Even in the winter you may need air conditioning cab, as the motors run very hot and a cab traps some of that heat.
For just a bit of tractor work when you choose your weather, no cab is necessary.
If you have allergies or dust problems, when you run a tractor for hours a day, a cab makes it really nice, just as air conditioning or heaters make driving our vehicles nice and for some, necessary.
Lots of great responses here!
We have owned a JD without a cab for many years and then switched to a Kubota with a cab a couple of years ago (60hp) and my husband can’t live without the cab!! Now we live in Ontario and get the heat in the summer and cold/snow in the winter. We get crazy bugs and the cab and AC saves him while he’s cutting pasture etc (he brings up so many mosquitoes when hes cutting that we have 20 + barn swallows following him and eating them the whole time! Its pretty impressive to see).
When he harrows our sand ring, it can get dusty at times so the cab helps with this as well.
In the winter, its a life saver. He used to have to get fully dressed up in his snowmobile gear to plow as we had a thrower on the back of the tractor and depending on the wind, he would get hammered with the snow.
We now have a pusher blade for the front and heat with the cab so no more dressing up. Though you did say you don’t get a lot of snow.
I suppose it depends on how much grass cutting or how often you think you would use the tractor. We have 10 acres here plus trails that gets cut 2 x a week through the summer months. So it is for sure needed for us.
This is what it looked like driving the before cab bulldozer, clearing roads and feed grounds.
The blowing snow and tracks kicking snow back covered you with snow, why the rain suit.
With a cab, that work became a walk in the park: 
We have a canopy on our tractor and I would not trade it for anything. Protection from the sun when mowing and haying, AND protection from overhanging branches.
I would love a full cab, but that isn’t a option for us. The cost vs. benefit ratio isn’t there - we’re only on the tractor for more than a couple of hours 2 - 4 times a year.
Do consider the canopy. I still wear a hat and sunscreen while mowing/haying, but the canopy is a life saver.
When I ran heavy equipment, in the winter in Michigan we would “turn the fans” on the dozers, so they blew warm air on the operators.
Yes as I said I complained for 3 years to get a canopy on Davey.
The cab is worth the extra dollars when you are doing hay. At night insects are attracted to the lights. I have had to be down there in a dust storm. You are on the tractor up to 10 hours a day. Air conditioning is more comfortable in the Queensland sun, which is a whole kettle of fish different to the NSW sun. It has wind screen wipers for rain. It has a radio.
The new ones for the BIG farms have computers that tell them where to go. You set it to go. The DVD comes down and you can sleep or watch a movie.
A “pull behind mower”? Do you mean like a hay mower? A brush hog mower is not like a hay mower. Hay mowers may be “sickle bar” or “discbine”, but they are primarily for mowing grass for hay, leave it in a windrow. Not really suitable for mowing a pasture, IMO. A brush hog is a very indestructible beast of a mower, hard to kill. It mounts onto the back of the tractor via the 3 point hitch, and runs off the PTO, but is not a “tow behind” implement You can pick it up, and carry it around, then lower it and mow and pick it up again as necessary. It can go through and successfully cut small saplings, and “brush”- crap that will grow up in your pasture (and weeds) that your horses don’t eat. If you don’t mow this stuff down, it will spread healthily, and take over your pasture with inedible weeds. Mow each field as you rotate horses out of it and into fresh grazing. Brush hogs are fairly cheap to buy, hay mowers can be expensive to buy if they are newer and fancy, older ones are probably worth twice what a decent brush hog is. If you are sure that you are not going to hay this land, sell the mower if it is not a brush hog, but instead is a mower suited for haying.
If snow removal is not an issue for you, a cab tractor (with heat and AC) may not be necessary. Just a roof top on an open station tractor is workable to keep the direct sun off you in summer. We made one for our big JD open station tractor (1976 tractor 14,000 hrs on her), out of some 4 X 4s and plywood. It works great, and way cheaper than buying one from the factory. Just fastened the uprights to the roll bar of the tractor, roof extends forward from there. DH isn’t the greatest carpenter in the world, but he got this construction job done just fine! So don’t automatically dismiss an open station tractor, when a roof is so easily and cheaply fabricated. If not by you, by someone handy.
I do the pasture mowing here on our farm, with the 32 horse Kubota, and a JD brush hog. I also run the hay rake for all the fields, and bale with the small square baler when we use it. I have no cab, and no roof, open station tractor. But I am OK with just a hat and some sun screen in summer, a cool drink wedged next to my seat, and a long sleeved cotton shirt soaked in cold water from the hose. The heat doesn’t bother me much. Some of our “pasture” is very rough, never before mowed or cared for, a bit like riding a bucking bronc the first few times mowed- getting better and more civilized over the years. If your pasture has been previously hayed, it should be pretty easy to mow, and shouldn’t take long either, not a big job.
I have beet juice in one of my tractors. It’s available in Western NY and probably nationwide.
Beet juice here too, in OR.
