11 Acres-Tractor?ATV? or Work horses?

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We bought an 11 acre hobby farm with a barn, pole barn, chicken coop, and a couple of other out buildings. We are new to farming (moved from the city). Do we need a small tractor, an atv, or should we work the land with work horses? The chore mainly is mow hay, but we would like to farm 2 to 3 acres?

-- Michael L. Gommesen (mdgomm@pathwaynet.com), February 10, 2001

Answers

Try a DR Trimmer. They're good for mowing hay and you can go over it in a few days going the other direction and it will "flip" it over to speed in drying. We've never once regretted the money spent buying the Trimmer. I would advise doing as we did, and going the extra cash for the overhead Intec (sp?) engine - it's more car-like than lawnmower-like and puts out much less pollutants and doesn't "smoke you" to death like a lawnmower engine can. Get the beaver blade attachment (for cutting down small diam. trees and you've got a lawn mower, a hay tractor, a (small) chainsaw and a weedeater in one, for nowhere near the cost. The customer service people were in the circus once, I'd swear, from the way they bent over backwards to work with us (we got a slightly misaligned something or the other - it happens) and the certified repair people here turned out to be egregious a**holes, so the company took ours back, fixed it at their cost (shipping too!) and put the name of the local guys on their "s**t list" not to send other customers to> Really nice folks, and really seem to care.

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), February 10, 2001.

Michael, After two years on our five acres, it became apparent that if we were going to keep up with everything we would have to have a tractor. My John Deere 755 has turned out to be one of the best investments we've ever made. Yes, investment. After looking at used tractors, it became clear to me that a well cared for tractor does not lose its value like a car. I bought a new tractor because the used ones were nearly as expensive.

There are so many things you can do with a tractor with hydraulics, PTO, and four wheel drive. Things you cannot do with a team of horses or an ATV. I have a brush hog for mowing the pasture, a tiller for the garden, an auger for post holes, and a loader for moving compost, dirt, gravel, wood chips, etc. I also have a set of forks that attach to the loader for picking up pallets. There are many more implements that you can run off a tractor: front and back blades, snow blower, grooming mowers, backhoe, etc. I use my tractor for moving trailers around (with the draw bar), dragging logs out of the woods for fire wood, pulling out fence posts, smoothing the gravel road, clearing brush and grading new pasture, etc. My tractor is versatile. With one power plant I can perform many tasks.

-- Skip Walton (sundaycreek@gnrac.net), February 10, 2001.


Hi Michael,

Do you have any experience with horses? I've spent my whole life with riding horses but have never owned drafts. I'm toying with the idea of buying a team to do some work with on our farm. I wouldn't do any haying with them but I'd like to drag out logs for firewood-we have 113 acres of land, 50 of it's open, hayfield and pasture, the rest is wooded. The wooded part is mostly hilly--quite hilly actually. I'd feel safer with a team of horses than a tractor up there. I'd also use them to pull a small manure spreader and/or wagon. Plus I just like drafts (grin). I'll be looking for an older, very quiet team that will teach me. If you don't have horse experience you might want to think about a tractor.

Stacy Rohan in cold Windsor, NY

-- Stacy Rohan (KincoraFarm@aol.com), February 10, 2001.


Tractor would be my suggestion. The horses, I presume you mean a team; will require about half of your 11 acres for feed and pasture (perhaps more I do not know where you are).

ATV, will eliminate too much farming. This as you mentioned is a hobby farm, so if the hobby is atv riding and not farming the atv would be O.K.

-- Ed Copp (OH) (edcopp@yahoo.com), February 10, 2001.


Horses went out of fashion quite quickly once tractors came on the scene!

-- john hill (john@cnd.co.nz), February 10, 2001.


I wasn't able to talk my husband into getting a tractor. He said we have too many steep hills for one to work without possibly tipping over. I did get an ATV. Don't get me wrong, it's better then using a wheelbarrow but it cannot do as much as a good tractor with a frontloader. When you say mow hay, do you mean just cut it down or to bale it? If it's to bale, maybe you can make a deal with a farmer to come cut and bale for you.

-- Dee (gdgtur@goes.com), February 10, 2001.

There will be plenty of work to do on your 11 acres, Make your life a little easyier, buy the tractor. Depending on you terain you might be able to get by with an old tricycle tractor which are usually cheeper. Good Luck.

-- hillbilly (internethillbilly@hotmail.com), February 10, 2001.

In my opinion, tricycle tractors are accidents waiting to happen. You should be able to get a rebuilt, repainted Ford 8N plus accessories for less than $3,000. I use a Ford 3000, which is a mid- sized tractor, large enough to handle large round hay bales on the rear spear. I went with Ford because there is a Ford repair place just down the road. Guy is 82 and wants to retire at 85. He will be sorely missed. He's probably forgotten more about these older tractors than most repairmen know.

What I can't do myself, I hire done. I have no inclination to own equipment such as hay cutters, windrowers or balers as I'm not mechanically inclined. My neighbor does the disking when a pasture needs to be reseeded.

If I ever were to have my woods cut again, I would go with loggers who use horses. They do far less damage to the land.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), February 11, 2001.


There's pluses and minuses to both tractors and horses (notice I am keeping very quite about the ATV).

Horses: (plus) My draft mare is used for logging and riding and pulling a stone boat. She is quiet,provides a foal every other year, and is easy on the steep slopes. She rides my son and is ever so careful not to step on him when he feeds her and doesn't spook! Nickers at me whenever I pass by, and gives us a good feeling just by being around her.

Minus - She eats a LOT of hay, we go through one round bale (900 lbs) every 8-9 days. If fed square bales, she eats 1 a day. We don't give her too much grain though as she will get too fat. She eats every day even when not working! Incidentals like farrier and worming and shots too. Requires at least one acre of land by herself just to romp and roam (never mind pasture..).

