Buying Advice Compact for new 43 acre wooded property

[JD 4520]

From my experience, just about any work you plan to do in the woods means you are going on rough terrain with ruts, rocks and roots, often in narrow quarters. That's not something you want to be doing with a belly mower hanging beneath your tractor... it will get hung up or something will be damaged. So if the tractor has to serve both functions, you're forever putting on and taking off that mower. Particularly with a tractor of the size you're considering, that gets old very quickly and I'm thinking a decent mowing unit of your preference would be a wise choice, leaving your tractor set up so you can do your land clearing and preparation tasks and other work more readily.

As others have noted, a larger-framed tractor in the 30-50 hp range such as the Kubota L or Grand L or the deere 3000 or 4000 series would be a good match for your work. Both brands offer absolutely top-notch equipment in those model lines and there are other very good ones as well.

I second this motion. You will be much happier, trust me (us)!

[flusher]

$25Kbudget? Split it in half. Buy a used, low-hour (<500 hours) Kubota B-series tractor with belly mower for work around the house. Then find a used, 10-20 year old tractor in the 40-50 hp (pto) range for field work.
Check Craigslist, eBay and local dealers for trade-in units.

Good luck.

[TomSeller]

From my experience, just about any work you plan to do in the woods means you are going on rough terrain with ruts, rocks and roots, often in narrow quarters. That's not something you want to be doing with a belly mower hanging beneath your tractor..

Good point, also with a small, narrow tractor you could easily be tipping it over in the woods.

[bhh]

My wife and I just bought 40 acres in upstate NY and went through the same exact thing. If you search through my posts over the past few months, you can follow my saga which I suspect is very similar. We ended up with a Kubota L3800 which we just received last Friday. We ended up going with an L3800 vs the grand L so we had more money for implements and so far I love it. As far as implements, we initially went with dealer-installed 3rd function hydraulics for a grapple, Quick-Attach FEL bucket, QA Pallet forks, QA grapple, rotary mower, box blade, 3pt hitch quick-attach bracket. We had a budget of about $25k and were able to stay right around that and we plan on adding a PTO chipper soon.

Good luck. The search is fun but owning it is MORE fun.

[abeal]

Was in a similiar situation about a year ago. Purchased a 100 acre farm to mostly hunt and generally screw off on. Not much farming although the neighbor grazes some horses there. We went with a L3200 with loader/brush hog/box blade and a few other implements and a BX1860 that is used entirely for mowing the 3 acres or so of grass around the house and what not. We bush hog about 20 acres or so probably 2x a year and also use the L3200 for anything and everything else that comes up. Barn size limited us to 14' in length (was planning on a mx4700) and that is why we went with the L3200. We were skeptical it wouldn't be enough but it was done everything just fine.

[jgoehri1]

I know two pieces of equipment is the way to go, but I'm not sure the boss is going to allow it out of principle. Gotta love women.

bhh . . . are you mowing in an area with a lot of trees? I love the L3800. If I could get away with mowing with it, I'd seriously consider it.

[TomSeller]

Make one of them hers.

[bhh]

I know two pieces of equipment is the way to go, but I'm not sure the boss is going to allow it out of principle. Gotta love women.

bhh . . . are you mowing in an area with a lot of trees? I love the L3800. If I could get away with mowing with it, I'd seriously consider it.

We only have about an acre of regular grass and I am currently hiring that out but I am very time-poor and this is a weekend property. The rotary mower I bought is brush mower, not a finish mower and that will be used to open up parts of the woods we want to be more "park-like" (wife's words) and a food plot we are going to open up in an area that was logged about 10 years ago. If I ever decide to start mowing the grass myself, I will buy a cheap dedicated mower for that or if we had a much bigger lawn, one of those "Zero Turn" things. No reason to poor diesel down a 25k, 38 HP machine to mow a little grass.

Edit: BTW, what worked for me regarding the "boss" was to involve her as much as you can in the vision of the property. Ask what she wants out of the land and then you can purchase implements, tools, equipment specifically to address "her" wants. In the beginning, she could not understand why the **** I wanted a tractor but after a few months of discussing our vision for the property and how to achieve it, she came around to not only agreeing but wanting one too. I knew I had it in the bag when I would hear her explaining to our urban friends why we "needed" a tractor, lol. I would say the rotary mower part of our purchase was directly related to parts of the property she wants to open up and make to "look like a park". She also hates it when I use the chainsaw so "picking up a downed tree and moving it" is a lot safer (to her) than chopping it up into wheel-barrow sized pieces to haul to the stump dump.

[lemontwist]

I am in a similar situation as you minus the mowing, as our house is in the woods. Have an L3200 with backhoe and grapple on the way. The B series was just too small for the terrain around here.

The better half got on board when we went to the dealer and she got to drive one.

[Grandad4]

I know two pieces of equipment is the way to go, but I'm not sure the boss is going to allow it out of principle. Gotta love women.

If you are the primary breadwinner, there is one cold-hearted but factual "principle" everyone involved needs to understand and agree to concerning your property development plans:
Your time is limited and valuable and there is a big piece of work ahead of you with your property. If the idea is to run you ragged doing everything the hard way just to save $100/month, you're going to be an old man before your time. That's just not a good plan. Further, whatever the right equipment costs is chump change vs. a disabling injury (or worse) that resulted from fatigue or inadequate equipment.