Cheap digger for ditching, grading etc

Mtx

What digger would be recommended for cleaning ditches, digging gate posts and just general maintenance around the farm. Budget is max £10k. Or would a backhoe like a JCB 3x more suited?

Who2

Mtx wrote: »

What digger would be recommended for cleaning ditches, digging gate posts and just general maintenance around the farm. Budget is max £10k. Or would a backhoe like a JCB 3 be more suited?

At 10 k you'll be scraping the barrel for a digger, between exporters and the lift in construction 10k is about the price of a fixer upper. You'd get a middling jcb or case that could be used for feeding in the winter. You must have a lot of gate posts to dig, cleaning ditches with a jcb will take a while.

tomwaterford

Hire a lad in with a 16 ton at e45 an hour.....he'll do some mountain of work in a week


And keep the rest of your money for yourself....even if you've to do a day/two a year afterwards general maintenance....a bad breakdown would soon cover the cost for a few years

Nekarsulm

JCB 3cx or Case 580 etc, not practical really for land work. You have neither the reach nor the flotation when things get soft.

patsy_mccabe

I'd love to get a Takeuchi TB125 but when you consider how long it will be sitting idle, it's hard to justify the cost.

croot

Mtx wrote: »

What digger would be recommended for cleaning ditches, digging gate posts and just general maintenance around the farm. Budget is max £10k. Or would a backhoe like a JCB 3x more suited?

I sold a rough ex 100 for more than that last year. It probably needed 7k upwards spent on it to bring it up to a decent level so realistically if going tracked you’d need to double your budget or you’ll be buying trouble. Wheeled diggers are useless on land so waste of money buying one for cleaning drains.

Water John

If you're handy at the driving and have the time, could you, hire to drive, at a reasonable rate?

lab man

You'll hire a 8.5 tome machine for 580 plus vat per week fair reasonable I think , prob with self hire is u still need a guy on the ground getting bits or holding that iykwim. ..

Water John

Yeah, thought a 12 ton might be about €20/hr incl. I presume it could be per hours on the engine or per week. Option I'm interested in.

maidhc

I’d try and pick up a Ford 655c with some history of an engine overhaul. Should be possible to get for 10k. All the talk of hiring is grand if you have a defined job. I have always found I have used the Ford 550 for small little chores around for which it is invaluable.

It also backfilled the new shed for me during the year, a job that would have prob needed 2x 360s, so isn’t that useless.

Bullocks

I think it's hard to beat a good operator at a reasonable rate and yourself on the ground holding posts or giving direction.

minktrapper

Hard to believe it would pay anybody to buy a digger for farm work. Bar you have a lot of feeding in the winter months. Between putting fuel in it and repairs. One thousand euros doesn't go too far when you start doing repairs on a digger. Plus you have to drive it. So other jobs left undone.

maidhc

minktrapper wrote: »

Hard to believe it would pay anybody to buy a digger for farm work. Bar you have a lot of feeding in the winter months. Between putting fuel in it and repairs. One thousand euros doesn't go too far when you start doing repairs on a digger. Plus you have to drive it. So other jobs left undone.

A digger that isn’t used much won’t break down often or use much fuel! Our machine was invaluable for the past twenty five years and has cost nothing much in running costs.

Obviously you will hire in a 360 for major work anyway, it is purely for small jobs!

blue5000

maidhc wrote: »

I’d try and pick up a Ford 655c with some history of an engine overhaul. Should be possible to get for 10k. All the talk of hiring is grand if you have a defined job. I have always found I have used the Ford 550 for small little chores around for which it is invaluable.

It also backfilled the new shed for me during the year, a job that would have prob needed 2x 360s, so isn’t that useless.

Is there a 40 series (power star engine) in the 655c maidhc? I always hire in a track machine and driver for the big jobs, but have been thinking of getting one of these for a while. Any issues with the 550, I think they were based on a ford 4000/46?

White Clover

blue5000 wrote: »

Is there a 40 series (power star engine) in the 655c maidhc? I always hire in a track machine and driver for the big jobs, but have been thinking of getting one of these for a while. Any issues with the 550, I think they were based on a ford 4000/46?

Maidhc will confirm, but I'm fairly sure the C had the series 3 engine and the D had the powerstar.

White Clover

Have a good 13T track machine here. Handy to have, just don't have the time to drive it!

I'll prob invest in a loader for feeding cattle in the next year or so. A 2cx is a nice job but visibility of forks/bucket is poor. Kramer do a few nice artic loaders too. Any other recommendations with good visibility of the implement on front?

TheFarrier

Jcb tm series. Artic steer and telescopic boom. Great yoke.

maidhc

blue5000 wrote: »

Is there a 40 series (power star engine) in the 655c maidhc? I always hire in a track machine and driver for the big jobs, but have been thinking of getting one of these for a while. Any issues with the 550, I think they were based on a ford 4000/46?

I’m actually not sure which ones have the Powerstars. The 550 has been an exceptional machine really. It is a Ford 4600 underneath. No power (although it will push a mountain if you put it in a low gear), gets stuck easily, and you fight with it rather than drive it (6x4 crash box) but so useful.

As I said it backfilled the shed during the summer and did a solid week of hard work with only a burst hose. It also stacks 1000 bales of silage a year, and did everything from clearing trees after hurricane Ophelia to knocking walls to making a gap during the past while.

kincaid

know a guy selling a good case poclain, nice tidy tight machine and going great, think they are 14ton but could be wrong