Buying Advice 1st horse property, new to the forum, and new to tractors - Seeking advice

[Doitwithlife]

New guy trying to sort through all the great info to find the right fit

We are in the process of buying an established horse property in the hills between Banks and Scappoose Oregon. Horses we know, maintaining my own place is all new. A tractor is a must and my research has brought me here. I致e read lots but would welcome thoughts specific to our situation and perceived needs.
About 25 acres, half in pasture half still in trees (fir and cedar). Grade runs from flat to slight grade in pastures. 1200 of gravel road, treed area is rough grade with more sizable climbs on the existing logging roads. A few of the acres are hayed by a local guy and I have no plans of doing that myself. We値l have 2 6 horses on the property and expect them to be in pasture day / night in the summer and in winter stalled at night.
Budget is really important as the property purchase is making a huge dent in my already scared wallet
Previous owner had a JD 870 and felt it was fine for his needs

My expected needs:

Carrying - Whatever I pick from a stall in a wheelbarrow is eventually going to need to be picked up and moved in mass at some point. I expect most of this to be in flat areas. A bit of odd hauling around the property and retrieving cut firewood from the timbered area.

Arena Grooming will be done weekly. Sand and hog fuel mix over clay

Rough grass cutting - Horses will handle most of the pasture grass but there are several areas between things that will need to be maintained.

Lawn maintenance I知 thinking of a Craigs list riding mower and leaving the tractor for real work.

Spreading manure and running a drag harrow in pastures

Figuring I use pallets to move feed and more than a couple of bales, etc. Also when moving hay into the loft as a one man project.

Garden is in sizable raised bed which needs to be fenced off from deer and Elk to make it through the night. Other than hauling in and around the fenced area, I don稚 see usage in the garden.

Not much snow (2 4 inches from time to time) here so don稚 believe I have a need to clear road and the I知 hearing that most folks in the area are just topping off their gravel roads without needing to scrape

What I知 thinking:

I知 thinking in the diesel 25-35HP range, more isn稚 going to help and will actually be a liability navigating in the timber and arena.

Implements - FEL, Bush hog (maybe 5? , groomer, forks (perhaps clip on痴?), drag, and manure spreader

I like the idea of a reconditioned 9N , F3000, or older MF. 2WD would be great for making corners while grooming; but I知 not seeing many with FELs that seem usable.

Not sure if 4WD is a must have, if so, then the above models are out and it seems that the used models are prices that don't seem too much off new ones that are coming with 0%. Not sure about the trade-offs in turning are worth it to get more traction while working in the timber which is where I might be most likely to get stuck.

HST or the like as a need? Might be nice if its there, but also thinking I can get used to shifting pretty quickly.

I don稚 need a name brand to make me happy, but not interested in something that isn稚 maintainable long term. When looking around the dealers I seem to like the NH's best

Its a great community and I think that for 1 off needs friends will share. Already got offers to use their brush hogs or post auger. So the occasional tilling might happen but don't think I need to invest in that sort of implement right now.

Would love to hear thoughts and suggestions

Thanks in advance

 

[Bigfoot62]

First, welcome to the forum.


You say that you have neighbors who already have tractors. Go see them. Ask them to show you their tractors. Ask them what they like/dislike about the one they have. Most likely, some of them will let you try it out. Nothing like hands-on experience.

Now, a couple of general suggestions from my personal experience:
You probably could use more horsepower than you think. I've never heard anyone complain that, "I bought a tractor that's WAY too powerful."
When using a loader, or ground contact implements, (plow, disc, etc) weight is your friend.
4wd makes all the difference in the world.

 

[JimRB]

The 870 is what I have. Reliable, sturdy, serviceable. My 2 wd does fine with the loader. I move round bales with my front loader. I move manure from one place to the composting pile every month or so. What it does not do well is pull a subsoiler well. I do not have water filled tires or weights on the tires. As Bigfoot mentioned weight or 4wd can be your friend when digging stuff up via disks and plow or going uphill with a full bucket of manure but on general flats and slight hills 2wd can work. I do have the brush cutter or something heavier when moving the manure pile. I also groom the pretty level gravel road on occasion with a angled scrape blade.

 

[randjevans]

Hi Im not familar with oregon, but I am with hills, If you have got steep hills , you will realy need a 4wd tractor with a bit more power to come bish a bush hog on uneven ground. You would also need tolook at a tractor with a low sense of gravity.

