About front loaders and 3ph buckets

[eppie]

Hi folks,

I was thinking: It seems that about every North american medium sized farm tractor comes with a front loader, as a kind of universal piece of equipment for moving dirt, snow and earth, landscaping, and carrying stuff around the barn yard.

With us in the Netherlands, every hobby farmer who buys an old MF 135 or Dexta, buys a 3ph bucket included.

I just wondered: Why were the front loaders that much more popular than in the Netherlands, and over here, the 3ph buckets are very popular, while i think, you hardly see them in N.A.

It's just remarkable, i think.

anyone comments?

[leemsutton]

Here in England about 10 years ago everybody had a tractor and front end loader like your talking about.

Then the telescopics were introduced and now everybody had one of them instead. I only know of 2 farmers that still run tractors and loaders. They both run a telescopic as well!

I thinks its a 'looks' thing as the tractor and front end loader are far more useful as you can do anything with them. Basically they are a loader and a tractor where as a telescopic is just a loader really. However the telscopics look better. They can reach further but I think its abit more to do with the way they look.

[eppie]

Hey, those telescopic machines are quite rare here in the Netherlands. They do use some standard wheel loaders, or front loaders, but the front loaders are becoming less popular when the self loading TMR mixer wagons were getting commonly used.

[kenjar]

Hi Renze,

You are right , front end loaders are very popular in the States. We use them because they are very versatile and affordable. Quick attach and detach, frees your tractor for other chores.
Less strain on the operator than a rear bucket, no more sore necks from looking back.
Will find alot more skid steers here than the telescopic loaders.

[Woodbeef]

I'll have to agree with all of Kenjar's points. Teles are still to much of a specialized machine for most farmers over here. Local green dealer brought one of the first ones in last year. I asked him about it the first week it was here. He told me he had 4 local large dairy farmers bidding on it,and it would soon be gone. Well.....out side of pulling Christmas floats,and going to local shows it still sits at the dealer a year later.

Now as for 3pth scoops. It seems that the week-end warriors that can not afford a fel buy them. Some seem to think that the scoop is not that useful also. Might be too old fashioned for some too.

Like you say Renze it is harder to find an under 100 pto hp mfd tractor with out a loader,than with. On alot of farms around here these are the big tractors,so must be very versatile and do just about everything around the farm.

[Xavier]

In my opinion a tractor with a frontal loader is essential in a farm, almost in medium farms.

But a telescopic seems too much money for a monopurpose machine, instead of them you can have a multipurpose machine, like is a tractor with a loader.

With the modern loaders attach and desattach them is not a problem.

In a profi test if you are not using a telescopic machine 600 hours you are loosing money.

But seems that you have a bigger enterprise.

[F6L913]

I remember a pic of a Merlo? telescopic with hydraulic and PTO. So you can use the telescopic like a tractor.

[Fred]

Yes
Merlo have a tele with 3 point. Manitou and NH also I have read somewhere. But I cannot see it as a good idea for field work due to the weight of the machine. For general moving mounted equipment, using mounted kit on hard surfaces then good, but then the option could be an expensive luxury.

In the UK telescopics are very popular as Lee said. I would say they took hold on medium to large mixed/stock farms first 15 years ago, som getting them 20 years ago. JCB loadall and Matbro teleram (pivot steer) were most visable. Many farms wondered how they managed before getting one. If you can put over 600 hours a year, as Xavier says is Profi cost line, then they have a very useful place. They can be so much quicker than a tractor/loader. I've always found pivot steer ones easier to get top performance from.

[eppie]

We do have a 30 year old front loader, but with the worn oil pump of the Deutz, it doesn't lift a dog dropping from the driveway.

I have welded new bottom and side sheets into my 3ph bucket a month ago. (you seem to call them scoops)

They were rotten through, and bursten in the 10 years of intensive use. I have been digging holes, so deep that you couldn't see that the tractor was down there. And digging out trees as big as a milk can. The capacity is bigger than a front loader, it carries more earth, but with a front loader you can use a dumptrailer.

i think the rear buckets give less strain on your tractor than a front loader.

I have in mind to build a rear loader, to handle wrapped silage bales and to load manure into my neighbor's spreader. I think i will make the attachments compatible to the standard 3ph, so i can hook any piece of 3ph machinery to it. (that saves me the money for special loader implements)

The 16.9-30 rear tires can handle the weight MUCH better than the 11.2R24 front wheels. And besides, there is hardly any room alongside the nose of the 5245 to mount loader consoles, because of the old hydrostatic powersteering.

(P.S. i have made up my mind, and chose to invest my time in that rear loader instead of the JF chopper, because it is much more versatile in use)


For wrapped silage bale handling, many people use old forklift masts attached to the 3ph, with a clamp on it instead of forks. Are these old forklift masts used elsewhere in agriculture??

