Why Do Small Tractors Cost The Same As Larger Ones

[jfdlaw]

Great, now we "Hobbyists" have to put up with people complaining we're driving up the price of tractors. They already blame us for the rising price of Pickups and Carharts. It’s not our fault; it’s the manufacturers trying to separate us from our money.

 

[DUMBDOG]

Yes, you can get health insurance for horses.

Horse Health Insurance

 

[cowboydoc]

You can buy it but it's a joke. It's usually a $1000 or more a year, depending on the type, discipline, and age of the horse. It is usually capped at $5000 or less, a few more. It only covers a very, very limited # of conditions. Most everything besides colic and sometimes even that they will have clauses in the contract that they don't pay. Anything that was caused from negligence, not what you consider negligence but them. For example a friend had this insurance and their horse went through a fence. Insurance didn't pay because they said the person was negligent in caring for the horse and not providing a fence that the horse would not get hurt on. Another friend had a horse that tore it's hoof off. Insurance said they were negligent and wouldn't pay because they didn't have bell boots on. It's really not worth it for anything besides colic surgery. After a few years of paying for the insurance you could have just put the money in a savings account and had it their for emergencies.

We are self funded. By doing this we put away money in an interest bearing account for future medical and mortality costs. If you are a business it's tax-free and the interest is tax-free.

 

[Ledgemere Farm]

My sister-in-law's brother has a dairy farm that burned last Spring. He has a typical New England spread with the house, shed and barn all attached. He lost everything. He risked his neck trying to save his cows. He got most of them out, but some died after from excessive smoke inhalation. The insurance company told him that he should have let them burn up inside and they would not cover those. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to see everything you have go up in flames and watch your cattle (which were their pets) suffer and die. Then, to have the insurance company say that, it must have been pretty rough.

 

[Soundguy]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( they gave him one shot and gave me the syringe and medication to give him another one later and charged me $20. )</font>

Ditto.. that's what I've seen.

I took my horses to t he vet for vacinations. and I mentioned I needed some cows vaccinated too, When they came back out they just handed me the 'loaded' needle. Some amount of vacine.. same vacene.. yet it was 5$ cheaper each than the horses.. go figure...


Soundguy

 

[cowboydoc]

Every vet that I know will give the shots for your horse or your cattle. One reason vaccines are more expensive for horses is that there are less horses than cattle. It's cheaper to make cattle vaccine. Also because there are more doses the cost of development is not as high in the end. Horses and cattle have very different systems. You don't vaccinate one with the same thing that you vaccinate the other one.

 

[Soundguy]

I may not have been clear...( what I was refering to was rabies vac. ) and the vet said it was the exact same...It had to be. i had another horse at the house to vaccinate, and the tubes were all the same... except he charged me 5$ less each on the ones I said were cows.. The other horse vac's.. like east/west, and tet were a tad more.

And no.. my equine vet won't do other livestock he used to have a partner that would do emergency livestock stuff.. like stitching up a fence cut.. or help with a problem birth.. but otherwise wouldn't do any non-emergency stuff. Unfortunately he moved. The vet that handles our 'herd' of cats and dogs will do livestock for the established customers... but not pigs. Luckilly we found a vet that does pigs too..

Soundguy

 

[jdmar]

Since I am moving from about 10 to a bit more than 40 acres soon I am glad the bigger tractors are "less per pound." Big pump or little pump cost nearly the same to make after all the R&D is done.

And Vets are very highly trained professionals. I am a human doc and they are animal docs...and they are great at what they do. They are not cheap but the are very needed. That reminds me of one of the best T-shirts I ever saw....it said "Real Doctors treat more than one species." I loved that one!
Vets bills are less that ours...but so are their malpractice costs. I our area they can be sued only for the cost of there bill....do I ever wish I had that! In Emergency Medicine I pay about $35 per hour for malpractice....and have never lost a suit...and have only had about 3 suits started in almost 15 years.

 

[keeney]

Assuming the big and small tractors have similar features and complexity, it is the same number of parts to design, fabricate, and assemble.

The cost difference is going to be in the increased materials. if they are buying the steel for $0.25 per pound, and one tractor weighs 1000 lbs more than the other, its only $250 more in cost.

I took a tour of the Ford (truck) assembly plant in St. Paul once. It made me realize that the difference between the smallest, stripped-down Ranger model and the biggest, decked-out F-250 that they built there was hardly anything. They were built randomly inter-mixed on the same assembly line! As each truck would roll by, it would get big or small wheels, big or small engine, big or small seats, more or less chrome, simple stickers, or plastic badges, etc. Exactly the same number of people, nearly the same number of parts, and exactly the same amount time was required to build each truck, no matter what model!

Based on the fact that most of the engineering and investment was in building the factory to build the trucks, I can't imagine it cost them more than 10% difference to build the biggest vs. smallest model.

- Rick