EP: 473 | Tractor Wisdom

On this episode we discuss new and used tractors with seasoned mechanic Clay Davis who runs the Gamekeeper Garage. Clay spends his days keeping everything running and has learned a lot through the years. From hooking up attachments, horsepower needs, which transmission type is best to work to look for in a used tractor, we ask a lot of questions. 

Listen, Learn and Enjoy. 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

I'm Jeff Foxworthy, and welcome to Gamekeeper Podcast. If you want to learn more about farming for wildlife and habitat management, everybody you are in the right place. Join the Gamekeeper crew direct from Austria Land Enhancement Studios as they discuss the latest wildlife and habitat management practices. News, and of course, honey. There's no telling what you'll learn, but I'm going to tell you, I bet it's interesting. Enjoy.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

We're live. Three, two, one.

SPEAKER_03 0:28

All right, Lanny. We've done nearly 470 episodes. We've never done one specifically about tractors.

SPEAKER_05 0:35

No, we hadn't. And I mean, you know, as hunters, fishermen, gamekeeper specifically, I mean, you you want a place. And then once you get your actually either, you know, get permission or uh lucky enough to lease one or even lucky enough to buy one, the next thing you think about is what, Bobby?

SPEAKER_03 0:52

Yeah, the next one. Whatever's touching it.

SPEAKER_07 0:57

I'm gonna say our guest today is gonna help a lot because I think the most important thing I think about is keeping the song on running. Yes, tractors is what we're talking about.

SPEAKER_04 1:04

I mean, and I I can think of as many things as I've messed up in the last 30 years on a tractor. I I may be able to offer some help myself.

SPEAKER_05 1:12

You can tell people what not to do. Right.

SPEAKER_07 1:15

I mean, your typical farmer, lifetime farmer, is always either him or someone in the fold, a pretty good mechanic to have to be, learn to take care of stuff. But I'm gonna go out and let them say your average gamekeeper, especially just came into this recently, is not and needs all the tips and advice they can get. That's right. And as I've learned my skint knuckles over uh a good history of that, bleeding a little bit right now. Yeah, preventative is everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it it can be dangerous.

SPEAKER_05 1:46

Guys don't know what they're doing. Oh, no, tractors are dangerous all the way around. So we all have friends that have been injured.

SPEAKER_07 1:52

That's a whole different topic.

SPEAKER_05 1:53

Multiple ones. But you know what? Once you get our our guest, I won't even call him a guest. We call him a guest. He's here every day. Yeah. He's kind of like he's been, he was on the 16 gauge podcast. You're on another one before, too, aren't you?

SPEAKER_06 2:05

I'm just behind the scenes all the time.

SPEAKER_05 2:07

That's what I mean.

SPEAKER_06 2:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 2:08

I kidded before we Bobby said he was on here. He's like first team All-American. Thank you, Mr. Know It All Team.

SPEAKER_04 2:15

Because he does. Oh, we brought it back.

SPEAKER_03 2:18

So there we go. We've got Mr. Clay Davis. Our very own. The kazoo. That's the kind of horns I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_05 2:28

All the folks in the office get the kazoos.

SPEAKER_03 2:30

If I had a tractor and it broke down, Clay would be the first guy I would call.

SPEAKER_05 2:34

If you break any first person you call is Clay.

SPEAKER_07 2:37

I have multiple tractors, and when the first person I call already is Clay. Every time. Speed dial. Speed dial. Poor guy.

SPEAKER_05 2:45

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So he's got a great knowledge of, I mean, overall everything mechanically and everything else. So yeah, share a little insight with us today to get us started with traffic.

SPEAKER_04 2:54

That's how it's getting bigger over there.

SPEAKER_03 2:58

Let's start off. Clay, you're a relatively young guy. How did you but how did you we're we're gonna talk about traffic? We got a lot of questions, but how did you become such a good mechanic?

SPEAKER_06 3:07

Yeah, tell us about growing up. Oh my grandfather, I mean, that that's everything to me. Um, and his biggest thing was patience. He had so much patience. He'd let me do anything. He'd let me fail intentionally and then correct it. And then I'd get later in life I learned if he was smiling at me, I'd already messed up. And I would ask him later, so why wouldn't you correct me on that? And he said, Because if I did, you'd never learn from it. I said, if I do this, you'll never forget it. And it was some pretty hard lessons, but he never got mad at me, never yelled at me, and he was so patient with me. There was never a dumb question, and I asked a million questions. And because of that, I never was scared to ask or try, and it just kept building, and he spent a whole bunch of time with me.

SPEAKER_05 3:47

So you grew up uh outside of West Point on a on a farm?

SPEAKER_06 3:51

Uh yeah, pretty much. We had he had a bunch of land in Cairo, Mississippi, I called it, and then he had a shop uh just right outside the city limits. So he uh he worked for the he actually ran the Clay County school bus shop for years and retired from there. But every day when he'd get off, we'd either be at Cairo or we'd be in the shop. Usually it was Cairo then the shop. And so just I mean, and this is what I was telling Annie the other day was so was so hard, was so different, is you know, I would be on an old Jubilee tractor, me and one of my cousins at 10, 11, 12 years old, bush hogging. We had, I think it was 60 acres, we had to bush hog with a five-foot bushhog. There's no way I'd let my kid on there now, but I guess he just we started so young and he trusted us and knew we knew what was going on to do it. And nobody ever got hurt.

SPEAKER_03 4:36

And that was probably a a good tractor back then. But there probably wasn't uh uh uh something much safer than that, was there?

SPEAKER_06 4:46

Not really, not at not in that time period. So, you know, like I said, they were old school, so he didn't spend much money, and we and he got I remember fussing one time because we dealt we had all the CRP land and we bushoged all this stuff. And uh, you know, I'd been in my buddy Jeff Hawk, but I'd been in his cab tractors discing and bush hog and everything else. And I asked him one time, I said, D Daddy said, Why can't we get something like that? I said, I mean, you know, the cab tractor's way better. He said, You should have been on a mule, that's way better than a mule. So, you know, that was a Cadillac to him. And I've I've always kept that tractor and I've always appreciated it. And that's what you know, Landy and I were talking about earlier. Like for your for your small town or small people just getting started, might have 40 acres, might have 50 acres, whatever they're hunting. You don't need all that. I mean, an old Jubilee will do it. I mean, we did it with the bare minimum. We had, I mean, 200 acres we kept with with that, a Jubilee tractor and an old Alice Chandler tractor.

SPEAKER_05 5:39

And I'll still say we use that Jubilee every fall still. Yeah, we plant with it.

SPEAKER_04 5:43

So speaking of safety, isn't that one of those old tractors? And I'm I'm using my city slicker language here, that like the PTO keeps going when you That's correct.

SPEAKER_06 5:52

So the only safety on that tractor is you couldn't crank it in gear, it had to be in neutral to push the button down to crank it. And you know, he would let us do everything, but he always told us we're bush hog and never get around a pond because that's a direct drive to the PTO to the gearbox. So if you clutched it and your bush hog still had momentum, it was gonna keep pushing that tractor unless you could knock it into neutral. Just clutching it didn't matter. So he never wanted us around a pond because he was afraid it would push us on down in there. But no, there was no safety. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 6:21

So I think we'll hope to learn today, you know, some tractor basics. Maybe we'll get into, I mean, just hope you're talking about about what a PTO is, horsepower, those kind of things. But Bobby, you want to kick it off?

SPEAKER_03 6:30

Yeah. Thank you, Land. Yeah, I'd love to kick it off. Let's just say you've got a small place and uh three or four acres of food plots, but you want to have your own tractor. What is a guy what does he does it he does he need uh to start at 30 horsepower? Is it is it larger? What what's a bare minimum he can get by with?

SPEAKER_06 6:49

A bare minimum is hard to say because I mean you can do with whatever horsepower, it's just the rate you're gonna do it at. Um I mean, if it were me and I had what you're talking about, I would go try to find me like a Ford 3,000 or a Ford 4,000. That's a you know 35, 40 horsepower tractor. If I was getting started, the the absolute necessities, the first thing I'd do. I'd find a tractor like that because you can find them cheap. I mean you can f and they're really good tractors. Um I would find me a bush hole, a three-point hitch bush hole, I'd find me a three-point hitch disc, a cedar, and a hera. That's that would be the first things you would need. I mean, a culti packer and all that stuff's great, but they're not necessities. Um, even a hera, you could get by without one if you just barely drop the disc and what they call tickle the top, you know. But as far as a bush hog, a disc and a cedar would be my first three things after a tractor.

SPEAKER_04 7:49

And the the uh a tractor like that, most people can pull behind a standard V8 gas burning truck.

SPEAKER_06 7:56

Half ton truck, yes, you can pull it. I mean, them tractors don't weigh 3,500 pounds. Um the other thing, like to say the hair, the hair is nice, but again, my granddaddy and them, you know, when we didn't have a hair at first, we pulled a old cable or we pulled a chain or we pulled a piece of chain link fence. You can get by with stuff. It's like I said, it's not an absolute necessity. And if you're on a budget, then I would just be with my bare necessities. Did you say did you say a sprayer? I did not because that's an option and a luxury. You've got to have it. That's right, you can do it with a four-wheeler too. But see, we never had four-wheelers growing up, we never had sprayers growing up. We had a Jubilee tractor, a disc, a hair, and a bush hog.

SPEAKER_05 8:35

Well, and spray technologies come along with plot blaster and those things like that. They really made it uh so you can spray from a variety of things.

SPEAKER_04 8:42

I've got a tractor sprayer, but I I usually use the one behind the bike.

SPEAKER_05 8:47

Depends on what you're doing. Yep. Now, big acres, we were talking about three, you know, planting three acres or less of food plots. You're kind of good scaling up from that.

SPEAKER_07 8:54

What I was gonna say in a pinch, uh the the other one he mentioned, I would I would go out on limb. If you can possibly find an old one cheap, is get you a culture packer. Those they're unbelievably valuable with that kind of equipment. And in a pinch, if you've got something really important to you, one of the best culture packers on the planet, just not very wide, is a tractor tire. You can just line them up and go back and forth over it. At least you can't get it perfect, but you'll get those seeds, you know, good. That gives you that above seed soil contact. The tractor tire works great, but it's just not very efficient.

SPEAKER_03 9:27

Um it's like 30 horsepower is kind of a bare minimum. Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 9:33

A Jubilee tractor is 32 horsepower.

SPEAKER_05 9:35

That's what it is. And you're gonna, I mean, most tractors, your minimum horsepower on a tractor is gonna be 25 when you say not many of them get smaller than that. I think they classify them as that's a subcompact tractor. So you're looking at, you know, 25 to 35 horsepower in that kind of class. And and what kind of class, and there are certain classes to this. Categories, category one.

