Can you make do with a 4wheeler?

We have found a house we are seriously considering purchasing but it needs to be made horsey. It has 6.3 acres, needs a barn, fencing and we plan on putting in a round pen and outdoor arena. We have 3 horses.

While checking out what we'd need, a tractor...doesn't really fit in the budget anytime soon. If I didn't have to put down 20% of the house price or have a barn built, it might but with reality I just don't see it happening. Pricing 4wheelers has even been a little scary. I don't think I've ever seen a barn NOT have a tractor, so I am kind of concerned. I see they make all sorts of attachments for 4wheelers/riding mowers but I'm wondering if that will be enough?

I know the main issues we're going to run into are going to be while setting up with fencing, leveling out for arena/round pen and spreading footing for them. But then it doesn't seem worth it to spend all this money on a tractor I will only need for the first few months while we're getting our property settled and while I'm sure it would come in handy at times, with 3 horses I don't think it'll get a whole lot of use - not enough to warrant buying one anyway.

Does anyone make do with just a 4wheeler? I'm thinking for plowing, dragging arena, mowing and spreading. I do realize it's going to take much longer to do any of this with a 4wheeler.

Some places allow you to rent tractors. You could just rent one for when you need to do fencing and etc. and everything else pretty much can be done with 4 wheelers

We use our four wheeler ALOT. Hauling supplies - smaller quantities of shavings, fencing - moving small squares, dragging the riding areas, pushing cattle (our non riding relatives use the wheeler).

However for pushing snow we use a skid loader, for mowing we have a lawn mower, putting out hay and hauling manure, we use a tractor.

We also have 10 times the number of horses you plan to have!

We moved 5 horses out to our place, November 1, 1999. I've owned horses since 1985. I spent 12 years looking for the right place, and I waited until I could have the following, minimum:
1) A REAL house--not a trailer
2) A REAL barn--mine has a loft that holds up to 500 bales, and a 16' x 19' shelter attached to the West of the barn, and I've built 3 stalls inside
3) ENOUGH acreage--we own 5 acres--if my ship comes in I can build a good-sized indoor arena
4) Fencing, in separate, gated areas--4 of the 5 acres
5) Correct zoning for horses, and NOWHERE, let me repeat, NOWHERE adjacent to a housing development OR near enough that a developer will want to build adjacent to YOUR horse property
If people in houses with little property complain about your horse smells, they can and will petition to get your zoning changed. Then, any and all improvements to your property will be a total loss. The only alternative would be to get a plant nursery to buy it, then.
MY property is zoned AG2. This means I can keep all of the animals that I can, as one person, take care of, BUT, I have to maintain odors. The only other requirement in my little town is to keep up with the mowing.
The Pluses we got:
1) a 4-car garage--the previous owners repaired Cadillacs, so they put a heater in the garage, too
2) 2 outbuildings, one large enough for a car
3) The Barn has the original garage on one side, with a mechanical door
4) West side of tiny town, so the low traffic helps to prevent dogs and cats from being run over
5) Fenced in area in front of the barn--can't tell you how many times it's prevented a breakout!
6) 100 year old house with 6 bedrooms and lots of storage property wide
7) Total price for the property was $89,900
The average price of a home in Champaign/Urbana was $130,000 in October, 1999, when we bought this place. (We live 22 miles from town.)
My new, replacement fencing (2008) which replaced aged cattle fencing (which I felt blessed to have when I moved there, btw) cost $27,000, with 5 separate gated areas, and I improved on some of the fence lines which jogged unnecessarily.
I suggest that you don't jump at this until you research the price of everything the property doesn't have. Tack on another 20% on top of your totals, since you don't know what's going to break that needs immediate fixing, too.
Sometimes, it's better to board, so do your homework. Please don't think I'm trying to pour cold water on your plans. I sincerely wish you good luck finding your own place. I used to take vacations with my horses prior to my move, and I'd sit in camp chair, drink my coffee and just look at my horses. Now, I can do the same thing from my kitchen, or from my screened in front porch, sitting on one of my wooden Adirondack chairs. =D
It's funny, but some horse people were making fun of my purchase bc many were buying undeveloped 20 acre "horse-zoned" properties east of town. Now, many of those are foreclosed, but I still own mine.

Is financing a small tractor not an option? Trust me you're going to want that tractor when you're building.

