5 acres of mixed ground - What "little Deere" do I need ( D155, S240, X330)

[Treozen]

Re: 5 acres of mixed ground - What "little Deere" do I need ( D155, S240, X330)

The size of deck sort of determines the size of machine you may need. For me I wouldn't cut anything unless I could use at least a 60-62" deck. Unless you can cut a property in less that 2-3 hours it will be painful......The reason I got rid of the smaller one is because it seemed to take forever to mow the same piece of property. Six" don't seem like much but it really seems to slow the process down to where it get to be a pain to mow and I can't imagine that much lawn with anything smaller. Get a 60" deck on whatever brand you decide. 2 hours mowing is getting to be to much time.

This is what I'm trying to avoid - I know owning land of any sort of size will mean more time spend taking care of it, but I really don't want to spend an entire weekend mowing. I'm sort of leaning towards a tow-behind mower of some sort - finish mower or brush hog or something in that line for the back 2.5 acres - its basically a large slightly downhill rectangle of broad-leaf grasses and other more brush-like plants. When Last we were out there it looked mostly grass, but in pictures you can see there is other brush that grows also. I've included some pictures - not massively helpful I'm sure.

Front 'lawn" areas



Back "pasture" - hard to get a shot of this ....

Good luck figuring out the mower part of the equation. It drove me crazy and still not sure I picked the appropriate unit.

Agree with the conclusion if you’re not budget constrained, separate mower and tractor is the best approach. Mowing under/near/around the typical lawn obstacles is the primary reason I have both. Tractor gets used for a lot of different task, some which having a deck suspended underneath isn’t good. Wrestling with installing and removing a mower deck quickly make finish mowing a job better left to a dedicated unit. That said, the quality of cut my compact gives is better than the mid-level dedicated mower I use.

Budget is always a consideration, but I think we can swing both provided the tractor is more in line with a GC1720, or a good used bigger tractor. I was wondering how much of a pain it is to use the loader with the belly mower installed....to say nothing of digging.

If you start considering CUTs and Sub CUTS, look at stuff like how much you’ll need to lift (square/round bales, pallets of feed), transport, storage, CAT 1 vs other hitches, HP needed to drive your desired brush hog and that might help you narrow in on a solution. Required FEL lift capacity often drives the solution IMO

(writes down important looking acronyms) YES!....I'll look into that stuff.

Sounds like we have a similar(ish) property, ours is 6.5a with some hills/paddocks and trees as well. We currently have the D140 with the 48" deck, since that was about what we could afford. It works OK, but it does take a while, especially in the spring, for cutting down pasture once the horses have been in there. Once you get into summer, the slow growth makes it pretty manageable. Our guys are out on grass all day, but man do they get super picky.

One main thing for us, is that we can't go bigger than 48", unless you are going to have huge gates into your paddocks. We have 8' gates and rests for our gates to prevent sagging, and it's a pretty tight fit with the 48".

Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, the property really isn't set up yet for horses - smaller live stock but not horses, so we'll have plenty of options in designing the cross fencing and gates, etc.

 

[Treozen]

Re: 5 acres of mixed ground - What "little Deere" do I need ( D155, S240, X330)

If you start considering CUTs and Sub CUTS, look at stuff like how much you値l need to lift (square/round bales, pallets of feed), transport, storage, CAT 1 vs other hitches, HP needed to drive your desired brush hog and that might help you narrow in on a solution. Required FEL lift capacity often drives the solution IMO

