Telehandler vs tractor for daily chores ?

[Dan Attle]

i know a telehandler will always be more efficient in a yard we run a jcb and a tractor loader on the home farm at the moment the tractor is handy for me to get on while dads feeding its clumsy round the yard but better than me waiting for him , bare in mind this is a 165 hp tractor with clutchless shuttle wouldnt even entertain something where your on the clutch continually unless you want a new knee

 

[Bald n Grumpy]

A forum member posted this some years back. I can’t remember who now, but I thought it looked such a job I saved it!
View attachment 1006618View attachment 1006620
View attachment 1006615

IIRC correctly slewtic started of making a similar contraption that had it's own wheels and steering ( slewing artic hence slewtic I believe)

 

[Wellytrack]

IIRC correctly slewtic started of making a similar contraption that had it's own wheels and steering ( slewing artic hence slewtic I believe)

Don’t recall seeing that. Must be fairly old too?

 

[Spud]

@Bossfarmer @tullah ?

 

[snarling bee]

3 telehandlers here, all bought for about £30k, all still worth at least £25k.
Usually one with dirty wheels, one with clean wheels, and small one very dirty in pig unit. Seems to work.

Often other things rely on the telehandler. So if you get a breakdown or puncture then combine/spreader/drill/lorry/pigs/men aren't waiting around. Good insurance policy IMO.

 

[Dog Bowl]

3 telehandlers here, all bought for about £30k, all still worth at least £25k.
Usually one with dirty wheels, one with clean wheels, and small one very dirty in pig unit. Seems to work.

Often other things rely on the telehandler. So if you get a breakdown or puncture then combine/spreader/drill/lorry/pigs/men aren't waiting around. Good insurance policy IMO.

Sounds a good way of doing things. Roughly what would your yearly repairs and maintenance be running 3 older machines on your system? What sort of figure would you budget for?

 

[ridger]

wouldn't be without this with ton and half block on the back

 

[snarling bee]

View attachment 1007189wouldn't be without this with ton and half block on the back

Which you have to take off before you do anything else???

 

[snarling bee]

Sounds a good way of doing things. Roughly what would your yearly repairs and maintenance be running 3 older machines on your system? What sort of figure would you budget for?

One has had 2 majors in 10 years and a set of tyres. The other 2 machines cost more in smashed lights and mirrors than anything else.
Without looking it up I would say £1500 pa each on repairs as a budget. Servicing we do ourselves but that is almost on a per hour basis anyway.

 

[ridger]

Which you have to take off before you do anything else???

Just set it down and drive forward, not a big issue

 

[Wellytrack]

Small yards don’t like Front loaders on big tractors, that’s the main issue. Loads of room crack on.

 

[cousinjack]

@cousinjack i skipped through some pages so maybe missed some points but if your just setting in bales of haylage, would a 3 point linkage bale spike not suit the job?

Yes, it would do it…. Not sure how I’d get the bales out of the 5 high stack without dropping one on the tractor though…. And also need to load the straw chopper with quadrant bales, so a tractor loader would be the minimum I could get away with..

looks as if the general consensus here is that savings in running cost would be negligible over the telehandler anyway, but there is still the bonus that it could prolong the life of the tele’ a bit..

 

[Khan]

Telehandler beats everything for yard work in my opinion, we have two split between yards, one at mine feeds, scrapes and beds 280 cows and JCB at brothers yard loads grain and straw off 800 acres tillage. The big drawback I see is weight, our loader tractor was stolen last spring and not replaced until late autumn and its obvious in winter cereals where we had to use JCB in field to load straw trailers. Also running one machine to service cows is great from minimising engine numbers but it's 7.5 ton running over slats three times a day, thinking a Bobcat or similar may be worth it.

 

[ridger]

The thing I don't like about side boom yokes is that they won't fill feeder with the boom in. With tractor and loader you don't even need to think. So you have the boom half out and this stupid thing beeping at you to tell you that everything you go to lift is too heavy

 

[betweenthelines]

I have lately been wondering whether feeding up our cows every day with a telehandler is as efficient as it appears??

telehandlers by their very nature are fuel hungry with big engines, torque converters and heavy weights?

With diesel going up as it is - I’m going to experiment with running costs of an old telehandler vs old 2wd tractor and loader.
A loader tractor will easily cope with my daily chores and I suspect will use a lot less fuel and parts ??
Obviously I still need to keep the telehandler for all those jobs they excel at ..

thoughts ?

If instead of the above the OP had been:


"I am using a 2wd tractor and loader for feeding out round bales, should I get a telehandler"

99% of the replies would have been in the negative.

 

[Andrew]

I think @cousinjack said he has a loader tractor and a telehandler?
So best case would be to feed up for a week with one, logging his time, engine hours, and fuel use. The next week do the same with the other.

That would give you an idea. However justifying any saving in diesel may be offset depending on how you value your time and replacement policies etc.