What tractor do I need?

[mtngrouse]

I just bought a 70 acre farm that has a 54 acre field. I also have a 6' and a 7' brush hog that I will use to clean up another 8-10 acres. I will also be building a house on this property next year so I think I'll need a back hoe for power and water lines and a FEL for spreading road gravel. I would also like to bail hay next year. I have found a 5205 (4wd) with 200 hours on it at my local JD dealer, with a loader for $22,500 (I think it has the cheap transmission, not too sure). Is this the right tractor for me and is it priced well? I don't expect to do commercial loader work with alot of backing up. I work in the mining industry and I can rent any big equipment I need and they will deliver it to my house so I'm thinking that the synchro tranny is just extra money. Any suggestions will be welcome. Great site too! Also, are round bales easier to sell than square and does this affect tractor size?

 

[RWolf]

Well first off welcome. To your needs. You didn't mention in what shape your fields are in so I will make some assumptions. I would guess that the fields haven't had anything done to them in years. Seeing as you can get the larger equipment readily I would forgo the backhoe for now. At about $6500 average street price you can use that for other impliments or a larger tractor. You can compare my by-line as to what I'm using on a 25ac place. You didn't mention where you're at so the decision for 4wd or 2wd can be acedemic. Now to more specifics using the 7' mower will require 35PTO HP for average cutting. Plow will require about 15HP per share at about 8" depth (depends on soil). The style of bales (square,round,LG. sq.) will have their own needs. Small squares can be done with about 40+ PTO HP (depends on make and type of hay). Large rounds will require about 60 - 70 PTO HP. Now these are pretty much "minimums". Now factor in time. How much time do you want to spend on a task. So to answer your question in general you should probably look at a machine in the 70+ HP class (give or take) and you will have a machine that can do the majority of tasks you need. The type of transmission you get will depend on the year you purchase (used) or your preferences. My tractor has a shuttle shift which I really like. I'm not a big fan of HST for what I use a tractor for. I can move hay around all day and not get worn out shifting. If I'm carful and don't have too high of an rpm set I can go from forward to reverse "without" using the clutch.

I hope that answers some of your questions.
Good luck.

 

[RollingsFarms]

I just bought a 70 acre farm that has a 54 acre field. I also have a 6' and a 7' brush hog that I will use to clean up another 8-10 acres. I will also be building a house on this property next year so I think I'll need a back hoe for power and water lines and a FEL for spreading road gravel. I would also like to bail hay next year. I have found a 5205 (4wd) with 200 hours on it at my local JD dealer, with a loader for $22,500 (I think it has the cheap transmission, not too sure). Is this the right tractor for me and is it priced well? I don't expect to do commercial loader work with alot of backing up. I work in the mining industry and I can rent any big equipment I need and they will deliver it to my house so I'm thinking that the synchro tranny is just extra money. Any suggestions will be welcome. Great site too! Also, are round bales easier to sell than square and does this affect tractor size?

you got a really detailed answer above, so i will just comment on the 5205 you mentioned. the 5105/5205 came with an 8x4 syncreverser tranny. this means the reverse and 2nd gear are syncronized and you will have to clutch to change the gears. i would say that the price of $22,500 is good for that tractor and loader, assuming thats 4wd. incase you werent aware, the 5205 is 56 engine hp and about 50 pto. it's a stout machine. i have a 5203 (the replacement for the 5205). it has 4wd, 9x3 sync shuttle, etc. it's a pretty heavy machine weighing in at 5,044 lbs. that's without a loader or filled tires.

as for the hay bales go. around here alot of people produce square bales due to the horse industry taking off in the past few years. round bales are still made, but there arent too many cattle farmers left due to the local government being morons with their crazy taxes(that's another story i wont get into though). if you're just going to be haying the 54 acre field, i think you would get alot more square bales out of it then you would round ones. if you decide to go the way of producing square bales, go get that 5205, as that is all you would need. if you're considering round bales, youre going to need 70hp minimum.

 

[AKfish]

I just bought a 70 acre farm that has a 54 acre field. I also have a 6' and a 7' brush hog that I will use to clean up another 8-10 acres. FEL for spreading road gravel. I would also like to bail hay next year. I can rent any big equipment I need. Also, are round bales easier to sell than square and does this affect tractor size?

Congratulations on your new farm! And a hearty welcome to TBN.

The 5205 will certainly handle everything you have in mind; brush hogs and FEL use. It will run a small square baler and a disc mower for hay, too. A large MoCo and big baler - no. Some have mentioned that the 8x4 tranny doesn't have the best gear spread for optimal baler use - at times too slow or too fast. The 9x3 would be better or the 12x12 (24x24) on the 25 series even better.

