Kind of new here, I suppose this is the right place. Background, My family partnership owns about 7,000 acres, all of it in native grass operating as a working cattle ranch. I am the operator, my pop is still around to run machines and for advice, but mostly he's retired. The ranch is located in south central Kansas in the Red Hills. It's my fifth year operating, and I've been pretty lucky to have a couple good deals come my way and I've ended up with some equipment. I've always been interested in earthmoving, loved watching ponds get built on the ranch as a kid. The fella that dug all of our ponds used an old dragline, an ancient D7? and a Cat 633B. That was in the early 90's and he still has that 633B, probably moved a couple hundred thousand yards with it. He claims that the first month he had that scraper he moved 30k yards. Knowing the mans work ethic, I believe it. Sun up, he's moving. Lunch time he might slow down to eat a sandwich while he's running. When he turned 70 he stopped working on Sundays. What I do: Graze cows. That's my day job and allows me to have a lot of land and some cool toys to play with. Side bonus, I live 19 miles from town and I only have to go for parts or groceries. We have a pair of JD 333D's Both are optioned out, High low, cab, a/c, EH controls, reversing fan. Attachments: Tobin Flip Blade Bobcat grapple, 84 inch wide, pallet forks (who doesn't have some?) Turbo Saw, 30inch, rotate head high flow. Aguer with a couple different bits. Ashland ground hog 2500 scraper. Nearly all of my work is going to be on my own place for awhile. I have about a third of the ranch left to develop fully, the first step in that is building roads. Eastern Red Cedar is a problem around here, due to the terrain a mulcher isn't practical, so we use a rotary saw to cut and the second machine with the grapple to move the cut trees. Either pop comes and helps me, I seat hop or one of my neighbors runs it for me. There's plenty of guys around here that are always looking for day work. Anyway, enjoy, and I'll be happy to answer questions. Click on the links to view pictures, they should work, let me know if they don't. Loaded up, heading out the the pasture. Both machines, 84 inch bobcat grapple holding a JD 84 inch bucket, the far machine has a 96inch Tobin flip blade, the near machine a Turbo Saw. Background is our Kubota RTV 1100. We also have an RTV900 One of our JD 333D's and Ashland Ground Hog 2500 scraper. It's by far my favorite toy. Emergency radiator cleanout in the pasture. One of 'those days.' Cutting trees and working around stumps all the time you detrack every once in a while. Also, my 1973 Pete 358FA, getting a load of sand from my sand pit. Just posing Videos! I'm more of a nerd sometimes than I would like to admit and I make videos. Shifting my Pete http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrbvQLxCjLM A little tobin blade work http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrGR4Lj5-y8 A few different things and camera angles. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0oh4wNg37w Killing trees to reclaim pasture land and improve the water systems. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgeDz-E1aBk Rolling a track back on. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY_agE2R_3k Time lapse of a us working on cleaning out a canyon and the backside of a pond dam. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2odzR-tHw4 Scraper operation video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecx_EDh5Gms
Awesome! I can t wait to follow this thread. I subscribed to you on you tube too, looks like an awesome way to live. I never realized you got snow like that out in Kansas. Do you have any big whitetail bucks on your property? Are there rattlesnakes out there?
I suppose the trees grow where the best ground is but do you leave "any" trees for shade for the cows? If I was a cow I'd love you for it. Looks pretty hot and dry.
Surprised at how well the machine pushes with the dozer blade. I still think a D3 would be better for dozing but when you look at how versatile the machine is with all the attachments it leaves a D3 not looking so good.
Nedly, the snow we had this past winter was pretty abnormal. We've got some pretty decent size deer, but the population is sort of in decline around here because hunters don't know how to manage a herd for desirable genetics. Crayton, A cow would have to basically crawl under the trees that I am cutting, they are lazy so they don't. I'm freeing up water resources and opening up new places for grass to grow. Lowbed, Don't get me wrong, dozers have a place in the world that nothing else is going to replace. Problem with a dozer is it's slow and only does a couple jobs. It does push really well with the blade, but it's prone to hop and you end up with waves. It's hard to carry a grade with it. I don't know if taking the ballast off the back of my machine would be better or not. I've also considered putting about 750lbs of ballast right behind the blade. I've got some carnage from the last few weeks, broke a spindle on my scraper, had rats in my wiring, had to replace a pair of tracks just to name a few things. I'll post pics later when I get them off my phone.
Eastern Red Cedar is a weed tree to anyone with farm land. Soaks up water and the smaller ones really only have value as yard mulch and possibly fence posts if they are straight. I smile a little every time I push one over with my backhoe.
Think I'd be tempted to limb up some of those trees to make some shade. If you have trouble with your dozer "hopping up and down" there's probably something wrong in the seat. Cows aren't lazy and most times they are a lot smarter than the people that own them.
It hops because the blade is way too far infront of the center of gravity. More weight forward or less weight aft is the answer. I could also blame JD's total lack of feel in their EH controls too. Doing precision work with it is like trying to sew while wearing work gloves. You're too clumsy and numb. I had a New Holland C175 with pilot controls and that was about as tight as they come. Cows are lazy. Very lazy. Their job is to make more cows and to eat. If you give them welfare, i.e. haul feed to them every day they are going to sit around and do nothing. Cows take the easiest path, shortest route to get where they want to go. Which might not always be collocated with where you want them to be. The art of moving cows has everything to do with cow psychology and understanding their flight zones. Once you imprint a cow with what a certain noise means from a pickup, they will investigate that pickup every time they see it. If you give them 'candy' every time they investigate you, congrats you've just trained one of the laziest animals in the world to accept welfare. Now that they want the dole, they will follow you anywhere and almost any distance to get their candy. Condition, response reward training.
Red Hills Dirt - I was not saying a dozer would be better. I was just surprised at how well your machine pushes with the blade as seen in the video. Just wondering haw well they would compare to a dozer. I would much rather have your machine since I could make more money with it and do more work with it than I could with a dozer (I would starve with a dozer around my town). Guys with dozers around here are lucky to get 100-200 hrs per year but need them as part of their excavating businesses. I was thinking the same thing Crayton stated. Wavy grade comes from the seat....LOL Cheers to all. Lowbed Driver
Not going to argue with you bud. What seems to be working best is to prep and clean up with the blade and do the finish grading with my scraper. That seems to be the lowest effort and best results. I've been busy with ranch work for awhile, but that is winding down some and I'm starting to plan my fall season.
We need some pics!!!
I got a side job with my Pete. Hauling some rock for another ranch about 15 miles away. Round trip is just about an hour. They are having me drop 30 tons each of 4+ at some of their stock tanks and then I have about 3 miles of road to spread 2-3" clean rock on. Tank work Getting loaded up. Ran out of fuel....I dipped the tank before I left the quarry and I had about six inches on the stick. Guess that wasn't enough. I was going around a right hand corner, only my left tank works, and I guess the fuel ran away from the pickup and sucked a big air bubble in. I got her running and back to work later.....five hours later. Guess I am still on the bottom side of the learning curve for a few things. New twin stick shifting video http://youtu.be/8EZK8UdHs7U My friend Kyle came over and fixed the jake brakes on the Pete. http://youtu.be/XdXlU-9n1SY I'll get my GoPro out this week while I am hauling rock and make some videos.
Wow, you must hang around with some stupid people and hungry cows!
Assume you probably own thousands of them. If not get your money out, you'll learn damned quick.
Winter time has settled in. Kind of hard to get motivated to do much when it's 3 F outside, with 20 mph wind. Here's a video I made a couple weeks ago, now with functional Jake Brakes! http://youtu.be/s_AHufASkJA