How big of a tractor do you use on your homestead?

I've been thinkin' about this thread allot...and there is one more option that is available to a small tractor owner concerning moving and feeding 'big round bales'.
I have a little single axle 'trailer' that has the two graples that hold the bale with a hand winch that lifts the bale off the ground.
I can pull this contraption with just about any motor vehicle (my little 1954 scout for instance). But not my 4wheeler(300)....well maybe the new breed of 750 ATV! It has gotten me out of countless jams, and to move a bale from the bale stack to the barns to hand feed to the critters it is a gem.
Usually I have my 4010 started and move my bales around with it. But when I need to move just one or two, and it is -40* and I havent plugged in the ol' green machine...the 'bale unroller' gets hooked up in a long minute.
But then all the bales need to be stacked on the ground. Lift is only about 8".
My neighbor runs a similar outfit with his team of horses. (He feeds 300 cow/1000sheep)
Kestrel

DH and FIL move wrapped round bales with the skid loader. Now, as to how much these bales weigh, I can't tell you.

My dad has about 40 wooded acres and used a Ford 8N for years with snow blade, mower, and a home made box for miscellaneous stuff all using 3-point hitch. He went up to a Work Master recently.

On the farm DH has a JD2510, a 3020, a 4020 and a 4430 and the skidloader. FIL plows snow and puts gravel in the lanes with the skid loader. The 4430 is almost too big for a lot of the jobs ... on the other hand, DH's uncle who farms about 2,000 acres (no hay, no livestock) has a 4430 for his "utility" tractor.

Good luck finding what you need.

Ann

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"In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty. In all things, charity."

I have a Ford 4000 Diesel with a front end loader. The only way I would try to lift a round bale with the bucket would be with my shredder on the back as a counterweight. Tractors get really dangerous when the back wheels start lifting off the ground. Even more dangerous if you start lifting one of the rear tires and a front tire off the ground with a too heavy load.

Remember that either on the front end loader, or on the 3 pt, the load is way out on a lever and acts like it weighs much more due to mechanical advantage working against you. I prefer to load them on a flat bed and roll them off or pull them off and be alive to fight another day.

We have four tractors, the smallest is a JD4020 (which I agree is a great all-around tractor). We also have a 7410, 4430 and some big 8xxx something that I never drive and is not used for hay.

The 7410 has a loader and bale forks on it, the others just have bale forks. They could have loaders, but one is enough. They all handle the bales (1500 pounds) with no problem and I'm never fearful that I am picking up too much weight.

I was thinking of getting a smaller tractor awhile back and I decided the least amount of HP I was willing to deal with was 50. I can't remember all the specs on all the machines we looked at, but be darn sure that they are rated to carry what you want to carry.

Yeah, you can push a smaller tractor to do more than it is supposed to do. Yeah, you can maybe pick up something that is too heavy. Yeah, you can so all kinds of things with a tractor that it's not supposed to do.

I suppose that is why tractor accidents are the biggest cause of fatalities and serious injuries on the farm. When a tractor flips, it's generally not survivable...at least not in the shape you were in before. When a round bale falls on you, you aren't going to climb out from under it unscathed.

I am much more comfortable erring on the side of caution when it comes to what my tractor will do or won't do. It ain't worth dying for.

Jena

Your sizing task is the loader moving bales of hay. The size of the tractor is going to be as important as the HP rating. Do you really need a loader for the bales or do you just need to move bales. Will a bale spear work? I think to life a round bale I would want a 40hp large frame tractor with lots of weight on it. You didnt say anything about bailing hay? If your going to consider that then 40hp and up.

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Gary in Central Ohio

bigger is not more expensive . thirty horse do not use that much less fuel than 50-60 horse .once purchased an older ford 8000 which is a 115 horse tractor for 3 grand ,at that time there were 8n's selling for 3500.! as other people have pointed out it's much easier to under work a tractor than over work a big one.when i get my old major going we will have 43 too 83 horse power available .

I had always heard the 50hp rule too, but after talking to some of the folks around here they thought you could get by with less. The only thing the loader would be doing on the hay bales would be to drop them in the feed area. I might end up figureing something else out for the hay as I really don't want too big of a tractor in case the wife has to use it.
I also remember hearing that if you got a diesel you could actually figure an additional 20% added to the HP, just because it was a diesel instead of gas. Anybody else ever hear that?


Nik

20% added torque maybe, hp is rated as engine PTO or drawbar with little difference between gas over diesel. Diesels will lug through tough spots without losing power better than a gas. Diesels in general use less gallons per hour of use too, the comparison for my skidsteer is quite dramatic between gas and diesel, the gas using almost 80% more!

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Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup........

This is really true. I am amazed how much people will spend on a little tractor, when the could get a bigger one for the same to less money. Under 50 HP is really not a good option unless you just want an oversized garden tractor.

Speaking of tractors I've been looking at the Kiotis or Kubotas in 4x4 and anything else really. Probably something used but fairly new and in good condition with at least a loader. Probably spend anywhere from 15-20 k. I really need the loader and could also use a blade, brush hog and maybe a post hole digger but those could come later.

I always really wanted an old Ford 8N but the more I read the more I think it may be just a little to light for my purposes and a 4x4 would be very handy.

Are the Kioti tractors any good? I had never heard of them before but seen a few advertised for a decent price. I need something reliable and something I won't have to be wrenching on constantly.

We have a John Deere 790. We didn't need anything bigger and it does a great job moving manure piles, grading the drive, auguring post holes, bush hogging, etc.

DH adn FIL had forks on the back of the 4020 for awhile when we first started usign big round bales. However, they changed the feeding arrangements so they could move the bales with the skid loader (which has a cage all around the operator) and push them up to stanchions facing a concrete pad outside.

All of our barns are set up this way. We have not used a ring-shaped round-bale feeder -- that you have to fill by going up and over -- for several years. Wasted hay can just be scraped away off the concrete. (We were getting a lot of waste because we were feedign the beef steers the last of the round bales we made for the dairy cows, so they were a couple of years old.)

FIL *might* have a slowly progressing form of muscular dystrophy, and has arthritis and has been kind of stove up for years ... so he and DH have always tried to set things up so FIL can stay active ... which is why they do things the way they do sometimes.

FIL had a Massey Ferguson (?) tractor with a front end loader until Skid Loaders or Bob cats came out. Those are so much more handy and with the cage and roll bars, much safer in a lot of situations.

We all can make a lot of situations worse than they have to be by hurrying and trying to do too much with the wrong machine. Some of the scariest moments of my childhood were watching my dad trying to do too much with his 8N Ford, front end popping up, wondering if it was going to flip on him or not. I guess THE scariest was my dad running after my brother (age 8 or 10 ...?) and pulling him off the Ford since the brakes went out and the tractor was rolling downhill backwards for a ditch. Obviously we all survived -- but it's not always a happy ending.

On that cheerful note ...

Good luck finding what you are looking for!
Ann

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"In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty. In all things, charity."