Small farms?

[ellard]

Hi there all

We have a strange request for the forum - but if you dont ask you dont know.

Apart from my real job in the mining industry we have a small rural property (wife and kids have horses). We have been looking into the purchase of a tractor - with the usual three point linkages, ploughs etc.... for putting in fire breaks etc.

We have amazed at the the costs and really cannot justify owning a tractor with impliments.

Has anyone seen any home made ploughs/seeders etc which could be used behind a 4x4. This is where the humble series I Land Rover initally broke into the market (plough the feilds and drive to the market on the weekends).

With the amount of small hobby farms around these days there has to be something available around - is anyone able to help.

Thanks in advance

Wayne

[RobHay]

Why don't you have a look at the second hand market, I bought a 175 Massey Ferguson a few years back for under $3000, new slasher cost me about $1000 (not sure exactly now) and seller threw in a few assorted ploughs and blades.

[JDNSW]

Hi there all

We have a strange request for the forum - but if you dont ask you dont know.

Apart from my real job in the mining industry we have a small rural property (wife and kids have horses). We have been looking into the purchase of a tractor - with the usual three point linkages, ploughs etc.... for putting in fire breaks etc.

We have amazed at the the costs and really cannot justify owning a tractor with impliments.

Has anyone seen any home made ploughs/seeders etc which could be used behind a 4x4. This is where the humble series I Land Rover initally broke into the market (plough the feilds and drive to the market on the weekends).

With the amount of small hobby farms around these days there has to be something available around - is anyone able to help.

Thanks in advance

Wayne

As you say, there are a lot of small farms about - hence even second hand small tractors and equipment are hard to find in good condition, but they are about if you look long enough. And as you have found new equipment is ridiculously expensive for how often you will use it - the market is supported by hobby farmers with relatively unlimited money, and the few commercial farmers who can pay the high prices (although I can think of few around my way who have anything less than fifteen years old).

As far as I know there is nothing on the market that could be reasonably be used behind a four whel drive. Alhough any small trailing implement could be pulled behind one, almost all demand either remote hydraulics, rear PTO or three point linkage or all of the above. While there is nothing to stop you from fitting these to your 4x4 (although unless it is a Landrover the PTO could be a problem), the cost, even if you do the design and installation yourself, will make the second hand tractor and implement market look very attractive. And remember that to use the Series 1 as a tractor, they had to fit an engine governor, oil cooler and tractor type tyres.

In fact, although designed for use as a part time tractor, very few of the original Landrover were ever used as such. his was aminly because even in 1948 in the UK very few people were using tractors that small (around 25 effective horsepower), and even though current power is much higher, the effective drawbar power is not all that much higher for current four wheel drives due to the lack of weight compared to even small tractors.

I agree with Rob - look at the second hand market.

John

[rick130]

exactly what John said.
Even when I was working the FIL's cattle property, most all the neighbours around here swapped and borrowed implements.
We have a 55hp tractor (one of our payoffs when leaving the farm) and I want to seed our new little 8.5 acres soon and I'll be borrowing the spreader from a neighbour with some sort of contra ;)
We have a blade and a tipping/scoop carryall and still need a slasher (mulcher's are just wildly expensive) and I've been offered the lend of a post hole auger and ripper.
When the dressage arena is built (a couple of years away) I'll make the harrows.

[UncleHo]

G'day Ellard :)

I would gather that you have something in the 10-25 acre range, and would be looking at, Slasher, Discs,and a Set of Tynes, with a Posthole Borer attachment, all 3 pt linkage, :) In that case I would recomend that you look around for a Ferguson TE20,petrol, or TD20 Diesel ;) the little grey Fergie has been around since the 50's and is simple to use, repair, and are very long lived, THAT is why even a 40 year old one is still worth 1000/1500 in reasonable nick,$5-6000 in good nick, NOT Good Paintwork:( the larger is the 35,and 65 then comes the Massey-Ferguson all good long life machines, the Fergie is the Agricultural Landrover, simple hard working easy to fix. all do-able by the home farmer,and spares are still available.

