Larsen Poultry Ranch - homesteading journey

Larsen Poultry Ranch

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Husband's sister had her baby this morning, a little girl. 6 pounds 10 ounces 19". Healthy, I think they get to leave the hospital tomorrow. First grandbaby on both sides. Husband's grandparents (both sets!) are excited they are now great grandparents.

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Senile_Texas_Aggie

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Miss @Larsen Poultry Ranch,

I have the following tractor attachments that may relate to your needs:
+ grapple
+ pallet forks
+ wood chipper
+ tree shear
+ stump bucket
+ shredder / rotary cutter / mower
+ landscape rake
+ 2 bale spears (never used)
+ bucket

Because I have a lot of pasture and woods, depending on what I am working on, I will use the mower a lot or if working in or along the woods, I will use my grapple. That is my most used implement. I use the grapple way more often than I do pallet forks (or any other implement), although pallet forks are handy as well. I can pick up brush and limbs, tree trunks (up to the lift capacity of my tractor), and I can drag a lot more than I can pick up. I can even push over small and medium sized trees and then dig them up with the grapple. I can see you using a grapple quite a bit, especially should you want to process wood for burning.

I use the wood chipper to make wood chips for use around our property. I can see you using this to make bedding for your animal pens and stalls, and maybe mulch for your garden or flower beds.

I do not own a stump grinder although I have considered buying one. If you do decide to buy a stump grinder, be sure to buy a tractor with an HST transmission, not a gear driven or power shuttle transmission. The reason is that the stump grinder needs to move VERY slowly over the stump as it grinds. Gear driven and power shuttle transmissions, even in the lowest gear, move too quickly. (I own a tractor with power shuttle transmission.)

Miss @Baymule's idea about hiring a dozer to do the work may make the most sense, though.

Senile Texas Aggie

YouTube channel "GP Outdoors" using a grapple for handling a downed tree:

YouTube channel "Sawing with Sandy" putting firewood in IBC totes which he then moves near his house. He also has a grapple to move the logs to his firewood processing area:
 

Larsen Poultry Ranch

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@Senile_Texas_Aggie I read your list to hubby and he agreed with most of them, just need to figure out financing for the tractor and attachments. We will probably just borrow my brother's tractor or father-in-law's tractor for a bit.

I do think we will check out the auction on the 9th to see if something will work for our budget and goals.
 

Baymule

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My weakness is tools. I love tools. I try to back up every electric tool with it's hand tool equivalent. For our tractor we have a bush hog, box blade, disc, Front end bucket and pallet forks. We never have used the box blade, seldom use the pallet forks. We have a trailer hitch on the tractor too so we can load up the flatbed with whatever we want to work with, that sure would have been a HUGE help if we had done that when we were building fence! I heartily recommend a trailer hitch for hauling those heavy rolls of wire, T-posts and assorted tools for building fence.

Another very useful tool was a gas powered auger from Harbor Freight. I looked at a tractor powered auger. For our little tractor, it wouldn't drill very deep and was priced in the thousands of dollars. Definitely not worth the money! So off to Harbor Freight I went and bought a gas powered earth auger.

It's on sale now!! Do I hear Christmas present? Lordy I do love Harbor Freight!


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Larsen Poultry Ranch

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Now hubby says his dad might be giving us the Kubota tractor they rarely use, so we might not have to buy one. Still need to get attachments. Hubby wants an auger that will attach to the tractor as he says the hand ones can't deal with rocks.

I think we are going to look at the auction site tonight and figure out if they have an auger attachment and stump grinder we could bid on. The only auctions I've bid in are eBay ones, although I've attended poultry auctions before as a seller.
 

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