40-55hp CUT or Utility Tractor for 20 acre horse farm in Michigan

[Glowplug]

Just a quick point on hay....I would never give horses round bales. It's too easy for it to get moldy in the field and you end up with colic. Cattle can eat rounds and pretty much anything else because of their multiple stomachs, horses only have one and it's pretty sensitive. Stick with the square bales and you don't need a spike.

I find that kinda hard to believe. Now let me qualify that statement by saying I know little about hay baling and almost nothing about feeding horses. But I do live just north of Lexington, KY. There are horses absolutely everywhere around me for a hundred mile radius or more. There are very, very few cattle. I rarely, if ever, see any square bales anywhere. Round bales are all over the place. You can go almost anywhere around here and look just about in any direction and see round bales. Now this might be a slight exageration but you get the idea.

Michigan-Z, I am enjoying reading this thread. It is fun to see you do your planning, homework, and shopping.

 

[Z-Michigan]

I find that kinda hard to believe. Now let me qualify that statement by saying I know little about hay baling and almost nothing about feeding horses. But I do live just north of Lexington, KY. There are horses absolutely everywhere around me for a hundred mile radius or more. There are very, very few cattle. I rarely, if ever, see any square bales anywhere. Round bales are all over the place. You can go almost anywhere around here and look just about in any direction and see round bales. Now this might be a slight exageration but you get the idea.

Michigan-Z, I am enjoying reading this thread. It is fun to see you do your planning, homework, and shopping.

You make what I'm sure are accurate observations, but Mike has a point. Basically, it is common practice to leave round bales in the field until ready to feed them to animals, or to pile them up in big rows outdoors but near your farm operation. It's somewhat rare to store them inside, especially if they are intended for livestock. Hay bales (round or square) that are left outside and get rained on are prone to molding and rotting. This can also happen to hay that's never been rained on if it was baled with too high a moisture content. Mike accurately notes that horses have very delicate stomachs vs. cows and pigs with very tough digestive systems. Moldy hay can easily cause colic in a horse, which is a life threatening disruption of their digestive system. Moldy hay isn't exactly good for cows but it is routinely fed to them and generally causes no problem. Yay for 4 stomachs.

Now the BUT.... there is nothing inherently wrong with round bales. If you bale the hay properly (right moisture content) and then get the bales out of the rain, either by storing them indoors or keeping them under a tarp, they will mold/rot very little or even not at all, and then it's perfectly fine to feed them to horses (assuming right kind of hay, etc.). And it's easier and more economical if you have a lot of horses to feed, because there's less labor involved. Around here it is common for people with more than 5-6 horses to use round bales, and virtually anyone with cows uses round bales as well. OTOH people like us with just 2 horses generally use square bales (we feed roughly 1.5 bales a day total for the two horses - this depends on size of horse, how much they're being worked, what type of hay, and what size the square bales are).

 

[john_bud]

Z-Michigan,

HST is great for FEL work, fantastic
But, it can be beat by a skilled driver and it costs a TON and it's a lot more parts to break/go wrong and it SUCKS for long tedius tasks (field mowing, tilling, etc)
It's super for lawnmowers, I'm not convinced for bigger stuff (I know, don't yell at me)
Lot of extra money.
There's no way that round bales only weigh 800 lbs. None. My FEL says it can lift 1400lbs and I wouldn't even try it with that. Those big square bales weigh close to 2000lbs, the round bales are about physically the same size.

Lonecowboy,

I agree that a skilled driver with a powershift (gst and equivalent) can equal or best a novice on an HST tractor. But a novice on an HST tractor can best a moderately skilled person on a powershift. Equally skilled operators on HST equiped tractors nearly always are more productive. I don't know of many situations where a crash box gear trans can even be thought of as being in the same ball park as an HST. (or powershift for that matter.)

Also (hate to pop your bubble), but HST transmissions have the same or fewer parts than a gear trans or powershift and have greater overall reliability. Cost to repair is dominated by labor for both and most mfg only want the service departments to swap out for rebuilt transmissions and those cost about the same (high) price.

HST tractors also typically have a cruise control so your feet can take a break on long stretches. I do that with mine when rotoing a field. Just steer and enjoy the view.

As far as cost, that's all over the place. When I got mine, it was lower than the GST tractors.



Z -

If you don't need to move round bales or the huge square bales, you can down size into the 35 to 40 pto hp tractors (3830's, 4330 etc). That way you will save some green. I think the L4400 is still cheaper and if you want gears, is dern hard to beat. But left over 30 series tractors should be priced to move with the 40's on the way.

Keep us updated, we like to help spend your money!

jb

 

[rback33]

Just went through the hunt for just the right size and features in a tractor for our 15ac place. For me at first I thought I bought a little small but now I think I got it right. I bought a 41hp SAME and it has 151 hours on it already and have worked it very hard blading, using the FEL daily, brush hogging w/7ft heavy duty cutter. Really after doing my research before deciding I found there are lots of good tractors out there and very few that should be avoided. Money and features are really the factor to consider. All the 40-55hp tractors will do the job you want it to.

And did you know that loader is built in Kansas as well?

As far as feeding round bales... That's all we feed. Much more cost effective than squares. The keys to round bales and mold issues are: 1) Baling at the proper time 2) Storage. Both of these have been mentioned, but if done properly you feed hay that has been out in the elements to horses safely. The thing about stacking round bales is you put them in a line flat side to flat side butted up against each other. Most water that gets in is through these ends. When it rains, water runs off the rounded sides following the "grain" if you will and on to the ground. When it comes time to feed th bale we then stand it up on the flat side to "unroll" the bale as we feed. It does expose the hay to rain in the end of the bale, but the mold does not have time to grow since we are forking hay off daily. These bales weigh 800 to 1200 lbs on the average. I would not mess with them with anything less than 40 HP. The DK 40 would be as small as I would go for using a bale spike. Check which loader would be on that tractor. Make sure it is a KL1470S. That would be a great option for your needs. Also, Mahindra has some great options too. If you can, be sure and check them out.