SPEAKER_06 9:56

Uh yeah, category one's your small pen stuff, then you go to category two and category three.

SPEAKER_05 10:00

So this would be category one uh implements or attachments on the back of it.

SPEAKER_03 10:04

So if I'm looking at a used tractor, and all it's got is hours, it doesn't have miles. That's correct. So what would be normal annual hours on a tractor?

SPEAKER_06 10:13

Man, that's too that varies too much. Say, plus you you how many are pulling out? I mean, there's so many different ways to look at hours. Are are they pulling a disc hours? Are they pulling a bush hog hours? I mean, you know, are they pulling a dirt pan hours? Um to give you an idea, it's hard to say. The 4840 we run, we're pulling a 30-foot disc with it, and it's got 11,000 hours on it. Now, that's a lot of hours, but don't smoke, still runs fine.

SPEAKER_04 10:41

What would you say that would be in miles?

SPEAKER_06 10:43

Oh God.

SPEAKER_05 10:44

Half a million? It'd be a lot.

unknown 10:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 10:47

So we've touched on horsepower a little bit, but there's a difference between can you kind of explain the difference between horsepower to PTO, engine horsepower, uh, if you what how four-wheel drive affects horsepower, and kind of explain all of that.

SPEAKER_06 11:02

All right. So on your horsepower, uh, you got a drawball, drawbar horsepower, and you got a PTO horsepower. I always go by PTO or horsepower because pull bush alls, backwing bush all, so on and so forth.

SPEAKER_05 11:12

And what's sorry, what does PTO mean? Power takeoff. Okay, and that's the thing that spins on the back end of the tractor. That's correct.

SPEAKER_06 11:17

And you got different RPMs. You got a 540 one, which is pretty much standard, and then on your bigger tractors, you get in a 1000 stuff. Um I mean, any small gamekeeper, there's no even no need to look at 1000 stuff because that's really big implements. Um, I mean, you know, pulling a five-foot bush hog, 30, 40 horsepower doesn't fine. Pulling a you know, eight-foot bush hog, you're really gonna need a bearing of 50 and 60. Pulling a batwing, 15-foot batwing, at the bare minimum, I'd want 75. I mean, you could do it if you're not cutting thick stuff and you're cutting high, but you just powers everything. On the four-wheel drive stuff that I learned that I thought was pretty neat, um, and I don't know why it is. I guess it's just power to the ground ratio. Like you can be pulling a disc, I've done it before, but pulling a disc in two-wheel drive, and it feels like it's struggling and hit four-wheel drive, and it feels like it just doubles your horsepower. And I guess you're just putting more power to the ground all the way around.

SPEAKER_07 12:12

Well, when I bought first time I bought a front end assist four-wheel drive, they said you'll add 25-30% to your horsepower. So if this is 100 horsepower, it's the same as a you know, but what he's talking about, it's not just increased pull, but the fact you're pulling the front end of the tractor also. So yeah, it's a huge difference. It is.

SPEAKER_04 12:34

And it's it's almost like it helps with momentum a little bit.

SPEAKER_07 12:37

But if you want to think about your horsepower, you can add, you know, just because they told me that it may be more now, but they said add 25 to 30 percent to that number as to what its pulling capacity is.

SPEAKER_04 12:48

So what about two-wheel drive versus all-wheel drive?

SPEAKER_06 12:52

Uh well, it depends on type ground you got, too. I mean, I would love a four-wheel drive cabin air tractor, but I mean, some places you don't need it.

SPEAKER_04 13:00

Uh so if you if it's relatively flat, you probably don't necessarily need it.

SPEAKER_06 13:06

And again, again, it depends on how big a stuff you're pulling. I mean, there's a lot of stuff at his place. We can't bush hog with a two-wheel drive tractor. And it's go out of sight. And then plus that, some of that ground he got's rotten. When that tire spins over one time, it's over with. Yeah, we don't even run the bigger tractor.

SPEAKER_04 13:20

And it'll just be what about uh it's a bad idea. What about a front-end loader? I love them. He hates them.

SPEAKER_07 13:29

Well, I mean, I think it's good to have if you only had one and you can have that, it's a do-all thing. But I hate them in the woods, doing the farm kind of work, you know, planting and turning. And I mean, they're getting in the way. So you sure have to pay attention to it. Well, if like he keeps saying, now they have a lot of these are quick detach. Well, then my complaining's over with because I just need to go back there and unhook it, you know. Which you don't even have to get out much to do it. No.

SPEAKER_06 13:54

And John Deere's got one out now. I was looking at that other tractor they had. It's just one block, it just disconnects all of it at one time. It's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_07 14:01

Yep. What about what do you think about like if you someone who's on a serious budget and they they get a tractor and they want to how much would a little bit of weight on the front end help them? You know, not the same as a front end assist and you know, four-wheel drive, but a lot of those counterweights are on those big tractors for a reason. I didn't know if that on a smaller tractor, a little bit of counterweight would help any.

SPEAKER_06 14:22

It does, especially if you're pulling a big bush hog. But and a lot of people, yeah, as far as pulling in them lighter in the smaller tractors too, uh, they put water and antifreeze in the tires. Of course, antifreeze so it don't freeze, but water to keep it down and for traction. Like uh, for example, you know, that old Kubota he's got don't have water in the tires. You pick something up that front end loader, that's why it gets real light on it.

SPEAKER_02 14:41

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_06 14:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 14:42

Makes sense. Yeah, and the other thing too, I've talked about this like probably should have started with it, but everybody wants to know so much to learn is safety stuff. Yes. I mean, like you I just thought about watering the tires does help a little bit from a safety standpoint, you know. But at the same time, if you're not real skilled, you need to be so careful. I mean you're talking about tearing up stuff. Best way to do it, I've learned, trust me, I've torn it up every way from Sunday, slow down. Even Clay, who's magic, Greg Briggs, magic, they will work slow. Now they they work faster and better skill, but it's but the same thing that we tell everybody out here to slow down a little bit. We have seen people here that not to call any names, but try to go too fast and they tear up stuff all the time, and I'm worried about them getting hurt.

SPEAKER_06 15:32

Yes, yes. I mean, especially on rough ground, uh people disc really fast, and I've watched them. I mean, you got to have a seat belt on or something because it don't take but two seconds to come off. Oh my gosh, slow down. And a lot of these tractors don't have safeties on the older tractors, don't have safeties on the seat. If you come off, it's just I mean, it ain't stopping until it hits something.

SPEAKER_04 15:49

Right. So, I mean, I always buckle up. You you never know when you may hit that erosion spot you forgot about and flip the tractor. You want to be held inside of the tractor if it flips.

SPEAKER_05 16:00

Yeah, and that rollover bar does not work unless you have your seatbelt on. That's correct. So do not fold it down.

SPEAKER_06 16:06

My biggest pet peeve with any tractor is that people do not pay attention to, is the PTO. You know, whether they're running an auger putting grain or whether they're running a, you know, anything, Bush Hog when they get off and check it, is clothes untucked or long sleeves or gloves. It don't take but two seconds to grab it and rip your arm off. I had a buddy that was working on a a hay baler and had gloves on and it grabbed his arm and it just before he had any time to do anything.

SPEAKER_04 16:34

So that's the the bar in the back that spins real fast.

SPEAKER_07 16:37

Yeah. Any part of it, from up against the tractor to all the way to the whatever it's running.

SPEAKER_05 16:42

Yeah, a lot of them have guards on them, uh, but then you see later they're removed, and you know, where that thing's connected, that knuckle is what I would call it, is got the velocity.

SPEAKER_07 16:52

These bush hogs have all got an exposed spin to them. Well, they got a lot of them got plastic sleeves. Yeah, they when you mean uh they worn off of some of the ones we're don't.

SPEAKER_03 17:02

Yeah. So what makes me nervous a lot of times is if I've got a tractor and I need to change the implement. Let's say I need to hook up a disc and I'm by myself and it's you know, getting off and trying to line everything up and then getting back on, it that's very and I could I you know I I makes me very nervous. And I've heard stories of there was a surgeon in Montgomery that lost some fingers trying to try to and two people working together will be.

SPEAKER_07 17:29

If you're not sure, put it in part, hit the emergency brake, turn the tractor off, and then get out and do something. If you're really worried about it, that's the only super safe way, isn't it?

SPEAKER_06 17:39

Uh so you're like on a Jubilee or something or the old series tractors, they didn't have part break. Well, they did, but it didn't work great. So I'd always cut it off in gear, uh, left lift arms down about to where I wanted to. Don't be on any kind of incline at all. Uh, but it's funny you say that because that's I did get hurt doing that one time. Uh um, I don't know, I was probably 14, 15 years old, and I was hooking up a two-bottom plow and it had old um metal leg for a kickstand on it, and it was rusted and I didn't know it. And uh I had left the tractor running, and uh which that wasn't the problem. The problem was when I went to slide it over, the leg broke and it pinned my hand in between the drawball and the tractor and that. But the tractor was running, so he couldn't hear me yelling. So I was pinned there for a while. I couldn't get it off, he couldn't do nothing. And that's the other reason I'd leave it off so people hear you. And uh, here's the other thing ever since then that my grandday made me do. Always, always, I don't care if you're going for five minutes, tell somebody where you're at and what you're doing, and if you ain't seen me by dark or whatnot, come looking.

SPEAKER_07 18:37

Yeah, that goes that's that's that's bigger than just tractors with everything we do here. If you're going to go hang a stand on her hard way, if you're gonna go scout, look, there's somebody you know you can trust. You know, if your wife's probably not gonna go hunt your deer stands, tell her. You know, and then you know, the other thing is really good. If you're amongst friends, like put turn on the little uh on your iPhone, you've got that little find me friend thing, and I keep up with the family.

SPEAKER_03 19:03

Yeah, would you would you turn that on so I can with me?

SPEAKER_07 19:05

Yeah, no, I've got it turned on, I just not had it turned on for you, not in the springtime. But that is a great safety. It really is. It is.

SPEAKER_06 19:13

No matter how experienced you are or what you do, you always got to expect unexpected. And don't think it ain't gonna happen to you. Here's a prime example. I went out the other evening late and it was hot to work on a bush hog, and I was swinging that sledgehammer, and then I got hot, and I got too hot. I got bad hot. I had to call him and tell him if he ain't heard from me in about 30 minutes, you best come looking for me. Yep. It was it got me.

SPEAKER_04 19:34

What are some things that we've stupid things we've done, and I've got a bunch that that we've learned from that we can teach our listeners about. Uh I'll start. How about that? Um let's see. Uh well, the first time I ever got on my new tractor, um, I was probably about 19 years old. Uh, I did not hook the the uh lit the arm things up to where the disc would you know wouldn't move. And so I took off, dropped the disc, and then all of a sudden I cut my brand new rear tire up and had to buy a brand new rear tire. You didn't put your stabilizer arms in. The stabilizer arms. Yeah, we bought some tires because of that too. Um, and then another thing was I never learned how to properly clean out uh the radiator.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

Big and big, you know.