Tractors (plus) don't eat when not working. don't have to take into consideration the tractor may not feel good, feel like working, too full of itself to work, get out that heavy harness, oil and clean the harness, doesn't require new tires every six or eight weeks, stops where you park it and doesn't require bedding.

Minus - loud, may require mechanical help now and then and hopefully you can fix it, not good on steep terrain, loud, emits fumes, breaks down sometimes, loud, requires good deal of effort to change its tires and parts can be expensive. Did I mention loud?

So you see, we got our draft horse to have a partner and sometimes we do wish we had a tractor, but after our neighbor had commercial loggers come in and destroy his land and our joint fence, we decided a draft would do just fine. Mostly wish we had a tractor for lifting all those round bales to feed the draft...

-- Cindy (colawson@mindspring.com), February 11, 2001.


Horses and mules are more versitile and fun also. I know loggers that saved themselves from bancruptcy by ditching mechanical equipment and going back to mules. A good team of pony mules can go places a small tractor cant.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), February 11, 2001.


Be different, save money, learn a old fashion skill and be ahead of the energy short fall!

I have tractors - noisy, dangerous and up-keep is expensive if you use it.

I had 5 ATVs over the years, that is about $25,000 bucks worth and hindsight plus looking at two out the window - not worth it.

Horses require too much feed and attention for what they can do.

Get you some donkeys, standard size and up. Teach them to drive a plow, sled or a wagon. They are smarter, calmer, stronger pound for pound than a horse and they reproduce. Several advantages over horses or mules. Check them out on the WWW, http://www.donkeys.com/ADMS.html then start looking around your area and talk to donkey owners.

Big dis-advantage is you will have difficulty making that big, favorable impression with your city-slicker friends and relatives until they cannot afford gasoline, coming sooner than they think.

There must be something to donkeys, man has used their services at least three thousand years. I like them.

-- George, an old homesteader (newsrc@txcyber.com), February 11, 2001.


You're right, Jay. A good pair of small drafts or mules can go places where a tractor can't. They also won't eat as much as our big draft and probably won't be so hard on the ground. Our mare has such big feet that we have to rotate her paddocks (we have four) to keep her from tearing up the ground during Ga's rainy season. I don't think mule hooves are quite so big. Guess we are just partial to the peace and quiet that comes from not having alot of mechanical equipment. The only hard part is finding horse drawn stuff around here. Thanks to a guy in Ala. we got a metal singletree so are now back to clearing out some more land.

Well y'all have a good one.

-- Cindy (colawson@mindspring.com), February 11, 2001.


The tractor is the best decision. I have an 4-wheel drive, ATV which I use every day to get around the ranch, it has a winch, which is handy for a lot of little tasks. I carry a tool box that has about all I need for keeping up with fences or the irrigation system, it will carry my water cannon and 200' 2" of flat line, I can cross the creek quickley if need be, I heard cows with it and can get back to the barn or shop fast if I have to. But I also have a New Holland 3010 52HP tractor with quick detache loader, an auger, 7' bush-hog, 6' tiller, chipper/shredder, 8' disk, cultivator, forks & a 3-Pt boom. I can move a lot of weight, skid logs, the loader has an 8 foot reach. also we have a DR Power wagon, sort of a motorized wheel barrow, it is in service almost every day too. The DR will carry a lot of weight. A couple of years ago I rigged it to spool out barbed wire for new fence, it caried all the tools for that job, we pick rock with it, move hay bales, hog feed, compost, anything, the sides come off and you have a flat bed that will carry several pallets, (if the tractor is busy) I have had this DR for 4 years and not a problem yet and it has had some rough use,my hired man flipped it upside down into a pond, we hauled it out with the winch from the ATV. The DR can get into real small places where the tractor will not, but it will not replace a tractor, but for small holdings it is great. We have a 1975 F-100 4X4 we use frequently on the farm too.

-- Hendo (redgate@echoweb.net), February 12, 2001.

No matter what you get you,ll want something bigger or smaller. A Ford 8N would do everything but it has its wish list, wish it was bigger, wish it had live hydraulics and so on. A Ford 600 to 3000 series will have more and less of a wish list. These are a good mid range tractor. I think every farm needs three tractors; small farmall cub, medium ford 660, and a 50+ hp large JD. The old Fords have a three point hitch which is what all tractors use now so you can buy an older cheaper tractor and and use modern implements on it. Also if you buy an old tractor find out how much its worth or whats wrong with it at this site. http://www.ytmag.com/cgi-bin/boards.cgi

-- tlak (tlak@scrtc.com), February 15, 2001.

Thanks to all who contributed to this discussion. Like the original poster, I bought a small farm (14 acres), have no experience, and was having trouble choosing between a tractor and an ATV. I learned a lot reading the answers to the original request for advice.

-- Charles Silver (csilver@mail.law.utexas.edu), July 04, 2001.


We have 78 acres in southeast Arizona. It is relatively flat and rectangular in shape. The soil must be pretty good as there are farms on both sides. They raise alfalfa. We are told that apples are a good crop along with peaches, cherries, pecans, etc. I have a chance to buy a Case 440LL or 480? Not sure which. It looks just like a 580. Does anybody know what the difference is? I believe that a backhoe cannot be attached. Don't know what year it is; haven't gotten that far into it. It sounds and runs good. It has a leaky hydraulic cylinder that operates the gannon. Are they expensive to replace or repair? Would this tractor be suitable for farming operation? I realize it is actually a tractor designed for construction. I am wondering if it has enough gear changes to do general farm work? It has a front loader also. I need a response before making the purchase.

-- Hank (hsnrs@att.net), April 15, 2002.

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