 

[N80]

I see a lot of tractor buying decisions being made on the possibility of using large round bales. Sometimes I wonder if it isn't a reason to get more tractor than we actually need. Nothing wrong with that, just an observation.

As for round bales, well, there are round bales and then there are round bales. So much depends on moisture content, how they are stored, relative humidity and even how they are baled. Bales stored outdoors and baled with just baling twine will lose over 20% of nutritional value (for cows) over a year. This can be decreased by tight baling with mesh, and even more by baling with plastic wrap and/or storing in a barn. My B-I-L uses simple twine and stores outdoors.....but this is for cows, and he way overcuts his needs, around 2000 bales a year. According to him, weight varies tremendously. I've helped him move bales a lot and the ones that have been sitting out for months in the rain feel heavier than the ones that have been baled for a week or so. Also, you can discharge a bale from a standard (large) round baler before it reaches full diameter. My B-I-L does this all the time to make them more manageable. If you have a supplier that is willing to do this, that might be an option too.

Also, there are at least two different sizes of round bales. Most horse folks around here use square bales (the kind you can lift by hand and wear your back out) but a good many folks use the smaller sized round bales. These look to be about 3 feet in diameter and much more manageable with a CUT.

And finally, there are inexpensive little trailers you can use to move round bales without the expense of upsizing your tractor. But even an L4400 should be able to handle 1000 pounds on a 3pt bale spike.

Just some thoughts.

As for your list, if I had the money I'd get the 5040 in a heart beat.

 

[EquipmentUser]

Go ahead and give the Cat dealer a call. It'll only take a few minutes of your time. Were you able to view the entire lot? A lot of times on these big machinery lots it can be easy to miss a smaller machine amoungst the larger ones. Surely if they carry the Challenger line they will have have something showing it. Whats the name of the dealer?

 

[Z-Michigan]

I see a lot of tractor buying decisions being made on the possibility of using large round bales. Sometimes I wonder if it isn't a reason to get more tractor than we actually need. Nothing wrong with that, just an observation.
***
Also, there are at least two different sizes of round bales. Most horse folks around here use square bales (the kind you can lift by hand and wear your back out) but a good many folks use the smaller sized round bales. These look to be about 3 feet in diameter and much more manageable with a CUT.

And finally, there are inexpensive little trailers you can use to move round bales without the expense of upsizing your tractor. But even an L4400 should be able to handle 1000 pounds on a 3pt bale spike.

As for your list, if I had the money I'd get the 5040 in a heart beat.

A couple thoughts:

I agree that a lot this decision is based on the possibility of using round bales, which we might never do. However, after thinking about this, I realize that even if I forget about round bales, I would still need nearly as big a tractor for (1) the 6' brush hog, as it appears I need a fair bit of tractor weight for this and to my surprise it looks like cutting tall grass demands more PTO hp than cutting brush, and (2) there's a lot of other FEL work we want to do - basically moving rocks and dirt, large quantities of both - that could be done in smaller bites but will take less time in big bites. Basically it seems that I could go down as low as 35hp if I wanted to, but I may get some benefit from staying more in the 45hp range.

The 3ft round bales you mention sound great, and I've seen a few photos of them. I've never seen them around here, so unless we had them custom baled I don't think we'll be using them. Leads to a good point - from next year on we are hoping that most of the hay we use will be hay cut from our own field, and the farmer who the prior owners contracted with has both round and square balers. I'll have to check his prices for each type of baling and whether he can set the round baler to make smaller bales.

I haven't heard of the little trailers you mention for moving round bales. A link would be very helpful. I know that the crude alternative is to have the seller put the bale in your pickup truck (using his FEL or skid loader) and then you push/kick it out wherever you want it. Only works one bale at a time and doesn't let you pick up bales already on your property, so that method wouldn't work if we actually wanted to use lots of round bales.

At this point I'm basically debating HST vs. gear, leaning HST but haven't made up my mind. If I get HST I'm going to be looking at the L5030, TC45, and maybe the Kioti DK45SE HST. If I go gear I'm inclined to look at the small utility tractors (MX5000, TC48, M5040) because the price is only a little more for a decent upgrade in capability.

 

[NoMo]

Hope I don't sound like I'm arguing with you, just want to offer some other ideas.

You don't need that much HP to run a 6' cutter- my 37HP (30 PTO) runs through tall grass with little effort. Personally, for the extra money, I'd go for a smaller cab tractor. Sure would be nice to be out of the weather.

 

[BarryinMN]

Sounds like you are getting close to a decision. One thing I noticed is the hydro pump howl on some tractors.

Fingernails on blackboard after 1/2 hr. kind of irritation.

Every Winter I think it is time for a skid steer & go drive one and get reminded by the hydro howl why I don't want one bad enough yet.

Short term tasks seem well defined, how about longer horizon, the farmer - contractor probably has time crunch pressure & would welcome some help.

 

[rback33]

Sounds like you are getting close to a decision. One thing I noticed is the hydro pump howl on some tractors.

Fingernails on blackboard after 1/2 hr. kind of irritation.

Every Winter I think it is time for a skid steer & go drive one and get reminded by the hydro howl why I don't want one bad enough yet.

Short term tasks seem well defined, how about longer horizon, the farmer - contractor probably has time crunch pressure & would welcome some help.

While I obviously don't own one, I have run many hydros from 20 HP compacts through skid loaders up to giant combines. I have never noticed a substantial whine from them. Do you have more hydro whine because you are in MN with cold fluid? I would venture to guess that this may be the difference.