SPEAKER_04 20:28

I thought I was doing it right. I was getting a hose and and squirting, you know, the dust and stuff out, but I'd go back the next summer and start bush hogging and I'd watch my temperature gauge creep up.

SPEAKER_06 20:39

Um grassy. That's uh gra but people also don't realize how much dust gets in there, and then if you get a rain or moisture on it, it's just mud in there. And it just sticks. They make they make uh things that will slide in between it so you can blow either water or air. Um and uh what our biggest thing is we assume we assume that bush hogs got oil in them gear boxes, and I don't care if you run it, you know, that you checked it that morning, you run it for a few hours. You don't know if that bottom seal's bad or not. You go get back on it next time, you know, two minutes worth of checking could have saved you two thousand dollars. Take you less than five minutes to check the fluids.

SPEAKER_07 21:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:22

What else safe? Why what else dumb have you done, Dudley? That was good. Um let's see.

SPEAKER_04 21:27

Uh oh. Before that tractor, so you know, my dad died when I was young, so he left me with all this stuff. And you know, I made a lot of mistakes. So uh when I was running the Bushhog, I would just, you know, I would have the RPMs up at that, you know, where it's supposed to be for Bush Hogan. And I would just flip the PTO switch, and it would make all these crazy squealy noises, and then the the bush hog would finally kick into gear and it would work. I didn't know that. You were supposed to engage, you know, lower your RPMs and engage that little PTO switch very slowly.

SPEAKER_06 22:07

Okay, so yes, but and but the only time I will do what you're talking about is if the bush haul's been sitting a while and the and the clutches are been getting rained on, then they're probably rusted together and stuck. Clutches are to shave save your gearbox or PTO shaft. In that case, I will loosen it wide open, loosen it and then turn it wide open and engage it and watch them slip a second, then I'll shut it down and tighten them up. But no, you're supposed to start at low RPMs, then get to build it up. Build up to your five feet. And don't, don't, don't cut it on while the bush hog's down in tall grass either. That don't work.

SPEAKER_03 22:37

Right. I think back about I've just heard a lot, lots of tragic stories about guys and tractors. Safety first. I think now if I could like wave a magic wand and have like a dream tractor, it would be a small one, like say 35 or 40 horsepower. But I think now I would want one with a cab.

SPEAKER_07 22:59

100%.

SPEAKER_03 22:59

Just because just like just so much safer. Am I wrong in thinking that Glenn?

SPEAKER_06 23:04

No, you're you're not wrong. And like I said, most people got to use what they're dealt or what they can afford. Uh that blue tractor, that Jubilee tractor, uh, that's the only time I ever seen my granddaddy real upset. My daddy, when I was a little bitty thing, was helping my granddaddy and he was pushing up, had a blade, and it was turned around backwards. He was pushing up a pile. And uh happened to Buddy Griggs, too. But my daddy was pushing a pile up and the and he'd pulled a tree way back and it popped up over and it came back and it hit him, and it hit him so hard it messed his back up and it pushed him down, and the it bent the steering wheel down. And because it was no safeties on it, he he couldn't stop it. He only could clutch it. Luckily, my granddad was close by, but the tractor was sitting there just hopping and uh spinning. Lucky it didn't kill him. Yeah, but it happened so fast, if it had had a roll bar, anything it would have stopped that. But them old tractors didn't. And that is one thing. If you do find an old tractor that does not have a roll bar or a headache rack, whatever you want to call it, I'd best be putting one on there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 24:00

I mean, you're just if you can do it in any form, that cab. I mean, just I can't even imagine the times now. I would have been eaten alive by ground jackets or worse than that, the bumblebees are horrible.

SPEAKER_04 24:14

Well, and and it's like 98 degrees. Yeah, I can't. You know, you don't want to breathe all the um chaff from cut.

SPEAKER_07 24:21

Well I mean it doesn't take more than a lot of things. But the biggest safety I'm gonna yield a clay, but wouldn't you say the the most dangerous thing of all is a serious tractor flip wreck and you being thrown from it? You know? Or you think pinned under it?

SPEAKER_06 24:37

I think PTOs are worse. I think PTOs by far the worst. I mean, we all know people that turned a tractor over and luckily it did throw them from it, or they'd probably be dead.

SPEAKER_07 24:48

Yeah, but then at the same time, like I worry about um like someone discing and something happened to them and getting that's why seat belt, seat belt, seat seat belt. Yeah, and don't ever let your You can't get thrown from something and that happened.

SPEAKER_04 25:01

And don't ever let your buddy or your kid ride along with the case.

SPEAKER_05 25:04

I was gonna bring that out of your horror stories about that. Uh my kids this weekend were taking my little tractor to uh build their ramp into their mud hole, but nonetheless, uh the first thing they did, you know, and and they're you know, 16, 17 years old, uh jumped on the tractor and the other one got in the bucket. I said, no, no, no, no, no. No, this is not a two-person operation here. Because if there's horror horror stories of you know, people riding on bush hogs and or even just holding on to the back of the seat.

SPEAKER_03 25:32

Um but a cab would would a cab add that much more cost to it to it to a small tractor?

SPEAKER_06 25:38

It depends on what series, what brand. If near versus used, too.

SPEAKER_03 25:42

Yeah. And I well, I'd definitely want to talk about that. Just thinking used and looking around. It just I don't know. I'm I'm I'm asking. It just seems like that would be the smart thing to do.

SPEAKER_04 25:52

Especially if you're gonna be using it a lot in the summer, would be my thought.

SPEAKER_05 25:55

And spraying, you know, we all worry about drift and it getting out of the way. That's a good point. I hadn't thought about that. I mean, I it's I I've been fine without being on a cab tracker until we start spraying.

SPEAKER_03 26:05

Uh I see Jeff Fox wear the all the time. And it's a big tractor, but it is there a little seat for like a buddy seat. Yeah, a big tractor with a cab. That's not dangerous. Yeah, no, that's fine. Yeah. Now I'm not saying he was, but I'm just asking, is there like a yeah?

SPEAKER_05 26:18

Now there's a little another seat in there. Yeah, it's called a buddy seat in there.

SPEAKER_07 26:21

Yeah, we had one and it's a someone loaned us for a while one time that had one in there.

SPEAKER_04 26:26

Um, I've noticed these subcompact tractors, uh, you know, used to it was like a 35 horse, and it was, you know, but now it seems like you can get 55 and 60 horses in that same subcompact size, right?

SPEAKER_06 26:44

You can. Uh again, John Deere did it for a while, so did New Holland, but like some of my favorite tractors are like the the uh 6400s, anywhere in that series, because it's around a 100-horse tractor. Well, 6410 was a 100-horse tractor, but it was still physically small, you know. Which is important for us getting in where we're getting in. You you go back and look at like like, for example, a 6400 around a hundred-horse tractor, but it's about the same size as like a old 5004 or something, which was like a 50-horse tractor or 60-horse tractor. I mean, they're just I like them.

SPEAKER_03 27:17

So can you explain hydrostatic transmissions so that I can understand them?

SPEAKER_06 27:23

Um, yeah, it's like you don't put it, you don't have to put it in a gear and uh just let off the clutch. You could ease into it, kind of like an automatic car or something. Um they're okay. I mean, if you're gonna do little stuff, and some of them are the older ones I didn't like because you you just gotta have your foot on it the whole time. But the newer, some of the newer ones they got were like the LS thing.

SPEAKER_04 27:48

It's like a cruise control.

SPEAKER_06 27:49

Yes, you could set it on that. But to me, they just don't have the power. To me, they take so much away. I mean, and they'll get hot. I just I just I preferably don't like them.

SPEAKER_05 29:55

So he's not a hydrostatic man.

SPEAKER_03 29:56

So but a lot of track newer tractors you see have hydrostatic, and I think they have their applications.

SPEAKER_05 30:01

I think in the field it's a lot tougher, but like if you're in a very small area and you know, back and forth a lot.

SPEAKER_06 30:07

That if you're gonna be running a finishing mower, something like that. A lot of people buy these smaller tractors to run a finishing mower instead of running lawnmower to cut a bunch of stuff.

SPEAKER_04 30:15

So it behaves like kind of like a zero turn mower with those arm things.

SPEAKER_06 30:20

You got a pet one pedal and it's forward. Well, some of them got two pedals, but some of them are just rock forward or you rock backwards.

SPEAKER_04 30:25

Yeah, so my tractor has a forward and reverse That's a shuttle shift.

SPEAKER_06 30:29

Shuttle shift. But you still got a manual transmission, you still have to clutch it. You still have to clutch it. A lot of I like that.

SPEAKER_07 30:34

A lot of pretty big tractors have those.

SPEAKER_06 30:36

You got an automatic shuttle shift pretty much where you don't have to clutch it. Uh a 64, uh, what is that? 6115s out of the way. Just bump it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:43

So if I go to up, if I see some used tractors sitting on a lot, what do I need to look for? Are there telltale signs that would say, boy, this one's a good one?

SPEAKER_07 30:52

That's a great question for him. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 30:54

Yep.

SPEAKER_06 30:55

Different things. You can look at the PTO shaft and tell how much you use. You can look at the drawbar and see if it's egg-shaped real bad and tell if they've been using heavy implements, stuff like that. On the on the older John Deere's like we got, I I look at on the three-point hitch arms, they got wear plates in there. I look and see how bad they're war and I look and see how bad a drawbar is, so I can see how bad that tractor's been straining this whole thing.

SPEAKER_07 31:15

Yeah, because that draw bar would probably be number one because the the higher hours aren't as big a concern if it's not. I'll give you an example. We bought one from the Air Force Base years ago that had 7,000 hours already, but all it had been done was bush hogging. And of course, it's the government, so they service it like every month and take care of it perfectly. That was 20 something years ago, and it runs like a top to this day. But I mean, you looked at the drill bar, we'd already bought it, and it was just perfectly round, like almost nothing, you know.

SPEAKER_06 31:48

Um, the other thing I look at is if they'll let you crank them, I pull the oil cap off of them, sit the oil cap on it and crank it. And if it blows that oil cap off, or if it's sitting there blowing it up, that means it's got blow by. That means an engine's got a lot of wear to it, and it probably won't last much longer.

SPEAKER_05 32:03

All right, so go and you take the oil cap off, flip it over.

