Hi,
Welcome to the forum and congratulations on the new farm! We have a small horse farm, and we have smaller needs, however we also have a barn with stalls and shavings that get cleaned daily, pasture, and an outdoor arena. I also had to make my tractor purchase based on minimal income after we set up our small farm due to the huge expense of a barn, hay storage, fencing, gates ect. I had been looking at quite a few tractors and I wish that I could have been able to afford a new tractor, but after you factor in the expense of the implements that you need, it was not an option. We have been on our farm for 5 years, and have got it down to a small science after trying many different ways of trying to make it work.
The tractor that I chose was small because I wanted 4wd, and I needed it to be able to drive in fornt of the stalls, and through the gates. I bought a 30 year old 15HP 4wd Diesel tractor with out a loader that has been more than sufficient for our needs. I know that a lot of people are very geared towards HP, however for our needs have have been shocked at how much I can done, lift, and move with our small farm tractor. The 4wd has helped a lot due to our sometimes heavy snow fall, our muddy springs, and hills. I can lift roughly 900lbs on the rear of the tractor offsetting with weights on the front. I have moved cords, and cords of wood, tons of manure, and hay, and soil, and more hay that I would like to think about with this tractor. Having the FEL is very helpful, however I don't feel that it is a must depending on what you are doing. Farms went decades without front end loaders, and depending on what your needs are you can get by just fine. I use a dirt scoop, and I have been able to dig a hole deep enough when we had to bury a horse, but ideally borrowing, or renting a small excavator would be much more cost effective in the long run, for very occasional use. I guess I figue why pay big money for a piece of equipment, to have it sit, and rust, and have the expense of repairing it when it breaks, when I can rent one that someone else maintains for a fraction of the cost of buying one.
If you are going to be hauling round bales, they weight a considerable amount, however a 3pt bale spear will move them fine. If you are feeding square bales, life will be a bit easier when it comes to moving and storing them, but that depends on your area. We store about 18000lbs of hay a year, and I move it all with the tractor on a carry all, or in a wagon.
For daily manure and shavings, we put it in on the back of our property in the woods, in an dry pond to compost, and then we either use, sell or give away the black gold that it produces. We had tried several methods of hauling, spreading, just plain moving our manure, and we decided not to spread our out because we were not haying our pasture, but manure spreaders can be bought for reasonable prices, and you can just pull them infront of the stalls and clean the stalls right into them. I would probably recomend a PTO powered spreader, but you can use the ground driven spreaders if you need to. I have found new PTO spreaders for around $1200. We decided after trial and error, that our 4 wheeler was the best option. My wife drives the the four wheeler in front of the stall that she is cleaning with the 4 wheeler and a dump cart, and then when the cart is full, usually once a day, she drives it out to the manure pile in the woods, and dumps it. The 4 wheeler is 4wd, and lets her manuvere in places where the tractor would never go. The cart carry's about 4 wheel barrels full. This is the cart that we use:
We also drag the pasture with either the 4 wheeler, or the tractor. Both work great. We made a homemade drag from a 6x6 piece of wood, and an large piece of chain link fence. We have put in about tons of fence post with the 3pt PHD, and the tractor runs it without an issue even through rocky New England soil.
In short, you can get a lot done with a smaller tractor, and the fuel consumption is much better, and there is plenty of power with these work horses. I tow logs out of the wood, run a 3pt wood splitter, the PHD, the dirts scoop, a middle buster, boom pole, a carry all, and tow trailers easily with this 15HP tractor. Throughout europe, and in most parts of the world, they primarily use these tractors to do all of their work. The best part was, I only paid $1500, and after adding paint, ROPS (a must), and weights, and a few small parts, it is an extremely cable machine for our farm. Look on youtube at some of the tractors doing work that you find on Craigslist, and you will be able to see the tasks that they do with them. I also run a box blade, and grade my roads in the woods no problem. The addition of R1 ag tires helped out big time with traction, but people farmed with 2wd 8N,s and similar tractor for many years.
My wife and I lived i n Idaho, and Washington state and had a horse farm there for 9 years, and I know the type of environment that you are in, and there should be lots of good used equipment available in your area, you may have to travel a bit, but it will be worth it.
There is a dealer not incredibly far from you that sells good used Japenese tractors from the same company that makes John Deeres(yanmar), and they start at $5800 for a 22HP with a loader and a tiller, and 4WD. These are great, and very capable tractors. I would look at something like these:
Other Tractors - CEETEETRACTOR LLC, Jinma Tractors, Classic Fords. The Yanmars are amazing little tractors, and they start around $7800, but if you look on Craigs list, you should be able to find these for under 3-4K. These are a few of their tractors that I mentioned:
There are even 33HP Yanmars in the Portland area for $5500
http://portland.craigslist.org/clk/grq/3524144267.html
I would check out the adds on CL in your area for these tractors:
4wd tractor loader rototiller Pkg
portland farm & garden - all classifieds "yanmar" - craigslist
This one has a loader and a new brush hog for $5900:
**************Tractor Iseki, loader and New Brush hog
There are also some really nice 8n's and similar for under 2K:
portland farm & garden - all classifieds "8n" - craigslist
I hope that you guys really enjoy your new farm!
This is our tractor, and I forgot to mention, we also use a riding mower to mow our arena:
