Buying Advice Hiring or buying a tractor

[Minor9th]

As with buying anything .. If you can make the payments without putting yourself and family in the welfare line ... Buy it.

I have absolutely no debt right now and this move to the country has given us a mortgage-free existence so I can probably swing payments. If I change my profession then I could write it off and then figure out how to make money with this property, which is my goal anyway. This "Downsizing" was also a way for me to move from stressful IT and computer work to a simpler way of life and I fully plan on never going back to computer work - to figure out how to make this property work for me. It could be animals, agriculture, or leasing out to others to actually do the work. They say that the most certain way to make money from land is to let somebody else take the risks and do the work.

 

[Minor9th]

Presuming you moved to the rural life because you enjoy it, you won't regret getting a CUT tractor. Per the posters above, the only real question is finances. If finances are tight you can buy used, but if not too tight they are offering low interest rates on new.

Life is short, don't be afraid to kick back & enjoy it some! I just upgraded from John Deere 445AWS to 1026R SCUT & love it. More torque, smoother & more comfortable ride, faster cut, mulching (no more bagging grass clippings!), and of course, an FEL for all those postponed landscaping projects while my kids were small. On 3 acres.

Good luck!

I love living in the country!! I have been pushing for this for 10 years and it finally happened with all my complaining and being tired of living in San Francisco. I know I will love this tractor and I know the L-series will retain it's value pretty well and If it turns out to be overkill (which I seriously doubt) or if my financial situation changes then I can easily sell it and pay off the loan. I wanted a tractor right off the bat last year, but somebody in the house made me wait and live through one full year here before I went ahead and looked into it. The experience with the John Deere and tending this land, as well as talking to lots of people, has given me a better idea of why we actually need a tractor.

 

[GManBart]

I was thinking that this is the right machine for our size and topography. I know I need at least 30 HP with these hills. It's so steep in places that you can only go downhill. I know, I have asked somebody that has mowed this actual property before with a 4WD 30+ HP tractor. I know that If I buy something that is not quite right, I will use it and then get another - I actually thought I could manage this property with a Deere riding mower. I did that and it worked but it's very cumbersome and the novelty has definitely worn off. I am a firm believer in buying the right tools first - if I went ahead with an L-series from Kubota I have a feeling that I will not be replacing that with something else in the near future and thus saving time and money. From all my reading, the majority of people seem to buy up every time they buy a tractor - that the tractor they thought was going to fit the bill just didn't quite measure up.

If you really have piles of rocks and "heavy stuff" you need to move, I think you're going to find the loader on an L3200 isn't going to cut it. The specs say max lift is 1130lbs at the pins, then you subtract the weight of the bucket or forks, and you're looking at 8-900lbs of lift, but that's at the pins. In reality, you'll be able to lift less, because it will be forward of the pins...so maybe something like 6-700lbs max. It doesn't take much to get to that when you start talking about rocks, tree sections etc. My loader is rated at 2,630lbs to max height at the pins, and I've had plenty of things be too much for it.

Could barely budge this....managed to roll it over repeatedly until getting it to it's grave (old septic tank hole).

 

[Minor9th]

If you really have piles of rocks and "heavy stuff" you need to move, I think you're going to find the loader on an L3200 isn't going to cut it. The specs say max lift is 1130lbs at the pins, then you subtract the weight of the bucket or forks, and you're looking at 8-900lbs of lift, but that's at the pins. In reality, you'll be able to lift less, because it will be forward of the pins...so maybe something like 6-700lbs max. It doesn't take much to get to that when you start talking about rocks, tree sections etc. My loader is rated at 2,630lbs to max height at the pins, and I've had plenty of things be too much for it.

Could barely budge this....managed to roll it over repeatedly until getting it to it's grave (old septic tank hole).

WOW!!! That is a LARGE boulder. I don't have any rocks that large. Most are bowling ball size or smaller and I want to load up the front loader as much as I can and take trips up and down the driveway to deposit them in the appropriate places around the property and yard. Also have large piles of wood from felled trees might be able to be moved with this as well.

