quote:

Originally posted by Scuba Steve Sig:
One thing to think about. Are you going to be mowing 5-6 acres every week or two?

That's a crazy amount of grass/lawn to have to mow. You might consider "only" leaving an acre around the house to mow and let the rest grow to support ground nesting birds and other habitat. Then cut that down once each Fall.

The Ventrac I referenced would be ideal for this utilizing the front mower to take care of the yard every week then change to the cutter/brush hog attachment for the Fall mow. Plus there are all sorts of other attachments for these machines, but Ventracs are not cheap.

The next option I'd look at would be a subcompact tractor such as a Kubota BX2660 (or even B2601) with a mid mount mower along with a pull behind cutter/brush hog, and removable loader with QA bucket. My experience is that it's a lot easier mowing around a house and obstacles with a tractor having a mid mount mower than a pull behind mower, pull behind mowers are ok in larger areas. John Deere 1025R is another one and you can always find nice used BX and 1025R's on the used market as well.

Rather than have a larger tractor that just sits most of the time, plus a riding mower, you'll be utilizing a smaller tractor for mowing every week, and having the advantage of only one machine to buy, maintain, and store. This is what I chose to do when I had about 1 1/2 acre to mow along with a 3 acre meadow I cut down every Fall and it worked out very well for years. Unfortunately I ended up with more property and a lot more mowing (even though I let most if it grow all year as well). So now with mowing probably 5 acres (which is stupid!) I use a ZTR for that mowing and a larger tractor with a flail to cut the meadow and fields each Fall as well as loader work.