Buying My first Tractor

[RanchoSoledad]

I am looking at finally buying a tractor after 10 years living on 17 acres in San Diego County. The main need is for yearly (or twice-yearly) brush clearance (see picture) on about 5 acres. Most of the brush is about 2-3 feet high, and about max 1.5" diameter. There may be a future hay field planted in this area, so I need to keep that in mind when buying. Right now clearance is for fire protection. The area was last cleared about 1.5 years ago.

Additional uses would be general landscaping: moving rocks, wood, dirt, digging, and maintaining a dirt road (potentially upgrading to gravel).

I'd like to stay under $20k with attachments, and would prefer to stick with a brand I know will be in business in 10 years and provide good customer service. I have never even sat on a tractor, and am a small (5' tall) woman (I will be the main user, although my husband will also use it some).

Things I am worried about: stability (we are on hilly terrain), rocks in the field area (although most of them have been cleared). See picture (foreground shows the type of brush to be cleared). If it's cleared on a regular basis it won't even get this bad.

Any suggestions and advice are welcome. So far I've only looked at JD online (I like the 2305 but am worried it's not powerful enough for the brush clearing). I'm also not sure what type of attachment I should get for brush clearing.

Thanks!

 

[IslandTractor]

This is a good time to buy a tractor and you shouldn't have trouble coming up with a capable tractor, front end loader and cutter within your budget.

There are a number of excellent tractors in the 20-30hp range that would be about the size you need to mow 5 acres and do chores. JD and Kubota are the big players but other brands make fine equipment too and usually for less money. The best deals right now seem to be from Bobcat which is selling a proven rebadged Kioti tractor. A 30hp version comes with free FEL and $3500 cash back which is probably $3000-5000 less than you'd pay for an equivalent set up from JD or Kubota. You might also want to check out New Holland, Mahindra, Kioti and MF.

For mowing you would probably want an HST tranny but individual tastes vary. For stability get at least the rear tires partially loaded to keep center of gravity down low.

I should have mentioned earlier that you'll need to decide how much dealer support you need and whether to buy locally or look more broadly for a good price.

The brush you show in the photo looks like it is more than six months old but a five foot rotary cutter (Bush Hog) would work fine on a 25-30hp tractor in clearing that and doing semiannual mowing.

 

[Dmace]

would prefer to stick with a brand I know will be in business in 10 years and provide good customer service.

Just curious, how would you know what companies will be in business in 10 years. Just years ago, I bet everyone thought companies like Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Saturn would be in business 10 years from then but now they are gone.

 

[shakin]

someone must have a crystal ball here.

 

[RanchoSoledad]

Yeah, I was going to make a sarcastic comment about car companies, but decided not to (would the government bail out JD, I wonder?) I guess I just meant which companies have been historically reliable.

 

[flusher]

I am looking at finally buying a tractor after 10 years living on 17 acres in San Diego County. The main need is for yearly (or twice-yearly) brush clearance (see picture) on about 5 acres. Most of the brush is about 2-3 feet high, and about max 1.5" diameter. There may be a future hay field planted in this area, so I need to keep that in mind when buying. Right now clearance is for fire protection. The area was last cleared about 1.5 years ago.

Additional uses would be general landscaping: moving rocks, wood, dirt, digging, and maintaining a dirt road (potentially upgrading to gravel).

I'd like to stay under $20k with attachments, and would prefer to stick with a brand I know will be in business in 10 years and provide good customer service. I have never even sat on a tractor, and am a small (5' tall) woman (I will be the main user, although my husband will also use it some).

Things I am worried about: stability (we are on hilly terrain), rocks in the field area (although most of them have been cleared). See picture (foreground shows the type of brush to be cleared). If it's cleared on a regular basis it won't even get this bad.

Any suggestions and advice are welcome. So far I've only looked at JD online (I like the 2305 but am worried it's not powerful enough for the brush clearing). I'm also not sure what type of attachment I should get for brush clearing.

Thanks!

Your immediate needs could be satisfied by a 30hp tractor with hydrostatic transmission, 4WD, power steering, front end loader (FEL) with a 5-ft wide bucket and a 5-ft wide rotary mower (aka bush hog, brush hog). All of the dealers have models with these specs. You need to test drive a few of them to get the feel of the wheel.

