Guns or tractor?

[nwbobber]

Tractors that are hard to fix are very frustrating when it is time to use them and they don't want to work. Older john deere's can still be fixed, and usually don't cost all that much. I had a 1963 Massey Ferguson, which was only made for three years, and I had the same type of problems with that. Sure the internet could solve my problem, sort of, but when it's time to mow, you want to go to work on the field, not sit and wait for parts. I have a Kubota now, and couldn't be happier.

If it were me, I would rent, until you can afford a good tractor. You might find that in the grand scheme of things, renting is really the cheapest way.

It sure is handy to have that hydraulic assist anytime you want, but if you plan ahead you can get a lot done in a weekend.

 

[Modeler]

I used to have a nice new Kubota, it was a great tractor! I don't have $13k to get one now though.

As for renting, aren't we all about preparedness and self reliance? I'd rather own a good used tractor I can use any time than rent a nice new one on someone else's schedule.

 

[mjbskwim]

You will use the tractor a lot more than you realize if you have around an acre and have a couple neighbors you are friends with. Heck you could hook up a log splitter to the PTO
You can't be self sufficient with a broken back

 

[knuckle Head]

+2 for the name of the Russian Tractor Brand.

Belarus??

Yep, It was a Belarus 500 series, As pointed out by Jbett98 they are no longer available in the US.

I also like what Jbett98 said in Post #2 rent one for a little while and go to estate sales, also shop around. a lot of time if you have something to haul one with or know someone who you drive a few a hours and several $K by buying a few counties over where they selling more or where bigger ones are the main seller's, the littler ones will be cheaper.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Give man a fish and he eats for a day.
Teach him to fish and he eats for a life time.

The Govs main goal is to have everyone 100% on the grid. Those whom are self sufficient will survive due to their hard work now !

True, however preppers in the know say (electricity wise, I know you meant a lot more by that term) to start out on grid if feasible, then slowly get off grid. That's our plan, wind, solar, hydro and backup propane generator. Wood stoves of course, we own 40 acres of heavy timber

As to a tractor, I would go used.. haunt your local estate sales and auctions, you may find a real deal

 

[Botte Hork]

+2 for the name of the Russian Tractor Brand.

Belarus??

My wife is from Belarus (the country) and if you want to support a hardline communist-style dictatorship that suppresses people and whose clown-like dictator is even rubbing their direct neighbour and biggest benefactor Russia the wrong way, while happily smooching up to such hot-pockets of constitutional American values as the Castro and Chavez regimes, I'd say: Go for it!

Beautiful country, but the spirit of the people has been hammered down by centuries of oppression from invading neigbours and rulers.

 

[clambo]

Stop by and visit a midsize, to large commercial nursery grower in your area.
Ask the manager which tractor lasts the longest and is the most reliable.
The workers are rather tough on equipment and most don't read English very well if at all.
I worked in the commercial tire business, and had a lot of service calls to commercial nurseries.
Most if not all nursery's have mid size to small diesel tractors in constant use. Kubota being the most prevalent.

I was shop manager for a large commercial nursery. We initially used Kubota but when they finally crapped out they were replaced with Kioti which is a S. Korean brand. We like them, they were durable, they were cheaper, and I know you can gets parts/service at several places locally. Just a thought.

 

[1stklass]

Caterpillar, get a used crawler with a front end loader and pto, i picked up 4 (without the loader one had a dozer blade 2 had pto) for 3200 dollars. They had sat for 5 years they were all made in the 1930s and it took very little to get them running fine. you can find a small D2 that will outwork, outpull any small wheeled tractor. Just a thought. i see them in the 2k to 3k range all the time and dont worry if it was built in 1956 LOL.... the 1932 Cat 22 i had weighed 6800 lbs and towed a dead 14k lb bulldozer without any trouble. If the crawler has a dozer blade it wont take much to modify it into a loader.

 

[Asp]

Get the tractor, and recruit friends who are willing to defend and farm your land, assuming you have a little space (or could build something if time came). You will have strength in numbers, and you'll be able to sustain that strength if you can feed it!

 

[PBinWA]

Caterpillar, get a used crawler with a front end loader and pto, i picked up 4 (without the loader one had a dozer blade 2 had pto) for 3200 dollars. They had sat for 5 years they were all made in the 1930s and it took very little to get them running fine. you can find a small D2 that will outwork, outpull any small wheeled tractor. Just a thought. i see them in the 2k to 3k range all the time and dont worry if it was built in 1956 LOL.... the 1932 Cat 22 i had weighed 6800 lbs and towed a dead 14k lb bulldozer without any trouble. If the crawler has a dozer blade it wont take much to modify it into a loader.

Tracks might be a little hard on the pasture - especially on the turns. It would only take about ten times as long to mow a field too.