NancyM I think she was thinking of a finish mower, which is a pull-behind mower, doing a finer cut than a brush hog mower. Most finish mowers have 4 wheels that allow the cut to be consistant even over rolling ground. No scalping or cutting grass too high as a brush hog can do. They leave a lawn mower type cut, no windrows in many cases. Nothing like a much larger and more expensive hay mower. The finish mower is for nicer ground, cutting pasture grasses, not for rough, scrubby growth ground.
My 5ft finish mower does a wonderful job on nice pastures, pulled and PTO powered by my L2600 Kubota. Height is easily adjustable, though I usually cut at a 5-6" height to keep the grass nice, continuing the good growth.
We also use a finishing mower towed behind our Kubuta and it does an amazing job on our pasture and our driving trails. We have a brush hog as well but almost never use it. It of course never cuts as nice as the mower, but is great if you have to cut the “unknown” field as you don’t want to damage the blades on the finishing mower.
Bluey - Love the set up! My husband looked like that as well but he wore his full snowmobile helmet as well as he was tired of the snow going down his neck and in his face lol!
Ah, you are probably right! No “finish mower” for me here!
Completely agree with the explanations re: finish mower and bush hog.
When we bought our place, the pastures were in terrible shape, so we absolutely needed the bushhog. Now, we could probably get by with the finish mower.
BTW, you can get close to a finish mower cut with a bush hog by mowing in a lower gear, upping the RPMs, and overlapping your cut a little. It takes a little longer, but your pastures will look better. You will get some uneveness because the bush hog has the single wheel and tends to bounce.
Something I learned reading a thread on this forum is that Kubota is offering a 20% discount on selected tractors if you are a member of one of their recognized equine associations (thank you again to whoever posted that - I couldn’t find it again once I verified it). They specifically mention the NCHA, but I showed them my AQHA card and got the discount. That was a pretty sizable savings on our L3901 HST with FEL and finish mower (which I LOVE LOVE LOVE). You might want to look in to that if you want to buy new, but it ends on December 31 of this year, so you may have to move fast to get it. I’ll bet they have something similar for next year though. They didn’t have it on the front page of the website either, but rather kind of hid it on the finance page. So ask your salesman if they offer anything like that if you go with a different manufacturer.
John Deere has something similar; I believe it is year round.
“I wish I had a smaller and less powerful tractor”. Said no farmer anywhere.
That is sure the truth!!
I traded in my Kubota L2350 and M5400 for a JD 5075 this spring. Didn’t get a cab, can’t have that here…too much work in and through woods.
Though the 55hp did a LOT for me, it couldn’t raise a bale up high enough in the front or back to easily make it up through our creek beds. I’m here to tell you that it’s never a mistake to go overkill, and a lot of times the little tractors cannot lift a bucketload of rock without being ‘tippy’.
I really do like my new green machine. Except i tore my shoulder on the rear hitch lift lever today…ouch!
edit to say: all have had front end loader. I had to put on an after-market quick hitch on the M5400 because it was truly a pain in the butt to change implements without it!
Just a disclaimer – I didn’t read ALL of the posts. But I have 90 acres in hill country TX. So I’m, fortunate enough to have about 50 acres that is shredd-able—meaning not flat but dirt and grass. I have a 50HP John Deere utility tractor with a front-end loader, 7’ shredder and round bale spear. I also have an X350 lawn tractor that does the lion’s share of mowing around the barn, house, and everywhere the 7’ shredder becomes a PITA. I have a LOT of oaks. You can’t go wrong with a little more HP than less, if it’s an option. I also vouch for 4-wheel drive—you can always grab the tractor to pull something/someone else out. And you just have more traction and control. The front-end loader is indispensable. I also store and move round bales for a local hay farmer and deliver to neighbors, so the tractor has to be able to move at least 1,000-1,500 pounds on the front. One thing, if you’re moving big stuff on the front, you ned weight on the back. I always leave my big shredder attached (it’s too hard for me to put back on if it is off) and it gives me the ballast. Also you have to go at a 90° straight up and down hills to be the safest and GO SLOW. Don’t try to operate parallel to a hill. Sure recipe for flipping. You get to know your terrain and tractor and can vary a bit, but you just have to be cognizant all the time.
I don’t have a cab. It’s a standard shift. And it’s 18 years old. I couldn’t live without it. The only thing that would be nice to have are pallet forks. I only rarely need them and then just figure out a way to do what I need to do without them. That’s created some comedy on occasion. My JD dealer comes and picks up my tractors and I have the 50HP one serviced once a year. I do the oil changes and maintenance on the small X350 myself. So if you don’t have a big trailer and way to haul it in for service, (or time!) make sure you can have them do it. It costs extra, but nowhere near the value of my time and stress. You really have to know how to strap those things down on a trailer to haul them. hope that helps.
@gradytb, I think I mostly agree with you, but I’m not sure, because I don’t know what a shredder is?
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