Agthacher1
New member
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2019
- Messages
- 3
- Tractor
- Kubota L4701
I can tell you from personal experience that you are in for the learning experience of your life. 12 years ago we purchased a rundown 6 acre horse property in rural Maryland, on a hill, at the end of a 3/4 mile unpaved access road and with a steep 550' gravel driveway. Looking back, we've had the best time of our lives with our horses on the property, but we made some mistakes along the way which you should probably consider.
- Tractor: living on a hill and having to maintain gravel roads changes all the rules about tractor horse power. On the advice of some farming friends and before moving here I purchased a 30 HP Bobcat compact tractor with a loader when Bobcat was trying to take over the compact tractor market by storm with huge discounts and incentives. I loved that little tractor but it struggled to make it up the hill with a box blade full of gravel or to mow the pasture with a second hand 60" woods mower when the pasture grass got ahead of me. After 3 years of complaining, my wife asked me to please get a bigger tractor. I purchased a Kubota L4701 and a 72" Land Pride rotary mower and have never looked back. My only regret now was not getting the 3rd function auxillary hydrolics for the front (for a snow blower, grapple, etc.) when bought the machine.
- Box blade: you can't maintain your gravel roads without a box blade (e.g. Woods BSS72) - a 3 pt implement that scrapes up the gravel and containes it in the "box" while you spread it where you want it, not out each end of a conventional blade. After that, you may also want to consider a standard rear mounted blade (RBS60) for general grading, snow removal (angled to the side of the road), etc.
- Chain saws: I have 2, both by Sthil - a powerful, but relatively light aborist saw that I use most often and a beast that I use occasionally when a big tree falls. I also have a contract with a Tree company that can take down 6 24" diameter, 50' tall dying oak trees in a morning, grind the stumps leave the property looking like they were never there. Try doing that yourself.
- Fencing: When we moved here there were wooden fence posts around the pastures partialy connected with sun-rotted, electified nylon web tape. We opted to replace the tape with 4 courses of EnduraSoft rope from a great company named Premier1 (premier1supplies.com) that specializes in safe, electric fencing for farm animals from chickens to horses and cattle. Our four horizontal tiers of rope are attached to our posts by insulators and terminate at the endposts with spring connectors. The horses respect the fence and won't lean on the fence posts, even when the power is off. We have a treed lot and have had a number of storms where branches (and even trees) fell on the fencing which, because of the spring connectors, didn't break but just got pushed to the ground. As soon as the trees were removed, the fences sprung back to their original position. We were back riding while our horse friends were out buying replacement fence boards.
My advice to you is to purchase the best essential equipment you need to manage your property and to pay reputable companies to do the rest until you figure out what you really need to own. You'll have lots of opportunities to buy other equipment to manage your property (e.g. sprayers, spreaders, tillers, etc.) in the future once you see how the pro's do it.
Best of luck,
Art@WayBackFarm
- Tractor: living on a hill and having to maintain gravel roads changes all the rules about tractor horse power. On the advice of some farming friends and before moving here I purchased a 30 HP Bobcat compact tractor with a loader when Bobcat was trying to take over the compact tractor market by storm with huge discounts and incentives. I loved that little tractor but it struggled to make it up the hill with a box blade full of gravel or to mow the pasture with a second hand 60" woods mower when the pasture grass got ahead of me. After 3 years of complaining, my wife asked me to please get a bigger tractor. I purchased a Kubota L4701 and a 72" Land Pride rotary mower and have never looked back. My only regret now was not getting the 3rd function auxillary hydrolics for the front (for a snow blower, grapple, etc.) when bought the machine.
- Box blade: you can't maintain your gravel roads without a box blade (e.g. Woods BSS72) - a 3 pt implement that scrapes up the gravel and containes it in the "box" while you spread it where you want it, not out each end of a conventional blade. After that, you may also want to consider a standard rear mounted blade (RBS60) for general grading, snow removal (angled to the side of the road), etc.
- Chain saws: I have 2, both by Sthil - a powerful, but relatively light aborist saw that I use most often and a beast that I use occasionally when a big tree falls. I also have a contract with a Tree company that can take down 6 24" diameter, 50' tall dying oak trees in a morning, grind the stumps leave the property looking like they were never there. Try doing that yourself.
- Fencing: When we moved here there were wooden fence posts around the pastures partialy connected with sun-rotted, electified nylon web tape. We opted to replace the tape with 4 courses of EnduraSoft rope from a great company named Premier1 (premier1supplies.com) that specializes in safe, electric fencing for farm animals from chickens to horses and cattle. Our four horizontal tiers of rope are attached to our posts by insulators and terminate at the endposts with spring connectors. The horses respect the fence and won't lean on the fence posts, even when the power is off. We have a treed lot and have had a number of storms where branches (and even trees) fell on the fencing which, because of the spring connectors, didn't break but just got pushed to the ground. As soon as the trees were removed, the fences sprung back to their original position. We were back riding while our horse friends were out buying replacement fence boards.
My advice to you is to purchase the best essential equipment you need to manage your property and to pay reputable companies to do the rest until you figure out what you really need to own. You'll have lots of opportunities to buy other equipment to manage your property (e.g. sprayers, spreaders, tillers, etc.) in the future once you see how the pro's do it.
Best of luck,
Art@WayBackFarm
