May Be Rethinking My Needs, Little Help, Please

[jenkinsph]

From reading thru all of this it appears you have a large lawn to cut no doubt. This also appears to be the most time consuming and routine task you will have. I would focus on getting the right machine to reduce the mowing time to a minimum. This may be more than $10,000.

I would wait on the tlb/tractor until you have a better idea of what is really needed. You might find you can rent cheaper than buying older equipment unless you are a proficient mechanic.

Are you retired or do you have only the weekends to maintain this? That may make a huge difference in what is best for you.

 

[Jimmy Joe]

I think a CUT with a large rear finish mower for the big areas and a riding lawnmower or possibly a zero turn. That way it would be possible for two people to mow when available. For the pasture, if it was too rough for the rear finish mower you could pickup a used 3 point sickle mower. They work great for under fences and ditches and ponds also, then hire out the back hoe work. We used to drag the pasture with a light drag or weighted chain link fence to knock apart the cow pies.

 

[robertwhite]

From reading thru all of this it appears you have a large lawn to cut no doubt. This also appears to be the most time consuming and routine task you will have. I would focus on getting the right machine to reduce the mowing time to a minimum. This may be more than $10,000.

I would wait on the tlb/tractor until you have a better idea of what is really needed. You might find you can rent cheaper than buying older equipment unless you are a proficient mechanic.

Are you retired or do you have only the weekends to maintain this? That may make a huge difference in what is best for you.

I am retired, so time is not an issue. I do not however want to spend all day on a CUT once a week.

A new Dixie Chopper with a 66" cut is well under $10K and it would surely knock out the mowing in right around 2 hrs.

The TLB will be something I will visit a little down the road, but if I can get one on the cheap, it sure beats renting, plus I have it whenever I need it.

Biggest problem is lack of Dixie dealers near me. The closest is 30 minutes (no big deal), but the next closest is at least an hour. I was hoping to be able to rent a demo unit to see if it will do what I need. Don't know if they will do that or not.

This really is a harder choice than buying the property itself.

 

[TripleR]

Interesting thread. A lot is going to depend on how much you will actually use a backhoe. We have one that we haven't used in years, but we are looking at a couple of project now that we need one for and are getting it up and running and then it will go back to sleep for quite a while. It was my father's or we would sell it and buy one when we needed it and sell it when finished as we can get good used backhoes around here quite easily in the 6k range. We recently rented one for a weekend, but our upcoming projects preclude rental due to my sons' schedules. If you are going to use one a lot, they are great to have, but most of our stuff is done with one of our FEL equipped tractors and the backhoe portion just gets in the way.

I can understand the interest a dedicated mower would have for you with all of the lawn you have and thanks to JOHNTHOMAS, my wife and I want to get an F3080 or F3680 at some point. You could not tie my wife up and put her on a ZTR, but for some they are great. The advantage to the F Series is the tractor functions you can perform such as snow removal and such in addition to pulling stuff. I also like the 4WD.

We have found a RFM on a mid size tractor does a really good job and will not only give a good quality cut, but will cut some really tall and tough vegetation. We have mowed our yard with them and the ride quality is much better than a dedicated mower.

As to putting in wildflowers, that can work really well as we had several acres in wildflowers until my sons decided to get into horses and we put the land into pasture. Establishing a good wildflower field is a lot of work, but well worth it.

 

[robertwhite]

A lot is going to depend on how much you will actually use a backhoe.

A TLB will actually get a bunch of use at my place. I want to enlarge the pond it currently has (which a CUT w/backhoe will not do), I need to then move that dirt to another part of the property to build a berm. I also will be putting up a large shop, so once again the TLB will be needed. Digging out tree stumps, gravel driveway reconditioning, etc.

I can understand the interest a dedicated mower would have for you with all of the lawn you have and thanks to JOHNTHOMAS, my wife and I want to get an F3080 or F3680 at some point.

While the F3680 is a nice machine, they are awfully expensive and I do not believe they are all that quick in cutting speed. Nice ride, but I personally can't see spending that much on any mower. I also do not have snowplowing needs.

I think I need to convince a Dixie dealer to loan/demo/rent me one for a weekend. Don't know how hard or easy that will be able to do.

 

[robertwhite]

I had the same problem. My answer is an old 48" finish mower that I built a frame for and ganged it with two Swisher 60" tow behind mowers. I mow a field and lawn with it. Cut an 8 hour job down to less than 2 hours. My BX handles it with no problem.

