Sickle or disk mower

[HayDR]

The Vermeer disc mowers are made in Pella, Iowa. They use a Lely designed shaft drive cutterbar.
Since you purchased your Fort mower from Valley Equipment, you would be hard to find a better dealer than them. I'd stay right there because he will give you great prices and service.

 

[jwcinpk]

It was definately the cheapest price in town. However cheapest doesn't always mean best deal. Don't get me wrong I haven't had any problems. Valley is having some growing pains. Highway is taking his building and lot. Been trying to trade with him on a new tractor, but can't quite get there. Maybe after one more year. I'm gonna have to buy a rake and good used square baler.
There's also a good Massey/Kubota dealer pretty close and a good Deere dealer across the mountain in London, KY.
Still didn't answer my question are First Choice just as good as the others or just cheaper?

 

[plowrup]

If you are o.k. with the longer drying times that a sickle or Disc Mower will give you, then my vote would absolutely be for the Disc Machine-we sell LOTS of Windrowers and Mower Conditioners and have everything from Alfalfa to tall Grass here-95% of our Machines are Disc Machines-they will cost you more up front, but over the life of the Machine it will even out. I think the Kuhn design is probably the best for a 3 point unit, but if you do decide that you want faster drying times by all means get an Impeller Conditioner- JD, Hesston, Kuhn all have their variations, but we see dramatically improved dry times with the Impeller versus Roll Conditioner, as well as less leaf loss.

If I were going to choose between the three Mower Conditioners with Impeller Conditioners listed above I would buy the Deere, simply because of the Cutterbar protection offered. I have had a bunch of Customers hit Fence Posts rocks, whatever with, say the Hesstion (which has a Kuhn Cutterbar on it) and it would cost the Customer in excess of $2000.00 to repair it, as you have to pull the Cutterbar out of the unit, take off all of the Hats, and split the Cutterbar horizontally-the Deere has a Safety Hub that takes all of 5 minutes to replace and around $40-45.00-

As far as speed goes, I have had a 15 foot Disc Mower Conditioner on the back of a John Deere 7820 in road gear cutting thick Alfalfa(1st cutting)-if you can sit in the seat (rough ground) and have enough power, they will cut incredibly fast-

 

[plowrup]

With regard to First Choice, they are using the "Land Pride" template for selling machines (they go to Europe and buy them, rebadge them as theirs). I purchased some stuff from them a few years ago, then they had some type of problem and couldn't supply anything for a year or so. After that, I was contaced by a Company that said they were making some of their stuff-my suggestion would be, watch out! If you are buying a tool tht is "consumable", their prices are cheap. If you are looking for long time parts availability, service help and the like stay with a brand name-

 

[HayDR]

LandPride did have Fort dsc mowers for a while but now Landpride makes their own mower using a Comer cutterbar.

 

[IHCman]

I'm new to this forum and I have some questions about disc mowers and this seemed like the place to get them answered. I'm using two Rowse double 9' bars with new holland heads to cut my hay. This year and other years in the past have been a pain with the wet damp conditions we've been having here. Hay is extremely thick and tall, never seems to dry out underneath, mole hills are like mud that stick in between the guards and plug the bar. To sum it up just plain maddening. This has got me looking at a better way and i think it might be a disc mower. I'm very interested in the Vermeer TM 1400 but I'm curious how it will work if I cut very short grass. I cut a little of everything from alfalfa, grass hay, CRP, slough hay and cattails. What happens to the disc mower if I hit an old rake tooth in the field, or tree branch, or some other kind of obstruction. Do i damage the disc mower badly? Or when cutting CRP, what about all the mole hills. Some of those can be quite tall, does the disc mower just cut through em or does it cause damage. I see that the Vermeer mower has a neat suspension system but I think I tall mole hill or badger hole mound wouldn't be enough to make the vermeer mower rise up I think it'd just hit it. Also anyone have any idea what a Vermeer TM 1400 costs new? I haven't called my dealer yet and was just curious what price range i could expect. $30,000?
thanks

 

[IHCman]

I have a few more questions about disc mowers that i forgot to ask. How well does a disc mower cut extremely tall grass, clover, etc..? Does the safety shield push it down so the mower can cut it? Does the disc mower chop up the grass your mowing? How bad is it on alfalfa? With all the disc conditioners I can't imagine its too bad on alfalfa. I'd like to hear from anyone that has a Vermeer Trail mower to see how well they like it and if they've had any issues with it.

 

[hawkeye08]

Curious on this myself.

 

[elkhurst1]

Disc Mower:thumbsup:

 

[2950johndeere]

both are good we run 2 sickles and 2 disc mowers the sickles cut pretty and a little closer to the ground but the disc will cut when its wet and they cut fast we average 8to10 mph with the disc the sickles run a little slower

another big thing to consider with the disc mowers is parts they cost a good bit more than the sickles

i guess if your doing it like us it wouldnt make that much difference we run ether or both on the same feilds it all comes down to money and production for us if we get behind we run the disc mowers and some of our feilds are very rough so they have to take a beating most of the time some thing to look at also is how heavy duty is it agco massey ferguson mowers are good heavy built mowers with good logevity ive got one thats got some where in the area of 10000k hrs on it and it works fine there are some realy good mowers on the market now like krone vermeer fella agco new holland and some others goood luck with it