SPEAKER_06 32:06

No, you can you can just sit it back on the hole. Okay, and it don't screw it in. That's correct. And if it blows it off of there, it's got a lot of blow by. But if it's sitting there blowing it up, you know, vibrating on it, then it's got blow by and that engine's got a lot of wear on it. If it does not, your engine does not have a bunch of blow by and it's still might not be a good one. What would you be looking for that it doesn't blow it off at all? That's correct. You don't want it to if you loosen it up and sit it back on there, it should just stay sitting there. Okay, obviously it's gonna vibrate because the engine's running. But if it's popping up like this right here, then it's got blow by. If it's got a low, a lot of blow by, it will blow that cap off.

SPEAKER_05 32:39

Wow. What about smoke out of the exhaust? Is there any indicators? White smoke, blue smoke, black smoke?

SPEAKER_06 32:45

Yes. Um obviously if it's white smoke, it's burning a lot of oil. If it's uh, you know, black smoke, it's either getting too much fuel or too much diesel, which diesel, I mean, that could be a hundred things. It could be, you know, uh injector stuck. It could be somebody's got the pump turned up. It can just there's a thousand things it could be. So that's it's no real way to if it's blowing a whole bunch of black smoke, I I would stay away from it.

SPEAKER_03 33:10

Boy, it seems like everyone I've ever seen, when you crack them up, it blows up. That's gonna be that's starting up.

SPEAKER_07 33:15

That's starting up. Well, starting is not as big a deal.

SPEAKER_06 33:17

Well, that and some of them, you know, have uh some of the injectors will leak down um and you're burning a bunch of raw fuel. And it also depends on how you how you kill it. Are you cutting it off wide open? Are you pulling it back and letting it idle down a minute and cut it off, which you should do?

SPEAKER_07 33:32

Um I always remember Mr. Wings, one of my dad's very best friends. He was a big farmer, and he he always bought internationals for whatever reason, but he could work on them. He was an incredible tractor mechanic. And uh he always said we finally got our first tractors, which is a small one. He had a couple big ones. He said, one of the things he always do is like when you get through running hard, he said, let it idle for at least 30 seconds to a minute before you cut it off. And I was like, Wow, so I always try to do that.

SPEAKER_04 34:02

Does that matter if it's like got a turbo or not? It's both.

SPEAKER_06 34:06

Both. Okay. You just need to let everything idle back down before you shut it down.

SPEAKER_04 34:10

Um I mean. Let's see. What about like before the winter time? If you know you're not gonna be running it a lot. I mean, is there any kind of winterizing you would do?

SPEAKER_06 34:21

Uh yes, I put uh some stuff in the diesel to keep it from getting algae um and to keep it from gelling. But the biggest thing that I have found, we have found, fill it up. If you're gonna let it sit a while, fill it up. The the less void you got in there, the less moisture you're gonna get, the less algae you're gonna get, and so on and so forth.

SPEAKER_04 34:40

Yeah, I do that. I just keep it full.

SPEAKER_06 34:42

Yeah, so that's what we did. So we left a one year we left the tank about empty on a on a 4640, John Deere, and you couldn't run that thing 200 feet and you'd be getting algae out of it. It's unstopping the filter.

SPEAKER_07 34:53

Crazy. This is this algae growing in the diesel. I mean, that hadn't been forever, though. That's just been in the last like the rats and everything else, the last time. I've never had this much trouble with it. And I mean, that was like it grows, it's like filamentous, like big cotton balls.

SPEAKER_06 35:07

Um it's crazy. As far as your gas burners, I fill them up too, and to each sure on. This is what my granddaddy taught me. If I know I'm gonna let it sit, I'm gonna let it sit for months. And especially down here where it's so humid and there's so much temperature change, you know, it might be 80 in a daytime and 40 that night, it's gonna sweat, it's gonna condensate. So my granddaddy would tell me to idle it down and either pour motor oil in it, if it's if you can do that, if it's an updraft system, spray PB blaster, WD4, anything like that, just soak it until it kills it. And uh that way, when it does kill it, everything on top of your pistons, your cylinders are all coated with some kind of oil. That way they don't rush, your engine don't stick. Now, when you and we did it with transmission fluid a lot too. Uh when you fire it up in the springtime, it's gonna smoke like a tar heel. But it's gonna crank, it's run, it's gonna clear up, it's gonna run like a top. And you're choking out spraining the air intake?

SPEAKER_05 36:01

Yes. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_06 36:02

That way it's getting on top of the pistons.

SPEAKER_05 36:04

That makes sense. Well, I'm just thinking of something else stupid I did.

SPEAKER_04 36:07

Um I love it.

SPEAKER_05 36:08

Throw them in there. That's all you learn about it. And I actually that should be a new setup. No, we did, because I got a bunch of them too.

SPEAKER_04 36:16

I actually knew I wasn't supposed to do this, but I just forgot one time. So we were food plotting, you know, trying to get it done. Me and my buddies, you know, knock it out. And uh we put out a whole bunch of fertilizer and I forgot to clean it off. And it sat all deer season and up until the next spring when I decided to run that thing again. And again, that was like 20 years ago, and my tractor still has cancer from it.

SPEAKER_07 36:45

Oh my gosh, it's crazy how I've run okay, I'm gonna run fertilizer through something and immediately wash it, wash it, spray it with oil, sprayed it with oil beforehand, and it still corrodes it.

SPEAKER_04 36:59

You know, I would I would argue if you can rent a buggy or something to put fertilizer out, or even hire somebody, you know, with the with the truck to put it out.

SPEAKER_07 37:09

Well, make sure it's got a good guard, and then if it's plastic, try to get a plastic, you know, or stainless.

SPEAKER_06 37:15

So, what would you do after you've put out fertilizer to you know, kind of so what I do with mine, but I have a pond, you can hose it out like he's talking about, but you better go right back and coat it. And I coat it with trammission fluid. WD40, I don't do none of that stuff with that because it's just a water displacement. Um I've always just used used motor oil. That trammission fluid, anything like that. But um I would back it down in a pond and cut the PTO on, and that way I knew it cleaned everything out there. Uh huh. And then I would come up there and soak it in oil. Uh my granddaddy would always, of course, we had a creek running through there too, so we had a bunch of sand. After I got done with fertilizer, he would make me put sand in it and broadcast the sand to clean it all out and then coat it with oil.

SPEAKER_04 37:58

That's kind of one of the tricks I do is uh I'll fertilize first, and then like if you're planting a blend or wheat or something, that kind of helps clean it out.

SPEAKER_02 38:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:08

But it gets all on the back of your tractor, you know, that area, you know, uh inside right where your tires are, it'll just sit up on things that are kind of like a shelf, and you got to make sure you get it all every bit of that is gone.

SPEAKER_07 38:21

I'm saying if you can and they don't charge much at all for it, use a buggy.

SPEAKER_06 38:25

Yeah. Oh, uh that's the other thing, too, is uh just washing it off. Don't do that. You better spray a degreaser on it or something, clean it, then oil it.

SPEAKER_03 38:33

Speaking of degreaser, so if you if you buy a used tractor, can you take it to the car wash and spray that thing down with degreaser and use a high pressure hose on the engine and clean it all up?

SPEAKER_06 38:45

Yes, you can just be be cautious of blowing in the air to intake, which most of them you can't because they got sealed systems. But if it is a gas burner tractor, you need the you need to take the distributor and put a plastic bag over it, do something like that, because if you get that inside that distributor wet, it will not run right if it does run. Would you leave it running while you do that? Just depends on what I'm trying to do. Now, if I'm trying to clean the radiator out, then yes. But again, a gas burner, you about guaranteed it ain't gonna crank if you get that distributor wet.

SPEAKER_04 39:15

What about spraying it while it's hot and not running? No. Don't do it.

SPEAKER_07 39:19

I did that.

SPEAKER_06 39:23

And what happens? Clean the gang apart, put it back together.

SPEAKER_03 39:26

Yeah, yeah. So can we describe what might be? Let's just let's just think about a small game, a guy who's maybe got a small place. Can we describe what might be an ideal tractor? In my mind, I'm envisioning something about 35 horsepower and a little small cab. You gotta look at this on scale.

SPEAKER_05 39:47

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_06 39:48

It's like four acres and a I don't care about the scale or nothing. For the money, to each their own, and everybody's got their own preference for the money. You are about not gonna beat a 60, 70s, Ford, 3,000 tractor. I'm telling you. I mean, it's just a really you they make them in diesel. That's just a really good all-around tractor, small, got enough power to do what you want to. I mean, that's just I mean, you but you're talking a few thousand dollars. So, yeah, starting out. And when Thompsy was talking about earlier, the Wheams, the tractors they were running, yeah, them are really good series tractors, especially back in the day.

SPEAKER_07 40:25

Yeah, that was 175 horsepower tractors. That's not what we're talking about for the game. Uh-uh. Them are them are internationals.

SPEAKER_06 40:32

And and and, you know, 10, 15 years ago, yeah, you could buy 966 international or 1066 for a few thousand dollars. Not no more. This def has changed the game.

SPEAKER_05 40:43

I was gonna ask specifically about def. Can you kind of explain all that?

SPEAKER_06 40:47

Uh, it's just supposed to be better for the environment, but I hate it. I absolutely hate it. Other two.

SPEAKER_04 40:52

Well, a lot of newer tractors are real computerized as well now.

SPEAKER_06 40:56

Okay, well, that was other things. Some tractors, you know, they ran their own programs. So you had to take it back to the dealer and do something. And a lot of people can't afford it or don't have time to it, or get it from point A to point B. So if you look at all these old tractors, especially like the 80s and 90s series, John Deere, anything before death, but especially the 80s and 90s, Fords, New Holland's, it has driven the price way up because that tractor will still do everything that a modern tractor will do, but with half the headache. And plus, now they've come out with these systems. A lot of people go with uh guidance systems, GPS, you know, to do their planting and stuff. Well, now they got the technology that you can put it on older tractors. So I mean it's it's it's hard to be.

SPEAKER_07 41:42

I would say the uh but he keeps the tab on it way better than I do, but uh it's kind of like all a lot of things today, it's like old is the new, you know, is is the new, hot new. Oh yeah. And but even in tractors, and it's not just because it's cool to have old stuff again, it's what like I know I've got a lot of John Deere's and uh that like say 85 to 92. What are the years right there that have gotten to be such a hot thing for people?

SPEAKER_06 42:07

The 50 series.

SPEAKER_07 42:09

Yeah. Because they're not so computerized, and these people can work it on it. You know, every time something goes wrong, they don't have to run to a shop or something, and they don't have deaf, you know, and they are they're just so well made.