Rent for the hoe uses. Sounds like you've got a better situation with that anyway; then spending the extra $$.

More money in small squares. Horse owner's (me) and small farmers (goats, sheep and a couple of cows) like the ease of feeding the small squares and they're easier to store and transport, too.

Good luck.

AKfish

 

[Z-Michigan]

I have a JD 5105 that I use on 20 acres for a mix of farm and property maintenance tasks. It is an excellent, solid basic farm tractor. It is not a lot of fun for loader work or mowing in tight areas, but for pulling a plow or disk, or mowing large fields, it's great. Traction and pulling power is terrific - to the point of easily damaging implements rated for more power than it has. If you get the 5205, I recommend Cat 2 implements for anything ground-engaging.

Do you have farming experience? Have you baled hay, or priced the cost of serviceable hay equipment? It's not cheap, and it requires knowledge to bale hay that doesn't mold. If you can hay all 54ac and have a good market nearby it may be worthwhile, but consider the costs and hassle before you jump in. Does your job have flexible hours? If not, will you be happy doing 6 hours of hay work after you get home from working 8 hours at your regular job? Hay needs to be done when the weather and conditions are right. We bought our 5105 with hay equipment in mind, but realized within 6 months that it didn't make sense for us to invest in the equipment. But we only have 10ac of hay fields. We pay local farmers to do the haying, which works OK but isn't ideal either since we're always last priority and therefore may miss cuttings or get less than ideal quality.

As noted, generally horse people and hobbyists want squares because they can be moved without equipment. We use rounds so we don't have to stack squares by hand, but it limits who we can sell our hay to. Around here, a serviceable round baler will cost $10k or more, while you might get a decent square baler for $2-3k, even less if you're mechanically inclined and willing to gamble a bit. A simple mower like a sickle bar may work if you're doing grass hay only, or in a really dry climate, but if you're doing alfalfa in the midwest or southeast you'll need a mower-conditioner, which is also quite expensive.

 

[mtngrouse]

Wow, I really feel like a moron now. You guys seem to know your stuff. I'm in West Virginia and the land is basically flat to rolling ridgetop. All 54 acres have been used for horse hay and only about 8-10 acres needs any work at all. It had 4 to 6 horses on it all summer and was still cut two times. Over the winter the guy who leased the pasture put about 40 horses on it and kept them fed with the round bales he pulled off during the summer.

I don't like having that many horses as they have been hard on the ground in places. Needless to say I instructed him to smooth the ruts that he made with his tractor caused by repeatedly traveling over the same roadway.

As far as haying goes, most people near me are cattle farmers and they seem to use the round bales. But.....there is a local stable that seems interested in the hay and they prefer square bales.

I am skilled on heavy equipment, but I've only run a tractor about 5 times (my father-in-law has a 60 Hp 2wd New Holland). If I wait a year to buy hay making equipment then I can get pretty much anything I want.

The 5205 belonged to my banker and he only used it to spread a little gravel and to plow his driveway. He also had all servicing done by the local dealer and he is a trustworthy guy.

 

[mtngrouse]

I also took soil samples and sent them to WV University (Go Mountaineers) for lime application information. During last summer the clover was so thick you had to kick your feet to walk in it.

 

[mtngrouse]

The thoughts of picking up square bales makes my back already ache. Are small round bales an economical option?

Again, thanks very much for the info. I'd also like to stay with John Deere green. Maybe I'm just a sucker for the marketing!

 

[VA Rebel]

You'll be good with that tractor to make hay, round or square. If you go with a smaller round (4x4) some horse folks will be fine with it, they'll just peel a few flakes off with a pitch fork. It's actually a little easier that way. You might want to take another soil sample and send it to down to Va Tech for a more accurate analysis than you're gonna get from Morgantown.

 

[Z-Michigan]

You'll be good with that tractor to make hay, round or square. If you go with a smaller round (4x4) some horse folks will be fine with it, they'll just peel a few flakes off with a pitch fork. It's actually a little easier that way.

We use 4x5 round bales for our horse, the same way you describe, and we would never go back to square bales. We also sell some round bales, mostly to horse owners, but your buyers are limited to people with a full-size pickup or a trailer, and either a tractor at home or a willingness to manhandle round bales. It's actually not hard for one or two adults to move them by hand, but a lot of people wouldn't even try.

You might want to take another soil sample and send it to down to Va Tech for a more accurate analysis than you're gonna get from Morgantown.

This is ribbing, right? Soil testing is not rocket science, there's no need to send a sample to a different lab. The biggest variable is how you collect the soil, not how the lab tests it.