Buying Advice Looking for advice and experience on stepping up to our first "real" (non-lawn) tract

[G31]

Re: Looking for advice and experience on stepping up to our first "real" (non-lawn) t

Forgot to add...most of the big tasks you want to do will require a large-framed unit, which would be a lot of $ from any manufacturer. You will either have to do those tasks slowly, or pay someone to do the finishing work. Any unit you buy can get you started, but getting it right will probably be a big job. For example, the pasture I spoke of was once covered in pines. Those pines were recently sold and cut down, leaving a billion stumps to remove. He has a hoe, but the job is still a bit much for it. The solutions were to hire someone with a dozer to do it all in a day, or spend weeks digging them out. In another example, he tried to excavate a small pond, about twice as large as a normal pool, and failed. He had to pay someone with an excavator to do the rest of the work. Sometimes it's better to leave the one-time big jobs to the people who do them for a living.

Anything from a 23-horse to a 70-horse model will do everything else you want, but some just do it easier. Carrying firewood is easy, even for a craftsman mower and trailer. Pushing over trees is dozer work.

You might reconsider the hoe for a post hole digger with different width augers. It will do much of the same work, but at a small fraction of the price. If you will routinely dig up big rocks, or go more than a few feet down a lot of the time, the hoe is worth it. My FIL has not used his hoe for much since the stumps were removed.

 

[oldpilgrim]

Re: Looking for advice and experience on stepping up to our first "real" (non-lawn) t

Flusher hit the nail on the head.

yup...................

 

[AxleHub]

Ck80,

Welcome. I sensed from several sentences in your opening post that you didn't know what was under the brush and weeds. In 2003 my wife and I bought 1.5 acres that had 3 to 6 feet of grass and brush on the whole thing. At the time I bought an inexpensive rider . . Set it to high height and cut a couple days. Today I'd know to find a guy with a track drive skidsteer and a "fire lane" brush cutter. Why? Because it doesn't sound like you know what you have yet and a firelane cutter will take up to 4 inch trees/stumps/ etc. If it finds rocks . . It goes thru them or over them unless they are boulders.

Cost to do this is not huge and some landscapers or small excavators have these. In hours you can have everything done for $75 to $90 an hour. Recently I had it done on 2 acres of ugly saplings and trees in a very rough prairie/pasture for 200.00 total because it was an end-of-day job when he was available.

Then what? Walk or ride " something " on this land slowly . . Every area and every where so you get a feel of the land contours and condition. Chuck holes? Bumpy land? Rock or shale on surface? Animal holes or dens? Contour angles?

You're in Georgia . . do you know how lucky you are when you say Georgia and tractor in rhe same sentence? Virtually every brand has their central U.S. facility in Georgia. Used equipment should be cheap because Georgia is the home of scut/cut/mid size tractor brands like kubota, massey, etc. etc..

But know your land first. Plenty of
time to be an equipment owner once you know and walk the land. For me riding a lawn mower for several months taught me so much about the land. But having it all cut to see the land was a key.

Then you can find local/regional dealers of used and new to start visiting.