Re: What tractor do I need?

Posted by Hugh MacKay on March 07, 2005 at 03:10:56 from (216.208.58.171):

In Reply to: What tractor do I need? posted by Michael Compton on March 06, 2005 at 20:10:33:

Michael: Paul has hit the nail on the head, so to speak. If you can operate never lifting bales more than a couple of feet off ground, 3 point will do it and with a much smaller tractor. Most of the 35 hp utility type tractors will do this. Safety with big bales is keeping them low to the ground.

If you are planning to expand this horse business, soon you will be looking at spreading some manure, eliminating labour in clean up around stables, paddocks, etc. If that is the plan and if I were doing it, I would start off with one of the 35 hp utilities, yes maybe a light loader, but plan to do all bale handling with 3 point hitch. Then at some point, buy a skid loader to go with the tractor. You can then stack bales two high quite easily, get rid of the tractor loader. Then when you want to spread manure or just haul it away, put tractor on spreader or trailer and do loading with skid steer. It's not much fun loading a spreader or trailer then trying to hitch onto it.

I would also speak with hay suppliers and insist they keep their bales under 1500 # if they want your business. I bought a round baler in 1976 that would make 5x6 bales up to 2000#. I had a 40 hp skid loader and a Farmall 560D with IH 2000 loader. (200 holsteins) Wasn't long, probably 2 days into first year baling, we were breaking floors, making ruts, etc. I told my baler operator to cut bale size to about 4.5' diameter on 5' long bales. This gave 1200 to 1400 #. Here is the interesting part, two years later the 2000 IH loader was off 560 was packed away in shed, never used again. The 560D went back to being a drawbar tractor as it was designed for in the first place and a second 40 hp skid loader was purchased. All loading operations on farm were done by skid steers, on a farm that had 7 tractors from 20 to 150 hp.

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