Browse Forums General Discussion Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 221Feb 21, 2011 12:43 pm Paul, When we bought our block just on 12 months ago we hired a zero turn mower - its definately helped us make up our mind that a zero turn is the way to go - so much better than a sit on. Since then we have had a local guy slash it with his tractor - he charges $100 compared to $250 for the mower and taking up a weekend to do when at the moment we are busy doing fences etc. We are going to get a 42in cut zero turn for about $8k. there pricer than sit ons but do a heaps better job and much easier to drive I also have a horse so we will have about 3 acres to mow and he has about 2 x 1 acre paddocks. Our Acreage Build The Lakeview Lodge - Beechwood Homes 01/04/10 YES 2010 - Deposit paid 23/09 - PCI CANCELLED 28/09 - PCI - will it happen.-18 months later 07/10/11 - ITS OURS..WOOHOO Re: Cutting the grass 222Feb 21, 2011 6:06 pm paulw11 Hi, I was wondering what people do about cutting the grass on their acreage? We are about to settle on ours and it needs slashing. I will find a local business to do it this time, but once we are established/have a shed then there are other options:
What do the rest of you do? Paul Hiya Paul, We use a rideon mower and livestock to keep our grass down and firebreaks in order. I would vote for the rideon or a tractor (depending on how much land you have as to whether the cost of a tractor would be worth it), rather than livestock especially if you are not living on the property currently, as you will need to be vigilant with your fences, esp if you have sheep. Whilst I am a huge advocate of keeping livestock for their practical function aswell as the fun of them, they do require a lot of work (again I am referring to sheep), as you need to be registered with the Ag Dept and have a livestock brand, you need to vaccinate yearly, worm periodically, trim feet, supliment their feed if your paddocks run down, shear them(breed dependant), plus you need the infrastructure to do all that, such as sheep yards and a race - the list goes on and on.. Actually i am beginning to wonder why we bother with them really! Goats aren't that much better either as they aren't as good as sheep in terms of keeping the grass down. Can't comment on cows as we don't have them, and pigs would be a disaster! Maybe a horse or two?......... The more I write the more I would recommend a rideon or tractor actually Happy, Healthy Free Range Wessex Saddleback Pigs My doom and gloom paperwork nightmare viewtopic.php?f=31&t=32170 Construction viewtopic.php?f=31&t=43653 Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 223Feb 22, 2011 10:38 am Hey V, how many sheep per acre would u recommend - not that your recommending them at all Paul, we bought a tractor with a slasher on the back and just recently bought a ride on. Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 224Feb 22, 2011 11:30 am Thanks Thirsty. My father-in-law who will be living on the property with us already has a ride-on and while it will be OK for doing the areas around the house, I think it will be too slow for the larger areas. I am looking at second-hand tractors with slashers to get an idea of price as we don't have to do anything yet. My wife is less enthusiastic about a tractor. I just sing the Green Acres theme song in response Paul Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 225Feb 22, 2011 11:40 am Before u know it, your wife will be claiming the tractor as hers (not yours). I love riding around on the machines. Its great fun. When I get bored of it I let hubby take over for a bit. We bought a small 2nd hand tractor (el cheapo) and it never misses a beat. I dont use the ride on for everything, just the small jobs. We do plan on having livestock later on. Cant wait for animals to be on my property Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 226Feb 22, 2011 12:35 pm Hmmmmmm. We have a rideon for around the house but what to do with the other 18ac? We have had some of it slashed and we want animals but that needs time and money. But so does a tractor... RF Build: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=34534 Flooring: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=39733 Chat: viewtopic.php?f=36&t=53303 Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 227Feb 22, 2011 1:36 pm Paul My DH would say get a tractor, he bought this old international that is as old as us.haha. He loves it, for under 5K for the tractor and a slasher it has been money well spent. We have a ride on as well for the house yard area, it's not working at the moment so he does about 1.5 acres by the