I don't have a tractor, yet, but I've started researching. I window-shopped with my local John Deere dealer. The basic small tractor would run ~$9,000.00
I also want the diesel plug in heater, the shovel and a mower. If you add these plus a trailer to transport for maintenance, the total jumps to ~20,000.00
I believe that the trailer's plate and future stickers would run about $90.00/year--just an FYI for anybody buying these.
Right now, we buy yearly stickers for plates for:
--2001 Ford Explorer
--Saturn L200
--1993 Dodge Cummins 3/4 ton truck
--2007 Dodge Full Ton Cummins 4 x 4 doolie
--2000 Horse Trailer
--small trailer (for riding mower)--too little to transport a tractor
ALL justify themselves and I didn't need them before I moved to the country.
If anybody has found a better deal with Case IH, or Kioti or another tractor company, please let me know.

You could put a snow plow on the 3/4 ton. Not the dually though - no snow traction.

Okay, you do not NEED a tractor. Would one be nice? Yes... but you don't need it.

I have 44 acres and a Polaris 700 4wheeler. I have a snowplow that attaches to the front and a trailer that I can pull behind. My driveway is a half mile and I HAVE to plow it or the school bus will not pick up my kids as my driveway is the turnaround. Takes 20mins with the 4wheeler as long as I don't let the snow pile up for days on end. So during a horrific storm when it hits the 12" deep point, I go out and plow, even though it's still snowing and then again when it stops.

Hay - small bales, I toss one on the front of the 4wheeler and move it that way. I can toss two in the trailer behind the 4wheeler (trailer has 125lb weight limit).

Water - I have a 35 gallon tank strapped to the back of the 4wheeler, just zoom around filling water buckets as needed.

Feed - I routinely throw three 50lb bags of feed on the front of the 4wheeler to haul to the feed shed. If I go crazy and buy 400lbs of feed all at once, I just drive the truck down to the feed shed to unload.

Dragging - hook up the drag to the back of the 4wheeler and off I go. Personally, unless you have an enormous arena, a tractor is a PIA to drag with, the 4wheeler makes tighter turns and is far easier to operate. I use my trainer's 4wheeler to drag with, not her tractor. I drag my 10acre cow pasture with the ATV to break up the cow patties.

Mowing - I have a 56" John Deere ride-on. I mowed 20acres with it last summer, took me 4 days but I was also getting on/off constantly to fix meals for kids and deal with work crisis. I wouldn't buy a ride-on again though, Swisher makes pull-behind mowers for ATV's. Much cheaper if you already have the ATV and just as easy to use.

Fencing? What type of fencing do you want? T-posts? Just get a pounder and you'll have some nice arm muscles when done. Wooden posts? Rent a portable posthole digger, they're easy to operate, just as fast as a tractor as they have an engine to do all the work and WAY cheaper than spending thousands on a tractor.

Now all that said, my hubby did buy a tractor recently. Why? Because there is no way I can mow/drag/disk our 30 acre pasture in addition to the 10 acre one I already maintain. So far the tractor has done a whole lotta sitting. I ended up buying 1600lb 4x4x8 bales of hay because I bought hay way too late in the year and small bales were gone. I had the hay delivered and the delivery guy unloaded and stacked my hay with my tractor. Haven't touched the tractor since then, I drive my 4wheeler/trailer over to the hay stack, fill up the trailer and drive the trailer around feeding.

6 acres and 3 horses? You are going to have one very expensive tractor that's going to do not much more than occupy space. I'd get a good 4wheeler, chains for the 4wheeler, a trailer for the 4wheeler (to pull behind it), a snow plow for the front, a drag to pull behind, a Swisher pull-behind mower and a small disk to pull behind.

Thank you so much! Your post was very helpful, especially the last part as that's what I've been thinking about. I can totally see where a tractor would be useful and needed, but I can't justify buying one I'll use for a month or two and then let sit. Also having to build extra space to store it. I was checking out the Swisher products the other night when I realized maybe I CAN get by with just a 4wheeler.

Now I have to learn about 4wheelers and what kind I'd need...oh boy!

We do not have a 4-wheeler, we have a tractor (and a tractor payment). There are lots of things that we could not do with a 4-wheeler that we can do with the tractor.
A 4-wheeler is on our wish list of future things to buy but when it came down to it we decided a tractor would be more useful.

Moving and flipping the manure pile would not really be feasible with a 4-wheeler. (Even moving the hay wagons dropped off by the guy we bought hay from before we cut our own was not really doable with out the tractor.)
Cutting and baling our hay would not be feasible with a 4-wheeler.
The tractor allows us to more easily move around large loads (fence pots, fallen trees/branches, etc).