I just today decided what to do in a similar situation. I'll tell you the options that I found, and what I decided.
First, what most others have suggested here is a road-ready dump trailer that is designed to be pulled by a pick-up. There is nothing wrong with that option, but you will end up with more trailer than you need, if you truly need just to move material from one side of a property to the other. They're expensive, heavy, have to be liscensed, and are not ready to be pulled by your tractor. However, if you might need to move material over the road and they're not a budget buster for you, that is the way you should go.
I was in the situation of having a nice box trailer and a nice flat bed, with little need or desire to add a third road ready trailer to the stable. I decided that for the sake of my yard and my pocketbook, I wanted an off-road designed trailer that came ready to tow with a draw bar hitch.
The first thing I found, by searching through some old archives here in TBN was the trailers from
Pronovost. They offer an excellent range of off road trailers that appear to made to the most exacting standards. However, all but their smallest model are very expensive and the freight to the Midwest from Quebec took them out of contention for me.
Just to back up for a moment to the issue of size. According to the manual for my new John Deere 4410, you should never tow more than 1-1/2 times the weight of the tractor without trailer brakes and never more than 2-1/2 times with brakes. That meant that I was looking for a trailer with a capacity around 4500 pounds unless I wanted to try and find an off road trailer with brakes and then try to get the brakes to work with my tractor. The small Pronovost has a capacity of 3000 pounds, which means that every trip I took, I was leaving 1500 pounds behind that I could have been moving. The 5000 pound capacity Pronovost is over double the cost of the 3000.
While driving by my favorite ag store, I noticed that they were parking some new shiny Spring merchandise, one item of which was an off road trailer. Narrowly avoiding a couple of accidents, I got my truck slowed down and got across enough lanes to get turned into the parking lot. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif It was from King Kutter and looked like a dandy little trailer. I gave it a good looking over and talked to a kid in the lot, who knew next to nothing, but was friendly and helpful and suggested that I go in the office and check with one of the senior guys. I decided to check it out on the web, instead.
Click here to learn about the King Kutter XB Again, I bumped up against that 3000 pound limit. The trailer was similarly sized to the Pronovost 503, but it was right here in my back yard and for 1400 dollars including a hand pump instead of 1400 with a cylinder and nothing else (and sitting in Quebec). My hand twitched toward my wallet, but I resisted and decided to check out some more options.
By far my favorite find was the trailers from
Midsota. These look just wonderful and at better prices than the Pronovost, though with better specs. Their small trailer is a bit more expensive at 2100 dollars, but it is bigger, has 7200 pound capacity, and comes ready to plug into my rear hydraulic controls. If they had a unit in stock, and freight had not been a jaw-dropping 900 dollars, I would have jumped on this one. If you're close enough to make a trip about an hour west of Minneapolis and/or you're looking for something a little bigger, these are the guys I would suggest you contact.
I ended up buying a trailer from
Country Manufacturing. You can find one of the two trailers on the linked page (the tandem axle version) at Northern Hydraulics. This trailer is a little bigger than the King Kutter or the Pronovost and has another 1000 pounds of capacity -- just about right for my tractor. Despite the problems of trying to back it, I opted for the wagon style, with the wheels in the front. That way, I can use the tractor to load the trailer and not have a battle on my hands trying to get it hooked up when it is full. The price on Northern Hydraulics is less, but does not include shipping. Buying direct from the manufacturer, the price includes shipping to a business address or the terminal closest to your place. They also offer both the tandem axle and wagon style. The $1,390 price does not include hydraulics, but even with buying a cylinder and hoses, it will still be the second least expensive option, just a little more than the King Kutter, but with a bigger bed and power hydraulics instead of a hand pump.
If this thread is still active next week when the trailer arrives, I'll add some pictures. If it's been dormant a while, I'll start a new one once I have had a couple of days to live with the new trailer.