Ok - so I figure the heaviest lift would be a pallet of 4 3-tie hay bales. A 3-tie bale is, give or take, 140lbs, so we're looking at 560lbs, and that would be forward of the bucket because obviously we'd need forks for the pallet. Now that's maximum "we want to kill ourselves today" sort of weight. If we were to be more generous to ourselves, we might do 4 X 2-tie, which is more like 400lbs. Or we just do three bales at a time, 420/300 Lbs respectively. The lift capacity of the GC1720 and its bigger brother, the 1726E for example differs by 250lbs @ 580lbs and 830lbs 19" forward of the pin on both models. The MSRP differs by $8000 - so while I know the 1726E has several significant upgrades over the GC1720, looking only at lift capacity, that's $3,200 per extra 100 pounds of capacity, or $4000 per additional 3-tie bale. What I don't know is how much lift capacity is reduced when using forks versus the bucket, but my guess is an extra trip with the GC1720 is a better deal than paying $8000 to carry two extra bales. I need to check out alternatives to the Massey products and look at used tractors as well, but I figure I need at least 450lbs FEL capacity if using forks and a PTO than can run a 60" brush hog or finish mower - so 20HP at the PTO?

I should probably be asking this particular question elsewhere since we've sort of gotten off of "John Deere riding mower" - although I still plan to get one for the front yard.

 

[BrokeFarmerJohn]

5 acres of mixed ground - What "little Deere" do I need ( D155, S240, X330)

Ok - so I figure the heaviest lift would be a pallet of 4 3-tie hay bales. A 3-tie bale is, give or take, 140lbs, so we're looking at 560lbs, and that would be forward of the bucket because obviously we'd need forks for the pallet. Now that's maximum "we want to kill ourselves today" sort of weight. If we were to be more generous to ourselves, we might do 4 X 2-tie, which is more like 400lbs. Or we just do three bales at a time, 420/300 Lbs respectively. The lift capacity of the GC1720 and its bigger brother, the 1726E for example differs by 250lbs @ 580lbs and 830lbs 19" forward of the pin on both models. The MSRP differs by $8000 - so while I know the 1726E has several significant upgrades over the GC1720, looking only at lift capacity, that's $3,200 per extra 100 pounds of capacity, or $4000 per additional 3-tie bale. What I don't know is how much lift capacity is reduced when using forks versus the bucket, but my guess is an extra trip with the GC1720 is a better deal than paying $8000 to carry two extra bales. I need to check out alternatives to the Massey products and look at used tractors as well, but I figure I need at least 450lbs FEL capacity if using forks and a PTO than can run a 60" brush hog or finish mower - so 20HP at the PTO?

I should probably be asking this particular question elsewhere since we've sort of gotten off of "John Deere riding mower" - although I still plan to get one for the front yard.

Go by the lift to full height figures, that will give you a better idea of what the machine will lift, you will have at least that number on forks I would guess.

Also what your not thinking about is how much Real estate these bales will take up on the loader, on my 4320, 5-6 small square bales 40-60lb bales is all I can stack without losing bales on transport.

So you might be limited on bales based off the size of your forks of pallets, my forks are 42in long. Pallets are I believe 48 to length.

I also want to say that I freaking love my forks, there so handy for so many things.

Generally you won't regret buying a bigger tractor with larger lift capacity. Honestly I think you should be up in the 30-50hp range with a loader good for over 1000lbs, 1500lbs preferably if you decide to feed with round bales on a FEL.

Having one head of cattle on the same pasture as your horses is a good idea. Pasturing Horses with Cattle | Equinews

Cattle are really easy animals to take care of, if your used to horses you won't even notice a steer. My cattle eat almost anything they can reach from a black raspberry bush to leaves off trees, they will eat what horses won't touch.

Another thing is storage, how much hay do you plan to put up? How high are you gonna stack it? From last fall to now, I have gone threw 13k lbs of hay feeding 3-4 head of cattle all winter both in small squares and round bales. I don't have room to store indoors so I store round bales outside on pallets on 8x8 timber, the bales get plenty of air.

Just stuff to think about.

5 PTO HP is about right for a 3pt bush hog as long as the weight of the mower isn't too much for the tractor, my tractor is 41hp at the PTO but I have been told a 7ft mower will be too heavy for my tractor, an 8ft would be ok because it's shorter, so it's 6ft or a double blade 8ft cutter which is way more expensive.

