Buying Advice Tractor Suggestions for 30 Acre Homestead w/ Horses

[woodchipper]

As your budget is limited, it would be hard to consider a tractor with cab and hydrostatic. A two wheel drive tractor with quick attach front bucket in the 45 to 50 Hp. range, would fit the bill. But only if your land is on level ground. If it is sloping more than 2 degrees, a four wheel drive would then be required, because of the muddy nature of your land. John Deere and Kubota are the brands that commmend more money... Lesser expensive but none the less very good ones to consider would be LS, Kioti, Branson, and perhaps Mahindra. There is no such thing as a bad tractor! As a runing tractor is always a good tractor. If you intend on mowing your grass with the tractor, then you will need mid mount PTO. Unless you go with trailing rollers?
For your road maintenance, a Heavy Duty Back Blade is a must. Don't go under 7 feet wide. If you can get a foot wider than the tracks on both sides, you are then in a good position to do just about anything this implement is designed for. Whatever tires you decide om, make sure you get enough clearance around the wheel well, for future chain add ons! Great in the mud, and in winter, as you know.

 

[netem]

I have 20 acres that I manage with a 4200 Deere hydro. I have turf tires, belly mower, loader,5 ft disc, brush forks,5 ft rear blade and box blade. Although it could use a few more horses for its size this tractor has done everything I have ask it to do with no break downs and I use this tractor. I have had 2wheel drive tractors before but can't beat 4/4 and love the hydro.

 

[Otto Syracuse]

I bought a JD4410 4 years ago with 500 hours for $15K. I considered other tractors with shuttle shift, etc, but I am very glad I went with the Hydrostatic transmission . Much easier to maneuver the tractor, and yes, easier for the wife to drive around as needed too. Plenty of HP for what I do, which is similar to you, 30+ acres horse farm, lots of FEL work, brush hogging pastures, manure mover, compost pile work, dragging logs, etc. This winter I put a snow blade on it and clear my 1000' driveway. I like that I can really push the snow into tall piles. I have R4 tires and they have great traction 95% of the time. The other 5% I wish there were Ags, were loaded, or had chains. But I just adjust how I do something and I haven't been really stuck (needing another tractor to pull me out) yet!

Good luck on your purchase and your property.

 

[WM75Guy]

I have 14 acres and horses. Don't focus just on HP, look at weight and loader capacity. While my 40HP and 50HP do everything I need, they will not do what I want. Loader lift capacity is the weakness at 1500# at the pins. I can lift pallets of shavings and pellets but I have to split the 2000# load on the one pallet from the manufacturer to two for me to be able to lift them off the trailer. I move my 1000-1200# round bales around OK but I have to have rear ballast. I want a 10 bale hay grapple to move square bales but it will not work. While the overall weight is under loader capacity at the pins it's not when you put it 6-8 feet out.

Remember you are on a site for CUTs and SCUTs so that is what most will recommend. Look at larger older utility and agricultural tractors. While it is nice to have an HST most manufacturers stop at 50HP. From there up it is geared models and there is nothing wrong with a geared tractor. Also most larger agricultural tractors are 2WD, not 4WD. Again there is nothing wrong with that as they have the heavier weight working for them. As was suggested you can rent other types of equipment as needed. It's better to rent the right equipment for that occasional job than tear up your equipment trying to do something it was not designed for.

 

[Creamer]

Forgive my ignorance, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the models I listed in my original post CUT frame tractors???

yes the 4410 and 3320 are CUT frame tractors. I just wanted to make sure you stayed in that range. Some suggest a larger frame tractor which have more weight per hp and can pull and haul more for the same hp. These are certainly good but you do give up some handiness of the smaller tractor. I personally grew up with all larger framed tractors and they were great on the farm but they would not do well on my property now - the CUT is so much handier and does what I need very well but my brother still calls it a toy. His "toy" is a Kubota M135 but then he wants to lift 1700 lb bales and that is the size of tractor he is used to. He isn't driving across his lawn with it and doesn't care if it makes some tracks. He also didn't get it for $15k.