[Red_Painter]

Those front loaders are really handy. We use ours quite often to lift heavy stuff around the farm like heavy barrels, poles, heavy tractor parts like tracks when rails or pins and bushings need to be repaired as well as other damaged implements. Haven't used a bucket in years. Used the loader last year to lift a new 550 gallon gas barrel on the truck bed, then raised the bed up to elevated frame and used the loader to push the barrel from the other side onto the elevated angle iron frame. Worked ok, but would like to have had a telescopic loader for that job. This year I hung an old harrow on the loader welded the lever open and used it to harrow pea straw piles rolled up by fertilizer rig harrow so we could seed without plugging the drill. Didn't work real great but helped. We also pulled out lots of old fence posts after the livestock were gone by wrapping a chain around the cedar fence post and lifting with the loader. I can't imagine anyone even without livestock not having a front mounter loader on a tractor.
When we had our Ford, my dad mounted sprayer booms on the front for spraying. His first mounted mower was a horse mower which he mounted to the side by building a drive shaft under the tractor driven by chain from the pto and he raised and lowered the mower with a cable pulley system by raising or lowering the Dearborn loader on the 9N. It worked great, and he could easily see what he was doing. I think he liked it better than the 3pt Dearborn mower that replaced it.

[JoeinTX]

Front end loaders are extremely handy, but I've found a great deal of use for rear mounted buckets and scrapers. My dad bought a 3pt mounted rear bucket for the NAA about 20 years ago and that thing has gotten more use and paid for itself more times over than any other piece I've got. Now, it's small with only 1/3 yard capacity, but I cleaned out a small tank with it and a chisel a few years ago. Roughly a week's worth of work but it did save me several hudred dollars compared to hiring a dozer at $75/hr. The small pull-type scrapers are a gem. I don't see many other rear buckets or pull scrapers around and I dont' really understand this because in my experience they are very efficient earth movers........

[leemsutton]

Having read all the replies to this its obvious that tractor and front end loaders are still the most popular world wide.

We only recently moved to a telescopic (12 months ago) from 2 rough terrian forklifts (Manitou & International - model numbers 2525P).
Both were getting on for 20 years old and both completed about 600 hours per year each.

The telescopic (manitou 629 T) replaced both of these and has clocked up 800 hours in its first year. Also if anything it has done more work as well, as its out on a building site as well as farm work.

Its far quicker to load or unload a lorry with a telescopic compared to a front end loader. Once you have used one then you never want to go back.

Woodbeef - get that deere telescopic out on demo for a week and then see what you think.

[eppie]

These are the buckets common used in the Netherlands: Nearly every farmer has one.

www.hekamp.com/trekkerbakc2.htm

We have the 200 centimeter wide version. We use it to clean out horse stables, clear bush, move dirt, earth, manure, debris and any other kind of loose material around the farm.

Right after the Foot- and mouth disease crisis last year, i cleaned out the temporary hog sties (we were in a restricted area) and changed the black mud for clean sand from the bush in the corner of the land. I cleared a small part of the bush, and moved about 100 cubic meters of earth in a few evenings of spare time.

After our old one was wrecked, we bought that bucket new 10 years ago, for 1250 guilders, but it has payd itself ten times that money in return.

But loaders are rare in the Netherlands. I think i know 3 people around here, who have a modern type loader on their main tractor. (80-100 hp) My neighbor has an old Renault 551 with a light duty loader, but he uses it mostly to help crippled cows. But still, for carrying stuff, he has the 3ph bucket on the rear of that loader tractor.

[New Hollander]

Hello,

in my opinion the front end loaders aren't used much because they are more expensive and have little use in countries like Holland. We don't have much silage or straw baleage on farms. Contractors are using loaders.
The American tractors are designed more for forward facing jobs. They have less reverse gears. I wonder why this concept didn't get more use:

To me this would be the ideal machine, not only because of it's powertrain. The manufacturer, Moffett, was taken over by Terex and they stopped producing it. I thought the market for this machine was still growing at that moment. A contractor a couple of miles from us uses one to cut silage blocks in winter and cart round bales in summer.

New Hollander

[eppie]

The importer for these Moffet's in the east part of the Netherlands was Moraal&Tempelman, in Dalfsen, where i live. But i doubt if they have ever sold one.

On holiday, i have seen one with a bale clamp, on an isle, i think it was Schiermonnikoog, or Terschelling. They used it to load wrapped silage bales.

I think on this isle, where there is not enough work for a wheel loader or bulldozer to make it cost effective, this Moffet makes a good compromise.

Hey New Hollander, are you from Terschelling ??

Terschelling is a pretty hard place to live, let alone sleep, with all those youth camping sites !! My friends persuaded me to join them, 2 years ago, but i have had it with the place within 2 days !! There's no place like the Steernbos. ..."Ich bin ein Steernboster !!!" ;D