I know this comes up regularly but the threads usually start very quickly to become very technical and I find I don’t then follow the conversation.
We have our eyes open for a wee tractor for jobs around the holding. I’ve no experience with the “Smallholder” tractors, the smallest I used in Cumbria was a Massey 165, which was upgraded to a 60bhp engine while I was there but was originally less (not sure how much, but more than 35 I think).
We think that if we had a small 4wd, we could do our own scraping of the new yard, tidying and emptying of the muck midden (although we’d probably still pay the local contractor to do the spreading for us, so it might still be cheaper because quicker to use his big beast to dig the muck out too), topping, etc. Not baling, so we’d probably still get the grass cut and baled by the contractor, but could woofle and perhaps row up ourselves.
When I see ads for, eg, a Kubota B6001, I don’t really know what it’s capabilities are, and whether it’s a tractor that was designed for building site work, grass / park management, or small scale agriculture. (I’m assuming we’d want one that was designed for the smallholding market?). Where would I find such information, and if it’s tech specs, what am I looking for to tell me it’s suitable for a small farm?