old push mower. We have some animals as well were on 20 acres but it would take a few more head to keep grass chewed down at the moment as there is plenty of feed available. Good Luck.. Cheers Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 228Feb 22, 2011 4:38 pm Your dog looks like he loves water U managed to get the cow pooping too Is that Patersons Curse? If it is, can I ask what u use to get rid of it Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 229Feb 22, 2011 4:53 pm Hey Thirtsy, There is this thing called DSE (or dry sheep equivelant) which is used to calculate the carrying capacity of your land based on a non lactating Merino sheep (from memory). Its a hard question to answer as it depends on what type of condition your paddock is in, if you intend to rotate your sheep through a number of paddocks and what type of sheep you want to have (ie what breed, sex and whether you intend to lamb or not). We carry no more than 50 dorper ewes and lambs at any time on our 23 acres (of which approx 16 acres is given over to the sheep). We rotate them through 4 paddocks and we still have to supplement their feed with hay over the summer as our paddocks are fairly poor at the moment. I can bore you to death with further details when you come for a visit once the house is done Happy, Healthy Free Range Wessex Saddleback Pigs My doom and gloom paperwork nightmare viewtopic.php?f=31&t=32170 Construction viewtopic.php?f=31&t=43653 Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 230Feb 23, 2011 10:14 am I'm really loving everyone's little bits of paradise. And some of those front entry fence ideas are just what I've been looking for, so thanks I thought I'd just chuck a couple of pictures up of our little bit of space. 3 acres just outside of Nowra NSW. We owner built and moved in a couple of years ago now. This is how things looked as of last December (Sorry about the wide photo) Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Still lots to do, and plenty of landscaping that needs doing. A lot of our time over summer is spent keeping the grass under control. We use a ride on for it. After we built we borrowed the father-in-laws tractor and slasher to knock it all back because it was a jungle, but we found that because the ground is a bit wet and boggy in spots the tractor was too heavy and left ruts everywhere. So it was a ride-on for us. Picked up this bad-boy locally off ebay nice and cheap. Had some rust in it, but its doing ok. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ It keeps the grass down nicely, as long as we don't leave it for more than 3 weeks over summer. Then it becomes a struggle to get through. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ How do those zero-turn mowers go on hilly ground? I'd like something with a wider cutting deck to cut the time I spend mowing down, but we need something that can go up and down the hills ok. Cheers, Pete viewtopic.php?f=38&t=8824 Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 231Feb 23, 2011 1:39 pm Hi Pete, Looks like a great spot. I grew up in Shellharbour so I know that area. It always looks lovely and green. I have seen that you can get tractors with turf tyres or lug tyres. The turf tyres look more like the ones on your ride-on. What did the tractor you borrowed have? If they were lug tyres, maybe the turf tyres would do less damage. Paul Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 232Feb 23, 2011 2:04 pm Im not sure about the zero turns . We are basically dead flat - a very slight decline towards the back but nothing much. What i personally like about the zero- turns is it gives that more manicured look - there faster, there larger than a rideon - there also alot more comfortable. If money was an issue i would still buy a 2nd hand zero turn compared to a brand new rideon. Our Acreage Build The Lakeview Lodge - Beechwood Homes 01/04/10 YES 2010 - Deposit paid 23/09 - PCI CANCELLED 28/09 - PCI - will it happen.-18 months later 07/10/11 - ITS OURS..WOOHOO Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 233Feb 24, 2011 12:45 pm ok so new question.... when building not on mains water and having tank water for the house, at what building stage do you need to have the tanks in and ready to go?? viewtopic.php?f=31&t=43238 building with kerdels in gabbadah, wa block purchased april 2010 signed with builder oct 2010 papers signed jan 2011 prestart done 17/01/2011 Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 234Feb 24, 2011 1:25 pm For our build we have 2 x 1000L temporary tanks - we get water from the local river pump up to our block 4 hours a day so it can always be full. There was no way we wanted a brand new tanks getting concrete/paint on them etc from the builders so we will be installing them just before we move in. Plus we want to put the tank concrete pad right up against the house (if possible) so it was hard to work out exactly where the house is going down to the cm's. Our builder is happy with this( the water from the river is non-domestic water ) and rain water will be our domestic water Our Acreage Build The Lakeview Lodge - Beechwood Homes 01/04/10 YES 2010 - Deposit paid 23/09 - PCI CANCELLED 28/09 - PCI - will it happen.