We have a small tractor, 60" zero turn and a gator. We mow everything with the zero turn. We use the tractor mainly for dragging the arena. We use the gator for pulling the manure spreader. For mowing, I would definitely go with the zero turn.
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When we first bought our farm property, we purchased a 61" zero turn commercial grade mower, and used it for mowing everything until we got our NH tractor, bush hog and all the other implements a few months later. The mower did a great job on the lawn, barn yard, fence lines, around trees etc. It cut well and was really fast. It also did a great job on our 10+ acres of pasture, BUT I would NOT recommend it for that⊠our pasture is mostly flat and looked smooth but wasnât. There were bumps, ruts, rough spots etc that you find in a typical hay field. It took much longer to mow with the ZT mower than the tractor & bush hog we later got, and the pounding to the body esp. the kidneys was no fun! Fortunately the mower was good quality and held up to the abuse till we bought the tractorâŠ
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We have both. Use to cut the pasture with the tractor / bush hog, but when we replaced our 20 year old zero turn with a newer model, began to mow the pasture with it. The deck raises to 6â and it is mows faster then the tractor and doesnât require going back to get under trees, etc. That said, you will use a tractor and implements to do so much more than mow.
Zero turns are built for lawns.
They are rough riding on pastures with all kinds of bumps and holes.
You learn where those are and slow down for them, so you donât get bucked off.
We went through this decision a couple of years ago and went with the ZT. Best decision ever. I thought I would use the BushHog for rougher areas but the ZT handles those because it is so nimble. The ZT has cut pasture mowing time in half. Given we also have a 35 HP NH tractor that is used for heavier typical tractor work.
we have both, and they each are excellent for different things.
If you can just get one, I second some earlier posts: get the tractor with FEL. The FEL is used All The Time on my small farm. i pick pastures into if (in between dragging), I use it to load hay, move equipment, and even stood in it to nail shingles on a small outbuilding. The tractor itself can be used for digging posts, mowing rougher land wit ha bush hog, and dragging the ring and fields.
That being said, we have a zero turn too (got it just last year) and DH prefers to mow the pastures with it over the tractor, because itâs so much faster.
We learned that you need a tractor with a FEL, even if you have a small property. We started out buying a zero turn, but after a year, we had to get a compact tractor, too. I do use the zero turn to mow any areas it can handle because itâs much faster.