SPEAKER_06 42:21

I love any of the 40, 50, 60 series. I you know, I like the fifty some of the 50 series because they have what they called a 16-speed power uh power shift transmission in it. Then you go back to the 40 series, which we run a lot, it's 4840. You know, that's early 80s stuff. It had an eight-speed power shift, that's the only difference. I mean, the other one had a uh a closer ratio transmission. But you can ask, I don't care if that tractor sits out there a year. If that battery's up, it's gonna crank and it's gonna run. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 42:49

Well, I mean, if you're gonna if you're only gonna run one, you know, whatever, 50, 100 hours a year or something just working on your property. I mean, if you can afford, get whatever you want to, but those tractors are great.

SPEAKER_04 43:00

And the beauty of some of these older tractors is uh as little as you're gonna be running it, you can probably sell it for about the same as you got it for. They hold it. If not more.

SPEAKER_06 43:11

No, they're steadily going up. For what we bought that 4844, what we could get it now, we could triple our money.

SPEAKER_04 43:15

And um whereas a a brand new tractor, oh my god, which might be great for somebody that's been using them for a while and decides to upgrade or whatever, but an older tractor, it's not really gonna lose value. So if you do want to get something bigger or with more stuff on it, then you can just easily sell that. The uh or keep it and have two.

SPEAKER_06 43:38

Don't get me wrong, all the new stuff is nice, it's comfortable, it's nice, it's insulated, it's got good radios, good air conditioners, but when when this when this broke, you're down and you're at their mercy. Uh, here's a prime example. They called me the other day, tractor's not running right, run a little bit and quit. I went out there, it had two quarts of water in it. We drained the water, filled, filled up transmission fluid, been running ever since. We wouldn't have been able to do that with a new tractor.

SPEAKER_03 44:03

So, Clay, uh, these Ford, 3,000, 4,000 you're talking about. Back when I lived in Montgomery, I was very interested in one. And I kept there were lots that sold sold a lot of Ford, smaller Ford tractors, but they were from England. And they said that sometimes you could get them and you might not know where it came from, and it would be problematic because the parts wouldn't match up with an American Ford. Is that still the case?

SPEAKER_06 44:26

No, not really. I mean, a lot of them are still got the same parts, so just different designs and stuff. And a lot of them parts came from Mexico too, but no, I I don't like them tractors because they got they just look funny to me. The English Fords? Yeah, some got different fenders on them, they got different style headlights in the front. They'll have these real high, funny looking fenders on them. I like the American stuff.

SPEAKER_03 44:48

America. Well, I'm just saying you might get an English and not realize it. Oh no, you're not.

SPEAKER_05 44:53

You might run on the left side of the road or something. Yeah, you can never tell.

SPEAKER_06 44:56

They look different, you can tell.

SPEAKER_05 44:57

Yeah. So yeah, so you think in five acres and under that that 3,000, 4,000, Ford.

SPEAKER_06 45:03

Again, yes, but I'm on a budget. Right. I'm on a tight budget. Look, this is what I this is what when I tell people like that, when I say the 3,000, for $10,000, you can find you a good used bush hog, you can find you a good used disc, you can find you a good used cedar, you can find you a good used hera, and buy a Ford 3,000 tractor. You think you can get that all that done for 10 grand?

SPEAKER_05 45:24

I do. There you go. Hey, what's the best thing about a new tractor, Bobby? That's a good question, Lanny. It's called the warranty. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So let me ask y'all this. Well, we've been talking about tractors. We all love tractors. Do y'all know the word tractor? Toxie. Did you know this? The word tractor comes from the Latin verb trahir, meaning to pull or draw. Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_07 45:51

What does that have to do with the horsepower at the drawbar? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 45:54

I was gonna isn't there a story about horsepower, how horsepower is compared. It was isn't it the rate at what one person could plow in a half a day's time or was it a day's time? I don't remember the formula, but that's what it was based off of. We'll have to look that up. What about torque versus horsepower? Great question. I cannot understand this in Claise. Explain it to me 100%. Horsepower sales, torque pulls.

unknown 46:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:20

You know what? I took get confused. You go to like a John Deere dealership and there's all these numbers on the hood. How do you look at those numbers and equate that into horsepower?

SPEAKER_06 46:29

Oh man. So their series have changed so much. Like all the 40 series and 50 series and stuff like that, it's really hard to do it. But then you get into new stuff, like a 6105 or a six that's a 105-horse tractor, 6120, 6115, 115 horse. They've made it a lot simpler, but over the years, it didn't really have nothing to do with the US.

SPEAKER_07 46:48

I don't know why they did that over time because like what the 4840 will be 180. Yeah, 180 horsepower.

SPEAKER_04 46:57

My uh Kubota 6800 is 68 horsepower. Well that was pretty good.

SPEAKER_03 47:02

Richie, aren't you dealing with some tractor issues yourself?

SPEAKER_01 47:06

Yeah, well, I was gonna be my question. Uh you guys were talking about Fords, you know, reliable and stuff. Uh I was gonna, you know, some of these other maybe not name brand tractors, you know, like a Mitsubishi, you know, yeah, D uh 2350 or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 47:21

You know one of those? Can you work on those yourself, Richard? You can.

SPEAKER_01 47:24

You can uh yeah, so yeah, they're fun to play with, I'll be honest. I've had I've you know, and Clay's uh helped me a lot on the tractor, and then I've had you know that's a that's a 25-horse tractor, is it a 20? 2350, so 2350, so yeah, what is that? Then that's a like a 23.

SPEAKER_04 47:40

I think didn't Yanmar make a 23. Okay, well, here's the other thing too.

SPEAKER_06 47:44

You talk about that right there, off-name tractors. Um just because it's John Deere or for don't mean it's all John Deere. Like the like the 950 John Deere, I think, if I remember right, I could be wrong. They had Yanmar engines in them. Uh which Yanmar is some good stuff, don't get me wrong.

SPEAKER_05 47:59

I think Yanmar probably makes more engines than most smaller.

SPEAKER_04 48:02

Branson at the nursery is a I think a 23-horse uh Yanmar.

SPEAKER_06 48:07

Yeah. So yeah, there's just because it's Ford, don't mean it's gonna be Ford all the way through, or John Deere's gonna be John Deere all the way through.

SPEAKER_03 48:14

Richie, has yours got a roll cage?

SPEAKER_01 48:15

No, it does not.

SPEAKER_03 48:16

Yeah, safety. Yeah, but we gotta work on that.

SPEAKER_01 48:19

I think off is the only safety aspect of that tractor. Have you ever felt dangerous? Uh well, you well, as you mentioned, slow. Uh yeah, so uh just you know, yeah, I got this track tractor from clay, and then like, you know, I had it for like a week and I was discing and going full throttle on it. And yeah, and then I broke a spindle on it, the tire spindle. Oh, yeah, for the tire, yeah, turning and the weight of the disc. Oh, yeah, yeah. And I was just, you know, just trying to get it done, and that tire, you know, slow it down, really snapped. Yeah, turn. Get in the room. When you're turning, you gotta pick your stuff up.

SPEAKER_03 48:51

That's probably still under warranty with clay. Yeah, well, it was.

SPEAKER_01 48:55

I brought it back to him and he didn't fix it. Yeah, but yeah, we're having some alternator issues now and some electrical issues. It's always something about like a boat.

SPEAKER_04 49:02

So that stuff's simple. Mice, rats. Uh what are we doing?

SPEAKER_07 49:07

I think that's what revelations are. Other than that's a biblical plague right there.

SPEAKER_04 49:12

So, other than never store any kind of grain feed product anywhere near your tractors. Don't leave any food in it either. What do you do to try to keep?

SPEAKER_06 49:22

They make different uh rat repellents. I haven't found one at works yet. Um, the biggest thing I've found is I don't care if it's a water bottle. Get the water bottle out of there. Don't don't leave food in there. And if you do get mice in there, bleach it. You're gonna have to put something up because if once they once they urinate in there, then it's just an attractant for the rest of them. And you can ask him, we have spent a bunch of time and money on that damage.

SPEAKER_04 49:48

I remember one time at my old place, uh, we filled two five-gallon buckets of acorns. Oh, out of the out of the out of the out of the engine.

SPEAKER_05 49:58

You want to attract them. You want to leave them in remote places, but it's best to take them home, put them on the trailer, and get them up on some container.

SPEAKER_06 50:04

Well, the best luck I've ever had is where we were storing the tractors. I cleaned it up real good one winter, and I made sure there was no habitat for them to be hiding under stuff. Now there's still gonna be food around, but directly near the tractors, I made sure there was no habitat for them to hide under. And I went around each base of the tire and I put rat poison on it, and that year we had zero trouble.

SPEAKER_04 50:24

Yeah, and and like if you got a big shop or something, uh keep gravel around it and keep it sprayed or mowed.

SPEAKER_06 50:31

Yeah, that's right. The main thing is clutter on the ground.

SPEAKER_04 50:34

So if some listener hears this and has a silver bullet, uh some type of scent or peppermint.

SPEAKER_06 50:40

I've tried the peppermint oil, I've tried all that stuff.

SPEAKER_05 50:42

And we think they're after the installation on the wires, right?

SPEAKER_06 50:45

So they say, and don't quote me on this, the newer tractors, newer vehicles, the the wiring is made with some kind of maybe a vegetable oil or something, and they're really attracted to it.

SPEAKER_07 50:55

There's something going on in the world because yeah, I agree. Uh what's I think they just like chewing on it and they're sharp around 2001, too, and this one in Alabama, and we never have had any problem whatsoever at all. And all of a sudden, about three years ago, rats destroyed the wiring harnesses. By miracle, Clay learned how to he fixed it because it was gonna be crazy to buy a whole new one. And then uh they got into it again the next year. We've never had any trouble until recent time, so something else going on.

SPEAKER_05 51:28

Yeah, I think there's something changed too.

SPEAKER_07 51:30

I don't know, because those are the same wires that have been on it from back in the day.

SPEAKER_06 55:12

That's correct. And that's so that has nothing to do with whatever the coating is. Ah, that would make sense. That they that just that eliminates that thought that they got in there for some reason, either it was food near or it was a warm spot.

SPEAKER_07 55:25

Well, if you talk around the people that farm and stuff, it's a problem for everybody. I guess different degrees, but it's a you talk to anybody who has many much equipment at all. It's a problem for everybody.

SPEAKER_06 55:35

Well, I got a buddy, what's this three, four years ago, bought a brand new Land Rover and they destroyed it. Told it a car because they chewed all the wires out of it.

SPEAKER_07 55:42

They chewed the wiring harness out of a Polaris in the warehouse.

SPEAKER_05 55:46

Yeah. Well, the whole the whole rodent was in that when we pulled him out, didn't we? Yeah, yeah, he was still in a belt box.

SPEAKER_04 55:53

So just you know, check it every week. When I when I pull up, I I kind of I just check it.

