Is this a bad idea?

[charliepff]

Hi everyone,

I have been pricing tractors for a while. I have found a 30 hp with TLB and a 25hp sub compact with TLB. Both new and great prices. We have 4 acres on the side of a mountain. The house and yard are on 3/4 of an acre. The rest is heavily wooded with lots of downed timber. The yard also has a lot of stumps and needs finish grading. It also takes the state two days to open our roads in a snowfall. I was looking at buying a Mahindra 3016 and using it to do all the big work for the next few years. Then when I get the property straight, trading it down to a 2516 or other brand equivelant model. The 30 hp would be a little big getting around in the woods and the smaller of the two would probably work, just take a little longer to do the jobs. We do not need to cut grass with it since we really have no grass right now. We would probably buy a used rider later on anyhow.

What do you all think? I have a lot of huge oak stump and massive rocks to dig and move. Along with dragging timber. I could definately use life experience on this one. Thanks everyone and have a great evening.

 

[magicheater]

I have a 45HP tractor that gets around great in the woods. To me, it sounds like you might need a little beef before you only have the maintenance to do. :2cents:

 

[Trybye]

:thumbsup:

 

[creekbend]

I have a 45HP tractor that gets around great in the woods. To me, it sounds like you might need a little beef before you only have the maintenance to do. :2cents:

I tend to agree with magicheater. I have a Kubota L4400. The final decision will be yours. One suggestion: Review all the specs in regards to any tractor or implements that you might buy, thus ensuring that they will be able to handle all the tasks and needs that you need them to perform.

 

[charliepff]

Thanks everyone,

I think the wife (boss) and I are going to drive them and see what we feel comfortable with. We are looking at buying two more wood lots in the future. I agree the maintnance part is a definately a little later on. We bought too small last time and I do not want to do it again. If I need to move in size next time, I would rather go down then up. Thanks again and I appreciate the input. I want to do this right. Hopefully :confused2:.

 

[samandmax]

With the terrain you have I suggest buying a used skid steer with metal tracks with a grapple bucket to pick up rocks and logs. Seeing my friends neighborhood in the area and having a 40plus hp 4wd tractor with loader myself, I would get an industrial piece of equipment.

 

[IslandTractor]

Guys on TBN love to spend other peoples money and always seem to advocate bigger is better. That said, I managed a hillside 4 acre clearing project with a 20hp TLB (Kioti) and it worked just fine. Yes bigger will be faster but also much more expensive and less manuverable and take up more storage space for both tractor and implements. For my purposes, adding a grapple was worth more than ten extra horsepower. Figure out whether you need to get the work done as fast as possible (if so hire in an excavator) or if you can take your time (small CUT based TLB works great).

 

[Gary Fowler]

Get a 20-25 HP TLB and invest in a root rake for the FEL with a grapple and you can do anything you need with it. Kubota BX 22 or BX 25 or equivalent

 

[Gary Fowler]

One other thought on your problem. Have you looked at what it would cost you to bring in a dozer and just take a few hours to clear all of your stumps and downfall and push into a pile. Sometimes it is just worth the cost to get the job done with the proper equipment. Around my place you can get a dozer for $80-90 per hour usually with a 4 hour minimum. Unless you are going to try to leave lots of trees, so many that a dozer cant work thru them, this might be the way to go. Most dozers are at least 8 feet wide so unless you plan to have trees less than that, they could selectively harvest any thing you need and leave the area level. Get one that also has a root rake to put on the front and he can root out those roots and surface rocks for you also with out piling up a lot o dirt with it.

 

[Mace Canute]

One other thought on your problem. Have you looked at what it would cost you to bring in a dozer and just take a few hours to clear all of your stumps and downfall and push into a pile. Sometimes it is just worth the cost to get the job done with the proper equipment. Around my place you can get a dozer for $80-90 per hour usually with a 4 hour minimum. Unless you are going to try to leave lots of trees, so many that a dozer cant work thru them, this might be the way to go. Most dozers are at least 8 feet wide so unless you plan to have trees less than that, they could selectively harvest any thing you need and leave the area level. Get one that also has a root rake to put on the front and he can root out those roots and surface rocks for you also with out piling up a lot o dirt with it.

X 2. For a one time job like the OP has (lots of huge oak stump and massive rocks to dig and move) contracting it out to someone who has the heavy duty equipment designed and sized to handle just such a job is more than likely to be very cost effective plus (and it's a not inconsequential plus) you don't subject your own equipment to a lot of stress that will definitely "age" it if not outright break it. Factor that in with the fact that it's going to cost quite a bit just to operate your own equipment considering the extra hours you'd have to work at getting the job done and the contracting out starts to get more and more economical. The right sized equipment can do a job like this in a small fraction of the time that you could do it yourself.

 

[TripleR]

One other thought on your problem. Have you looked at what it would cost you to bring in a dozer and just take a few hours to clear all of your stumps and downfall and push into a pile. Sometimes it is just worth the cost to get the job done with the proper equipment. Around my place you can get a dozer for $80-90 per hour usually with a 4 hour minimum. Unless you are going to try to leave lots of trees, so many that a dozer cant work thru them, this might be the way to go. Most dozers are at least 8 feet wide so unless you plan to have trees less than that, they could selectively harvest any thing you need and leave the area level. Get one that also has a root rake to put on the front and he can root out those roots and surface rocks for you also with out piling up a lot o dirt with it.

