Buying Advice Looking to purchase, need as much advice as possible.

[Gary Fowler]

Around here everyone uses at least 100HP, more common to see 125HP. In hill ground it takes more HP than one would think to wrap a 1500lb bale plus drag it around while doing so. If the hay is compacting good it's possible for them to approach 2000lbs.

Do you think maybe it is because they have the 125 HP tractors for farming row crops and just use them as a sideline for haying. You dont need 100 HP to pull a 2-3000 or even 5000 #rig with 2000# of hay up a hill. If it is super steep, you likely wont be haying on it and a 10% grade isn't going to require the HP but more likely just need the weight and traction to keep the rig under control. A properly weighted 70HP would seem to me to be way more than enough. We have some pretty good hills here in Arkansas also.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Kubota has not been in the large HP hay market for very long. For this reason I would probably go with another known brand with a good history, as well as a good dealer.

What has haying got to do with tractor longevity and track record? Regardless of what the tractor is doing, hours on the clock means about the same thing whether it is bush hogging, wood chipping or pulling ground engaging equipment. IF the tractor has a good history using a bush hog or pulling a land plane, etc. it will work with haying equipment. Again, I dont see 100-125 HP tractors pulling hay rigs around here where that is all they do, no farming here, just ranching. A 70 HP Kubota can handle twin round bales at a time with a FEL when properly ballasted.

 

[redman135]

Hello KYCowman, What sort of country are you on, flat, easy rolling, hilly ground or tiger country?
What size gear do you have already?

Go to google maps and enter Te Kuiti New Zealand and Raglan New Zealand those 2 areas range from easy rolling to tiger country(to steep to bale up the hill, have to bale down hill).

Ovrszd has it, check the cab for fit and comfort. Is the loader joystick just right? You can get a sore arm at the wrong angle, and what works on 30 bales may not work on 400 bales. SCV contols at right angle?

GEARBOX. What are your main work speeds on the different operations? ie JD quad shift. sub 130 hp has a 6 sp main box and this puts a stick shift in your main mowing speed(on hills), but the 140 hp has a 5 sp main box and you mostly don't have a stickshift until you hit hard hills. This is running a Lely 320 mower/conditioner. The other main constraint is the baler weight. Is it baler only or baler wrapper? Here we do mainly silage and very little hay.

Tractor, on hills you should set to the widest track you can for stability and still be road legal. Are the rims adjustable? Can you fit extra wide tyres? Would duals be a better option? If duals you can drop the outside right for mowing and flik it back on for baling. There is a dual wheel design that is made for this, but I can't remember the name.

Is there much working in sheds? Can you fit a curtain on the back window to stop reflections when stacking bales in a shed running from outside bright light to dim shed? Much easier and you don't break the mirrors.
Mirrors, there are different arm length options. If you are running a large twin rotor rake get the long arm as the rake blocks the view on short arm mirrors.

Talk to other users and pay particular attention to the little things. The tractor makers have the big stuff like engines and gearboxes sorted, but not things like the little things. ie JD windscreen wiper leaves an unwiped section at the top of the screen EXACTLY where I look grrrrr. I need to fit an extra long wiper to fix problem. MF dyna shift, go forward and logical shift, BUT reversing also reverses the (power) shift pattern. (forward, up =higher gear, BUT reverse, up = lower!!! gear, frustrating when swopping tractors.

Also take a leaf out of jeff???? book and lay things out in spread sheet form to help clarify your thinking.

 

[Gee Ray]

The OP does not give very much info about his needs but you all telling him he does not need 120 hp are not helping him. There is no information as to type of cutter or baler that he wants to use nor is there any info on the type of fields that he works. He may not need the 120 hp but he may need the weight of the tractor to pull the equipment over large or steep hills. His question is to the quality of the tractors. I do not like Agco tractors. Case,Challenger, Fendt, GSI, Massey Ferguson and Valtra are all Agco and the new tractors are not the same as the names imply. New MF are not the same as the old ones. JD I believe are not as good as they once were and are over priced. Kubota seams to be the one improving their tractors. I have no experience with anything near the 120 hp but I have seen growth in the business where as MF and New Holland are closing down dealerships.

 

[MF2604h]

My uncle cuts and bales hay. He had a Kubota that was around 100 hp. He only kept it a couple years. He said it burned more fuel and just didn稚 have the power. He traded for a John Deere and likes it better. He said that the Massey Ferguson 80 hp 2wd would outperform the Kubota. Not sure if this helps just going off what he said about the Kubota. He also said the Kubota was lighter weight tractor.

 

[cat fever]

Larger HP is needed for the baler if going big square bales. (PTO hp) Lower HP will not compact the hay enough to make good tight bales. For 3x3 or 3x4 bales 100 hp would be on the low side, I'm talking PTO hp. The other thing would be cleaning up the bales from the field, bigger tractor means hauling 2 or 3 bales to the hay trailer instead of 1 at a time. I can lift 2 - 1300 pound bales with my tractor but I don't want to do it because it just feels unstable. My neighbor has a M7 Kubota (170hp?) and hauling 2-3 bales is no problem.

Good luck on your search, some dealers will let you take a used tractor and use it to make your decision. My neighbor had a Case and JD most of the summer just to try them out. They only had several hundred hours on them and looked brand new. He went with the JD.

 

[Cat_Driver]

It has an inherent "track record" Cummins 6.7 engine and Kubota tractor. Both the gold standard as far as a piece of equipment goes.
Pretty much a no brainer.

Actually I find it hard to find a better combination, maybe a Ford F-350 Dually with a Cummins. A Mercedes with a Cummins, actually anything on the planet with a Cummins.

Kubota bent over backward for me. When a dealer said they could not get parts for my 1980's M4500 DL the Regional Kubota rep had the parts flown in from Japan, to Alaska, to the dealer that said he could not get the parts. I'm on my third Kubota and I treat them all terribly and abuse them all and they have always done what I asked and more.

If I needed a monster tractor I would not hesitate to buy a Kubota.

 

[ovrszd]

Do you think maybe it is because they have the 125 HP tractors for farming row crops and just use them as a sideline for haying. You dont need 100 HP to pull a 2-3000 or even 5000 #rig with 2000# of hay up a hill. If it is super steep, you likely wont be haying on it and a 10% grade isn't going to require the HP but more likely just need the weight and traction to keep the rig under control. A properly weighted 70HP would seem to me to be way more than enough. We have some pretty good hills here in Arkansas also.

Nope. Those guys use 200+ HP tractors.

A 2-3000 or even 5000 # rig pulling a large round baler with a full bale while turning the PTO in hill ground is going to be very tricky.

 

[aczlan]

Nope. Those guys use 200+ HP tractors.

A 2-3000 or even 5000 # rig pulling a large round baler with a full bale while turning the PTO in hill ground is going to be very tricky.

And then trying to pick up said bale on said hill and put it in a pile (while keeping everything right side up) can be interesting to say the least.

Aaron Z

 

[Richard]

GEARBOX. What are your main work speeds on the different operations?

First, I don't really have any qualifications nor knowledge to comment about anything in this thread.....that said, this caught my attention and I totally agree with it.

I bought a used IH 1066 to cut the farm. What I find is, when I want to go SLOW to cut something, low range, first gear is STILL too fast if I'm operating the mower at PTO speeds.... I wish it had a creeper gear or an extra low range.

90% of my time it's perfectly fine as I scoot around in 4th gear, low range. (no need for high range) It's those rare moments when I need to be slow and careful when it shows it's a big machine.