Buying Advice Need help deciding between skid steer or traditional tractor

[bigtrough]

I am in the Fredericksburg Texas area on a new ranch. My needs are to clear cedar & mesquite for food plots, build roads, maintain brush etc in pretty rocky granite and granite gravel. Just sold another ranch with tractor and all equipment including shredder, disc, chisel, etc so starting over and not sure what route to go. It's pretty hard to dig up a cedar tree with a rubber tire farm tractor but easy to plow etc. not sure about how to do it with a skid steer. Would welcome any advice.

 

[tman1020]

Skid steers are pretty tough machines but it's hard to beat a tractor for food plots and grading. Granite is going to be tough on anything and everything. I'm thinking a backhoe of some sort for the big stuff and trees like maybe a excavator.

 

[LD1]

Tractor with a quickly removable backhoe. A tractor can and will do anything a ss will do. But may be slower at certain things, primarily fel work. But a tractor can do things a as can't, like work ground. A tractor will also be faster traveling around in the farm and to/from fields.

Skid loaders do what they do very well. But are more limited in what they can do.

 

[RPW]

If you have a lot of ceder nothing beats a dozer. Rent for a weekend and you can clear 30 acres of heavy growth easily. Rocks won't be a problem and you can create roads before you get started on those food plots. Rent one with rippers and loosen the soil so you can go back through with a tractor or skidsteer with grapple to remove the larger rocks.

 

[jeff9366]

Tractors are fundamentally PULLING machines.

You sit high on a tractor, with good visibility.
The Three Point Hitch is the key part on a tractor. Three Point Hitch mounted implements are widely available and competitively priced. PTO powered implements are plentiful, efficient and relatively cheap.



Skid Steers are fundamentally PUSHING machines.

You sit low, between the wheels on a Skid Steer; forward visibility is good, side and rear visibility is limited.
Driver's compartment gets considerable heat from the engine. Most Skid Steers have solid tires; rough ride.
Implements are few and expensive as they are hydraulically powered.
No Three Point Hitch on a Skid Steer, therefore no plow, no Disc Harrow, no seed drill for Skid Steer.


Get another tractor. Hire a excavator and operator to remove trees, stumps.

 

[Grandad4]

I am in the Fredericksburg Texas area on a new ranch. My needs are to clear cedar & mesquite for food plots, build roads, maintain brush etc in pretty rocky granite and granite gravel. Just sold another ranch with tractor and all equipment including shredder, disc, chisel, etc so starting over and not sure what route to go. It's pretty hard to dig up a cedar tree with a rubber tire farm tractor but easy to plow etc. not sure about how to do it with a skid steer. Would welcome any advice.

Yes indeed you have granite ledge and rocks down there in Fredericksburg! We visit friends there whose place is just as you describe. If there's any bottom land near a creek, you have a chance for some workable soil, but doing any kind of dirt work elsewhere would call for a dozer and probably dynamite. Rough country but very beautiful.

If you've got workable ground to start with, your choices would either be a modern 4x4 diesel tractor with attachments, probably at least 40 hp or a larger old style 2wd farm tractor and the traditional tillage tools. Probably the 2wd would work better if you have more acreage that you plan to work but the modern 4x4 would be preferable for mowing, road building, etc. Grubbing your cedar and mesquite could be a one-time project for a hired dozer, or you could do-it-yourself with the right attachments for that 4x4 tractor, increasing your "sweat equity" in the place by a whole bunch. You're right about removing stumps with a tractor, although there are front end attachments for grubbing small stuff, anything big needs a backhoe. If you see a lot of that work on your place, you might look at getting a used full-size TLB to do that work and once that work is done, replacing it with a modern 4x4 diesel to take care of the place. As between a skid steer and a full size TLB, I'd go with the backhoe for removing stumps, and it can cover ground much faster to boot.

Don't know if that adds anything to what you already know, but those would seem to be your options. Best of luck with your new place.

 

[Poopdeck Pappy]

I've spent some time in that area, and it is indeed beautiful. But for removing mesquites, you don't want a rubber tired tractor unless the tires are foam filled, and even then it is not the best machine for the job.

If it was me, I'd rent a decent sized excavator for a few days and clear all the mesquite I wanted to clear. (Remember, you need to get the tap roots on mesquites.) Then I'd focus on buying a tractor that would do the other jobs I wanted to do.

Now THIS is how I would want to clear mesquites:

The work he does in a 7 minute video would take days (and several flat tires) with a rubber tired tractor.

 

[jeff9366]

Great video, PDP.

 

[Industrial Toys]

That guy that can clear 30 acres of heavy bush in a weekend is a guy I would like to have as a friend!

Skid steers are more in the construction end of the spectrum. Heavy plate, fortified cab. No plastic fenders or chrome nameplates to get ripped off.

They are much harder on the operator. I consider them more of a young mans machine.

Having done things the way I did and looking back, I should have gone for a skid steer first.

I absolutely hate farm tractor loaders. They tend to be ugly, bulky, unstable and visability sucks. This was an evolutionary developement process I guess and was intended more for scooping crap as an afterthought. The sight to the bucket edge of a skid steer is second to none. You could flip over a quarter, without too much practice.

 

[Xfaxman]

I am in the Fredericksburg Texas area on a new ranch. My needs are to clear cedar & mesquite for food plots, build roads, maintain brush etc in pretty rocky granite and granite gravel. Just sold another ranch with tractor and all equipment including shredder, disc, chisel, etc so starting over and not sure what route to go. It's pretty hard to dig up a cedar tree with a rubber tire farm tractor but easy to plow etc. not sure about how to do it with a skid steer. Would welcome any advice.

I have a good machine for pulling cedars, and doing much more. Here is a thread with more info: http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/.../274285-single-tractor-vs-skidsteer-mini.html Also click the second link in my signature.