+2, we have several different tractors and sometimes it's just best to hire it done or rent the right equipment if you can operate it.

We have used a tracked skid steer with three different operators and I had to go around behind it to smooth the ruts. It worked great for some things I wouldn't try with one of our tractors.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Last year I got a dozer to clear off some fence row for establishing a new property line on the correct line. He pushed out all the trees and shrubs and rocks and DIRT because he only had a 6 way blade and no rake. He piled it all up and had so much dirt we couldnt attempt to burn it. I tried a little bit of repiling with my tractor but needed a ground man to hook on the large trees with a chain to drag them out so that was tiring. Then nearly ran a limb thru my grill not to mention the barbed wire, old T post that were aslo piled in there. I had a some rock delivered and the guy offered to spread it for no minimum hours just time used so I had the dozer there, then got him to clean the brush pile (about 400 feet of piled timber ) move it over several feet and spread out the piled dirt, rocks wire and such. Only took him an hour (80 bucks) and it would have taken me several days with my 70 HP tractor and maybe even a punctured tire or two. We still had to remove the old wire and steel post after the burn but it burned complete with only a little punch up. Worth double the cost easily. We ended up using him for my brother in laws nearly 1/4 mile of brush pile, then more rock delivery and spreading, some drainage ditching etc. Dozer ended up there for a week (not used daily though) and we got all the little chores done with professional equipment and only paid for time used which ended up about 8-10 hours use. He even went back on our burned piles and spread the ash pile since we had the brush burned by then. We were lucky that the dozer owner didnt have a job for it so it just sat there and he would send an operator over for a couple hours a day when we decided on something else. It worked good for us and good for the dozer guy who got about $800 in dozer fee and sold a bunch of rock and culverts to my BIL for some pasture roads and drainage.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Between my BIL and myself we have 42+ acres and have spent a lot of money on dozer work & back hoe work since we bought the place but looking back, it would have been nice to just bought a backhoe, but since neither of us have ever ran one our results might have been a lot different than what we go from professional operators. Even with all the work we have done on the 42 acres, and knowing the full scope, I dont think we could have justified the cost of owning versus contracting the work. You just cant justify buying dozers, backhoes, cranes etc for a little bit of work. Renting or contracting is best and cheapest way to go.

 

[jimmysisson]

Just trying to dig out one oak stump from a 20" dbh tree will be pretty convincing on how long it will take to do what you describe with a 3000# rig. +4 on getting the big guns for the big work, and 30 hp for your work.
Jim

 

[IslandTractor]

I agree with getting big equipment in for one time jobs but for stump removal I'd think an excavator would be preferred over a bulldozer. Much less damage to surrounding land and not nearly as much dirt displacement.

 

[Grandad4]

Lots of opinions about bringing the big iron in and doing all the land clearing at one time. That's often the best method, but not always, as Gary mentioned. Just wanted to say a few words about the alternate approach, as we have gone with the backhoe and logging winch attachments for our land clearing. Why? Because the our plan for the property in question did not lend itself to using big equipment. We wanted the property cleared of deadfall and selectively thinned out, not laid bare. That required something a lot more precise and low-impact than you're likely to get when the heavy equipment shows up.

It is a big amount of work doing it this way, no question, but it can be done. Consider that approach if you need a carefully controlled clearing process and you have the time to do it yourself.

 

[Soundguy]

yep.. do drive them.. if you buy too little.. it will be a pita..

 

[IslandTractor]

yep.. do drive them.. if you buy too little.. it will be a pita..

The problem for a newbie tractor driver though is that they haven't had the experience of doing real work under realistic conditions so lifting a pile of sand at a dealership is not much help in deciding what size tractor to buy.

"Big" oak stumps are a nightmare even for the largest CUT TLB. Removing saplings is easy for even a BX. The difficult part is not having the experience to judge the perfect match of available funds, time and equipment to get the job done. Bigger isn't always better and is certainly more expensive. Smaller can be frustrating if time is critical. I think that more useful than advice in a relative vacuum about tractor size etc would be to walk the land with someone experienced in that type of work. Unfortuantely unless the OP has a buddy with those qualifications it generally means getting an equipment contractor to see the area and as we all know, "to a man with a hammer, all the world looks like a nail".

 

[charliepff]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. We are actually doing selective timbering and have a forester coming in Friday as an advisor. We are going to go with the 25hp 2516. I will eventually get a root rake for it. I was able to borrow a small track skidsteer to remove all the heavy dead timber and since we do not have a time limit, we will dig the stumps out ourselves with the backhoe. At least the ones in the yard. I talked to a contractor and he would be willing to bring a machine up for bigger oak stumps. I appreciate everyones suggestions and this seems like a happy medium and best use of our money. It helps having some neighbors with equipment too. lol

Grandad, thanks for your imput. Your post definately helped us with our decision. Thats why we chose the 25hp range. I will need to get a winch for it eventually. Thanks again everyone.

 

[Mark Page]

Ditto Mace!! And buy the bigger machine. When I went from 35hp to 45hp I was like a dream come true. There were so many more things the 45 could do that 35 couldn't.