Been a year with a cab - Not sure I would again

[Grateful11]

Of the 6 tractors we have only the Case IH 5140 has a cab. It's extremely nice
for round baling, rough and finish disc harrowing. We also use it to pull a large
trailer with up to 15 round bales at a time, weight of the tractor, trailer and
round bales are about 25,000lbs. As far as mowing hay with a mower conditioner,
New Idea Corn Picker or the IH 82 pull combine the open platform 686 with a
canopy is the way to go for us because you can hear subtle differences and
changes in sounds coming from the machinery. For us a cab on a utility tractor
would be nuisance because of cattle shed heights and tree limb obstructions
when doing fence repairs and such. In the winter it would be nice if my wife
didn't have feed hay in the bad weather this past winter was one of the
worst on record and she managed it.

BTW: I can't imagine round baling with an open platform because of the
massive amount of dust a round baler produces.

 

[Boondox]

Great discussion! I'll soon be downsizing from a Kubota L4630 to a B3030 and am considering a cab. Yes it looks funny. Yes I'll be limited in where I can take it. But our New England winters can be brutal on people and equipment. Even though I park the 4630 under a carport, late winter ice storms have covered the controls with so much wind-blown ice that I've had to use heat lamps to free them up.

I look at a cab not so much for my protection (though plowing snow at 25 below with a wind chill factor in the minus 40-50 range can make me downright surly), but as a means of protecting my investment.

Pete

 

[FLHayman]

A few decades with open and recently, cabbed tractors. I am caucasian and got skin cancer on the parts of my face that a hat doesn't protect very well. I still put canopies on all the tractors, but the cab is the only thing that really protects well.

Yes, it's harder to hear some things, but I just turn off the radio if I think there's a chance of a drive slipping or crop choking an implement, or whatever. Backhoe use is harder, since you can't just climb onto the back seat. But overall, for me, it's a welcome protection. If my skin was naturally more cancer resistant, I probably would still have one, if only to get my wife to run the tedder or something like that in the summertime!

One of the posters said he'd spent 40 years on an open station without getting stung.........it was 30 years ago and I remember how slowly that JD seemed to move as I realized I had just bushhogged an entire nest of bees. Luckily I wasn't allergic after many stings.

My wife will ride with me in the cab and we have spent some time together that would have gone into the 'you never do anything with me' column otherwise. Not an ideal date for her, but it's nice to be able to talk and do some easy tasks together. Thanks to that, she will drive it, and never had the interest to before.

 

[jenkinsph]

I like cabs for my personal comfort for the largest part, but also find the operator station is better preserved too.

I don't want radios in my cabs because I wan't to hear any subtle changes that may be indicative of a problem.