How much ditching would cause buy choice?

[wawajake]

How feasible is ditching with a front bucket versus buying a backhoe attachment.

I am in market to buy a compact tractor up here in Canada.
My soil conditions is primarily clay with a few rocks.

I have 40 acres but 30 is bush and the remaining ten acres climbs up a hill behind my house, so I see using the tractor for typical snowplowing of 300 ft driveway and glorified wheelbarrow etc etc, but I also see myself needing to improve ditches / swales to improve drainage off the hill to run spring runoff away from my house.
Will a 4 ft bucket on a maybe 25 hp compact tractor still be able to cut into the clay with downward force and then I would just do 4ft of ditch at a time to depth of 2 or 3 feet , with maybe a ditch 3 or 4 feet wide.
Or am I expecting too much for front bucket and should look for tractor with a backhoe attachment ?
A new Kubota or Deere with front bucket and backhoe will run me $25,000 grand for small compact model I bet. So doing without backhoe might keep purchase under $20,000.
Any thoughts on ditching with front bucket?

jake

 

[flusher]

How feasible is ditching with a front bucket versus buying a backhoe attachment.

I am in market to buy a compact tractor up here in Canada.
My soil conditions is primarily clay with a few rocks.

I have 40 acres but 30 is bush and the remaining ten acres climbs up a hill behind my house, so I see using the tractor for typical snowplowing of 300 ft driveway and glorified wheelbarrow etc etc, but I also see myself needing to improve ditches / swales to improve drainage off the hill to run spring runoff away from my house.
Will a 4 ft bucket on a maybe 25 hp compact tractor still be able to cut into the clay with downward force and then I would just do 4ft of ditch at a time to depth of 2 or 3 feet , with maybe a ditch 3 or 4 feet wide.
Or am I expecting too much for front bucket and should look for tractor with a backhoe attachment ?
A new Kubota or Deere with front bucket and backhoe will run me $25,000 grand for small compact model I bet. So doing without backhoe might keep purchase under $20,000.
Any thoughts on ditching with front bucket?

jake

Front end loaders are meant for scooping loose stuff (dirt, gravel, sand, etc). The FEL bucket is not a particularly good digging tool. It helps to add a tooth bar to the bucket, but this only gets you part of the way to solving your ditching problem.

A lot of folks use a box blade to cut ditches and swales. Some have top n tilt mechanisms to make tilting the blade sideways easier. You can cut ditches and swales with this implement, but it takes a fair amount of practice to become proficient.

My preferred way to handle ditching and swale building is to use a plow (middle buster or moldboard) to loosen the soil. Then use the FEL bucket to scoop up the loose stuff and contour the ground.

 

[CurlyDave]

A box blade is good for a swale, for a true ditch a backhoe is better.

If you can lower the FEL enough, it is good for cleaning out existing ditches, but I wouldn't try to make a new one with it.

 

[JiminGa]

you'll be happy to know a JD 2305 TLB is well under $20k US.

 

[Matt_Jr]

you'll be happy to know a JD 2305 TLB is well under $20k US.

Not quite 25 hp but a Kubota BX24 is under 20k also. Maybe around 17k and it comes with a loader and a hoe. For under 20k you could get one with a MMM(mid mount mower) and a scraper blade for the rear(clears snow pretty good). -Matt

 

[wawajake]

Thanks for replies folks, I don't forsee needing it regularily for snow because I already have a ATV with 60 inch plow that worked quite well our first winter (2008)

The areas that need the most ditching already have ditches that have filled in somewhat . So I have roughly 200 yards of that .............and then some new ditching/swaling I could do that would just require one or two feet deep . I also already have a 48 inch Husqavarna lawn tractor so don't need tractor to do my two acres of lawn cutting. I will also use tractor to improve/maintain some ATV trails I use to retrieve firewood from my 30 acre woodlot.

We have one dealer here that sells Kubota and John Deere.
The only other dealer is 60 miles away and he sells the chinese type FUTON. (Jima ?). I can get a 24 hp 4WD FUTON with FEL and backhoe for roughly $17,000.

I am going to Kubota/JD dealer on friday , but I would be very supriosed if in Canada I can get similar equiped JD or KUbota for under $20,000, . My budget is actually $15,000 but flexible.....so thats why I figure I should reconsider backhoe need. But I also forsee doing ditching every year and I work all week so renting and getting it all done in a few days is not option.

I might need to look used if my local dealer cannot meet my budget. I do get the impression here from you folks that a decent dealer is most important and I hear good things about the Kuboat/ JD dealer, and not so much about Futon dealer further away.

jake

 

[MarkV]

If you don’t mind the ditches wide enough for your tractor to ride the middle of the ditch I think it is doable. A box blade or tiller to loosen up the soil followed by the tractor loader to clean up the spoils will work. With a rear blade that can tilt you can taper the edges to let your mower traverse the ditch. After the first time regular cleaning will not be bad with the loader if done often enough. If the first time is too much renting a mini excavator for a weekend can get a lot of digging done for much less than the cost of a backhoe.

Oh ya, welcome to the forum Jake.

MarkV

 

[wawajake]

Thanks Mark ...and all......... I have been gleaning the numerous forums here and also found one that mentioned a three point hitch attachment implement called a "middle buster" its a 14" furrower. like Flusher mentioned above . I can see being able to straddle any existing ditches and running this implement one or two times down the middle of ditch (hopefully not hitting too many rocks or roots) and then using the front end loader to clean it up. I don't mow these ditches anyway.
If you folks think that is doable then i think I will buy a tractor without the backhoe and look at getting pull behind attachments instead like the "middle buster" or " box blade". Those are probably useful anyway and if don't work as well as I like then I could rent or see if the wife will stretch the budget next year to add a backhoe.
Now maybe i can afford a Kubota or John Deere compact 2305 . my check book is ready

thanks I will let you know how it turns out and I suspect I will be regular here.

 

[Rowdius]

Okay, let me see if I have this correct: You want to dig (or at least clean out) ditches 2 to 3 feet deep, 3 to 4 feet wide, and 600 feet long? Using the lower of your numbers, that comes out to 133 cu yds of material to move, or about eleven dump truck loads if that makes it any eaiser to picture.

Plenty of seat time.

 

[MarkV]

Jake, just don't underestimate the amount of things you will find to do with a tractor. You have 40 acres and sometimes buying a paint brush to paint a house makes sense until you have tried to paint a house with a paint brush only.

MarkV