Buying Advice First time hobby farm owner needs advise what equipment to have.

[Gale Hawkins]

Old iron is a great option for many especially in cases when one is just starting out and really do not know their needs and have the ability to change the oil in a tractor.

There is stuff as cheap as $1000 but locally (not CA perhaps) I see ready to work Ford 800 series with the 5 speed double clutch (live PTO) tractors for around $3000. We farmed 100 acres of row crops, tobacco and livestock with a Ford 800 so they are work horses over many CUTS, etc.

NO I am not saying go buy a Ford 800 series. What I am saying is you can pick up old iron and sell it 5 days, weeks or years later for the same or more money with next to no upkeep in many cases.

Spend $20,000 for a new CUT, etc and see how much it is worth 5 years later.

Buying old iron with a good eye is very low risk and lets one learn 'true' equipment needs on the fly for few dollars.

 

[toffee]

Thx again for advise guys. Sounded like getting an old "working" tractor may be the way to go, especially before the house/barn is built, equipment will be sitting uncovered. Say an old Ford or Farmall, can a backhoe be attached to them?

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Yes on a Ford for sure but if the Farmall had a similar 3 point lift set up then yes on it too.

3 PH backhoes are limited and hard on the tractor if they are not sub frame mounted.

We were looking for a FEL for the 1976 MF 265 (60HP) and found a 1983 JD 310B (60HP) backhoe with a lot of wear but starts, runs and works good for about the price of just a new FEL. We got a very heavy FEL and in a way a free tractor and hoe that we are using to clear ground, dig ditches and move dirt around the place. Yes it is another machine that will need some service but we are putting more hours on it then the MF which just hit 1300 actual hours last summer. The FIL bought it new. I put the 12.5K pound JD 310B in some rough working conditions and so far so good since 2010 using it like a bulldozer removing large trees by cutting the roots and pushing them over with the FEL. It is best to leave a few roots on the side in the direction you want it to fall so it will not try to come back on you should equipment fail before the tree falls away from the tractor.

 

[vtsnowedin]

Just 1.5 acres after you build your house? Thats only 200 feet by 327 feet. All you need is a good shovel and a good hoe. Well maybe a troy built pony rear tine rototiller. And if you build raised beds make sure they are long enough and wide enough to get the tiller into them or you will find yourself turning every bit by hand. Tuck your house tight to the rock slope and in the pine woods so you don't waste any flat land good for growing crops on lawn and driveway. Oh welcome to the forum.

 

[Verticaltrx]

You would be well served by a small compact 4wd tractor with a loader (under 30hp). Make sure it has power steering and a hydrostatic transmission is a plus. As mentioned before, the Kubota B-series are great, as are the Deere models in that size. Anything from the late 80's on up would be fair game. With a little tractor you can landscape around the house, do any gardening chore imaginable, maintain the driveway, and pull a small trailer for hauling stuff.

 

[Reyer Farms]

When you say raised beds, are you referring to a sand box or a raised row bed. If you going to work in a planter a walk behind tractor will serve you better in my opinion. If your thinking of making raised row beds, tractor, but research your method, other equipment, and crops and deciding which tractor will be easier.

 

[lantxinNETX]

I have never understood the interest in the small utv's, I use an older pickup with 4x4 and seem to go wherever I need to go. And be able to carry something in it with a good hvac and defroster. If you can get a separate lawn mower and tractor you will be golden.

If I had an older 4x4 pickup that would have been ideal. But not having one led us to look for a UTV.

 

[Biggreenavalanche]

Well, let's see if this helps . . .

About 1 year ago my wife and I bought 29 acres in SE Oklahoma - about 2 hours from where we live now. About 5 acres had been cleared, the rest is forest. A couple of trails. We quickly realized that we were going to need something to use to get around on the property, carry stuff, etc. So we bought a gently used 4WD UTV (American Sportswork Trail Wagon - used to be sold at TS). This was the best thing that we bought in the first year. Even went so far as to buy a Dirt Works 3-point Cat 0 hitch system and some implements to do a little ground work (and with an eye towards starting a garden.)

But as we became more ambitious with our projects and our planning, we decided that we needed to add a real tractor. Looked at the tractor as a 'time saver' versus trying to do a job with the UTV or doing it by hand. And then there were the jobs that we knew would take a tractor that we would have just put off until we owned one.

Now that we have our Mahindra 4035, I expect the task of clearing the 300 feet of ROW for the power company to run electric to us to take just 1 weekend instead of 3 or 4 weekends of just doing it with a chain saw and the UTV. Going to mark and cut a new trail this weekend to gain some access to part of the property that we can't currently drive to. Without the FEL on the tractor that would have taken me forever! (But the UTV will get driven and used as much or more than the tractor even in the future.)

So my advise would be to spend some time on your property and get a feel for the jobs that you expect to want to do. (Setting up your vegetable patch and vineyard. Clearing trails. Mowing the parts that are not forest. Etc.) Think long term. Then buy something that will more than take care of everything on your list - that way you hopefully won't end up going back later and having to 'buy bigger'.

Hope this helps.

Martin

Well said Martin, couldn't have said it better...

Rich