Owning horses comes with maintaining the barn and property to ensure a clean, safe and comfortable environment for horses and humans. For those responsibilities, a tractor with implements can be a reliable, efficient workhorse. Bryce Meehan, general manager of Team Tractor & Equipment in Phoenix, Arizona, helps horse owners with small acreages find the equipment that best suits their needs, from mowing pastures to moving dirt and manure to grooming arenas and grading driveways. Here is the type of tractor and essential implements he recommends to his customers.
Tractor: “Horse owners need to look at what the tractor can do off the front end in terms of manure removal and maneuvering inside mare motels and other small spaces, as well as dragging arenas,” says Meehan.
For most horse owners, Meehan recommends a compact or subcompact tractor with about 22 to 30 horsepower, which should fit the majority of jobs they want to accomplish. Horsepower is an important determining factor in what a tractor can do and the type of implements it can accommodate. The larger and heavier tractors generally have more horsepower and therefore can do heavier work. But the compact or subcompact tractors are able to maneuver in smaller spaces like stalls, mare motels and alleyways. Meehan also advises selecting a tractor that can lift 700 to 1,200 pounds for moving dirt, manure and hay.
Implements: Team Tractor offers “Gear Up” packages that include two implements, a canopy and rear-tire ballast, which weights the rear of the tractor to improve traction. Besides the standard bucket and fork attachments that come with the tractor, Meehan suggests adding backside implements such as a box blade for ripping up, smoothing and grading dirt; a landscape rake; and a dragharrow for conditioning an arena.