You say you have to keep in mind possible future haying work on your property. Do you plan to do the entire haying effort yourself (plowing, discing, planting, fertilizing, herbicide spraying, mowing, raking, baling, moving the bales to storage)? Or part of the job? If so, which part?

As an example, I have 10 acres of flat pasture in the North Sacramento Valley, 6 acres of which are hayfield. My go-to tractor is a 2008 Mahindra 5525 (54 hp engine, 45 hp pto, 2WD, gear tranny, power steering, 6-ft wide FEL bucket). With a 6-ft Hawkline brush hog, this rig cost about $18.5K new. All of my haying equipment is used stuff that I picked up locally. I figure I have about $5K invested so far. The equivalent equipment bought new would probably cost at least $25K.

The photo shows some of my haying stuff (baler, sicklebar mower, side delivery hay rake, grain drill) in their shed along with the 5525 tractor.

You can find a few TBN threads where folks describe their experiences haying with 30-35 hp tractors. I prefer a larger, heavier, more powerful tractor even though my hayfield is only 6 acres. So if you plan to go haying, I'd check out tractors in the 40-50 hp range.

 

[newbury]

I<snip>
Any suggestions and advice are welcome.<snip>

Unless you REALLY like the sound of a 30HP diesel and have other uses for it you might want to consider what it would cost to have someone do it.
Tractors for some of us are 4wd off road toys.
That said - look at Kioti/Bobcat.
pm for more info.

 

[datanull]

I should have mentioned earlier that you'll need to decide how much dealer support you need and whether to buy locally or look more broadly for a good price.

For me this was very inportant in my decision. When I bought my first tractor about a month ago I actually chose the dealer, not the brand. My dealer is close, been in business for 35 years, open all day on Saturday and will send someone to my "farm" if there is a problem.

They sell red (both Massey Ferguson and McCormick), green Duetz-Fahr and white Bobcat. These guys have a lot full of tractors of all sizes and plus every attachment you could ever want. Most I don't even know what they do.

Down the road is the Orange place. The have just a few tractors not much going on, not even a salesman on the lot when I stopped by.

My point is if my dealer was selling Deere or Kubota I'm pretty sure I'd would be driving one of those.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

RanchoSoledad, A good place to start would be to go down the hill to BJs rental yard at Greenfield Dr and Interstate 8. Rent their new Bobcat tractor. That will give you a real good idea of size that will likely work good for you. The dealers here are not all that great in my opinion, but they are what we have to work with if you want to stay local. I think right now to stay in your budget, you will need to be looking at Bobcat, Montana, or Branson. No more Mahindra dealer locally and the Kubota, New Holland, John Deere and Massey dealers are going to be on the upper side if not out of your budget.

 

[taborekle]

The smaller the tractor, the less expensive it is, but that also usually equates into less PTO HP. The less PTO hp, the smaller the bush hog, and the smaller the bush hog, the more passes you will have to make to take down the brush.

I'd be looking for something with a front end loader (FEL) and something in the 18 to 30hp PTO range. That should give you enough power to drive a pretty good sized bush hog.

Example, the Kubota B2320 at 23hp delivers 19 PTO HP, enough to drive (looking at the Woods rotary cutter line) a 54 inch cutter. Going up to a Kubota B2920 at 29hp delivers 21 PTO HP, enough to drive a woods 60 or 72 inch rotary cutter. Since the woods line qualifies these at starting at needing a minimum of 20 pto hp, and the 2920 just delivers that, then a 60 inch cutter would probably be the better match.

The FEL will allow you to move rocks out of the field.

Now I have a B2920 (full disclosure) and run a 54 inch cutter and feel that I should have went to the 60 inch cutter, as it feels like nothing seems to slow down the 54 inch cutter. Price wise I got the tractor, bush hog, FEL, reversing tiller and a blade for $22K. dropping off the tiller and blade would put you in right at about $20K. I only bring this up so that you can understand the sort of equipment you can get for the money.

Rocks in the soil tells me you want good clearance. Hills tells me you should have good stability. Look at a compact tractor and ask the dealer about putting some fluids into the back tires to increase stability. It's regularly done.

Lastly, I like my B2920, and think it would be a good match for a small woman to operate. If you have more then one 3 pt implement, then look for a quick hitch to make it easier to trade out implements.