 

[jenkinsph]

Re: 5 acres of mixed ground - What "little Deere" do I need ( D155, S240, X330)

After seeing your pictures I am still thinking the 2038R along with a push mower would be a good fit. One nice thing about a push mower, just because the mower has to run under bushes and low hanging trees doesn't mean that you have to. Most of your place is wide open from the pictures you posted. A 2038R with the 72" auto connect deck would make quick work of the entire place. The ride would be much smoother with the larger tires and you could mow at a higher ground speed. This would cut your mowing time in half or less compared to the best D series with a 48" deck.

Once you are settled in you will find a lot more uses for a fel than moving hay bales. You may also decide to improve the lawn and pasture areas and get them really smooth with new grasses. This tractor would be a good fit for these jobs with box blade, tiller, rakes and other tools. For your uses I would not fill the rear tires but would use a rear attachment or weight box with the IMatch quick hitch. Dropping all the weight for light mowing would be fast and easy to do.

 

[jenkinsph]

Re: 5 acres of mixed ground - What "little Deere" do I need ( D155, S240, X330)

Just my opinion but I would not buy a rear brush mower for 2 1/2 acres. I would mow it with the 72" mid mount deck fully raised every other time I mowed the yard. The grass would improve over time and you would reduce the number of weeds. A rough guess would be about 24 minutes per acre or 1 hour. You only have to cut the tall stuff down one time then keep it shorter after this.

 

[Spindifferent]

Re: 5 acres of mixed ground - What "little Deere" do I need ( D155, S240, X330)

A fine piece of property!

From the photos, looks like you can easily mow the "lawn" areas with any riding mower. Anything from Deere, Kubota, Husqvarna with a 48" deck would work.

For the "pasture" area, I think that you have a couple options:

- Hire out someone with a tractor and a shredder/bushhog/brushhog and have them do the first mow on it so that you can try and maintain it after the first mow with your riding mower for the rest of the season. Repeat this process as necessary with the growth of the grass.

- Hire out someone and have them mow it as needed. Sit back and enjoy your beautiful pasture while they mow it!

- Purchase a tractor and a shredder/bushhog/brushhog and do it all yourself. Most of us on this forum are this type - we like to do things ourselves even if it involves lots of work and some expense - we enjoy it!

Enjoy those apples!

 

[CinderSchnauzer]

Re: 5 acres of mixed ground - What "little Deere" do I need ( D155, S240, X330)

Based on 11 years experience tending to the needs of only 2.2 acres here are some quick thoughts. Minimum 60" mower deck. Unless you can ride sideways on the slope consider AWD for the lawn tractor, so you get braking ability going down hill. If you get a TLB - no matter what size, at some point the belly mower will probably need to be removed, so it does not hang up while doing "tractor work" Given size of your property / horses etc you will come across many times where you want to lift much more than 560lbs with the FEL / Forks / Bucket. You probably will not use the Backhoe very much, but it's handy to have it around when needed. It would probably be less expensive to rent, but way less convenient.

If I had your property (budget constraints aside) starting with a clean slate - lawn tractor choice would be X739 (or at least x500 series) and 4 Series CUT to get the extra lift for the FEL

 

[plowhog]

Re: 5 acres of mixed ground - What "little Deere" do I need ( D155, S240, X330)

Not too long ago I was asking many similar questions as you are now. I have one property that is 2.5 acres with good sized lawn area plus about 2 acres of slightly sloping pasture. And a different property with half acre of flat lawn and 88 other acres of land ranging from pasture to forest. I am very pleased with the performance of the equipment I bought.

For lawn mowing, I have a Husqvarna GT48DXLS. Awesome machine. Brand new for 2017. 22hp Kawasaki engine, which is well regarded. K66 transaxle. Locking differential. The side discharge power is hard to believe. I only have 5 hours on this model with 3 or 4 mowings, but so far it has performed extremely well. A little over $3,000 out the door.