-18 months later 07/10/11 - ITS OURS..WOOHOO Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 235Feb 24, 2011 2:17 pm We have one 10000 litre tank off the shed and a 135,000 litre tank off the house. We waited until the house was built before we put it in same reason as Amanda, not to get it wrecked before using it. Pump is all connected and everthing works great. just starting Lake View Lodge - Beechwood deposit 17/08/09 Council April 10 signed contract 11/06 earthworks started 9/07 slab completed 8/09/10 Frames 21/09/10 bricking finished 13/10/10 roof 22/10/10 Gyprock 22/11/10 Tiles bathroom 21/12/10 Kitchen in 21/12/10 Painting 09/02/11 handover 11/03/11 We are in 15/03/11!!!!!!!! http://kathdom.blogspot.com/ Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 236Feb 24, 2011 2:27 pm just adding to my complete non-understanding of the whole building process.... do your builders connect the tank up to the house or do you get a plumber in after to do it?? viewtopic.php?f=31&t=43238 building with kerdels in gabbadah, wa block purchased april 2010 signed with builder oct 2010 papers signed jan 2011 prestart done 17/01/2011 Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 237Feb 24, 2011 3:08 pm HI Gabby, Our contract states that we are reponsible for ensuring that the builder has access to potable water, although it doesn't say at what stage that is required. We spoke with our SS about this before earthworks commenced and he said it is required at bricking and then for plastering. HOWEVER, it turns out that they needed it before these stages and subsequently they have been using our very precious rainwater to wet the sand pad in order to stabilise their trenches. We have an unlimited supply of non potable water from our dam which they could have access to, but as we were not told it was needed we didn't have it set up. So to cut a long story short, basically we had to have water supplied pretty much from day one. We have written into our contract that the builder will deal with the entire rainwater tank connection, as its one less thing we have to do after handover. I don't beleive this is standard though. HTH Happy, Healthy Free Range Wessex Saddleback Pigs My doom and gloom paperwork nightmare viewtopic.php?f=31&t=32170 Construction viewtopic.php?f=31&t=43653 Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 238Feb 24, 2011 4:03 pm The tank was the first thing we put in. Had to buy 10k L of water to put in it to hold the liner flat though. And once the shed was built we started collecting water from that. We hooked that up ourselves, digging trenches on a 40 degree day, was not fun! Then the plumbers did the pipes off the house, hooked up the pump and ran the blueline back up to the house. Cheers, Pete viewtopic.php?f=38&t=8824 Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 239Feb 24, 2011 7:24 pm we have 3 x 25000L tanks - (1 is for undomestic water) - our builder was charging to much to connect them to the house so we are doing that ourselves. Our Acreage Build The Lakeview Lodge - Beechwood Homes 01/04/10 YES 2010 - Deposit paid 23/09 - PCI CANCELLED 28/09 - PCI - will it happen.-18 months later 07/10/11 - ITS OURS..WOOHOO Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 240Feb 24, 2011 8:09 pm Heaps cheaper to get your own plumber, but they will need water to do the bricks. We had the 10000 litre tank on the shed to use for anything the builders needed. just starting Lake View Lodge - Beechwood deposit 17/08/09 Council April 10 signed contract 11/06 earthworks started 9/07 slab completed 8/09/10 Frames 21/09/10 bricking finished 13/10/10 roof 22/10/10 Gyprock 22/11/10 Tiles bathroom 21/12/10 Kitchen in 21/12/10 Painting 09/02/11 handover 11/03/11 We are in 15/03/11!!!!!!!! http://kathdom.blogspot.com/ 1 4853 Wish you all the best. Once you signed the contract, they will find millions excuses to charge you. And have seen their sites unfinished for a long time. 4 25848 As title suggests, looking at using the interlocking Pentablock stacked stone products to replace failing timber retaining… 0 18780 |