What farm chores can you do with a 4 wheeler?

[TxGypsy]

I finally bit the bullet and bought myself a 4 wheeler. Yes I know I could have bought a tractor for as much as I spent on the 4 wheeler. Guess I'll blame it on my second childhood I was wondering if there are any farm chores you can do with a 4 wheeler. I know you can get a mower that will go behind them. I can haul and tow stuff which comes in real handy for rock gathering. Anybody ever managed to rig a shade on one? It gets a bit warm here in the summer. Can you get a disk or plow attachment or maybe make one?

[Ford8N]

Originally Posted by TxGypsy

I finally bit the bullet and bought myself a 4 wheeler. Yes I know I could have bought a tractor for as much as I spent on the 4 wheeler. Guess I'll blame it on my second childhood I was wondering if there are any farm chores you can do with a 4 wheeler. I know you can get a mower that will go behind them. I can haul and tow stuff which comes in real handy for rock gathering. Anybody ever managed to rig a shade on one? It gets a bit warm here in the summer. Can you get a disk or plow attachment or maybe make one?

I only use my ATV for fun and quick transport. There are a lot of attachments but they just aren't built heavy enough to do the work of a small tractor. If you try to use it like a tractor you will probably ruin the 4 wheeler prematurely.

[Beeman]

They make all kinds of attachments, mostly for hunters cultivating a feed plot. Most everything is going to be marginal in function compared to a tractor's ability to work the land.
I started laughing about the shade thing. 4 wheelers go a tad faster then a tractor or a lawnmower so a rigged shade might not stand up well, either that or you might create a new sport or at least a funny home video.

[e.alleg]

Agrifab makes a hitch and implements, check out the website. Most people weld just together a few reel mowers and make a 7' gang field mower and cut the lawn at 10 mph, it works good. ATV's are also great for hauling a trailer with firewood or mulch or fence posts or whatever, they work great for that. They also work good for plowing snow. Trying to pull a 2 bottom plow with it will just make ruts, you won't be able to get enough weight on the tires to do any good.

[moonwolf]

I used mine a lot.
carry water sprayer when buring fields in early spring
tow a small trailer to haul water up from the pond
haul small amounts of cut firewood from the woodlot
move dirt or gravel. holds much more than a wheelbarrow full, and easier to manage for some distances
filled the trailer full of chicken manure/straw when cleaning the chicken coup. Easy to manuever a small 4 wheeler around a coup area than a tractor
the bigger tires and higher stance lets you get around better than a garden tractor
I never had one, but wish I did... a pull behind trail mower/brush hog. A 4 wheeler is ideal to pull that with to clear rough fields or trails.
tree planting. I'd take the transplants in a container strapped to the back rack and travel across to the other end of the property where I wanted to plant. makes a good way to do that. can carry a trailer also for fertilizer, water, feed, or whatever

very useful to have on the larger property homestead

[Up North]

They make a good broadcast seeder that bolts on ATV's and runs with a small electric motor off ATV. One of the most efficient and effective ways to do frost seeding,add clovers to pastures, plants turnips or legume seeds on soft to wet ground without making the ruts a tractor would.

[agmantoo]

I am very dependant on my 4 wheeler. I am still running the first one that I bought in 1989. The machine is used every day for transport to attend to the beef cattle. I have a receiver hitch mounted under the racks, front and rear. The receiver hitches are used as mounting hardware (fast hitch) for various attachments. When making fence repairs or modifications I have all the tools in a "basket" that I mount to the front hitch. Under normal day to day conditions I carry on the front hitch cattle supplies such as rope, ear tags, banding tool, etc. I have a combination folding rack that mounts to the front for transporting minerals/deer and when not transporting the rack is folded up and becomes a brush guard. For the rear hitch use, I have a seed broadcaster for small seed when conditions are too wet for a tractor. Additionally, I have a self contained herbicide sprayer that will cover 12 rows that I can pull over a field when the ground is too wet for a tractor. Also, I have a 12 volt powered 25 gallon sprayer that I can mount on the 4 wheeler rear receiver hitch for spraying the pasture fences. For the rear I have a dedicated trailer with a payout reel welded to the trailer for high tensile wire . I can pull wire with me and watch the unreeling thus avoiding tangling resulting in a one man task. PS...I also have a golf cart top on my 4 wheeler. This keeps the sun off me in hot weather and I have a windshield that mounts for cold weather, this is a nice feature. The throttle control on the 4 wheeler has an extension on the thumb control that gives relief to the hand after long use.

[CowboyBunny]

When we purchased this property the main tractor we owned was to big to drive across the bridge over the creek that seperates our property. Livestock is on the backside, house and barn on the frontside of the property. We sold the larger of the two tractors we had and bought a good work quad and love it. We use ours year round; spring it drags the garden plots and corn plot after we hit them with the plow, summer it hauls manure and feed, fall it hauls many cords of firewood out of the woods and winter it hauls water to the livestock and plows snow. We work our quad pretty hard and considering we bought it used it has been great.
We have other property an hour from home that we use for firewood and hunting, we load the quad in the back of the pickup truck and go and can easily use it at either property. Not as easy to do with a tractor. We have talked about purchasing some of the equipment and implements that you can get, between the gardens and food plots here at home and the deer food plots at our other property it sure would come in handy.
The other plus that I like is that it is much easier for my daughters and I to handle...I hated driving the Minne Moline we had before. It also takes up less room in the barn.
Tami - Heritage Corner Poultry

[hunter63]

Been using a 95 Suzuki for over 10 years for mowing/brushhogging and snow plowing, have trailer and sprayer for it and has been used more as a tractor then a recreational vechile.

Gotta tell you though, that you work the snot out of them as the air cooled motor runs at a slow speed for hrs. (No trouble with it, just my opinion).

Moved up to a tractor, and find my self using that more for work, letting use the poor little 4 wheeler "retire"for more "fun" stuff.

Is a good way to convince DW that you really need one though.

IMO, most attactments are over priced, too small and a waste of money.
BIL bought the front end loader for his and took it back, pick up anything with any weight, rear wheel came off the ground. Good for leaves and mulch, thats about it.

Mower, snow blade, sprayer, trailer are about the only "working attachments" I would recommend.
P.s. DW liked the "fun stuff" so much, had to get her one also.

[agmantoo]

When I went to rotate the cattle to a different paddock I took these to share with you. You can see the golf cart top and you will also see the Honda in its main task of transporting me to the cattle. Look closely at the left side of the fuel tank and you can see the manual hand shift I made. My left ankle was injured in a farm accident and doesn't function very well for shifting. The top is good about reducing sun heat but also functions to keep light rain off.
http://s73.photobucket.com/albums/i237/agmantoo/Honda/

[Country Doc]

I have 50 acres of bottomland that floods and it is great to check fences after a bad rain. I carry all the repair stuff(Wire, tools, chainsaw,etc) Also to feed bags of cubes to cattle and trips to the woods for cutting firewood.

[Yeti]

I have milk crates on the front racks so I can carry tools on mine. I use them for wood cutting and dragging and have a trailer for 3 of them. I have towed Jeeps with my bigger ones that have the power. I also use a concrete parking block as a drag with a chain in a yoke. makes quick work of the driveway. I also have a 900lb lawn roller it works well, but my sons quad can't pull it more then half full of water.