for dirt and even fairly large rocks, but not the stumps.

Bottom line - the advice you have heard is right on - get an excavator for the stumps and forget any size tractor. The rest of the work you can do with any of those tractors if you want.
 
   / Please help newbie with tractor/backhoe advice #7  
I love this forum and all the great advice! I have been reading for months, and it is time for me to get serious as Spring is here. I have 6 acres of forest and field, about half and half. We have already dropped about 50 trees and want to drop another 50. Mostly pine up to 24". So I need to dig up 100 stumps. Plus my land is really wet, so I need to dig thousands of feet of french drain. Third, this is a new home, so we need to landscape the house. Maybe dig a pond and a big garden and lots of loader work. Have been looking at Kubota L2800(18,385),Kioti CK30(19,900), Mahindra 3316(19,260). All those prices are w/FEL and are prices I got on first visit to dealers in Medford and Grants Pass, Oregon. Backhoe would add about 7,000 to them all. Looking at the trenching and stumps to be dug, how much tractor do you think I need and will the backhoe do the job knowing once these jobs are done, I don't know how much I will use a BH once all these initial jobs are done. Mostly will use FEL and Bush Hog and maybe box blade to level off most of my property. Thanks in advance for any thoughts ps: If I thought it would do the job, I would be happy with A BX-25...I just don't think that would be tough enough to dig 100 stumps.

We'll, I actually thinks it is fun digging stumps. Of course big oaks with tap roots and trees planted very close with interwoven roots aren't so much fun. If you dig your own stumps, you might want to look at the Mahindra 4035 with the Bradco/Mahindra 485 backhoe. It's a brute for a compact. I just sold a guy a smaller Mahindra with a stump grinder. He had over 100 smallish oaks to grind. It's a great way to go if you don't need the entire rootball gone.

Good advice you are getting.
 
   / Please help newbie with tractor/backhoe advice #8  
We'll, I actually thinks it is fun digging stumps. Of course big oaks with tap roots and trees planted very close with interwoven roots aren't so much fun. If you dig your own stumps, you might want to look at the Mahindra 4035 with the Bradco/Mahindra 485 backhoe. It's a brute for a compact. I just sold a guy a smaller Mahindra with a stump grinder. He had over 100 smallish oaks to grind. It's a great way to go if you don't need the entire rootball gone.

Good advice you are getting.



Thats pretty funny Dave, others suggest a 20 ton excavator and you suggest a 2 ton tractor.:laughing:
 
   / Please help newbie with tractor/backhoe advice #9  
This is a topic often discussed on this forum.

There is nothing as good as an excavator as stumping. I rent a 25,000 lb machine for $500 per day and have run out of stumps, I've dug out 50 foot oaks in less than 10 minutes.

Pine would come out with ease with a 25K machine.

You'll do more with a 25K excavator in a day than you could do in a season with a 5K backhoe.

Pine stumps are much easier than hardwood, with that said, based on the number you've quoted, an excavator will serve you well.

Same goes for trenching.

I'd just rent and get all the heavy lifting done with the correct tool.

This way you can purchase the exact correct maintenance tool.

I have a 5K lb backhoe and I will not touch any stump more than a couple of inches, unless I have the better part of a day to kill.

Joel
 
   / Please help newbie with tractor/backhoe advice #10  
I love this forum and all the great advice! I have been reading for months, and it is time for me to get serious as Spring is here. I have 6 acres of forest and field, about half and half. We have already dropped about 50 trees and want to drop another 50. Mostly pine up to 24". So I need to dig up 100 stumps. Plus my land is really wet, so I need to dig thousands of feet of french drain. Third, this is a new home, so we need to landscape the house. Maybe dig a pond and a big garden and lots of loader work. Have been looking at Kubota L2800(18,385),Kioti CK30(19,900), Mahindra 3316(19,260). All those prices are w/FEL and are prices I got on first visit to dealers in Medford and Grants Pass, Oregon. Backhoe would add about 7,000 to them all. Looking at the trenching and stumps to be dug, how much tractor do you think I need and will the backhoe do the job knowing once these jobs are done, I don't know how much I will use a BH once all these initial jobs are done. Mostly will use FEL and Bush Hog and maybe box blade to level off most of my property. Thanks in advance for any thoughts ps: If I thought it would do the job, I would be happy with A BX-25...I just don't think that would be tough enough to dig 100 stumps.

You'll thank me for this advice in a few years: Buy a mid-size mini-excavator and a ag tractor that will do the mowing, discing, etc.

After you get the land cleared sell the mini-ex.
 
 
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