The dilemma with tractors is that small cheap ones require more maintenance and usually can't do that much. Bigger newer ones cost as much as a small car.

If you really work Craigslist and don't mind travelling you might find a good deal but you need to work for the good deals. Dealerships can be a pain to work with. If you are near Newberg check out Valley View Tractors: Valley View Tractor & Equipment, Inc.

 

[Modeler]

I found one, if I can get the guy to call me back. Hoping to go take a look Friday.

 

[1stklass]

Tracks might be a little hard on the pasture - especially on the turns. It would only take about ten times as long to mow a field too.

The dilemma with tractors is that small cheap ones require more maintenance and usually can't do that much. Bigger newer ones cost as much as a small car.


The tracks actually spread the weight of the tractor over more square inches than a tractor tire, you are right about the turns though because braking is how you turn. It would be faster when you are plowing, and probably close to the same speed for mowing, my crawlers were actually pretty fast in the higher gears, probably too fast for most mowing. When you use them to clear blackberries they are unbeatable. No flat tires, put the blade down and drive through a ten foot tall wall of blackberries 100 feet long and it just shoves the whole pile in front of it!

 

[PBinWA]

You'd have to have pretty wimpy tires to get a flat from blackberries on a tractor. I studded the R4's on my tractor and the studs were a lot longer and harder than blackberry thorns. Front end loaders work great on blackberries too - just roll them up in a ball while you go along. Dozers are cool and work well at what they are designed to do but for general farm work on 5 acres - it's hard to beat a compact tractor. Even a skid steer (fancy all wheel steer models excluded) is pretty hard on grass surfaces.

 

[jbett98]

A lot of the compact 4 wheel drive tractors will have calcium chloride added to the inner tubes to add weight. Some come with wheel weights also.
If you do get a leak with calcium chloride in a tire, make sure you get the tire jacked up real quick and the air stem at the 12:00 position so you don't lose any more of the solution then necessary. The salt can really eat up a good steel wheel in a hurry.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

What will flatten any commercial tire is hawthorn thorns

 

[mjbskwim]

My wife is from Belarus (the country) and if you want to support a hardline communist-style dictatorship that suppresses people and whose clown-like dictator is even rubbing their direct neighbour and biggest benefactor Russia the wrong way, while happily smooching up to such hot-pockets of constitutional American values as the Castro and Chavez regimes, I'd say: Go for it!

Beautiful country, but the spirit of the people has been hammered down by centuries of oppression from invading neigbours and rulers.

So a bunch of wimps making tractors?

 

[jbett98]

I was at a trade show setting up a booth for the company I worked for and across the aisle was a Russian guy selling Russian made souvenirs.
There was a cool looking wrist watch with a cosmonaut floating in space on the dial face. I looked at for a minute then set it back down on the table.
I asked him how much and he replied "1500 Rubles" which worked out to be around $60.00.
I was reaching for my wallet when I noticed that it wasn't working, where it was working when I picked it up.
I commented on how it stopped working and the guy takes the watch and bangs it real hard on the table.
He looks at me and says "Working now, you buy".

 

[1stklass]

My grandpa has a 16 hp diesel Kubota. It is small, maybe 1500 lbs tops and that is with the calcium chloride in the tires. I didnt know really much about crawlers until a year ago. I think there is a misconception that they are primarily bulldozers. Most of the history behind the Caterpillar machines is in farm use, especially plowing large acreages. in the D2 to D4 range they are pretty compact, very efficient, for the same size machine as a small compact 4 wheel drive tractor, it can weigh 4 times as much but still leave a lbs per sq inch footprint equivalent to a small tractor because the weight is spread out over a much longer and wider track. The Kubota tire went flat on me from the actual vines and not the thorns. some of the old dried vines were very hard and getting broken up into shorter pieces that partially penetrated the tires, then just driving for hours through the vines eventually worked them in further and they finally penetrated the tires.

i grew up driving wheeled tractors on my grandpa's farm, kubota's 16 hp to 62 hp, the old Jubilees and had never driven a tracked crawler. I feel cheated all those years because everything i did on those wheeled tractors i could do 3 times faster with the crawler

Crawlers and wheeled tractors, neither can cover all the basic farm chores but if i had to get the most universal machine for farm use it would have to be a crawler.

 

[jbett98]

You can get the tires filled with foam. It makes then flat proof. Not cheap, but it solves that problem.

 

[erudne]

As to Guns and Butter
Butter wins every time untill the blokes with guns discover your butter.
If you have an excess of "Guns" then butter becomes more desriable
But then you read about socialist western europe in the 1920s not completeing the manginiot line and so makeing it meaningless, allowing Hitler to flank France
That must have been embarassing, To France, since it was Belgium that betrayed them in persuit of Social Justice by not completeing their portion of the line that would have stopped Hitler