Regret not getting a backhoe for my tractor

[Shawn T. W.]

If the OP had just spent the cash up front for the BH, be wouldn't need to bother with digging a hole to bury it!

I for one am very happy with my TLB SCUT purchase, do I use it all the time? No of course not, how in the world could I use the other 5 attachments that go on the three point hitch of my Swiss Army Knife Tractor! Probably only actually use it 10-15% of the time ... But worth it for me for the convenience of in less than 15 minutes I'm digging with it, not hard or any more dangerous than operating the tractor itself to hook or unhook it.

 

[DK35vince]

Backhoes are great tools, but terribly hard on farm tractors. Farm tractors just weren't built for backhoes, so they can't really handle abuse, just easy digging. If you get one, don't try to shove the teeth into the earth, curl the bucket and try to fill it up. Use a longer scraping action to gradually fill it up digging 4" at a time on a longer stretch to fill the bucket. The abuse of the backhoe can possibly break the tractor in half where the transmission bolts to the engine. Many tractors have died this way.

Might be an issue with a 3 point backhoe.
I've been using a subframe mounted backhoe on my tractor for 24 years.
When its on I use it hard, ditch's, stumps, pushing over small trees, Ect.
Never an issue.
I have always been quite pleased with the power it has for an 8 1/2" backhoe. (I just put it on today to rip out 8 dead 15' -20' tall pine trees)
Handy as hell IMO.

 

[anomad]

While we're joking about money... This reminded me of a story about Dad living in Germany around 1960 when Tito's government was falling in Yugoslavia and they were trying to devalue whatever the currency was? Can't remember. You couldn't bring small bills back into Yugoslavia. So, in Germany, you could buy a dang box of small bills for one German Mark. My Dad and his friend loaded up discreetly and took the train to Belgrade. They got a nice motel, haircuts, new shoes, took a taxi wherever they wanted to go etc.. And after a visit to a willing travel agent were able to book travel all over Europe and Northern Africa they would have never been able to afford as factory workers in Darmstadt. Dad wasn't German, although his great grandpa was, he just lived there for a couple years.

And to the OP, you need to buy a big excavator to dig a money lagoon. After you dump your money into the lagoon. You can let it decompose and then pump it into manure spreaders to add value, equally distributed, across your property. A money pit is like a boat, or a hole in the water. Into which you pour money. It concentrates your land/water value into too small of an area.

 

[gengine]

Guys I think my humor was too subtle.

Re-read my OP carefully.

Or TL;DR

Ranches are money pits, the scale of which necessitates heavy equipment to dig said pits and fill them with all your hard earned money.

Just a tongue in cheek observation on how expensive this lifestyle is.

You got me. I questioned why you said "fill it with cash", but around here, we say the scent of manure "smells like money". So my brain went to compost pits, not money pits. Nice one!

 

[Barnowl]

Love my super mini Bobcat E10 mini ex! I can drive it into the basement door if needed, gets into tight spots, digs deep and quick, can lift 500#. Simple, inexpensive to maintain, easy to transport. Does 90% of the excavating I need, and am very happy I didn’t go the backhoe route for my JD 855. For a little more, I had the mini ex. Big job? I’d just rent a bigger one, but mostly just easier to spend bit more time with the tiny one that take hours to go rent a big one.
In my case, I bought it with two friends, so it just moves from house to house as needed. Get friends that can do the maintenance too.
Was thinking of buying some of those Chinese implements at the auction where they dump their junk. But did a little reading on some Chinese mini ex boards. People have very well documented how to rebuild just about everything on it that breaks when new. Our Bobcat has about 700 hrs on it now, other than oil changes, we’ve replaced one track bearing, but that may have been prior owner maintenance. The little diesel just purrs. I’d rather be getting good work done, than fixing crappy equipment. Plus, my guess it’ll hold value much better.

 

[Little Red Tractor]

We considered a BH for the Kubota B2301, but chose against it. For the use I have, it wasn't going to be worth the expense. I have rented a mini-excavator, two days for a bit over 500 bucks, plus 100 to drop it and retrieve it. That's less than 1/10th of what the BH attachment would have cost, and I don't have the room for storage. I'm going to have to rent again next year for something. I'll still be money ahead.

 

[Tinhack]

Ranches are money pits, the scale of which necessitates heavy equipment to dig said pits and fill them with all your hard earned money.

Nonsense, pits are "dirt" cheap. We fill them with trespassers around here. Cover with old implement parts then dirt. Keeps the Coyotes from digging them up.

I hear there's some truth to this in the next county north of here.

 

[bsekf]

My Grandson has a concrete finishing business and I am going to help him finance a small 4-7 ton excavator. I have a 1/2-mile sidehill farm road and will use it to clean ditches. Now I use a tractor and HD back blade and it makes a mess.

 

[Aggie66]

Hey I learned a bit about backhoes on a tractor vs a regular backhoe...so it was a good post...

 

[Jstpssng]

I went from this

Nonsense, pits are "dirt" cheap. We fill them with trespassers around here. Cover with old implement parts then dirt. Keeps the Coyotes from digging them up

To this

My Grandson has a concrete finishing business

without a pause in between.

Perhaps these two should get together!