Grain drill, hay baler, bush hog, etc, in a small size

Thanks so much for your help.

Best wishes, Jim

Janet

I agree with what everyone has said. Good used equipment, purchased locally at auction is the way to go. A couple of other suggestions that occurred to me as I read other posts: 1) bring a friend with you when you buy who knows what to look for, so you can buy with your eyes open; you'll at least know a particular machine's shortcomings and what fixing up it'll require. 2) Buy a brand that's popular locally. You can buy the best machine ever made, but if there's nobody locally who can fix it or get parts *when* it breaks puts you in a bind...and brand-names tend to be locally popular, probably because one dealer gave better service than another when that brand was sold. In my area it seems to be Ford-New Holland for the older stuff, John Deere nowadays.

By the way, at the risk of being labelled a yuppie (Actually, I'm way too old), the 8N is about chest-high...one of several reasons I got mine for the hills was its low center of gravity.

If you want brandnames, I would suggest a New Holland 68 or newer; or John Deere 14T or newer baler. These are old, but reliable & parts & dealers abound. Other brands might work, but are a bit more hit & miss. I'd suggest searching the archives here, as there was lots of discussion about balers in the past 6 months & people might not be in the mood to repeat.

Grain drills can have grass seeder attachments, and will plant soybeans through oats, wheat, rye, etc. and the grass seeder will plant several types of grass & alfalfa, clover, etc. Ten to 14 feet is common.

For harvest you might look into an AC Allcrop pull type combine, model 66 or so. Don't know if any will fit between trees (head is only 5-7 feet wide, but the tractor will be off to the side more than doubling that), but something to look into. Again, search the archives, good dicsussion on these in the past 2 months.

For baling & combining I would really look for a tractor with live pto. You can get by without, but in most cases the yuppies are bidding up the prices of little 8n etc. tractors, and you can get a slightly bigger tractor with more features for less money because the yuppies don't know. I'm not sure what 'head high' means tho.

Go to farm auctions. You can save 50% or more on the cost of all this.

There are new small machines being specialty made for yuppies, but you are NUTS to spend $8,000 for a mini baler when a good used NH will go $500 to 1000 and be easier to maintain. And the same for the rest of the equipment. Buy good old stuff, you are getting more for less.

I think you will find the idea of collecting prairie grass clippings won't be worth $10 over 10 years, so maybe scrap that one right now. Plant in some clover with your wheat/ oats/ small grains & you will have a MUCH better system.

Yes you are at least slightly nutz to try this, but don't let that stop you. It will be too much work & too little income, but have fun anyhow. :)

--->Paul

That said, we're just a few years ahead of you, doing the same thing. Bought 19 (hilly) acres 2 years ago, after about 6 years of serious looking and a lifetime of planning/reading/dreaming. I still work full-time off-farm, and part-time on the farm.

I first bought a '48 8N tractor with a 5' bushhog to help clear long-neglected fields. Tractor ran terrible for the first 6 months as I replaced parts/tuned/learned. Since then, it's been very reliable and has done everything I've asked of her--and I've pulled stumps, plowed, disked, cut & baled hay, dragged very large logs/trees, hauled everything imaginable. I'd recommend an 8N for anybody doing this kind of thing on a small farm. Some folks will poo-poo the 8N because it doesn't have a 'live PTO' but I haven't found that a problem. You can get a decent 2/9/8N (different years of the same basic tractor) for around $2,000-3,500. It'll take any tillage equipment that fits a standard 'category 1' 3 point hitch, and parts and expertise are both readily available.

This spring, I got tired of buying hay for our small goat herd. Bought used sicklebar mower (Ford 515), 2 hay rakes (Ford 503 and a Ferguson; wrecked first one daydreaming), and a Massey-Ferguson #10 hay baler. Though I've had some problems with the baler (related to my own ignorance), all have worked ok, and we've put up about 3 tons of our own hay with about a $1,200 investment in hay equipment. The tractor pulls it all, even with some fairly significant hills...though you must be careful.

Others will suggestion other equipment and combinations. I'm happy with what I have, and the cost has been low enough to let us cover all the other things we've wanted to buy--like trees, goats, chickens, seed, plants..... ..
Good luck to you!
Tom