New tractor

[DairyNerd]

Next year we are 70 cows, Spring calving. Buffered maize in dry spells and turnips/kale over the winter, out pretty much every day for a few hours. Unfortunately even though we try to keep everything simple we still need a loader tractor, just can't see how it's possible without making life difficult and increasing expense elsewhere. Sooooo.....

Currently have 1 tractor, 85HP 1996 Deutz 4.47. Has done everything we need it to but have had two bills totalling £1500 in last 6 months. Now it is fully screwed, mechanic reckons 3k work at least and a long trip to the workshop, seems like its chucking money at rubbish and it feels like its going to be the tip of an expensive iceberg.

What would you do? Or; what would you buy for a small farm like ours? Do you but something cheap and cheerful and see where we are in a few years or bite the bullet and get something decent?

In the winter it puts out buckets of maize and baled silage, stacks up some muck and the odd bit of tanker transferring dirty water to 'lagoon'. In the summer we have a mower for pre-mowing and silage as getting someone to mow 5-10 acres is tricky, this would change if we got some dedicated off ground for silage. Also topping, rolling, fertiliser and the standard moving things from A to B jobs.

Edit: Slight lie on the one tractor, we have a scraper tractor (International Harvester) but going loose housed next year so that probably will be sold.

 

[vantage]

Oh, jeez, metal disease, we’re all only a little bit away from it!
There is no right or wrong way to deal with it, your tractor may run for years with the fix proposed, you could change for another and that does the same. If you’re not doing many hours, it isn’t super critical I’d just fix it, as newer/ new tractors are serious money.

 

[mixed farm]

Bought a new newholland t6160 2 years ago. 860 hours on it now. Money well spent if you can relatively comfortably pay for it. Don't deny yourself some comfort out of guilt. We all consider ourselves great if we buy more land to make more work for ourselves but struggle to justify things that make life easier.

 

[JPB]

Saw a deal local NH dealer was advertising, think it was a T5 with loader on lease for 3 years for £450/ 500 a month? Didn't look into it but didn't sound to bad I'd of thought

 

[FarmerWasty]

The t6.145 with loader we had for a year or two did the job. Just be aware some of the gearboxes on the cheaper range suck ass.

 

[betweenthelines]

What are your neighbours set ups like? Any chance you could share a tractor as you don't appear to have enough work for one of your own?

Keep the IH for the routine jobs

 

[DairyNerd]

@betweenthelines very varied, if you took my 10 closest neighbours you would have 1000 cow housed herd 3x a day milking down to 40 cows through a tie stall, also sucklers and sheep. Wouldn't be keen for various reasons but I get your point, thanks.

 

[Princess Pooper]

We are 80 cows + youngstock and our loader tractor is our workhorse. Last one almost died a death in Dec as well as the loader getting bent, so took the loader off it and the tractor is still used for odd jobs including reserve scraper tractor.

We bought a s/h CASE in Jan with loader for £15k, it puts silage and fodder beet into milkers, plus bales of silage and straw for youngstock and dries, and slurry up into the weeping wall.

Ford 7610 is basically the scraper tractor. Until recently is used to have a good work out mowing and tedding on ridge and furrow too but it has been retired from those duties. We use contractors for all the big stuff.

A good, not too expensive and responsive mechanic is essential to keeping the show on the road!

 

[Princess Pooper]

Just a 'PS' another farmer I know, beef and sheep, likes newish kit. He bought fairly new big tractor about 3 years old, £70k - has a fair bit of arable. As soon as it came off tick (5 years) he had to spend about £12k on some big repair. So buying 'nearly new' does not necessarily shield you from a big expense!

 

[kiwi pom]

Something semi decent secondhand, I'd have thought. Do you have a local mechanic you can trust to help you find something. Maybe a decent used tractor that has never had a loader on it and spending a bit extra to have one fitted, is better than someone's clapped out loader tractor.
How many hours a year would you be doing?

 

[coniser]

What are your neighbours set ups like? Any chance you could share a tractor as you don't appear to have enough work for one of your own?

Keep the IH for the routine jobs

I couldn't be done sharing tractors l have about the same stock numbers and have 2 tractors. Do all my own work as most contractors machinery is to big for my farm plus l can do what l want when l want. Both have loaders so if 1 is out of action got a back for feeding up in winter. One tractor is 10 years old other 1 is 21 years old both 90hp. 10 year old 1 is case Farmall A 95 bought new cost me about 10k in repairs so buying new does not always pay but it is a good starter

 

[Tim G]

I reckon second hand loader tractors must be an absolute minefield, unless you are buying a machine you know. We bought one new 12 years ago because we just couldn't find anything half tidy. It was a basic spec tractor that many would have turned their noses up at but it did us well and once it was paid off, I never regretted it!

 

[IOW91]

If you can stretch to it, buy new or nearly new. Keep it for a long time. You will know the history of it and have comeback with warranty, Nothing worse than a machine you need every day being a minefield.

 

[box]

Buy an air cooled SAME Explorer 70/80/90

 

[TheRanger]

Bought a new newholland t6160 2 years ago. 860 hours on it now. Money well spent if you can relatively comfortably pay for it. Don't deny yourself some comfort out of guilt. We all consider ourselves great if we buy more land to make more work for ourselves but struggle to justify things that make life easier.

We bought something similar just before prices went mental during covid. Probably still worth what we paid for it and still under warranty.

 

[Conrod96]

I’d maybe try buy a fresh 2nd hand tractor without a loader and put one on, loader tractors can end up with a lot of wear and tear on the front axle if used regularly, if the loader was hardly used it wouldn’t be a problem

 

[michael N123]

New deutz or hurlimann (same thing) will probably be your cheapest bet if you don’t want anything bigger than what you already have

 

[Grassman247]

When we first started we had a second hand ford 7840 with the SL gearbox and a loader on. We are ten times bigger now and still have that tractor. It has been zero bother at all, nearly on 20k hours on it. Spends its summers on post knocker and the winter feeding bulls still. Couldn’t recommend one enough and not to difficult to service yourself but big enough to run a decent sized mower or topper and tanker

 

[DairyNerd]

Thanks for the replies. Could have been clearer maybe, would not look at buying a new tractor just meant new to me. Would be looking to upgrade to something that (hopefully) wasn't going to have so many problems or at least would hold its value well, probably up to 30k sort of money including part-ex on the Deutz.

 

[Jdunn55]

If you can stretch another 8-10k to £40,000 you could get a brand new armatrac, 105 horsepower with loader - the smaller ones might only be around 30k depending on what size you need!

I've got one, its not fancy, its not flashy, but it gets the job done and would do everything you've described and more. I've used it for mowing, raking, tedding, baling, spring tine cultivating, putting bales in, fertiliser, pulling trailers (clamp and bales), etc etc


My opinion is you need a decent main tractor and a second older tractor, that way when the old one goes wrong it doesn't matter because you've got the newer one which (in theory) rarely goes wrong, similarly in the rare instance the new one does go wrong you've got the older one which can take over for a week or two