Buying Advice What do I need

[jenkinsph]

Hi! Great site!

I just bought a 5 acre property and am looking for a tractor. I have no idea what I need, but can tell you what I want:

1. The driveway is close to 450' long. A bucket or blade attachment is a must. The driveway is also brick, if you have any advice on not destroying that one.
2. Mowing. We're moving from a 1/2 acre property to this one. The prior owners were keeping about 2 - 2 1/2 acres in lawn and the rest in native grass. Ideally, I'd like to be able to mow with one attachment and vary the technique as required.
3. Lifting. I'm a car/home improvement guy. It'd be nice to be able to fork a full pallet (<2000 lbs) to save my aging back.

I have no brand loyalty. Some of my farming/hobby farming co-workers have been making recommendations about Allis and Massey. I'm pretty open.

I am siding towards a gas tractor to keep things as simple as possible, but I have some limited diesel experience if turns out to be the better option.

Thanks!

Brooks

A good lawn and garden tractor or sub compact tractor will do all of your lawn maintenance and mowing work. Lifting the 2000 lb pallets safely puts you into a much larger machine, make sure that is important enough to consider.

I am in the paver business and the first thing I would ask is how smooth are the pavers? Might wan't to make sure you don't have any sticking up. I would suggest a blade with rubber edge if the bricks are smooth. For general cleaning a backpack blower works real well and is quick.

I use a Deere x749 to do most of my lawn work including mowing, fertilizing, raking and collection. Lots of similar size options out there in other brands that would work well for you. For the fork lift work if this is important to you I would consider an older used fork lift, I know of several of my contractor friends who have bought these relatively cheap. I should also mention that my brick and paving wholesalers will all deliver the pallets of materials and stage them for me where needed, saves me alot of aggravation.

 

[cyclonengineer]

Thanks for the input!

The brick is fairly smooth, but has settled from traffic, so there might be a chance of scraping the center of the blade if I end up with a wide one. I'm flexible on the lifting abilities, I just thought it'd be nice if it had "all-around capabilities".

What do you recommend for a CUT? I've been looking older, like a wide-front Allis D17, they seem to change hands around here for $3-4k...not sure if that size is considered CUT or just small

 

[Gittyup]

For snow removal I would consider a blower with nylon skid shoes. But I think your budget is a little low. A used JD 455 with blower would be a good setup but will be in $5K+ range. A bit cheaper might be a jd 425 or 445 with same blower. but jd 400's are in high demand if you can find at all. You could use a scraper blade with a rubber edge. But this could pull up bricks. In NE I'm betting you get too much snow for a broom. You probably also want a light float on those brick too.

 

[whistlepig]

On the brick driveway I would do an ATV with a blade. These can move a lot of snow. I can't see a tractor with a FEL or blade not hooking the brick. A brick caught in a snow blower would also make for a very bad day.