For bigger tasks at the 2.5 acre property, I have a Massey Ferguson GC1710 TLB. Great machine, surprisingly capable. I have a 4 foot Woods brush hog (RC4) that I tow behind it for mowing the pasture. Just for fun, I recently used the Husqvarna as a brush hog, mowing 2 to 2 1/2 foot tall weeds. It mowed right through with no problems, although I went slightly slower than on lawn. But, that was just an experiment. I believe my mower and any Deere X3XX is more suited to mowing lawn than brush hogging.

Massey has 4 different mower decks you can use on the GC17XX series. I believe they are the only one with a mulching deck. On my Husqvarna mower, I wanted a 48" deck because I have to mow around trees, stumps, and obstacles. A wider deck, plus adding the width of the discharge chute, was not desirable. My lawn has many unlevel spots and I agree with the observation that these can bump you around a little while mowing. But, I am very pleased with the machine and its performance, bumps or not.

I was so pleased with the Massey GC1710 that I bought a Massey 1758 cab model for the bigger property. But I often have both there, and wind up using the GC1710 at least half the time when having both to choose from.

If I were in your shoes, I would consider a GC1710 or 1720 for work outside of lawn areas. And then consider either a mower deck on that tractor for mowing lawn, or a Husqvarna or Deere mower. If your FIL is dead-set to buy a Deere product, I believe the X5XX Deere platform is worth the extra $1,000 or so to upgrade from the X3XX platform. But since my mowing needs were simple, and I have the GC1710 for smaller tractor jobs, I didn't need to spend nearly double on a Deere mower just to mow the lawn. That was about the difference from the Husqvarna to the Deere X5XX platform models.

If your FIL wants to contribute to expand your choice of a GC1720, he could always buy a mower deck, tow behind brush hog, or both to add to its capability. btw, if he is an impulse buyer of things, there are *lots* of 3-point add on goodies that fit the GC1720 or any similar tractor. Like maybe a flail or finish mower?

Good luck with your choice. You are getting a lot of good information here from many contributors.

 

[crazyal]

Re: 5 acres of mixed ground - What "little Deere" do I need ( D155, S240, X330)

I have an X500 with a 48" deck and I do about 1.5 acres of mowing. It's not wide open mowing so the deck size fits well but for the amount of land you will be mowing there's no way I would get anything with that small of a deck.

 

[Treozen]

Re: 5 acres of mixed ground - What "little Deere" do I need ( D155, S240, X330)

Generally you won't regret buying a bigger tractor with larger lift capacity. Honestly I think you should be up in the 30-50hp range with a loader good for over 1000lbs, 1500lbs preferably if you decide to feed with round bales on a FEL.

I usually go with more capacity than I need because I like having that extra margin, plus it gives you room for that unexpected growth, but the price jump to get into a 40 HP tractor is significant, so I'll really need to make sure it pencils I've been looking at low-hour used examples as a possibility. 30 HP B7800 Kubota, 270 hours, includes brush hog, forks and LA402 loader @$14,850 or 38HP Kubota L3800 w/loader, 800hrs @$16,500 or 36 HP John Deere 4400 w/430 loader, 621 hrs @ $14,500.

Having one head of cattle on the same pasture as your horses is a good idea. Cattle are really easy animals to take care of, if your used to horses you won't even notice a steer. My cattle eat almost anything they can reach from a black raspberry bush to leaves off trees, they will eat what horses won't touch. Pasturing Horses with Cattle | Equinews

We've actually talked about getting some mini cows.

Just my opinion but I would not buy a rear brush mower for 2 1/2 acres. I would mow it with the 72" mid mount deck fully raised every other time I mowed the yard. The grass would improve over time and you would reduce the number of weeds. A rough guess would be about 24 minutes per acre or 1 hour. You only have to cut the tall stuff down one time then keep it shorter after this.

