| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| Mutton |
Quad bike recommendationsWe're looking for a second hand quad bike and know we want one with kick start, decent four wheel drive and low gears, also a tow hitch, but it doesn't need to be road legal.We've been recommended to concentrate on the top brands, Honda, Yamaha and I think it was Suzuki, but are open to all suggestions. This is to be a workhorse on our smallholding, which is on a steep slope, with peat topsoil that goes slippery at the sight of a raindrop. It will be very start-stop as we've only got 18 acres, so it won't get long drives to charge up the battery, hence looking for kick start. Anyway - could anyone tell us the things to look out for when buying a quad bike - what problems and faults to avoid? Also any information and suggestions as to make and model, even probable price. Never even sat on a quad bike, so total newbie. |
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| RichardW |
Re: Quad bike recommendations
What work? What impliments. With 18 acres would a tractor be better? The impliments are cheaper & normaly better. As you have never sat on one thinking that you can do "work" on one inc towing is very dangerous. They are not a car or bike. Get training first. Richard |
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| dpack |
check health insurance and ambulance response times
dangeroos tools |
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| Rob R |
That's enough about the riders 
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| Brownbear |
Where are you? | ||
| Mutton |
OK thanks for the safety warnings, we'll look further at that. Do quad bikes come with roll bars? Is that the problem that they tip over easily?
We have moorland rough grazing which we are keeping as is and working on encouraging wild life (or will be when we finally get the barn owl nesting box built). We run primitive sheep on it (Soay). The ground is fragile - we have an old land rover (which now needs work and doesn't go) - and most of the year it is wet enough that the landrover cuts the turf and then with all the rain water running down we get erosion, so we used it as little as we could anyway. Hence wanting a quad bike as it is far lighter than landrover or tractor. All we want to be able to do is: Take hay bales out to sheep Take rocks out to dips in the ground at the bottom of a fence that sheep are going through Take fencing equipment especially posts to where we are finishing fences (and other similar level of carry such as brushcutting) Fetch sick sheep in without having to lug them lying on a sheep hurdle (up steep slopes, with tussocky grass, usually in foul weather) We don't do any grass topping or tree felling. Cutting reeds to keep them under control we do with the brush cutter as most of our ground is uneven and rocky. Our farmer neighbour does the odd big tractor job for us like cutting the hay. If anyone can suggest an alternative lightweight vehicle, or is there even such a thing as a powered trailer?  That would be useful.
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| ScarySara |
I don't have one myself but have kept my horse at various livery yards over the years and they tend to have quad bikes rather than tractors and the biggest problem seems to be getting the buggers started. They appear to be "going" less often than not, and all of these would be kept indoors when not in use. | ||
| Brownbear |
I make a multi-purpose Quad trailer that has different fittings to act as a tipper, flatbed, fence post carrier, water-bowser, what you like really. You start with the basic chassis and then add what beds you need for what you're doing.
As well as a Quad - which doesn't have roll bars although they can be fitted - there's something called a Mule, which is like a quad only with a screen, canopy, roll bars and a side-by-side bench seat. On the negative side they're rather top-heavy compared to a Quad, and more expensive. |
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| Mutton |
Thanks Sara. Did you happen to notice which makes? I ask because I asked this question on a totally different forum, and was heavily warned off all the cheap and cheerfuls as they are always needing repair, whereas the expensive top end like Yamaha are much more reliable. (I like to get several sets of opinions, hence asking here - which has worked because no-one on the other forum warned us of danger.) We'd probably use the vehicle less than once a week, so even if we got a tractor we'd want to keep it under cover as well - and a quad bike takes less room. 
In terms of starting, we have a very damp climate and thought the kick start on the quad bike would be a good answer, since a neighbour uses a dumper truck as his chug around and that is an old diesel with a starting handle and he can always get it to go. |
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| alison |
We have a Honda, and it has never let us down.
It has electric and kick start, but I have never bothered using the kick start. The addage, "You get what you pay for" would apply with quads I think. |
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| Rob R |
I haven't used a quad for about ten years but the Hondas were always the best to maintain & use. 350< seemed alright for light work & towing, but the 400 & 450 were much better for anything serious. The attachments they had at work were a fail mower (handy because you couldn't get the tractor between the trees), front mounted brush (good for getting where you couldn't with the tractor mounted brush, particularly round the edge of chicken sheds), various trailers, fertiliser spreaders & sprayers (normal tractor ones mounted on a detachable frame meant they'd still go on the tractor if need be. Their main advantage was personal transport/light loads though. |
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| gil |
Another Honda vote here, based on what folk I know here [hilly, steepish, wet] use.
Mutton, you sound as though you are somewhere in the west of Scotland from your description of terrain / climate ! Or the Dales. I would be really careful with the quad and learn to use it gradually. First without a trailer. Especially careful when going downhill with a load behind. Crash helmet, maybe. Stay away from the steep bits; drive across the slope.... Is it worth putting in a sub-base track up to the hill, up the steepest gradients [given that hill tends to level off on top] ? Is what folk do here - they sometimes even get diggers in to make terraced z-shaped track across the slope. Re fencing : a mate of mine used to fence the steep slopes of the Lake District fells as a young man - he used to carry his gear up on his shoulders, and the customer had to helicopter the stobs and strainers, and drop them on the flatter ground at the top. All done by hand - no post knocker etc. Why are you carrying rocks up to block holes in fence ? Use extra boards, slatted together, to fill in the dips. If my camera were working, I'd take pics of how it's done here. |
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| Mutton |
Thanks Gil.
