Depending on your budget you can get by with a 25 HP with 5 foot mower if you have unlimited time (retired). A 15 foot batwing mower for 40 acres is ludicrious. NO need to spend that kind of money for a mower and75 HP tractor to pull it with that you wont need but maybe twice a year. We have 40 acres here and for the first year we mowed with a 4 foot mower and a 750 JD tractor (19 PTO HP). Sure its slow but it got the job done for about $4500 total investment and the place was a grown up mess that hadnt been maintained in over 5 years. We added tractors as time passed for some specific duties. A 50 HP is plenty large and a 6 foot rotary mower is wide enought to give pretty good performance time wise while still able to mow between most trees etc.
I recently acquired a used Kubota
B26 TLB (tractor-loader-backhoe) and wish I had bought a backhoe as first tractor. It is soooooo handy for removing the yearly rock crop here and planting trees, digging trenches and even clearing scrub brush, removing stumps etc. The
B26 is likely too small for maintaining 40 acres but Kubota does make models up to about 50 HP. JD also has a model 110 that would be a capable tractor for you to mow with also. I dont have any experience with them as to ease of backhoe removal, but the Kubota is a 5 minute job. The only time I have removed mine was when I bought it, the previous owner showed me how to unhook and hook it up. I bought an LS P7010 with cab and HVAC that I used for heavy lifting and mower, because the air conditioner is so nice. It is much too large to get into tight spots with but the price when I bought it 2 years ago was = to a 50 HP NH, Case, Massey and Kubota. It is nice for FEL use in digging and hauling dirt and rocks as the bucket is huge, but I use the Kubota almost daily for just about everything. We used it tag team 2 days ago moving some very large rocks. What I couldnt get to scoop up in the LS bucket, I used the
B26 as a bucket filler. The backhoe with hydraulic thumb was also great for picking up smaller rocks and putting them in the LS bucket, much easier on the back.
As of now, we have 4 tractors 750 JD with post hole digger mounted most of the time but seldom used now as all the fencing is up, New Holland boomer 2030 with FEL and 6 foot bush hog, LS 7010 with 7 foot bush hog not used as a mower in 2 years due to the drought but does make an nice counterweight for the FEL work and of course the Kubota
B26 which replaced a Yanmar 4220D which I sold to my sister with a 6 foot bush hog.
We have way more equipment than needed but it sure is nice to just go crank up the tractor with the equipment on it that you need to use.
One thing that is not tractor but very handy is the UTV's we use everyday for transport and hauling tools and stuff for mending fences etc.or I have a Kubota RTV 900 and my brother in law next door has a JD Gator. They get more used than the tractors and I thought when my B-I-L bought the gator it was just fancy but after seeing the many uses, I got the Kubota with hydraulic dump bed, 4 wd and hydrostatic transmission that can pull logs, anduproot small sapling via chain. Also very handy to have on the farm.