SPEAKER_05 55:59

Well, I I had a uh actually a guy told me tip this week about it. He he opens the hood on all his. Well that that doesn't necessarily mean they'll come out. It's not a good thing. No, I'm just saying when he parks it, I guess because he thinks the heat comes out of it or something. Maybe they're attractive. They feel less protected. Or they feel less protected.

SPEAKER_07 56:13

In the winter, they all go to heat like that. I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 56:16

It's sure a phenomenon.

SPEAKER_06 56:17

So I wanted to see because I got them around my camp a lot, but where the barn is, it's on a hill, and I have zero food in there. So I parked some stuff in there and let it sit for a while to see if it they bothered it. They did not.

unknown 56:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:29

I'm on my third wiring harness on my tractor.

SPEAKER_07 56:31

We're fixing to have a new little shed thing going on that's going to set thanks to clay, and we're going to separate tractors from any kind of feed, at least not in the building or anywhere near it.

SPEAKER_06 56:41

Well, not only that, we can keep the doors shut on it and put rat poison everywhere so we ain't gonna worry about no dolls getting in it.

SPEAKER_04 56:46

The awesome tires, I mean like the ones that have the V in the tread versus those tires versus turf tires.

SPEAKER_06 56:53

Uh depends on what you're doing. Obviously, if you're pulling implements or something like that, you want ag tires. Um, if you're running a finishing mower, if you don't want your yard messed up, them kind of tractors, light duty tractors, then yeah, you won't you want turf tires on them?

SPEAKER_05 57:06

Um I know we're jumping around on all kinds of stuff, but you know, regular maintenance, we know that you know should prevent many of the things that were breakdown. You were talking about checking fluids. We've obviously you have beat in our heads over the last few years. Thank you to for for greasing and allomites. What about you know, maintenance schedule?

SPEAKER_06 57:26

How often should we everybody's different, everybody got their own theory. I do everything a hundred hours, and I do everything a hundred hours just because of what we do, how we do it. Some things we're gonna get more than that on it a year, some things we're not. Nevertheless, after that winter, because we're in the south, and I'm just I'm telling you, them open cavities are going to sweat. So, what I will do is come springtime when we're getting ready to work, I don't care if that tractor had a hundred hours on it or not, I'm gonna crank it up, I'm gonna bring it to temperature, I'm gonna make sure it's done got hot and all the moisture out of it. And while that fluid's still hot, I'm fixing to change the oil. I gotcha.

SPEAKER_04 58:03

Yeah, I do it every spring. Whether I mean, I we I probably, you know, I'm not a farmer, so I'm not running that thing nonstop. But I change at least change the oil and filter once a year. That's right.

SPEAKER_06 58:14

Well, and like I said, obviously if we hit a hundred hours before that, like on the tractor he's running right now, I got it on a piece of tape. I usually keep it in a book and I'll watch the hour meters, but on that one I wrote it on tape on the window so they can see also this is your next service.

SPEAKER_07 58:27

It did like a couple of my getting in there, I hadn't seen it in a while. They've been up here, and it'll have it taped on there, you know, service it, you know, whatever 1247 hours. Yeah, it all's written on the dash.

SPEAKER_04 58:38

So I scratched the um the date on my air my oil filter.

SPEAKER_06 58:43

I don't I don't go by date, I go by I go by hours because I know I'm gonna do it every spring, regardless whether you got the hours or not. And this is the way I look at it too. Most people, ah, it's still good. I don't want to change it. Yeah, well, your your $50 or $100 oil change might save you ten thousand dollars.

SPEAKER_05 58:58

So and you're going back to the the spring, it's either annually in the spring or every hundred hours, and in the spring, you're gonna let everything come up to temperature to get the moisture out of everything, then drop the oil when it's hot. That's correct.

SPEAKER_06 59:10

I'm usually gonna change everything, hydraulic everything. But again, because just think of a half-gallon milk jug. Here's a prime example. Get you a half mallon, half-gallon milk jug, fill it up with water, go put it out there in the sun, and tell me what you see on the top of it. Same way I think of with any any empty cavity, whether it's hydraulic, fuel tank, oil, and that's why I try to go through everything.

SPEAKER_04 59:32

So you've got your oil and filter, you've got your uh front and rear differential fluids. How often do you deal with them?

SPEAKER_06 59:41

I I don't I don't deal with so most of your rear ends are with in the same hydraulic fluid anyway, so it don't matter. The front ends every couple years, unless we've been running in deep water in our duck holes, something like that. Here's something you can relate to that also that is almost impossible to change, but we flush it. Uh, and you can relate to this. How many times you put oil in gearbox and be like, dang, that's milky. Yeah, it ain't been underwater, so where'd that water come from? Every time. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:08

And and the bush hog?

SPEAKER_06 1:00:10

Same way.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:11

Same way. So a good point he just made was like when check your oil, obviously, every time before you get on it, but look at the oil.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:17

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:18

If it's super jet black, you might want to do something. If it's milky, you really gotta do something. Yeah, you got a problem.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:24

Real thin. If you if that stuff just runs off there and it's only hard to leave a stain on dipstick, it's time to do something. What about air filters? Uh a lot. Which depends on also it depends on where you run. We blow them out some, but oh you for our the dozer, for example. I don't care. If you run that thing one one good day in a dusty spot, you best be blowing it up. Every time. It's bad. And radiator check every time, too. Yeah, and just watch your temperature gauges on that. Don't ever pull it off when it's hot. Don't ever fill it up when it's hot. Turn it, turn it off. Turn it off, let her cool all the way down.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:57

So, Clay, I've seen recently that there's like an attachment a guy can buy that would allow him to just pick up his disc and go disc with it, come back and just and it just eases out from under that. You could hook up a quick push.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:13

Quick attach. We we got one. Um we don't even use it. But no, um Would you recommend that for a guy that's gonna be able to do it? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:20

Especially if you got multiple, if you got multiple pieces of equipment.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:23

Like me, when my arm was hurt and I had to have surgery, uh that would have made life so much simpler. I mean, you can you can go by and you can literally just quit. Now you gotta still hook your PTO and stuff up, but on a disc or something you don't, um you can run back and just raise it up, and when you get ready, it's got two little things you fold up and just lower it out and drive off.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:42

I and I'm that from a safety perspective, I don't know. Like you don't have to get on and off the tractor. So much. And even with two people, if you're in between an implement and a tractor, don't you step out of the way of the tires, you know, because it can it can get bad quick. And honestly, only if you do that, trust who's ever running the tractor. I guess is the best way to put it.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:01

Well, that too, but even then, I mean, is his foot gonna slip off the clutch? Yeah, is the clutch linkage gonna break? It's over the way.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:09

Yeah. Yeah, stay out of it.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:11

You know, I remember it reminds me of a little bit of flying planes and stuff. I remember a very, very, very experienced pilot that everybody respected so much, and they asked him what was the most important thing of being a great pilot. He said, being a comp he even said a bad word, I won't say it. A complete and total chicken is what makes you great. And honestly, that's pretty well can be said about tractors from you know, operation or just like when you're I think I thought what made me think about it is like fooling with hooking up equipment or not, and you've got two people there. Yeah, and whoever's you know, they're just haphazardly doing this in a hurry, and he's like, he's the tractor's running, maybe he's just got his foot on the clutch, still in gear or something. That's crazy. Yeah. Like shut it down, put it in park, you know, do just go over the top with safety.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:57

You ever had a scary event with a tracker? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:00

Can you tell us about it? Almost turned them over a couple times. I mean, you know, hitting unexpected holes or you know, I don't know. I've I've been such a chicken, I hadn't had any super dangerous close calls. Um what scariest thing is being on any kind of suddenly being on a slope you didn't realize was coming up, getting in where you can't see tall grass that you can't see what's there, somewhere you're unfamiliar with. Or just going down a road with taller grass and there's a big washout you didn't know was there, you know. Those types of things.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:29

Uh we've broke tractor flames doing that. Yeah. Never assume that ground is still flat the next year, especially if you got hogs. Hogs. Yeah. But the biggest scare I ever had, I've always been really cautious. You always assume the worst is gonna happen. But my granddaddy always taught me that and told me how to be prepared, what to do. And sometimes you just yeah, I mean, you you don't know to react, but luckily I did this time. And I was bush hogging on the slope. And I was not bush hogging with a bat wing bush hog, I was bush hogging with a three-point hitch bush hog. And it wasn't much, it wasn't enough slope that I worried about turning over, except that one thing I didn't count for. The tire blew out on me. And when it did, it rocked. Luckily, I had enough sense to jam that right brake and it turned on down instead of flipped on me. But it was going. But I never never even thought about that.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:14

If you're not sure about the slope, don't try it. But I mean, he's right about that. If you sense trouble, point it downhill rapidly.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:21

And I think, I mean, all this comes with experience. We're lucky to raise, you know, here in areas of people show you how to operate. So um I think we're raising such caution about it because if you are new to this, I mean, they the I mean, I I tell my tractor, my kids the first time they got on, and the first thing you gotta know is that thing will kill you. I mean, it'll it'll do it quick too. So uh just all this equipment.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:43

All of it will, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:44

Oh, one other point that uh if you're getting a new tractor and and you're not really familiar with it, I see this a lot. If you get a small, I don't care how small, how big, and you got a front end loader on it, and you're in that wide open field and it might not be nothing, don't run with that thing wide open as high as it'll go. Run it low. Because that is top heavy and you will turn it over.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:04

Yeah, I've seen people do that because they don't, you know, they feel like it's in their way of view and they run it with it sticking straight up in the air.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:12

Well, when you're bush hogging too, you know, especially keeping that bucket low will help you with those low spots and those ditches and make you not hit any stumps or stuff that's no one in the way too.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:20

Uh it's a great counterweight, go pick up some sand with it or something.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:23

Oh, and it and if you get it full, dang sure don't pick it up high and tire because you're going over.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:28

Yeah. So Rich, you wanted me to ask this is there a problem if you run a diesel engine out of diesel fuel? What should a guy do? It's a good question.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:37

It's not good for it because it runs the injector pump dry, it runs the lift pump dry. Now, nine times out of ten, it ain't gonna get it the first time, but it will. So, what I do is if I run it out of fuel, I take the filters off of it. I obviously fill the tank up first. I take the fuel filters off of it, uh, and I fill them slap full of transmission fluid. I'll put a quarter to in transmission fluid in a tank just to help lube it, whatever. Make sure I got all of it out of there. Do not, once you run that thing out of fuel, run it off starting fluid until it picks up, or you will be putting an engine in it sooner or later. So a diesel will run on transmission fluid. Just run off straight transmission fluid. And also, to each their own, and everybody's gonna have an opinion. I always the big tractors, especially the older series, um, I put about a gallon of transmission fluid to every 30 gallons of fuel. And that will clean the injectors and make them, in my opinion, that will clean the injectors, and they sure will run quiet and smooth for a while too. Huh.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:34

And is it like acting like a detergent running through? That's right.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:38

And is there a difference in the off-road diesel? Oh, yeah. And then what you like diesel that Richie puts in is yeah, the ultra-low sulfur.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:46

Yeah, you're not running new stuff in there, are you? You're running green diesel or red diesel?

