Hi friends,
I’m starting to think it’d be nice to have a utility vehicle (around here, people call them mules) to tote alfalfa bales and to help with pooh patrol. We don’t need a plow or a heated cab or 4X4. Just a dump bed.
Things to look out for? One brand better than another?
Thanks!
If all you need is a dump bed then a used golf cart is the cheapest way to accomplish that and if you don’t need 4x4, a winch, etc then will do you just fine.
A lot of people are fond of John Deere Gators because they sit very low and are easy to load things into the bed. They drive and ride like crap…
I have a Polaris Ranger and absolutely love it. We use it for all things farm related. Fencing, manure, moving hay, hook a little trailer behind it and it can haul fence post, poles, jumps, etc… I was at the farm for two years before buying it and regret waiting that long. Plus it’s nice to drive it over to the neighbors when we want to visit and are in nasty farm clothes…
“A lot of people” have John Deere gators because they are the best and closest dealer around, by far.
Our local Polaris dealer takes weeks to get anything fixed.
ALL UTVs drive and ride like the wimpy toy they are, compared with regular highway type vehicles.
Well, wimpy toy vehicles though they might be, they are damn useful.
Yeah, I don’t care so much about how it drives or rides. It’s just got to get from the pens to the pasture, where the manure is spread.
Thanks for the insights, everybody!
If you are looking at buying new, I know a couple of people who have Hisun models and they’ve found the parts availability and support from the company to be good. We are considering one for our next model as I just can’t stomach the prices for some others. The cost for the Hisun with a plow, drag, and manure spreader is less than a Ranger without the attachments.
I will second this statement. Have used a gator, ranger, and golf cart and it really depends on what you need it for.
Gator is big, bulky, terrible turn radius which makes it hard to get out of tight spaces. It is able to pull reasonably sized loads (empty hay wagon etc.)
Golf cart is easy to drive, quiet, small. Great for gardening, very small loads. Will not pull anything substantial, will get stuck in mud or snow. Great for bringing to shows if you have the room to haul it.
Ranger is a great utility vehicle, compact, easy to operate, easy to dump. All wheel drive is great for snow, mud, terrain. Able to rake hay, drag the arena, and pull wagons. We use it for literally everything. Was a great purchase.
We love our Kubota. Have had it now for 10+ yrs, bought new. 4X4 with dump bed that we do not use very much. Use for hay toting and manure spreader and general help around the farm stuff. Diesel
The most important thing about the dump bed is pre-thinking how you’re going to use it, in my experience, and finding the right height for the job. Otherwise, you’re forever using your own body as the go-between tool. So, when I was feeding pastured horses and needed to spread small bales, the old Gator with turf tires and a low dump bed was great, because I didn’t destroy my shoulders stacking 2-3 bales high. It was easy to muck into and was a great tool for a civilized farm.
Nowadays, when I need to ascend a muddy, rocky hill with 500 lbs. of water every day . . . and plow 1000’ feet of the same, I have a 4wd Gator with the most aggressive tires and one consequence of that is that my dump bed – when flat and with the gate open – sits at hip height. And I’m 5’9". Soo, much less easy to toss stuff up. So, ramps have been built, because I like my shoulders with cartilage intact. Those beefy electric golf carts look awesome. If I didn’t have to plow snow, carry water and drag rocks & trees around, I’d go for one of them in a minute!
My JD dealer is awesome, too – make that part of the decision, for sure.
That may be the case for you but we only have one JD dealer locally, and about 5 Polaris dealers… so Polaris is easier for us to deal with if we have any issues. However we have yet to have any issues out of the Ranger. I’ve ridden in enough Gators to know I wouldn’t have one even if it was free.
Have you ever driven or ridden in a Ranger? My fiance has been road whipping-in this foxhunting season in the Ranger and it been a hound saver. He can go 50+ mph across fields to get to the road to keep them from getting killed. All without tearing up the ground and it rides comfortably. Yes, it isn’t meant to be driven down the road like a suv (although with different tires it could). It is much better suited for that type of driving than an suv. I would never call it whimpy.
My neighbor has Polaris, two of them, because one is always in the shop and takes weeks to get it fixed.
That is how I know the only Polaris dealer locally, that also sells motorcycles, is not very good.
Most everyone has Gators of some kind, some have problems, some never, is the way machinery runs.
One friend has an ancient diesel Kubota that he loves, but parts are getting hard to find, he tells me.
Most here use 4wheelers to work cattle, go along fences and to check irrigation systems and change water.
I still think that having a good dealer makes life easier when you have any machinery, no matter what kind or brand it is.
Has anyone tried using the Mini Trucks around their farms? I saw them first at Colonial Williamsburg, and am now seeing them in other places for sale. Here is one for sale to show you the body style;
The prices were never really high on the for-sale ones, all used of course. They LOOK like a great machine to have around the place. Not really for street use, only go 45MPH. I do believe they come in 4WD, so are able to get around in mud and snow with the right tires.
I just think the prices on the UTV machines are extremely high, they don’t always last well or take the abuse of horse farming. This is seeing them used by others with horses. As Bluey says, much depends on the operator and upkeep.
But folks should look in more than one direction and this mini truck is a really good looking idea. They do make a treaded model, but not sure that would be cost effective for very many folks. The site header shows a variety of these mini vehicles, including dump models and the one running on treaded tracks. Fun looking, even if you don’t want to own one.
http://www.eatonminitrucks.com/
We only have a small Gator because my Mom won it in a Raffle and gave it to me. It is kind of like a giant wheelbarrow here, hauling things and we have gotten used to using it. Really nice for winter hay, but that is the big time use for it all year. I would not have purchased one, too expensive for our small place. I could have hauled hay with the Ford 8N tractor and a small utility trailer if we didn’t have the Gator. Our JD Dealer is not the friend to small machine owners. Not real efficient, time delays, expensive, not knowing how to get what I want with constant part number changes. We have HAD to use them for other JD equipment support, which has since been sold on. My Kubota dealer is a lot easier to work with when I need something done. So is the Ford dealer for the old tractor.
A friend that had a trailer business took in one of those little trucks on a trade.
She said it was the most worthless piece of equipment she had and hard to keep running.
Hers was very little, painted light blue and was used to drive around feeding horses and to and from the business office to the barn and back, until she sold it.
Her comment, a little pickup would do more and cost as much to keep running.
Now, that was decades ago, maybe today’s little trucks are much better.
Messicks online is about the best Kubota parts experience you can have other than at the dealer with an experienced counterman. I have a 1981 Kubota tractor and have never run into a part I cant get in 2-3 days. For my diesel RTV or newer Kubota equipment it is always in stock.
They also have many other brands as well as parts diagrams for thousands of machines. I can sit in my office, get the parts ordered on Wed and have them on Saturday.
The $6990 price for that is not that far off a 500cc Hisun or similar UTV - which would be much less of a PITA to own if only because SOMEBODY somewhere knows how to work on them and I’ve actually found the support from Hisun to be good.
What is your budget?
I love my compact tractor - JD 3520. Big enough to blow snow from 1.5 miles of private road and drive way, mow pastures, make gravel drives and roads smooth, move material, scrape paddocks but still small enough footprint to navigate into all but the smallest of areas. Don’t know how I ever got along with out it before.
Holy crap. $30k for a used tractor??? For someone who just wants to do poop patrol?
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