Also the OP, I'd look at the Kubota M108S, it's not that much more than a fully loaded
L5740 but a lot more tractor according to the specs.
I think I need to draw the line somewhere! :laughing: Remember we're talkin about my 30acres of forested land here.
However, 3k pound lift at the FEL would be very nice!
I wrote a list of things I'll be doing with the tractor, and maybe you guys can help me out by giving me your thoughts on whether or not I'm on the right track in needing a larger tractor.
I'll try to make it short.....
I'll be using the tractor on 30 acres of forested land, there are already some nice trails (wide enough for a pickup truck) going through the property. I'll be putting in an 800' driveway and clearing a few acres prior to buying my next tractor (most likely it will be after the house is built for financial reasons)
-I'm really liking the idea of the buddy seat since I'd like the next tractor I buy to be my last for a good 20 yrs or so, and if my kid is anything like me, he/she will want to be in the cab with me.
-Eventually clear more land making a couple of small 3-5 acre fields over time for wildlife, then keep it mowed with a rotary mower
-Box blade or land plane for maintaining the rough trails after skidding logs
-skidding logs with a 3pt grapple
-I will do a lot of firewood processing but not commercially, just for my own use but I like to heat primarily with wood.
-Being in the 'granite state', there are a LOT of rocks on the land. I would like to sift out a lot of these rocks that are on the surface with a rock bucket. There are already 3 large piles of rocks on the propery, one pile is about 30' x 70' and a few feet high. I'd like to eventually move these rock piles and hope to use some of them for my chimney.
-Pick up heavy logs for my sawmill, I very often can't lift the full logs off the ground with my current setup, mostly because I can't cut the logs to the standard 8' as I'm milling large/long timbers.
-Mow thick brush with a HD rotary mower to clear out more land
-I mostly use the FEL with grapple, and it is rated for 2,500lbs, I'd like to be able to use close to the full rated capacity, the unit weighs 500lbs so a lift capacity of close to 3k would be required to max it out, I know that's a little high but my aim would be the best lift capacity without going "too big" of a tractor.
-Rake up slash/branches/debris with landscape rake
-I like to palletize firewood, and would move the pallets around with the FEL and 3pt hitch.
-I also palletize my lumber, when it's green, it's very heavy and I can't take a full pallet full on the FEL. I can lift it with the 3pt hitch but can't get it high enough with that to stack it.
-I'd like to run a snowblower on the FEL to clear my driveway
-I will maintain 2 other gravel driveways that are fairly short (family) and also share the maintenance of roughly 1,200' of gravel road (the road starts off at 12%-15% grade then levels out, it's town owned but not town maintained, it will be up to my neighbor who maintains it now, and myself, as I'd like to be a good neighbor and 'share' the duties when we move there)
-I would possibly buy a stump grinder similar to the one Pclausen just bought for his new 5085 (I think it was him) as I'll have a lot of stumps to deal with.
I know I could do a lot of this work with a smaller framed tractor, but there are some things that I can't do with my current tractor, which is why I'm thinking of this upgrade. My current tractor is paid off and the money I got for it would be used towards the new one. As much as I'd like to upgrade now, I think realistically I'm 2 yrs away, which is okay with me because I want to get the rough sitework done before I get a cab for obvious reasons.
I keep going back to thinking that it doesn't make sense for someone like me, who doesn't use the tractor commercially, and has very little land compared to many, to upgrade to the size tractors I'd like? From what I'm seeing, especially after reading AKfish's posts, it doesn't sound like the price is all that much different for a 4720 than the M series. I don' think the physical size of the larger tractor would prohibit me from doing many things I currently do.
Any more thoughts?