Sam, that is a really cool set up. May I ask what kind of money you have into it?

 

[jenkinsph]

A new Dixie Chopper with a 66" cut is well under $10K and it would surely knock out the mowing in right around 2 hrs.

Biggest problem is lack of Dixie dealers near me. The closest is 30 minutes (no big deal), but the next closest is at least an hour. I was hoping to be able to rent a demo unit to see if it will do what I need. Don't know if they will do that or not.

I would recomend the weekend test drive, it would be good to know how long it takes to cut the eleven acres. Also how much fuel it takes to do it.

I stopped and did the math and using a 66" cutting width with no overlap you will need to maintain a constant 8.44 mph for two hours straight. Seems a little fast to me for a riding mower. If it is wide open as you say I would rethink this, maybe an rfm much wider and slower.

I think in buyig a $6000 dollar full size backhoe you will find that you incurr a lot of unforseen repairs, none of which will add much value to it. Undoubtedly you will get to learn alot about backhoes though.

Many years ago when my father retired he moved to a 180 acre farm in need of a lot of attention. Didn't have alot of money to spend so we started out small and cheap and did a **** of a lot of handwork too. We progressed from small 30 hp tractors thru 175 hp tractors and 70 hp dozers, lots of implements along the way. I learned something though, there is a reason others trade in old equipment, it starts costing too much to use.

 

[TripleR]

A TLB will actually get a bunch of use at my place. I want to enlarge the pond it currently has (which a CUT w/backhoe will not do), I need to then move that dirt to another part of the property to build a berm. I also will be putting up a large shop, so once again the TLB will be needed. Digging out tree stumps, gravel driveway reconditioning, etc.

Yep, sounds like a backhoe will be the way to go on that one. Even with a backhoe, it may be slow going depending on the size of your project. We are in the process of building a commercial firing range and doing some work on one of our 8 acre ponds and have two tractors and a Bobcat 864 going. A CUT/TLB would be almost useless.

While the F3680 is a nice machine, they are awfully expensive and I do not believe they are all that quick in cutting speed. Nice ride, but I personally can't see spending that much on any mower. I also do not have snowplowing needs.

I think I need to convince a Dixie dealer to loan/demo/rent me one for a weekend. Don't know how hard or easy that will be able to do.

Yes, they are expensive, but with a 72" deck, you can cover a lot of ground and as my wife and I are in our sixties, we can't handle the ride of going fast on a ZTR anyway. We also have very steep inclines and a ZTR doesn't work on them; 4WD is a must. We haven't bought one yet, but if we get a dedicated mower, it will be one of the F Series. As we already have a lot of equipment, we are in no hurry.

A friend has a Dixie Chopper and he loves it; our neighbor has a JD ZTR and hates it; just depends on the individual I guess. I would encourage a long test ride as at one point I thought I would like one. Good luck.

 

[whistlepig]

The RFM's give good quality cut. I would match the cut of my Woods PRD7200 against any type of mower. But the ZTR's are much faster. By a bunch. Both my neighbors have ZTR's. When all three of us are mowing at the same time I sometimes feel like I am in slow motion. The neighbor across the street has a Ferris ZTR. It has a suspension system. He looks like he is gliding across his lawn.

 

[Gittyup]

Please note I said USED SCUT and USED CUT. No need to spend $25K. You can get a nice used SCUT with a 60" deck for less that $6K, and a very nice45 - 50 hp CUT for around $10K.

Besides a zero turn isn't really any faster than the same size deck on a SCUT if you are talking open but not perfectly smooth fields. And a descent zero turn isn't really much less money than a SCUT either, new or otherwise. You will get what you pay for.

I was also suggesting (I guess not clear) that you treat less than the 11 acres as actual finished lawn and use the bigger tractor, perhaps with a finish mower or even a bush hog for the rest. And, as was suggested, two can mow at once.

You'll never do a cow pasture with any satisfaction on a ZTR, especially if it's wet. ZTR's are very nice, and very fast if you have a manicured, fairly flat yard. They are especially good if you have a lot to mow around. But, for those you have rough or hilly land, they just don't work so well.

There are companies that make ditch type mowers that are like ZTRs, but designed for rough and inclined land (safely mow acrose 45 degree slopes). Can't remember the brand, but saw a very nice one with a 72" deck going for $7K several months back. Now that kind of machine would work nicely in just about all types of mowing situations.