If you look in papers like "The Land" or magazines like "GrassRoots" you should be able to find one,another place is clearing sales in the major newspapers,or people on the Land like JDNSW, as they would know where to look, tell them what you want,the size of the land and what you use it for, and what you plan to do, and the type of land, IE, Sandy Loam, Volcanic,Brigalow,Wallum, or ex sheep land (hard compacted) as they would have years of experience, the place that I live in is wallum-sandy coastal,and the farm has been in the same ownership since 1880,now only 400 acres was 1800, with dairy/and beef yearlings now, the main tractors are, TE20,TD20x2,35,65, and a D6/8DU Cat, all dating from 1950 onwards, get in/on startup and work,service and maintain when required,no problems,rollbars were all hand made, and cab's glazed for aircon on the 65 for dust seal (ex Falcon), best slasher would be a Sunshine, once again hard wearing and fixable, the Cat even runs Extractors:eek: now that gave a good increase on HP ;) bellows like a bull but has it got grunt:D


hope that will be of help:)

cheers

[Pedro_The_Swift]

a not insignificant market for old tractors is for boat launching,, up the coast from here its quite normal
to see a tricked up John Brown launching a huge boat. I stopped counting at 40 at one seaside town.

[UncleHo]

G'day Pedro:)

You wouldn't mean a John Deere by any chance:wasntme:

[dobbo]

Nothing a series and a PTO couldn't handle. I have actually seen one with a hydraulic ram and a blade attached to the front of it. It was home assembled and probably would fail any OH&S scrutineering, but it worked.

I may know of an old Fergison with a rooted engine (in NSW), will get back to you

[Dinty]

G'day All, Dobbo you could proabaly swap the U/S engine for a vangaurd one I'm led to believe that thye were interchangeable, cheers Dennis:wasntme:

[Gillie]

You can get Slashers that run without a PTO. They have Briggs and Stratton Motor or equivalent on them. They are quite pricey though, but you do see them second hand every so often. Harrows can be dragged behind anything also. The problem is when you need Hydaraulics, as previously stated.
You may get a grey import tractor quite cheap. These are second hand tractors imported from overseas. You do see a lot of them. Grey import Kubotas are very common. But these are not supported for parts in Australia and they are different to the Australian ones. The importers normally do have or can get parts, but you may have to wait a whilst. Good luck.

[Rovernaut]

My brother in law picks them up at clearance sales. Check the Weekly times for sale locales and dates. Lots of deceased estates, farmers going broke, retiring etc. He makes a business of buying them then reselling for a profit to hobby farmers.

[shorty943]

G'day Pedro:)

You wouldn't mean a John Deere by any chance:wasntme:

Or a David Brown. I had the "cropmaster". Nasty tractor.
Petrol\Kero, magneto ignition and a bung generator, hand crank to start. Nasty tractor.

Not knowing about the other states, but assuming similarities, In SA we have a weekly publication, the "Stock Journal". The cockies bible. Big sections on clearing sales, second hand machinery, you name it.


Shorty.

[Bigbjorn]

A Land Rover is simply not designed for, or suitable for continuous pulling work. As to the prices of used tractors, think about this, there are 2-3000 dollars of tyres on a used tractor with good rubber. If not good rubber then you will soon have to spend 2-3000 dollars on some.

[shorty943]

Add to that, the fact that most cheap "boat launching" tractors are the old pulling tractor. Most are about the 2 or 3,000 dollar mark because they have no hydraulics or three point link.

[ellard]

Hi there all

What started as a strange question in my opinion has sparked a lot of great replys.

I currently use an old 1954 SWB landrover for sprayng and geaneral farm duties, and thought of expanding it to ploughing etc (but wasnt sure of the power/strength - especially the rear end)

I have found this last night on the web - what are peoples views,its a very simple and effective design.