 

[Kyle241]

While I agree it's rare for anyone to state they bought a tractor too powerful, sometimes they say they bought too large a tractor especially if they are working around buildings and in tight corners. While I agree the HP range sounds about right for you, 25-35HP, I would lean towards the upside of that if you can financially. Also I would look at the any dealers that are close to you with names like Kubota, Deere, Holland, Kioti, etc. Visit and try them on even if you are not going to purchase new, it will allow you to see the subtle differences between them. Talking to others about tractors is like talking about Chevy vs Ford, everyone has their opinion and while that sometimes can be valuable, sometimes it can be a little bias. I have a Kubota and really like it to manage my 80+ acres however I also looked at Kioti as those were the two closest dealers (and previous owned a Kubota). I did not like the Holland dealer and the local Deere dealer was in a court case with Deere HQ and his business was on hold. So I went back to what I knew and liked even though Kioti did look and feel like a nice tractor.

 

[moriboy]

Hello from southern Oregon. With hills and the amount of mud you will deal with, I highly recommend buying a 4wd machine. Buy as much horsepower as you can with your budget. I also think it is wise to get a tractor that has good parts support in your area. For me, kubota has the best dealer support so that is our brand of choice. IMHO I think you should look at 38 hp+.

 

[jenkinsph]

Doitwithlife,
Welcome to the forum:welcome:

Could you clarify whether you will have 2 to 6 horses or 26 horses. That would make a big difference in your needs.

 

[KYDan]

You have already received some great advice. Take your time and weigh all of your options. A good, local dealer is very important unless you are a master mechanic of sorts and enjoy working on your equipment. Visit with your neighbors that have been doing this for awhile and learn from their mistakes and triumphs. There are values and there is junk as far as equipment goes. Stick with something that has a track record in your area and parts availability. Farming breaks things and if you must order parts from Timbuktu that means unproductive down time. Older tractors are durable and generally reliable, but how do you know how hard of a life it has led, and how well was it maintained? A lot to think about and contemplate, but it can be fun if your are patient and learn during the process. Make some friends and take them to breakfast or another meal and pick their brains about these things. If there are any in your area visit a stockyard and enjoy the atmosphere, a lot of them have on premise restaurants. A good place to meet people and pick up good information. You may want to consider hiring out some of the early work so you can watch and learn. Rural life is a wonderful lifestyle and can be very fulfilling and rewarding, or it can be a nightmare. Good luck with your new adventure.

 

[kneedeep]

MWFD with FEL and QH bucket and forks and manure forks and brush hog and drag harrow and manure spreader and PHD and tiller and BB and seed/fertilizer spreader and landscape rake and a good line of credit!

 

[SanDucerro]

While I agree it's rare for anyone to state they bought a tractor too powerful, sometimes they say they bought too large a tractor especially if they are working around buildings and in tight corners.

Bingo +1000! I went tractor shopping today and took a tape measure along. I have a Kubota L3130 that was "just right" when I bought it in 2003 - but that was when I was primarily interested in horses. We've now moved from "ranching" to "farming" and the L3130 isn't going to cut it any more. My personal experience says buy the most HP you can afford. I was convinced that I'd never need more than the 32HP I have in the L3130 and now I'm looking at 70HP tractors and hoping it will be enough...

 

[nybirdman]

Also;its not just HP but physical weight comes into play,size of tires ect.Are you going to feed square bales or large rounds?As stated;talk to the neighbors ,what brand and dealer do they use.Minimum 35/40HP ,4Wd and Quick attach FEL and bucket.Buy once saves money in the long run.You are also right in purchaseing a lawn mower seperate.

 

[xring100]

Bingo +1000! I went tractor shopping today and took a tape measure along. I have a Kubota L3130 that was "just right" when I bought it in 2003 - but that was when I was primarily interested in horses. We've now moved from "ranching" to "farming" and the L3130 isn't going to cut it any more. My personal experience says buy the most HP you can afford. I was convinced that I'd never need more than the 32HP I have in the L3130 and now I'm looking at 70HP tractors and hoping it will be enough...

Keith,
Not trying to make fun of you but situation seems to be the norm around here buying just enough tractor and then deciding later you want to do more. Not sure how much property you have or exactly what kind of farming your doing but i would probably try to keep the L3130 around. While a 45 pto hp tractor like a M5040 would have been fine I decided the M8540 would do just about everything i could ever want to do. So far no regrets. I have not run into any instances where i needed to borrow any of my neighbors CUT's but 4 of my neighbors have borrowed my services with the larger tractor. I have a 5th that would like to pay me to turn about 2 acres of scattered 2" poplar and other scrub brush into more pasture for his horses. As soon as i buy a root grapple i will probably take him up on it. I have no regrets about going large, with that said i could see getting a smaller 35 - 40 hp CUT cab tractor some day to add to the fleet it just didn't make sense to me to have a 50 hp utility tractor and a 40 hp CUT.

 

[xring100]

Welcome,
I agree with Kyle and others You probably want/need 4wd especially with loader. Even with 10,000 lbs of tractor, loader,tire ballast and 1,000lbs hanging off the 3 point I still need 4wd to back up on any kind of grade even with a load of about half the capacity of my loader.