We're using rocks because we've got lots of them and they don't rot. Granite country and along the boundary with next door there is already a run of rocks - some very pretty quartz ones included. Our place was originally dairy cattle, then horses, with next door being commercial sheep. We bought here and are now running small primitive sheep, a couple of whom are independent minded wrigglers. So the boundary fence is such that next door's sheep don't come in here, but a couple of ours go in there. Or did. We hand carried enough rocks on our litter to stop the little bleeders. Its a bit obvious when you have a small, leggy, chocolate brown horned sheep in a field of white hornless Poll Dorset. 
Now all we have to do is the same to our new internal fences and we will have the better of them.
Your friend - out of curiosity was he using one of those heavy cylindrical metal post thumpers - the hand held sort, not the tractor mounted ones? |
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| goosey |
Well, you are looking for a 'workhorse.'
Reliable starter, won't let you down, and you are a Downsizer, how about umm.. a Fell or Dales ? Just right for those steep slopes 
By the way, are your sheep Soay? I used to have a small flock - very good jumpers, and I don't mean knitwear. Hope to again. |
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| gil |
No, all holes dug out by hand with a pinch bar and a set of double shovels, and then posts and strainers melled in by hand with a 14lb mell, backfilled and well tamped down. An awesome sight it was.... |
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| Mutton |
Hi Goosey, Well I gave some thought to horses, briefly, but the thought of having to catch them first, walk up to whichever field they are in, to fetch them down etc. Also we don't really have the grazing to spare, plus it is another whole species to learn - only just got my head around sheep, chicken and goats. Now if we were back in the days of the parish pack and cart horse and I could borrow it once a month, that would be a different story. There's a business thought for someone.............
Yes we've got Soay - lots of fun. They all jump, some pretty high - but our fences are high enough to stop them going over the top. They can go between strands if you put them too far apart or they slacken off. I've seen the resident moron bounce his forehead off the top rung of a five bar gate, but he can't go over. The nippier ones go over 3ft sheep hurdles from a standing start like a show jumper - sit back on haunches and spring. A couple scramble up the hurdles to go over the top. Some prefer burrowing - get head under sheep hurdle and wiggle shoulders so it lifts off the ground and under they go. And turn round and give you a tra la la sort of look. So the trick is to reduce the pen size really fast so they are all packed in and don't have space to be athletic.
Dead impressed by your friend Gil. We put in fence posts with a post thumper. Or when the ground gets too rocky, we first hand auger a hole then use the post thumper. Or when the rocks are too big for an auger we lay reel after reel of extension cable and use a hammer drill to go through the rock. Round here, when you mention "large rock" the neighbours can top your drill story with their dynamite story. |
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| Ecocentric |
Have you considered any of these options -
Goldoni - far more adaptable than a quad. Limited secondhand availability though. Seems natural territory for a Fergie - refurbed or as a project and plenty of attachments available at most farm sales Most quads are petrol and guzzlers. Ecorider do a reasonable priced diesel quad which would offer significant savings using red diesel or bio (if own made) but not 4WD. Then there is the original Ecorider - Soft ground, rough ground, side slopes, narrow access - no problem. And will tow up to 250 kg and give up to 120mpg. |
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| Mutton |
We bought a 2 year old Yamaha Grizzly 350 on Friday and are taking delivery with demo tomorrow. Nearest local dealer (by a long distance) is Yamaha, and as that was also recommended elsewhere, we went with it. (We've watched the safety DVD, read the manual and will be getting a demo and lesson on delivery. A lot of it looks more like horse riding or sailing with regard to where you put your weight. The bit about don't use the rear brakes if you finish up sliding backwards down hill was pretty "exciting".)
Thanks Ecocentric, just asking for "next time" in case there is one. Never even heard of Goldoni and Ecorider. Fergie - do you mean an old Ferguson tractor? Took a quick look at Goldoni and followed links through to several dealers websites - certainly something we would have looked into further - though no prices visible anywhere did worry me just a fraction
Looked at Ecorider and interesting but we really do need 4WD on our land. Our neighbour's old 1970s 2WD tractor nearly got stuck for the winter in our bottom field - and he is a full time farmer who knows what he is doing with it. Take your point about fuel guzzling, but we will only be driving our quad short distances. So load up the trailer with rocks, or a gate or whatever, drive to whereever in our 18 acres that we are doing the job, switch off, do the job, switch back on and drive back to the shed. All we need is a light weight "powered wheel barrow" plus occasionally a sheep ambulance. We're not planning to run attachments or drive any distance in it. |
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| goosey |
Hi Mutton, I'm glad you found something suitable, I wish you all the best with it, I expect you are raring to get on with jobs now.
Thanks for the Soay anecdotes
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| Mutton |
ooh yes, definitely looking forward to having a working vehicle. |