Wayne

[barryj]

Hi there all

What started as a strange question in my opinion has sparked a lot of great replys.

I currently use an old 1954 SWB landrover for sprayng and geaneral farm duties, and thought of expanding it to ploughing etc (but wasnt sure of the power/strength - especially the rear end)

I have found this last night on the web - what are peoples views,its a very simple and effective design.

Wayne


Might be OK in British soils. Never been there but I assume the soils are moister than over here. Our soils would really test out a series rover's drive line.

[ellard]

Hi there all


I am in the market for a second hand tractor with 3pt linkage - if you know of any around please PM me.

Many thanks

Wayne

[easo]

There use to be a yellow unimog getting around Albury with a 3point linkage and PTO front and rear.

I use my S1 around our little padock but only with a big old gate behind it to knock in the horse poo. Would love to mod a slasher on to some jocky type wheels to run of the PTO.

Cheers Easo

[ellard]

Hi there

I dont use metal gates - we use three big truck tyres bolted together and towed behind my S1, for the same purpose to break up and spread the horse poo.

I think these is quite alot of people using these sorts of vehciles for farm uses already with home made impliments.

Wayne

[JDNSW]

Further details on my experience - I particularly wanted a tractor with a blade as I have quite a few kilometres of roads to keep trafficable.

I spent a lot of time looking in the Land and the local papers both for advertised tractors and for clearing sales. I followed up several advertisements and went to a number of clearing sales, bidding on several. I finally got a 75hp Chamberlain 306, over thirty years old, with a blade, for $3200. That was about half the price of comparable machines, and the reason, I think, is that the sale had four tractors, and this was the third one sold. (I have seen similar tractors in reasonable condition sell recently for $7-12,000, depending very much on the strength of the bidding on the day and the state of the tyres.

That was over ten years ago, and since then the only expenses except for filters, oil and fuel have been a rollover protection bar, a second hand cab, a clutch plate, a tie rod end, a tyre repair and a radiator hose, plus a pair of rear tyres - cost about $1200 for the pair with a trade in allowance of $200 for the one that was not blown. I have added lights and a UHF. It is mostly used for road work but I have used it extensively for fencing and stick raking. I have been looking for a slasher for some time but have not managed to find one at what I regard as a reasonable price.

John

[mcrover]

a not insignificant market for old tractors is for boat launching,, up the coast from here its quite normal
to see a tricked up John Brown launching a huge boat. I stopped counting at 40 at one seaside town.


Maybe you mean David Brown/John Deere.

You could get a set of Harrows relatively cheap that you could tow behind a 4b and you can buy slashers that have thier own motor but are around the $3500.

As far as plows and stuff go, why not a decent rotory hoe that your can hire for about $40 per day that will do a couple of acres in that time.

The old TEA20's are orsome, we have one on the farm, it hasnt been anywhere else since it was new and is still great.

For cheap equipment, go see your local golf course, get them to put the word out as a lot of them have old equipment stashed away that they dont have the money to repair or has been replaced by newer machines and have been made redundant.

I dont think you will be wanting to plow the entire place up and you can use an engine driven posthole digger that you can hire for about the same money as the rotory hoe.

If you cant borrow it, hire it as buying these things isnt really viable for a small property.

[JDNSW]

.........If you cant borrow it, hire it as buying these things isnt really viable for a small property.

Hiring certainly has its place, but is a bit of a problem if you live far from town.

John

[mcrover]

Further details on my experience - I particularly wanted a tractor with a blade as I have quite a few kilometres of roads to keep trafficable.

I spent a lot of time looking in the Land and the local papers both for advertised tractors and for clearing sales. I followed up several advertisements and went to a number of clearing sales, bidding on several. I finally got a 75hp Chamberlain 306, over thirty years old, with a blade, for $3200. That was about half the price of comparable machines, and the reason, I think, is that the sale had four tractors, and this was the third one sold. (I have seen similar tractors in reasonable condition sell recently for $7-12,000, depending very much on the strength of the bidding on the day and the state of the tyres.

