Self Sufficiency Links: Machinery
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Pages Updated On: 1-Mar-2010
Journey to self sufficiency

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Machinery

Depending on how big you want to get, and how much you want to do yourself the list of machinery can get complex. It all starts with the tractor. You need to figure out how big you want your setup to be. Half an acre or an acre you probably don't even need one. And what do you want to do with the tractor?

Here's how it worked for me. We have a little over an acre that we can work on. The first year we tilled up the garden patch. Didn't need a tractor at all. The second year I decided that I wanted to redo half of the back acre to make it a better pasture. So I borrowed Farmall Super C with a plow and a small disc and worked the land up with that. I spread my oats and hay seeds with a broadcast spreader behind the riding lawnmower and then I worked them in by dragging a piece of weighted fence around. Had good results and still didn't need to buy a tractor.

But we had begun to notice that working the manure into the garden with the tiller wasn't so easy when it had a lot of bedding and I was starting to eye up the land behind us for it's potential as cropland. So the next year I found an old Allis WD for a really good price and drove it home. It was in fairly decent shape but the hydraulics didn't work and I ended up putting a new set of tires on the back real soon after I got it. I bought a nice 2 bottom plow with a clutch lift and a trailer sickle mower for it from a local dealer and it came in pretty handy. I could turn in the manure in the garden and then run the tiller. I could keep the weeds in the ditches cut and top the pasture to keep the weeds knocked back, or even cut a swath and feed it to an animal in the barn as green feed if we wanted to. Then the landlord offered to let me cut 5 acres he owned down the road for hay if he could have some of it. It was pretty grassy looking so I figured I didn't have to worry about crimping it after I cut it and I had a buddy that could borrow a baler so I said OK. I ended up breaking 3 pitman sticks on the mower because the stuff was so thick underneath from not being cut for a couple of years. So I ended up borrowing a tractor and haybine to get it cut. Then I realized I had to borrow a rake. My buddy didn't get the baler there on time twice and it got rained on twice so I ended up with 150 bales of bedding instead of 150 bales of hay. That experience combined with the fact that the next spring I planted half an acre of oats for grain had me out looking for a baler next summer. I found a John Deere 24T for half of what the John Deere dealer wanted and towed it home behind the truck. Baled my oat straw with it and deemed it worth the price I paid. I was disappointed with the stand of oats and hay I got that year so I decided that the broadcast method was not the way to go, so now I was in the market for a grain drill.... I tell ya once you start messing around with machinery it's hard to stop.

So I have a tractor, a plow, springtooth, quack digger, mower, crimper, 2 balers, grain drill, and a corn planter. I hope to get a rake with the land we are purchasing and maybe a hayrack and a haybine. I had a chopper with a hayhead but it was so old and worn out I ended up scrapping it instead of trying to fix it. I am looking at finding another just for chopping bales up for mulch and for running the corn through for our bag silage adventure.

If you decide to go down this path the tractor is your first step. Don't slip. Get something a little more modern than an Allis WD. It's a fine tractor if you have experience with farm machinery but if you don't You're better off with something newer. Unless you have really small plans stay away from any Fords with an N in the model like 2N 8N NAA. They are small, underpowered and bereft of any modern advance that you need to get anything done. Sure they have a 3 point hitch but the hydraulics are not live, which means that if you step on the clutch you can't lift the hitch. The PTO is the same, step on the clutch, the shaft stops spinning, not good when you're trying to bale. Most older tractors are this way and it takes an experienced hand to keep them from plugging up a baler. Live PTO, live hydraulics, a 3 point hitch, maybe even a set of rear hydraulic couplers are essential. The WD has just enough power to pull a baler and a small wagon load of hay bales. Throw a big hill in the mix and it's even odds if you'll make it. I would say a minimum of 45 HP with the mentioned attributes and you'd have a tractor that you can work some land with. I would be comfortable with 20 acres and the WD. 45 HP and 40 acres would be no problem if you have the proper sized equipment. I have also learned that loyalty to a certain color is not something that bothers me. I look for stuff that is still in good shape, decently priced and sized to my operation. Color can be a factor if you're worried about getting replacement parts or if you don't fix your own stuff and rely on the dealer to do that. In that case I'd go with stuff sold nearby.

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