SPEAKER_06 1:06:50

What? Yeah, Richie. All right, so so Yeah, I'm just running diesel from the gas station. So so new uh diesel technology's changed, and new diesels require a ultra low sulfur diesel, which is not great on older stuff. Off-road diesel is still a high sulfur diesel, which you need to be running in that.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:10

In the older so are there any additives you can use in your diesel?

SPEAKER_06 1:07:15

I run transmission fluid in them.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:17

But there's so many different additives. So if you I just prefer transmission fluid.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:20

So crazy how many things transmission fluid can be used for. And brake fluid for some things too, that I had no idea until Clay thought about it.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:27

You know, if we ask him, he probably doesn't really put transmission fluid in the transmission. He's probably got another fluid that he likes. No, I'll put hydraulic on our transmission.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:34

Yeah. So if it's running deaf, do I need to run low sulfur or can I still run.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:40

Yes, most olive will show on there it's required ultra low sulfur. It just depends on what you're I don't know what you're running. A lot of stuff require ultra low sulfur.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:49

Oh, I'm gonna want to go back to the tires and fill them up with water. Is that halfway up? I mean, how many pounds of water do you put in those?

SPEAKER_06 1:07:55

Again, everybody's got their own theory. I will tell you what my granddaddy taught me. My granddaddy told me to put it halfway. In his theory or whatever, and I believed them. Uh never had no reason not to. If that water is half full, then it's always staying half full. It's just gravity. If you get it a more than half full over the rim, then sooner or later you're gonna get centrifugal force, it's just gonna keep sloshing around there.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:21

How do you know if it's half full?

SPEAKER_06 1:08:23

Um measure it. You so you fill them up to the valve stem, right? Okay. Run your tractor tire till it's halfway. The valve stem's halfway. There you go. And then fill it up, and then if you got too much in it, let it off till water comes out the valve stem.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:37

Don't they make a little device that you hook up? It hooks on the water hose and it hooks on that, yes.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:43

So it screws on the end of the tire stem, just take the stem out and screw it on it.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:47

My tractor currently has water on one back tire and none in the other. That's not good.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:52

You better do something.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:53

Keep that one uphill.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:54

But I always take a yeah, I don't know how other people do it.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:58

I take a, I got an old bilge pump that I got set up to hook to a water hose, and I will put that bilge pump in an antifreeze jug, and the first gallon or two, I'm gonna put anaphreeze in there before I put water in there. Because we have had them freeze before. That'd be great.

unknown 1:09:10

Shh.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:12

Yeah, I was gonna go into a little bit of operating uh on on discs. Um, so disc. And this is what I try to tell people. Pool type and PTO.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:21

I mean three point. And the uh the ones that you have to grease every time versus the one.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:27

Some of them got greasable bearings, some of them do not have greasable bearings, uh, have non-greasable bearings. Um if they have greasable bearings, especially like on that big disc. First of all, don't you ever, ever, ever turn with it down, especially with the wings out on a 30-foot disc. It ain't gonna last. It will separate them bearings. Um, I try to, because that disc is so big, every every 20 acres, I'm fixing to grease it. I I don't I don't care. I'm just going to. I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna get off, I'm gonna tighten the gains because it saves me time down the road. Now, if I'm discing a 10-acre block and I run over it twice, that's 20 acres. I'm fixed to do it. Not just, I don't mean a 20-acre field. I mean when your total gets to 20 acres, stop, check it, grease it, roll on.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:11

So what about on a smaller three-point hitch disc? Can you turn with it down? I don't recommend it.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:16

It's hard on the tractor, hard on your lift arms, and hard on your disc itself. Pick them up when you turn. Yeah, there's really no point in turning. I mean, turning with it.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:24

No, I mean you can turn a little bit one way and basically nothing the other way. If you look at your scallop, you can see which way they're facing. So you can turn with that sweep oh, you know, where the scallops are. But if you can't turn against it or you're at, or you're really gonna mess up.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:40

That's always troublesome when I'm doing fire lanes because you know, there's oftentimes there's a big thing. You can drift a little now.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:46

Well, this depends on if you depend on how much you got down too. Yeah, if you've got them all the way buried in the ground.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:51

If you're cutting, no, you can't turn a little at all. I mean, you got a little variance, but you ain't fixed to make no 90-degree turn.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:56

No, no, no. So I have broken a disc. Lots of stuff.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:01

Yeah, you can you you'll hear it.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:02

Ding.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:03

And they say, you know, I think that's hard on them. Well, I just put a whole bunch of bearings on a disc and it lasted one field.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:10

Um, one tip I've got is uh, and this may be different if if you've got a lot of fields and things, I get a disc that's not wider than my rear tires. Uh-huh. Just because if you're if you've got a lot of trails and things like that, it's real easy to hang that disc on a little tree or something.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:30

Uh what what about uh operations? Bushhogs, what's your main tips there?

SPEAKER_06 1:11:35

Uh I don't really know. One, check your thing, make sure you're make sure your PTO is telescoping like it's supposed to. Make sure your clutches slip. Never wear long sleeves or long anything untucked if you're getting out around it. And always be conscious of what's behind you because it is coming out. If somebody is behind me, I'm just stopping until they get out of the way. I don't want to be responsible for injuring somebody.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:02

What about the blades? How often do you service blades on a bush hog?

SPEAKER_06 1:12:07

Just when it starts knocking stuff down, or it depends on what we've cut. And there's several different ways to do it. My granddaddy's old way was to heat it up and hammer it out and dip it in old motor oil so it lasts, not a grinder. You can hit it with a grinder if you want to, but it's going to last about two seconds. What do you call it? Tinging? Uh pinging. Pinging.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:25

That's right. Pinging. That's what he said anyway. That's an old stuff right there. You get you sharpen the blades with a hammer. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:31

And you know, I've I've got I've got buddies that just have a trusted person that comes by like once a year and services their tractors and such. I mean, it's it's good to know how to do all that stuff. But, you know, when in doubt, if if you can afford it, you know, there's probably a trustworthy person in your area.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:51

You don't need to tackle it if you don't know what you're doing, especially like on a batwing or something, because you will lose a finger real quick. Like you can ask Lanny, the stump jumpers we had to get on the off that last Batwing Bushhog. Ask him about it at that sledgehammer his arm.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:08

You know, the retired guy that worked at the tractor dealership, you know, it seems like there's a lot of those people out there, you know, that you could get to inspect your tractor and and possibly service it for you.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:20

Hey, all these dealers have, you know, they're they built their business around service and models.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:24

Yeah, and and that's the beauty of it is if you can trailer it, if you get that tractor that's small enough to pull behind your truck, you can always take it to get worked on.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:35

But they won't grease your disc in the middle of the field.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:37

No.

SPEAKER_07 1:13:39

Tell you what, the the changing tires, fixing flats in the middle of the field is a big business.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:45

They can make that happen, that's for sure. Yeah, don't think an antler won't put a hole in your tire real quick.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:49

And there's usually a mobile tire person in your area you can call.

SPEAKER_07 1:13:53

Yeah, and they're amazing. Worth every penny. You probably take the front one off and wrestle it back somewhere, but the back tires call and you find someone ahead of time in your area. Because there's usually, if you have any farm community going on around you at all, there's somebody that can do it. I mean, we got someone here locally. He can take, I mean, it could be a giant tire, doesn't matter the size of it, he can fix it right there in the field.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:13

Yeah, usually don't even take it off the tractor.

SPEAKER_07 1:14:15

That's right. So, yeah, you might want to for the cost and the time, uh, you might want to identify that person before you get started, too.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:25

Well, I tell you what, I get excited about tractors and I want one, and then I'll think about man, I don't know if I want to have to be responsible for all that.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:33

I'm gonna tell you what, my little tractor is one of my best friends.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:36

I'd rather have one than a than a side by side.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:39

Yeah. Oh, no doubt about it.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:41

I mean, if I was gonna have one or the other, I would I would go for a smallish tractor.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:46

Yeah, so here's you say you won't use it but planting food plots, but you're gonna use this thing, you'll use them just like that.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:52

Oh, yeah, especially like I said, there's so many different applications for different things, like a front-end loader's nice to unload stuff. But at the end of the day, if you if you don't feel comfortable with it and you don't know what you're doing, it will kill you, like Manny said. So figure your budget up. Find you a local guy to come do your stuff for you if you got to. Figure that in your budget. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:12

I mean, yeah, and I think uh Toxie made a good point. Uh take it easy. Slow down. Yeah, slow down.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:18

And that'll that'll save you more money and be safer than any one single word of advice.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:23

Yeah, I mean, run the thing at idle. You know what I mean? And then when you need a little bit, you can get a little more. You don't have to jump into the thing wide.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:29

Well, that's the reason I say it too. You know, I'm gonna go fast, I'm gonna get done an hour earlier. Well, then you're gonna break it and be done two days later. Right. That's right. That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:36

Well, our 30-minute podcast is now.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:40

Did you learn anything, Richie?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:41

I sure did.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:42

You know, uh, I sit over here where I get a holding butter new, and you always accuse, wake up, Richie. This is the first time I've seen lean up, take notes the entire time, eyes wide open, listening to everything Clay had to say.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:54

I was watching them too, and we were telling him what not to do. I could see them over here at Daniel.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:00

That's one way to learn for sure. You know, I'll I'll say this about Richie. He had an exciting weekend. You know, he's the voice of the Caledonia and his son.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:08

He made a heck of a debut on the team.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:10

Can you describe what happened?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:12

So we had, yeah, Meet the Cavs. And so it's the it's the Pee-Wee team there in Caledonia. How old is little Bavin Point? Uh Dylan's seven years old. Come on. And we uh I do the I do the announcing for the Pee-Wee team too, for like the middle school and high school team as well. And so anyway, we had Meet the Cavs, we introduced all the football players, cheerleaders, they had a good time. Uh so but yeah, every time we announced every all the players' names, they all kind of did a little jig and whatnot. And then Dylan did the uh moonwalk there on the 50-yard line. With his sunglasses on, he looked awesome.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:44

Seven years old. Yeah, he is the most outgoing child I've ever met.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:48

Let's give a shout out to Dylan because he is awesome. That's for sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:52

That is awesome. You can see that. Where can can they see that on your Facebook page, bro?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:57

Uh, I think my wife tagged me on that. Yeah. Yeah, Facebook.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:01

