Buying Advice Deciding what to do

[msparks]

We bought 30 acres in the woods last year. Currently having my buddy mow the 3+ acre open/grass area with his mower. I don't want to keep paying him to do it, plus I need to get some light grading done as well as thining out trees in the woods (undesirable trees)

Currently I have a 14hp riding mower for my yard and it's about to give up the ghost soon.

What I am wondering is would a SCUT do the job both here and out on the farm (it's about 25 miles away)? I don't have any storage on the farm and would have to take it and bring it each time. I do have a 16' tandem axle trailer and a pickup.

Or would I be better off just getting another used rider for our in town place and buying a real tractor for the farm?

My house in town is on a medium sized lot and has some gardens, trees and other yard obstacles. Nothing too bad but I realize a larger (scut) would be more tedious than my current rider.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[case245]

what type of stuff do you want to do on the farm with the tractor

 

[msparks]

Mowing /rough cutting

Want to be able to till for large garden areas

Scrape the drive and other areas that need smoothing out.

We have lots of woods and need to get trees thinned out, mostly cedars/beech/sweet gum need removed so the oaks/poplar and other desirable trees can grow.

Will of course need FEL to move dirt and some gravel around. My drive is about 800 feet on an incline so scraping and replacing gravel is a must.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

A farm tractor of some type with a FEL would be a good option in my view. Price range could be $5K to $50K that would do about the same amount of work.

 

[kevinwak]

I have a John Deere 2520 and am continually surprised at what a CUT can do.

Sent from my iPhone using TractorByNet

 

[Gary Fowler]

For just 3 acres of lawn to mow, you could do the mowing with just about any box store 42-50" mower in a 3 hours or less if not a lot of obstacles to mow around, IF you keep it down regularly and don't let it get out of control. For your other chores I would suggest getting something larger than BX series more like the B 26XX or B29XX would have plenty of power for grading and with a mid-mount 60" mower it would make really short work of the 3 acres mowing. You might still need to use a push mower or weedeater to get up close to the trees and buildings if any but that would be minimal work.
For tree and stump removal, you may need a back hoe to get them out effectively. I own one but I don't recommend that everyone buy a back hoe for their property clean up. Rentals are fairly cheap if you can alot the time to do all the clean up in a weekend. You can do a lot of tree removal in a short period of time is they are small (6" or less in diameter) with a TLB or better yet a small excavator with a hydraulic thumb. With the hydraulic thumb, you can dig up the tree then using the bucket and thumb, pick up the trees and pile them neatly (no hand work involved)
By renting an excavator, you could then do your bush hogging and other dirt moving activities with a 25-30 HP tractor with ease. We have tractors with 70 HP, 40 HP to 26 HP and the B26 gets used the most.

 

[msparks]

I'm thinking a larger tractor would be better the more I think about it. Something in the 29-25hp range. One thing I forgot to mention is that I would like to use my 16' trailer to put logs on then to take them to the saw mill. I think with 6-7,000lbs of logs loaded on the trailer a smaller tractor would not be able to pull it.

I do want to keep the size down though because getting into the woods with a bigger one would be a chore. I've got some trail maintenance to do and want to be able to get the tractor in there.

Thanks for the advice on the 29-30hp. I will make do with a yard machine for now, then when the time comes to get a proper tractor.

 

[Grandad4]

You'll find there are small, medium and large machines all with about the same 30 or so horsepower. More weight gives greater pulling power but you lose maneuverability. Depends a lot on how many and how big your trees will be.

 

[murphy1244]

Stick around and see what other people are doing to help you along and keep asking questions.

 

[jenkinsph]

I'm thinking a larger tractor would be better the more I think about it. Something in the 29-25hp range. One thing I forgot to mention is that I would like to use my 16' trailer to put logs on then to take them to the saw mill. I think with 6-7,000lbs of logs loaded on the trailer a smaller tractor would not be able to pull it.

I do want to keep the size down though because getting into the woods with a bigger one would be a chore. I've got some trail maintenance to do and want to be able to get the tractor in there.

Thanks for the advice on the 29-30hp. I will make do with a yard machine for now, then when the time comes to get a proper tractor.

I would go with atleast a 35 hp CUT for your uses on the farm. Get something big enough to do some work, at least 5000 lbs with loader and ballast.
I would use the pickup to pull the trailer, you will need to use it to haul to town anyway. Drag the logs to a clear staging area to load the trailer.