 

[GManBart]

WOW!!! That is a LARGE boulder. I don't have any rocks that large. Most are bowling ball size or smaller and I want to load up the front loader as much as I can and take trips up and down the driveway to deposit them in the appropriate places around the property and yard. Also have large piles of wood from felled trees might be able to be moved with this as well.

Yeah, that was pretty crazy...most I have to deal with aren't bigger than a cinder block...give or take. This came up when we were digging out the foundation of a building we demolished on some property we bought. I would love to know what it weighed!

 

[MHarryE]

Actually, my neighbor just had a 2 adjacent fields done and she paid $600. I have 3x as much to mow. She was miffed that it was so expensive and I have been looking for somebody else to quote me since this guy seems super expensive. It makes me want to go ahead and buy the new one and start my own mowing service. Immediately I would have multiple neighbor customers that I would not even have to get a trailer to do.

Being a new owner, look over your insurance policy before going off your own property. I have farm insurance which allows me to go on the roads to all of our fields and also covers up to 200 miles from home (to a dealer for example). Before I retired and moved back to the farm full time I had my tractor covered under my homeowners policy. If I left my property there was zero coverage. A neighbor was borrowing an implement from another neighbor when his tractor caught on fire - total loss. Since he was off his property all his insurance covered was the fire call so he had to eat the entire tractor loss.

 

[Nooodles]

hire a tractor

 

[sd455dan]

Hello all,

This is my first posting as a new member. I'm in a quandary about equipment that I know my farm brothers and sisters with their years of experience can help with.

I moved from city life to country life last September. We have almost 8 acres of rolling land. Most of it is pastures with our house being in the middle and the land gently slopes down on all sides around our house leveling off at the bottom.

As we are already in fire season, I am wanting to mow the fields down very low and then will plant some orchards in the fall. I have a John Deere D140 riding mower that I have been managing the roughly 7 acres of area that I need to manage. The steeper parts I can only go downhill as the Deere is not 4WD and its also just a little on the steep side.

So, after Fall/Winter/Spring and now into summer, I have decided that I just cannot manage the property with the riding mower. It was fun the first few times, but endlessly going back and forth with that is just way too cumbersome. It takes too long to mow and if there are any thistles and other stuff I often have to go over a few times. There are places that the Deere can only manage in reverse as it's steep or if the grass is green it can just spin out since it's not 4WD.

I have found that hiring somebody to mow my fields will cost me from $600-$1000 each time I want it done. I think that purchasing a tractor with FEL is the way to go. I would like the FEL for pulling up fence posts and for moving rocks, fencing, and other large things. I would also get fence post driller (that corkscrew thingy - LOL - I dont know what it's called) for digging holes for trees, fenceposts, etc.

I have a Kubota dealer very close by and they quoted me a good price for a L3200HST 4WD.

I would have many uses for this tractor right now - I have piles of rocks in the driveway - piles of debris - heavy stuff - mowing galore. But I am having a hard time justifying spending that much money after spending a lot on some home renovations. I could get this for Zero down and Zero % financing for 60 months.

I haven't done the math - but I am wondering what people would suggest for this situation. Should I hire somebody to mow and save myself very many hours and tanks of gas using the Deere? Should I just use what I have and neglect all the other work I have to do? Should I just bite the bullet and go into debt and use this thing for everything like digging holes - I mean LOTS of holes and fenceposts, mowing, grading, etc. We have a long gravel road that is about 1/4 mile long that needs grading every once in a while.

Thanks for any input. I don't want to buy the wrong thing or waste money on hiring somebody to do stuff when I know that eventually I will just bite the bullet and get a tractor.

If you are mechanically inclined I would consider a used 4x4 35+ hp diesel tractor with loader, and the extra money can buy things like a good 6 foot rotary brush cutter and a 3 point post hole digger...

the things you will use the tractor for will just keep growing and growing and you will wonder why you didn't make a tractor the first purchase for the new property...