It it'll make you L O L out loud. Yeah. I've lost the top to my pen always. You probably threw it off.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:08

You've been clicking it too much too much. No, and guess what? The most exciting thing of this whole podcast. Is it gonna rain? I can hear thunder in the background. Yeah, the pink thing. My windows are down. Mine are too.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:18

Well, Clay, look, we love picking at you. We uh we kind of we always talk about you know more about things than there's my pen right there. Than you than than most people. And it's frustrating sometimes to have to break down and come ask you a question.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:32

Well, don't bother me a bit. I got him with speed dog, like you can't imagine. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:38

You're a super knowledgeable guy. Yeah, he knows his stuff. A handy guy to have around. All because of my granddad. There it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:47

Well, you know, I tell you, there's another analogy. Like he's like the doctors around here that are really ramped up how smart they are because they're using technology. If he doesn't know, he's accessing that information so quick. And I'll sense he's got insight of a lifetime of working on things in mechanic, and he can sight through that because there's almost nothing you can't find out now, even if you don't know.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:07

I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna brag on him a little bit because I've always known how good he was mechanically and a troubleshooter. Like the guy can you can literally, you know, I called him one day and I'm like, hey, uh, you know, something's wrong with my butt bunner. He said, run it up to you know 1800 RPM and I ran it up there, and he said, No, that's like 1300. So, but uh that's another story. But uh we were in here, we had just rebuilt the the native nurseries website, and we had shut the old other website down, and we kept on getting orders from it, and we could not figure it out. The IT guys couldn't figure it out. Clay walked in here and said, It's whatever server you're using for for for cell phone. And I'm like, whatever, Clay, you don't know what you're talking about. I just casually mentioned it to the IT guy, and he goes, I forgot to check that nailed it.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:56

So it was it must be exhausting being uh having so much knowledge. It's a blessing and a curse, all it was. I put it that way.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:04

All right, cool. He's got the phone of friend of uh a lot of phone of friends, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:09

First team all the work. Yeah, yeah. I just wish he would get an Apple phone so I could tell if he gets my phone. That's why he doesn't have one. Yeah, because he answers the ones he wants and the ones he doesn't, he acts like he doesn't even get them. That's correct. It works. All right. Richie, I tried to answer some questions that you might uh oh I appreciate that, Bobby. And I think you'd like to. Oh, he's using you to cover Richie. He won't know himself. Don't even know.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:33

Yeah, the diesel question was not from me.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:35

Yeah, what about your boiled peanuts? Yeah, what about them? Yeah, we don't know. Do we not have a trivia question?

SPEAKER_05 1:19:41

This was your chance to stomp club.

SPEAKER_07 1:19:43

So you can ask us all, do we like boiled peanuts in the entry? Yes. We all love the peanut butter patch boiled peanuts.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:51

And that golden eagle syrup is really good too. Yeah, oh, the the pecan pie. Woo. Look, Clay, next time we have you in here, I promise we'll have a trivia question for you. Thank you. I look forward to it. Yeah. Well, guys, I learned a lot. Good. Always do. Dudley, I want to learn more about some of the dumb things that you've done.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:08

We need to wear the permanent art segment. Stupid things we've done.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:13

Yeah, yeah. I've got a bunch. Yeah, just don't it's not funny when it's equipment, though.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:20

So a lot of what he's saying is he's working on your equipment in a lot of different places. I can't imagine the annual maintenance of what's going on on the farm. Because there's a if he's he's changing oils, he's putting you must use a lot of things.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:38

We need a sponsor for transmission fluid.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:41

We use a lot of oil, hydraulic oil and engine oil.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:43

What's your favorite, what's your favorite uh oil? What's your what's what do you grab when you go buy oil for a tractor?

SPEAKER_05 1:20:50

Motor oil Dello. Dello. Dello. Rank uh rank uh the tractor brands if you had to.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:57

Oh my gosh. That would be you would have to have the big tractors and the and the small tractors in the different.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:04

As far as what I like, I like the John Deere series, you know, like the 40 series, 50 series, love them. Uh then I would my next would be international, 1086s, anything like that, love them. Especially they have what they call a TA in it, a torque amplifier. Awesome. Uh Ricky Blake runs them, loves them. Our buddy Ricky. Um then Fords. Now, if you just told me, hey, you had to have one old tractor, I would have to stick with my D Daddy's Jubilee. But he also had a chat tractor that many people don't hear about, but it was a Cadillac for us back in the day because all we have it was uh it was called an Alice Chambler and it was a D15.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:42

They make a lot of like cultivation stuff and planters, or they used to.

unknown 1:21:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:47

Alice Chalmers and Chalmers. Yeah. What about Kubota? Um Lord, my Kubota.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:55

I I love Kubota too, but I I'm I I love American, I love old stuff. They're simple to work on, they're easy to get parts for. You know, you can go to buy any parts house and then cross-reference a filter number or something and give it to you. Um I tell you those Bobcat tractors are nice looking. I haven't been around them enough to know. They're not nice looking.

SPEAKER_07 1:22:13

You gotta run them to know though, or talk to people. I mean, they they they're a great company. Yeah, I'm gonna do that.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:17

I want something like like I 1,000%, I'm 1,000% confidence in if I go out there and get on that 4840 now, she's gonna do everything I need it to do. I know if I don't care if it's been sitting all year, we're in a crunch, we gotta go uh spread some seed, that Jubilee track trip by granite is gonna crank. It's gonna run.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:38

There's a you know, kind of like the food plot business. There's so many people in the food plot business. But like a lot of people get in the tractor. Bad boy mowers now sells little small tractors. Have y'all seen that? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:48

The subcontract uh the subcompact tractor business is huge, and there's a lot of people in it now. There's no doubt about it.

SPEAKER_07 1:22:55

And there's a lot of good ones. It's hard to beat green paint. I know that you go to some of the equipment auctions we bought stuff. Is there's always someone there who does it for a living who, in other words, they have a list of clients they're looking for something for because they want to hire somebody that knows what they're doing to get a good like you know, Clay goes and does it for us. Or um, you know, they're buying those tractors and reselling them too. And he said he was just saying, you know, up to 80 horsepower. And he was, and I won't start calling brands too much. You know, he likes and he he'd go by color because a lot of you know, there's there's only one green, there's really one only one orange, there's a couple, you know, and then there's some red and blue and stuff. But he was just saying by color, he just said there's you know, this in 80 and under, then 80 to 120, which is real popular, and then uh the bigger stuff, and but he said the one thing in all sizes is green look green.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:48

Yeah, and that if you told me, Clay, you can only have one tractor out there, and maybe because I'm biased to it, maybe because you know, my buddy Jeff Hawkins let me run it a lot when I was growing up, and I just thought it was the neatest thing ever. But as far as size, horsepower, everything is a John Deere 4440. Yep. A John Deere 4440 power shift is just the right size, the right everything. That'd be my one tractor.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:08

That's what that one I was talking about was. It lasted for it's like it's like it was brand new the way it runs.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:14

4440. Can you equate that into horsepower? I think a 4440 is about 115, maybe.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:19

But do you but I thought they said 125 actually. I don't remember what it is.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:23

That's a big tractor. Well, and Tati, you mentioned this too. Oh, there are a lot of places, especially in the South, there's a lot of equipment auctions that happen every quarter or or month.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:30

So honestly, though, it's worth it to find somebody. Or, you know, go back and listen to the podcast again. Clay gave some tips to look for that. But if you get someone that you really trust that's had a lot of lifetime of mechanical experience, take them.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:43

Yeah, or just start going to them and educating yourself about what's available.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:47

Oh, and like on your horsepower rating, I guess to be correct, we were kind of both right. A John Deere 4440 uh at the drawbar is 112. At the PTO is 130.

unknown 1:24:57

Hmm.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:58

So what's the difference?

SPEAKER_05 1:24:59

Wait, I still is that pulling or I rate everything on PTO.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:03

And you get into older stuff, they used to have belt ratings on them too, because they used to have belt drive stuff.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:08

I thought it was less at the PTO. I would too. I would think it'd be less at the PTO. Richie, can you fact check that for us, please?

SPEAKER_01 1:25:15

Uh I did, yeah. So I actually did. Well, you're gonna fact check all he's gonna do is ask clay.

SPEAKER_07 1:25:19

So am I wrong?

SPEAKER_01 1:25:22

Yeah, the uh it is 130, the PTO. There you go.

SPEAKER_07 1:25:26

Pick your pick your battles. That's not one you're gonna do. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:30

All right, Clay. We appreciate it. Part of us doing this is you uh we we learned you agreed to take us all to lunch tomorrow. All right. The TBT. Yeah, so you got in a charge bar. You didn't say where, but I'll say I'll take you to lunch. Have you noticed he regularly eats lunch? I think we all regularly eat it.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:48

It's a good idea. I don't feel good while I skipping. That's right.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:53

You mean at the TBT is what you were trying to say. I gotta support my buddy Ricky Ball.

SPEAKER_07 1:25:57

That's right. Oh, Rick. Clay got so much. When you're coming through West Point traveling, go to the TBT.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:03

What's the new name?

SPEAKER_06 1:26:04

Uh Deep South something.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:07

Deep South something, but yeah, TBT.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:08

That's short for the blind tiger.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:10

Yeah, that's what that's what it used to be, but they just changed their brands. But no, I do like it because there's so many different things to eat there.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:17

And the meat, the meat is so good.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:19

Yeah, go see Rick.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:20

Headed there to buy some steaks.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:22

There we go. All right, guys. This has been really informative and lightening.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:27

Enlightening it and fun to hang around with Clay for a little bit.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:30

Yeah, it is. Just a little bit. So if you've got any specific tractor questions, email us.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:34

Oh, it's just the same for me. He's just asking me questions like I always do.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:36

Yeah, you feel the same thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:37

This is well, email uh what uh Richie Davenport or Davenport if they've got a that can work out, or hit us or become at mossheo.com. Just give me a couple of things. And guys, go look at that moonwalk that Dylan does. It's it is so good.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:51

It is great.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:51

Or Richie Davenport on Facebook. Yeah, we're gonna blow you up, Richie.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:55

We'll get blown up. Yeah. I'm gonna be famous.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:58

All right, guys. It's been a lot of fun. Lanny, thank you for being here. We've got a big Bobby.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:02

Thank you for being here. Appreciate you scheduling five podcasts this week. Let me go finish with ring dance for real. No problem.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:08

Why don't you say goodbye, Dudley? Goodbye, Dudley. Get us out of here, Richie.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:11

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the Game Keeper Podcast. And be sure to tune in again. Subscribe to Game Keeper Farming for Wildlife Magazine, and don't miss the Mafio Properties Fistful of Dirt podcast with my good buddy, Ronnie Guster.