I would try to find a Craigs list zero turn they cut twice as fast as a rider and if your going to have a tractor anyhow why not by a purpose built mower so you can spend more time on the tractor

 

[GManBart]

You can spend a lot of time trying to pick the right size/hp/weight that works for your purpose, but a couple of things don't really depend on those factors. First off, if you're going to be doing any brush hogging, a live or independent PTO will make life much easier. That will rule out some of the older tractors. The other thing is whether you're pretty handy as far as maintenance and repairs...will having dealer warranty service keep you up and running better? My 8N runs great, but I've managed to have a couple of small problems that shut me down for a few days. While going too big can cause some issues with being nimble, you can usually work around them....if it's too small a machine, there really isn't any way you can get around that. Just some things to consider...

 

[NHmitch]

Hi,
Welcome to the forum and congratulations on the new farm! We have a small horse farm, and we have smaller needs, however we also have a barn with stalls and shavings that get cleaned daily, pasture, and an outdoor arena. I also had to make my tractor purchase based on minimal income after we set up our small farm due to the huge expense of a barn, hay storage, fencing, gates ect. I had been looking at quite a few tractors and I wish that I could have been able to afford a new tractor, but after you factor in the expense of the implements that you need, it was not an option. We have been on our farm for 5 years, and have got it down to a small science after trying many different ways of trying to make it work.

The tractor that I chose was small because I wanted 4wd, and I needed it to be able to drive in fornt of the stalls, and through the gates. I bought a 30 year old 15HP 4wd Diesel tractor with out a loader that has been more than sufficient for our needs. I know that a lot of people are very geared towards HP, however for our needs have have been shocked at how much I can done, lift, and move with our small farm tractor. The 4wd has helped a lot due to our sometimes heavy snow fall, our muddy springs, and hills. I can lift roughly 900lbs on the rear of the tractor offsetting with weights on the front. I have moved cords, and cords of wood, tons of manure, and hay, and soil, and more hay that I would like to think about with this tractor. Having the FEL is very helpful, however I don't feel that it is a must depending on what you are doing. Farms went decades without front end loaders, and depending on what your needs are you can get by just fine. I use a dirt scoop, and I have been able to dig a hole deep enough when we had to bury a horse, but ideally borrowing, or renting a small excavator would be much more cost effective in the long run, for very occasional use. I guess I figue why pay big money for a piece of equipment, to have it sit, and rust, and have the expense of repairing it when it breaks, when I can rent one that someone else maintains for a fraction of the cost of buying one.

If you are going to be hauling round bales, they weight a considerable amount, however a 3pt bale spear will move them fine. If you are feeding square bales, life will be a bit easier when it comes to moving and storing them, but that depends on your area. We store about 18000lbs of hay a year, and I move it all with the tractor on a carry all, or in a wagon.

For daily manure and shavings, we put it in on the back of our property in the woods, in an dry pond to compost, and then we either use, sell or give away the black gold that it produces. We had tried several methods of hauling, spreading, just plain moving our manure, and we decided not to spread our out because we were not haying our pasture, but manure spreaders can be bought for reasonable prices, and you can just pull them infront of the stalls and clean the stalls right into them. I would probably recomend a PTO powered spreader, but you can use the ground driven spreaders if you need to. I have found new PTO spreaders for around $1200. We decided after trial and error, that our 4 wheeler was the best option. My wife drives the the four wheeler in front of the stall that she is cleaning with the 4 wheeler and a dump cart, and then when the cart is full, usually once a day, she drives it out to the manure pile in the woods, and dumps it. The 4 wheeler is 4wd, and lets her manuvere in places where the tractor would never go. The cart carry's about 4 wheel barrels full. This is the cart that we use:

We also drag the pasture with either the 4 wheeler, or the tractor. Both work great. We made a homemade drag from a 6x6 piece of wood, and an large piece of chain link fence. We have put in about tons of fence post with the 3pt PHD, and the tractor runs it without an issue even through rocky New England soil.

In short, you can get a lot done with a smaller tractor, and the fuel consumption is much better, and there is plenty of power with these work horses. I tow logs out of the wood, run a 3pt wood splitter, the PHD, the dirts scoop, a middle buster, boom pole, a carry all, and tow trailers easily with this 15HP tractor. Throughout europe, and in most parts of the world, they primarily use these tractors to do all of their work. The best part was, I only paid $1500, and after adding paint, ROPS (a must), and weights, and a few small parts, it is an extremely cable machine for our farm. Look on youtube at some of the tractors doing work that you find on Craigslist, and you will be able to see the tasks that they do with them. I also run a box blade, and grade my roads in the woods no problem. The addition of R1 ag tires helped out big time with traction, but people farmed with 2wd 8N,s and similar tractor for many years.