Seems there is quite a debate out there in the wide world of mowers The mid mount seems like a more flexible solution, although taking it off and on might be annoying, plus there's some issue with the wide mid mounts not mowing evenly unless the ground is super flat? I'm really torn over which way to go I think I'm leaning toward some sort of tow-behind, but haven't decided yet.

A fine piece of property! Enjoy those apples!

LOL, yea, the property has apples, peaches, plums, blue berries and a grape harvest. Also chestnuts and hazelnuts. Almost enough to live off of when the zombies attack ;-)

From the photos, looks like you can easily mow the "lawn" areas with any riding mower. Anything from Deere, Kubota, Husqvarna with a 48" deck would work.

For the "pasture" area, I think that you have a couple options:

- Hire out someone with a tractor and a shredder/bushhog/brushhog and have them do the first mow on it so that you can try and maintain it after the first mow with your riding mower for the rest of the season. Repeat this process as necessary with the growth of the grass.

- Hire out someone and have them mow it as needed. Sit back and enjoy your beautiful pasture while they mow it!

- Purchase a tractor and a shredder/bushhog/brushhog and do it all yourself. Most of us on this forum are this type - we like to do things ourselves even if it involves lots of work and some expense - we enjoy it!

Third option I think, although given that the back pasture looks much more "grassy" now than in the pictures, I wonder if you couldn't maintain it for the season with a riding mower once you've knocked it down once or twice.

Minimum 60" mower deck. Unless you can ride sideways on the slope consider AWD for the lawn tractor, so you get braking ability going down hill. ?You probably will not use the Backhoe very much, but it's handy to have it around when needed. It would probably be less expensive to rent, but way less convenient.

If I had your property (budget constraints aside) starting with a clean slate - lawn tractor choice would be X739 (or at least x500 series) and 4 Series CUT to get the extra lift for the FEL

I think a 60 deck is the max size I could run on the smaller tractors, so that's probably what I'd go with to match up to whatever tractor I get just need to decide if it's a 60" MMM or tow-behind tool. Admittedly, the backhoe is more for the "cool, I have a backhoe" factor that actual need. I will eventually need to dig out footing and prep an arena, etc, all of which could use a backhoe, but renting would be way cheaper. 4-series JD is a $30,000+ machine, not in the cards. Can't justify that sort of cost for what amounts to a giant backyard that's pretending to be a mini-farm. ;-)

For bigger tasks at the 2.5 acre property, I have a Massey Ferguson GC1710 TLB. Great machine, surprisingly capable. I have a 4 foot Woods brush hog (RC4) that I tow behind it for mowing the pasture. Just for fun, I recently used the Husqvarna as a brush hog, mowing 2 to 2 1/2 foot tall weeds. It mowed right through with no problems, although I went slightly slower than on lawn. But, that was just an experiment. I believe my mower and any Deere X3XX is more suited to mowing lawn than brush hogging.

I was so pleased with the Massey GC1710 that I bought a Massey 1758 cab model for the bigger property. But I often have both there, and wind up using the GC1710 at least half the time when having both to choose from.

If I were in your shoes, I would consider a GC1710 or 1720 for work outside of lawn areas. And then consider either a mower deck on that tractor for mowing lawn, or a Husqvarna or Deere mower.

Good luck with your choice. You are getting a lot of good information here from many contributors.

I'm glad to hear you like the GC1710 I really like those and although I know a bigger tractor will have greater capabilities, I keep coming across report of the GC-series really performing well, even better than expectations. I feel like while my property is tractor-worthy, I'm not running a real farm and the current owners appear do everything with a riding mower and an older Farmall Super-C . Basically, I'm being a pretend farmer, with all of three horses and maybe a mini cow, so I want to size the tractor appropriately - tough enough to do what I ask of it, but it doesn't need to do "real farming" - not really. If it can lift feed, scoop up manure, grade & drag an arena plus tow a brush hog and or mount a belly mower, I think I'd be happy.

Yes tones of good information and feedback thanks again to everyone. Lots to think about.