dgeesaman
Silver Member
Normally this comparison is apples and oranges, but going down my list of uses this situation is not obvious. 15 acre horse farm. 3 acres wooded, 5 acres pastured, and 7 acres of buildings, drainage, and grass to mow. Long driveway, almost entirely level ground.
All mowing will be done with a dedicated commercial mower.
My chores will be:
- Clear snow in winter (central PA, so some snow but not lots)
- Moving / flipping the muck pile
- Pulling drags around the arenas. Arenas are engineered footing but are somewhat soft so traction needs to be considered.
- Lifting / moving large square hay bales within an 80' x 35' wide storage building. Mixed gravel floor. Hope to stack them 3 high, each one weighs 1000# max.
- The odd chore of moving tree branches, moving cut firewood, pulling small stumps, and pulling a few fenceposts.
- Spreading some stone on the upper driveway every few years.
- Light dragging to break up the manure piles in the pastures.*
* This one is more likely to be done with the mower.
Contrary to many small farms, I will not be cultivating any land or doing serious excavation.
After some consideration including the fact that a good used CUT with a sufficient loader costs $15k+, and a used skid steer is well under $10k and more compact, I'm re-evaluating the skid steer option.
Will a skid steer with a bit of ground clearance be suitable for pulling drags around the rings, or may it get stuck? I'm thinking that one major advantage to the skid steer is handling the big hay bales safely with less access space in the building.
Also, with the compact tractor I was basing the loader capacity assuming I use a bale spear in place of the bucket and using the 500mm offset full height lift capacity. Per recommendations, I'm considering tractors with no less than 1200# rating for this condition. Are the same assumptions valid for the skid steer, or are the lift capacities more robust?
David
All mowing will be done with a dedicated commercial mower.
My chores will be:
- Clear snow in winter (central PA, so some snow but not lots)
- Moving / flipping the muck pile
- Pulling drags around the arenas. Arenas are engineered footing but are somewhat soft so traction needs to be considered.
- Lifting / moving large square hay bales within an 80' x 35' wide storage building. Mixed gravel floor. Hope to stack them 3 high, each one weighs 1000# max.
- The odd chore of moving tree branches, moving cut firewood, pulling small stumps, and pulling a few fenceposts.
- Spreading some stone on the upper driveway every few years.
- Light dragging to break up the manure piles in the pastures.*
* This one is more likely to be done with the mower.
Contrary to many small farms, I will not be cultivating any land or doing serious excavation.
After some consideration including the fact that a good used CUT with a sufficient loader costs $15k+, and a used skid steer is well under $10k and more compact, I'm re-evaluating the skid steer option.
Will a skid steer with a bit of ground clearance be suitable for pulling drags around the rings, or may it get stuck? I'm thinking that one major advantage to the skid steer is handling the big hay bales safely with less access space in the building.
Also, with the compact tractor I was basing the loader capacity assuming I use a bale spear in place of the bucket and using the 500mm offset full height lift capacity. Per recommendations, I'm considering tractors with no less than 1200# rating for this condition. Are the same assumptions valid for the skid steer, or are the lift capacities more robust?
David