My wife and I lived i n Idaho, and Washington state and had a horse farm there for 9 years, and I know the type of environment that you are in, and there should be lots of good used equipment available in your area, you may have to travel a bit, but it will be worth it.

There is a dealer not incredibly far from you that sells good used Japenese tractors from the same company that makes John Deeres(yanmar), and they start at $5800 for a 22HP with a loader and a tiller, and 4WD. These are great, and very capable tractors. I would look at something like these: Other Tractors - CEETEETRACTOR LLC, Jinma Tractors, Classic Fords. The Yanmars are amazing little tractors, and they start around $7800, but if you look on Craigs list, you should be able to find these for under 3-4K. These are a few of their tractors that I mentioned:

There are even 33HP Yanmars in the Portland area for $5500

http://portland.craigslist.org/clk/grq/3524144267.html

I would check out the adds on CL in your area for these tractors:
4wd tractor loader rototiller Pkg
portland farm & garden - all classifieds "yanmar" - craigslist

This one has a loader and a new brush hog for $5900: **************Tractor Iseki, loader and New Brush hog

There are also some really nice 8n's and similar for under 2K: portland farm & garden - all classifieds "8n" - craigslist

I hope that you guys really enjoy your new farm!

This is our tractor, and I forgot to mention, we also use a riding mower to mow our arena:

 

[kevin37b]

Buy the largest tractor with cab , heat , A/C , 4x4 you can afford , Once the initial shock is over , $$$$$ ,you will be very happy . Trust me on this . Have a good day .

 

[94BULLITT]

How much were you looking to spend on a tractor?

 

[SanDucerro]

Keith,
Not trying to make fun of you but situation seems to be the norm around here buying just enough tractor and then deciding later you want to do more. Not sure how much property you have or exactly what kind of farming your doing but i would probably try to keep the L3130 around. While a 45 pto hp tractor like a M5040 would have been fine I decided the M8540 would do just about everything i could ever want to do. So far no regrets. I have not run into any instances where i needed to borrow any of my neighbors CUT's but 4 of my neighbors have borrowed my services with the larger tractor. I have a 5th that would like to pay me to turn about 2 acres of scattered 2" poplar and other scrub brush into more pasture for his horses. As soon as i buy a root grapple i will probably take him up on it. I have no regrets about going large, with that said i could see getting a smaller 35 - 40 hp CUT cab tractor some day to add to the fleet it just didn't make sense to me to have a 50 hp utility tractor and a 40 hp CUT.

Not sure if this was intended for me or not, but... My comment was an acknowledgement that "size" matters. My L3130 is too small HP wise for what I want to do now, but it's almost too big for our originally designed vineyard layout. The width between the trellis rows was set at 10', but we're now looking at moving this out to 11' to give us extra room to get the tractor up and down the rows. As such, I took my tape measure when I went shopping for the M7040. By the way, Kubota offers the M7040 in a narrow tractor - cuts the width down to 48"! They also have the M6040 in narrow, but you can't get it with a CAB. Unfortunately, Kubota is VERY proud of their specialty tractors and have priced them to match!

And the L3130 stays with us. I'm not trading it in or selling it - just adding to the collection.

But back to the original questions... I like NHmitch's take. I think it's way too easy to get caught up with "wants" verses "needs" when tractor shopping - and I am certainly guilty of this myself (hence my tread in the Kubota buying forum on options for the M7040 I'm looking at). Unfortunately, it's not always possible to foresee what ones needs will be into the distant future. In my case we started out wanting a horse farm operation and wound up planting grapes. I wasn't even 100% positive I wanted to keep the land we're on when I first bought it and I struggled with the purchase of the L3130 for days. It WAS the right tractor at the time, it's just not now - but I had 10 years where it was perfect. Not sure you could hope for more...

Having said that - watch out for turning radiuses around buildings and places you need to go. We've set 30' at the end of the rows of grapes to give us plenty of room to turn the tractor and not take out the fence! :laughing:

 

[Doitwithlife]

Thanks for all the great information! Its been a busy weekend and I'm going to spend some time and chew on everything that has been presented.

To answer the questions asked. We currently have just our 2 horses. At some point we will get another pair. That has us at 4 horses, but as numbers tend to change when least expected I wanted to figure 6 as a high number. We also expect that we are going to have a few new friends when it is learned that we have a dry place to ride

As for budget, as little as we can get away with. There is a ton of other stuff that screams out for money as well. If paying cash $10K for the tractor with FEL and would be looking to get used attachments wherever we can. I'm seeing a huge price difference between that green or orange colored hardware and the generic brands that I see at the implement or farm supply stores.

 

[94BULLITT]

I think if you have 10k that would be a good down payment towards a new tractor. You could probably get a mid 30 horsepower tractor for around 20k with 0%APR.