That was over ten years ago, and since then the only expenses except for filters, oil and fuel have been a rollover protection bar, a second hand cab, a clutch plate, a tie rod end, a tyre repair and a radiator hose, plus a pair of rear tyres - cost about $1200 for the pair with a trade in allowance of $200 for the one that was not blown. I have added lights and a UHF. It is mostly used for road work but I have used it extensively for fencing and stick raking. I have been looking for a slasher for some time but have not managed to find one at what I regard as a reasonable price.

John

Best tractor ever built, strong as anything, can pull huge implements, heavy enough to have great traction but light enough not to bog everywhere and comfortable for a tractor of its age.

I have sat in one of those loovered cabs for many hours hay raking and bailing.

[Slunnie]

For an 8 acre block, are the MF TEA's the go? I guess mainly slashing and moving stuff around.

[Pedro_The_Swift]

G'day Pedro:)

You wouldn't mean a John Deere by any chance:wasntme:

actually I thought it was david brown:D:D

[mcrover]

For an 8 acre block, are the MF TEA's the go? I guess mainly slashing and moving stuff around.

They arnt Massy Ferguson in the TEA's just Freguson and they are a little under powered in the petrol but very capable.

Ours has been the only tractor on 640acres, towing a trailer, slashing with a sythe mower as well as a 5' slasher as well as use with a Jib and a saw bench.

1958 I think it is so it is nearly 60 years old and now sitting on blocks as my cousin runs the farm now and has his own tractors.

There isnt much that would be better for a small hobby farm other than a little Kubota or maybe something Korean as you can pick them up new for cheap these days, basically copies of 15 yo Kubotas and implements as well.

[Slunnie]

Aah. I didn't realise this. I'd been looking at them on Ebay for a while. Thanks for this mcrover. I assume parts are pretty easy to pick up for them also with their popularity?

[Graeme]

I have an old Fiat 411R (40hp diesel) as my odd-job tractor. I bought it years ago for $200 as it was running on only 3 of its 4 cyls. Fixed it by tightening the loose injector pipe. Its had a new piston (hole in old one), has a leaking radiator so doesn't have a cap, tie-rod ends only just holding together but so what, its still the most used tractor of the 3 I have (carry-all/small sprayer/jib crane/hay rake). I've only recently got some headlights working - magical on dark nights not havng to hold a torch! Only real problem is that it keeps running out of fuel, as it goes so long on a tank that I forget to check the level occasionally.

[Tote]

You can get slashers that are self powered and tow behind a quad bike, I looked at them at one stage but once you add up the costs it's probably cheaper to buy a ride on.
Sometimes at clearing sales you can get bigger HP tractors (75+ at a more reasonable cost as the hobby farming set don't want them but they do have the drawback of higher maintainence costs and fuel consumption and they may have had a harder life.
Maybe look at offsetting the costs of decent plant by doing a bit of contract work?
Regards,
Tote

[Killer]

Horse drawn implements would probably be okay behind a Land Rover but of corse are hard to come by now, though you do still see some lying around in paddocks, also they would require a second operator (unless you can train your Land Rover to obey your voice commands)

Cheers, Mick.

[easo]

A mate just picked up a second hand bob-cat for $9000. 4cyl, desiel, 4 in 1 bucket. We were using it over the weekend to build a bon fire.

[rick130]

I have an old Fiat 411R (40hp diesel) as my odd-job tractor. <snip>

fantastic tractors and all spares are still available through either New Holland or specialists like BareCo.
Our radiator was toast, too, so the radiator shop used a Fordson core, went straight in between the Fiat tanks.
Water pump, t/stat outlet housings, etc are still current useage on the newer Iveco engines, so spares are easy to obtain.

A mate who's a fencer has borrowed our 550 a few times and keeps asking if we want to sell it.