Land growing, now what

[hayden]

I've just signed an agreement to add another 80 acres to my place in VT bringing the total to 250. The new property includes about 25 acres of hay fields, and the rest is forest.

All this brings me back to the dead horse I've been beating around my poor little B2910 that's feeling very overwhelmed by all this.

I now have about 30 acres of fields, a mile of road to maintain, lots of woods/brush to clear/clean, trees to harvest, etc, etc.

Changing tractors is still a year plus away, but it's just too much fun to think about it, and you guys do a great job feeding my bad habits.

Here's where I am right now.

1) I want a hydro trans, and that limits the largest tractor to a Kubota B4610 or a JD 4610.

2) For now I'll get someone else to hay the fields, but I'd like to do it at some point in the future. Is a 4610 (pick either brand) enough for square baling? The haying threads suggest it's not, but if I want HST, which I insist on, I don't think I have a choice.

3) Is a 4610 really big enough for all this?

4) How big a field mower will a 4610 handle? 6 foot?

 

[AndyR]

Do you mean an L3610? As for haying, I've heard the thing to look for is a baler with an engine as opposed to PTO drive. What is the terrain of your VT property?

 

[hayden]

We seem to both be having keyboard troubles tonight.

I meant L4610, aka the biggest Kubota available with an HST trans.

As for terrain - hills, lots of hills

From what I've read, I'm afraid I need to choose between a tractor big enough to hay, and one with HST, but that I can't have both.

 

[rf33]

Either of those should be able to operate a small square baler. If you can get by with a mower and a rake instead of a MoCo, you should have all the HP you need to hay with either one of these tractors. My only concern with using one of these tractors, is that they would be working pretty hard to operate haying equipment, and it might affect their longevity. This is just my feeling, as I never really like going with the bare minimum size / weight / power recommended for a particular task. Perhaps cowboydoc can shed some light on this particular subject, as I believe that he has a 4600 JD, and I know that he cuts hay. I think he does most of his haying with a larger tractor, but he might have some useful input regarding the capabilities of the 4600 for haying.

As to the subject of using an engine driven baler, I have never seen one of these, and I was wondering just what kind of engine do they have on them? If it is just a small gas powered engine, I fail to see what advantage it would give you over using the PTO HP available from the tractor. If you are referring to a self propelled baler, then I think that the finances might not work out for a small hay operation.

 

[AndyR]

I would keep an eye out for auctions. You can probably get a good used big tractor for less then a 4610. Admittedly it won't have the HST but you can use the bigun' for haying and such while having the 'bota for the fun stuff.

 

[Frosty]

My Dad used a "self-powered" hay baler. It was probably a 50's vintage New Holland. Tied two-wire bales and the pressure was adjusted to throw about 80# average bales of grass hay. It had an electric start Wisconsin gas motor mounted on the front of it, I think it was 2 cylinder. You sure didn't want to get your fingers, hand, arm or any other part of your anatomy caught up in it! He pulled it with a Farmall M wide front tractor. I swear that old tractor, without the baler, would do about 30mph in 5th gear! I liked to"road" it as a kid but Dad would never let me operate the baler.

 

[ejb]

No specific recommendation on the tractor, but congrats on the new land...we have been eyeing the 100 acres to our south for sometime and hope to add it to our place soon. It must feel good to get control of that extra land.

Good luck with the tractor dilemma...you could have worse problems/w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif