Between the River Hills & the River Bottom

[ambenz]

I am wondering about if you have any concerns about the Bobcat or ANY wildlife effecting the cattle?
Do you actively keep firearms close at hand while working your acreages?
Just curious...as we see fox, racoon, and coyotes here in the suburbs but are not allowed to kill them legally unless they are actively attacking us or our pets.

I also wanted to thank you again for sharing your life on the farm, I have subscribed to your thread and look forward to seeing the cows, the harvest, the constant work that comes with the job. Very cool thread!

 

[cliftonbros89]

The delay on the new piece of machinery maybe related to everything else in production. Waiting on parts from someone else to complete the job and get it out the door.

Good luck on the inventory tracker and locator. It’s got to be horrible looking thru 6 boxes to
Find one part you know you have someplace.

I imagine that is some of it. I know the dealer has two new planters of the same model we ordered sitting on the lot right now, just with different options than what we have. So I’m not sure what the whole hold up is. I know I’ve heard of people having issues with parts not arriving because of everything going on in the world. But I can’t say I’ve had a problem getting anything from Deere. That hasn’t been a delay on anything I’ve got from them with in the past year.

It can be aggravating. At least for the majority there was a good amount of parts that are fairly common I knew the location of. But I couldn’t always remember how many we had on hand. Really all the tractor parts I still had some what separated and had a decent idea what what was were. The big hold up was just getting through all the **** around it that should have been there in the first place. But I’m looking forward to running the app for it all.

 

[cliftonbros89]

I am wondering about if you have any concerns about the Bobcat or ANY wildlife effecting the cattle?
Do you actively keep firearms close at hand while working your acreages?
Just curious...as we see fox, racoon, and coyotes here in the suburbs but are not allowed to kill them legally unless they are actively attacking us or our pets.

I also wanted to thank you again for sharing your life on the farm, I have subscribed to your thread and look forward to seeing the cows, the harvest, the constant work that comes with the job. Very cool thread!

There usually aren’t many concerns. We’ve never had a problem with anything bothering the cows. Cows are actually pretty observant, most of the time at least. They can usually spot a coyote and will be aware of where it’s at. In my experience at least, coyotes will only go after the young calves, typically the newborns if they’re going to try for something. But that rarely ever happens.

One concern is a certain breed of vultures. Typically vultures are just scavengers, find what is already dead and eat it. But this particular breed has actually been hunting, they’ve been known to kill newborn calves. The afterbirth of a calf being born is always something that catches the attention of predictor, that being why the cow will typically eat it after cleaning the calf up.

Other than that there aren’t really any issues. Those are really rare occurrences. But I won’t lie, there is typically a loaded firearm in a truck, tractor, the shop or dad’s house ready to go.

Opossums and raccoons are big annoyances though. More so raccoons than anything. They like to dig through the cattle feeders and throw corn everywhere. You can’t leave out any bags of feed or seed because they’ll destroy them. They also always leave a mess on the combines in the shed. Despite the fact I clean them as much as possible they always find some little piece of grain I missed somewhere and then proceed to **** all over it. So they are actively eliminated.

Coyotes are open game 365 days a year in Missouri. No limits, no particular season, they’re overpopulated in a lot of areas, ours being one of them. When able to be they’re eliminated as well.

Foxes aren’t around our area too much. I’d honestly never seen on til about 12 years ago after our neighbors started raising chickens. Which doesn’t really bother me, so I don’t bother them.

Thanks for following along.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Only a few more days of this **** and we’ll see some warmer air move in. I’m not ready for the mess of the melt. But I’m ready for this to be gone.

 

[jollygreengiant]

I hope you guys didn't get rid of your old planter before the new one is in your yard. The lead time on everything is crazy, and everything comes in later than what they say.

 

[cliftonbros89]

I hope you guys didn't get rid of your old planter before the new one is in your yard. The lead time on everything is crazy, and everything comes in later than what they say.

Naturally, the dealer wanted our planter as soon as they could get their hands on it. They picked it up back in November. I’m not sure but I think it’s probably already sold too.

 

[jollygreengiant]

Naturally, the dealer wanted our planter as soon as they could get their hands on it. They picked it up back in November. I’m not sure but I think it’s probably already sold too.

Uh-oh.

Well hopefully the new ones comes in before spring. Either that or hopefully you have a good dealer who'll provide a loaner unit.

 

[Farmall450]

Uh-oh.

Well hopefully the new ones comes in before spring. Either that or hopefully you have a good dealer who'll provide a loaner unit.

I would think they have to at the point.

 

[XJSuperman]

I would think they have to at the point.

One would think, but this is pandemic world, and anything goes. We (society and govt and businesses) are making up the rules as we go along. They could just as easily say "too bad so sad" and be done with it.

I really hope you get your planter in the next few weeks guys. You won't be the only ones who might be getting equipment late, so all hell may break loose if people all over are missing seasons.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Yeah we still haven’t heard anything. But I know they have a few planters sitting on the lot. I would think, if they know what’s good for them that they’d lend us a planter. Especially when you consider how much we’ve spent on parts since the first of the year.

 

[Sifan]

I would be sorely tempted to take my tractor and pull one of those planters home now! Who knows how many other farmers are in the same position as you

 

[cliftonbros89]

I would be sorely tempted to take my tractor and pull one of those planters home now! Who knows how many other farmers are in the same position as you

I know they sold at least 10 of this new planter, in different variations, between a few locations for sure. I’ve seen 2 of them on the lot at the dealer since about November/December, one is no longer there. I’m trying to be hopeful.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Earlier sunrises, gradually later sunsets, geese are heading north. It’s about that time. But I by no means have things prepared for it.

 

[jollygreengiant]

Earlier sunrises, gradually later sunsets, geese are heading north. It’s about that time. But I by no means have things prepared for it.

I agree 100%. On the one hand, the longer days are awesome. Sunset after 6pm and seeing ice and snow melt during the day is great. But on the other hand, where did the winter go?? I enjoy winter for the downtime between seasons and I am very much not prepared for the spring rush.

 

[cliftonbros89]

I agree 100%. On the one hand, the longer days are awesome. Sunset after 6pm and seeing ice and snow melt during the day is great. But on the other hand, where did the winter go?? I enjoy winter for the downtime between seasons and I am very much not prepared for the spring rush.

I’m absolutely ready for longer and warmer days. But I feel like the winter has flew by for me as well. I had intentions to really get some stuff done this winter. But it also seems like everything I’ve tried to get done has been held up in one way or another and has really delayed me.

 

[Sifan]

And ... could be planting corn is 30 days

 

[cliftonbros89]

And ... could be planting corn is 30 days

Maybe sooner from today depending on how the weather goes. A few years ago last week we were already putting on anhydrous.

The last couple days have been nice. If things keep staying similar to this it definitely won’t be long. I’m not ready at all! There’s still a bunch to do.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Good news!

I got the phone call yesterday. The planter has arrived to the dealer. Luckily, they were right. It did show up earlier than expected. It’s talked to them last week and they said estimated arrival was March 20.

But it takes 2 days for “assembly”. Then they want to get out of delivery by having us take our tractor all the way to them so they can “marry” (their term, not mine) the tractor to the planter. Being that we went with just about the most basic setup all they should really have to do is hook up the monitor in the tractor and make sure it’s working.

So I’m glad it’s here. But I’m still not happy with them.

 

[mercracing]

Sounds like they could just as easily “marry” it at your place. Dunno why they would want it done at their place?


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[XJSuperman]

Depending on the setup, software updates might go better at the dealer. Just the name of the game these days.

Hopefully its truly a simple hookup n go, but I have to believe delivery is very doable for them.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Sounds like they could just as easily “marry” it at your place. Dunno why they would want it done at their place?


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So they don’t want to deliver but still charge us for it would be my guess.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Depending on the setup, software updates might go better at the dealer. Just the name of the game these days.

Hopefully its truly a simple hookup n go, but I have to believe delivery is very doable for them.

My understanding is it’s going to be a fairly simple monitoring system. Really the only thing the tractor should be doing is supplying the power.

It’s going on the 4440 like the Kinze did. We didn’t get all the bells and whistles that were available. No vacuum meters or anything like that. So the tractor should just be needed for power for the monitor and hydraulic hook up. That shouldn’t be anything they can’t use a tractor on the lot for.

But I’ve heard a similar story with one of the other locations for one of these new planters. The new management for this merged dealership hasn’t been all it was cracked up to be.

 

[mercracing]

Depending on the setup, software updates might go better at the dealer. Just the name of the game these days.

Hopefully its truly a simple hookup n go, but I have to believe delivery is very doable for them.

Why would software updates work better at a dealership? The service techs should have hotspots they use for service calls.


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[captain14]

Why would software updates work better at a dealership? The service techs should have hotspots they use for service calls.


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Maybe they know they have a 100% WiFi reception there and not waste their time driving and trying to “acquire”’a signal. Their tech can do more than one in a day. Big business has been known for cutting back to bare minimums at times.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Maybe they know they have a 100% WiFi reception there and not waste their time driving and trying to “acquire”’a signal. Their tech can do more than one in a day. Big business has been known for cutting back to bare minimums at times.

Why would software updates work better at a dealership? The service techs should have hotspots they use for service calls.


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Well it’s just the 4440 and the monitor should be about as basic as monitor that was on the Kenzie. No software update should be required.

But I called them today and they even decided it wasn’t necessary to have they tractor there as it’s a pretty basic setup. So they’re delivering it next week.

 

[XJSuperman]

Why would software updates work better at a dealership? The service techs should have hotspots they use for service calls

Captain14 nailed it. I work for Deere in software and it can be a pain depending on the controllers needing updated. Dealers do strange things sometimes, but if they think it will speed up the process, keeping the equipment in their shop may allow for quicker processing. I am not saying remote work is impossible or out of the norm, but in the busy season its easier to have a dozen machines in one location rather than driving all over the place to do one at a time.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Good news is we didn’t have to take the tractor to the dealer. They got it all ready to go and we should have it at the farm by the end of the week.

 

[cliftonbros89]

So as I recall we left off with snow. We ended up with quite a bit of snow. Then about a solid two weeks of temps in the teens and single digits. It didn’t start out terrible. But then we had a bunch of wind. That made a few of the waterers constantly freeze up.





But we managed to make it through, cattle as well. Luckily no ice or anything like that. Once things warmed up they warmed up enough to melt things fairly quick.

The 7510 needed some exhaust work. The flanged pipe end of the muffler had rusted through. Luckily we were able to get a different flange and fit in on to both the muffler and exhaust pipe.


I continued my work organizing the parts loft. I have one box of parts that I need to identify yet, a box of miscellaneous junk, and a box of bolts that need to be sorted and put away.





As I sorted everything and put things away I wrote down part numbers, notes on things, quantity and where the part was located. Thanks to a GJ thread I did sometime ago I’ve now been entering all that info into a one time $9 fee app. This thing is great. I already have over 400 parts in it. I can search by part number, model number, description of the part, or location. When I go to the part it gives all that info plus the quantity I have on hand and I can quickly adjust it. I can access it from my phone or my iPad. I can export it all into excel or import things from excel. Plus I’ll be able to share it all with dad, if he can learn how, he can access it all as well. But I still have a lot of parts to add.



Dropped a bunch of money on tires. New implement and wagon tires. Some replacements, some for spares. All new tires for the 7230. Rear set for the 7510 too. We also picked up a front set for the 8400.

Had an issue with the 7510 PTO. Wasn’t the pto speed sensor, wasn’t the solenoid either. Noticed some play on the shaft. Talked it over with a mechanic. When the 7510 is used the PTO is used. With over 5,000 hours we decided it was time for a rebuild.



With more than enough to do I just took the PTO to the dealer for complete rebuild.

Looked things over on the 8400. There’s a few leaks I’d like to fix on it but haven’t had the time to do so yet.


Had our buddy Noah come after school and gave him the job of taking out the interior and putting a new kit in the cab. It turned out good. Did I mention we did a new kit in the 7510 as well?

We put up some new lights outside of the shop. Also, hung a barn quilt we gave dad for Christmas.



The beat the old flood light we did have up there.

Things dried up for a little while after the snow melt. It was kind of nice.




Been feeding plenty of hay, it must be better than what we had last winter because we haven’t had to feed nearly as much mineral this winter. We sold quite a few big calves at the first of the year. Just last week we sold 26 more. We’ve sold off 4 old cows in the past month as well. Had some more calves be born lately.



Weather and other things set is back on weening more calves. A few weeks ago we weened 46 calves. We split them in 2 lots between my uncle’s and my dad’s. This past Saturday we gave them their first round of shots. Then moved them all together into the larger lot at dad’s. Had one bull we didn’t cut. He was the last calf bred from out old bull “About Time” that died late last summer. The calf seems to have really taken after the old bull. We’re hoping we can make a bull out of him.

 

[cliftonbros89]

How could I have forgot about the 4010? What a pain in the ***! If you go back a few pages and go back to about August/September you’ll see where we left off on that.

I was trying to rebuild the selective control valve. Then dad ended up buying a second used one to add on to it. We that turned out to be a nightmare.



I started rebuilding the couplers as well as the valves. I’d never worked on a set a valves, especially, not one of these old style sets. I couldn’t get things set to where the were supposed to go.

I had some issues with a few parts. Replaced some parts. Replaced all the seals and o-rings. Things were just a pain. The adjustment was all over the place. But then it came time to get things ready for fall so that job just had to sit.

Things were busy....


I had a few chances between things to try and readjust the valves but I just could never get them right.

Fall finally wrapped up. I was catching up on other things. It was time to finish this thing.

I thought I had things where the needed to be and put things together.



Valves were mounted, oil lines in place, couplers mounted, linkage connected. It was ready. Then two of the oil lines blew immediately.

So I had to have some hoses made. Got those on and tried things out.

I hooked up a cylinder to test them out. NOPE! The valves still weren’t right. So by this point I’d ran out of patience and had too much else to do. So I took them to the dealer.

That called for more parts, plus the time for the time l take apart, reassemble and adjust everything. That was a hefty bill...it took over two weeks to get them back to as that fell around New Years.

Got them on and there were finally good to go. But there was another thing dad wanted to do while it was in the shop.

The plate that side under the fuel tank also covers up the hydraulic pump. Which sits in front of the radiator. At some point in time someone apparently needed to remove the hydraulic pump. Their answer to the problem was to just torch out a hole to remove the pump. You wouldn’t think it but this giant hole then allows a lot more dirt to enter the radiator.

So that job meant removing the radiator, fuel tank, lines, hoses, air filter, shields, etc. Which also meant a major cleaning job on the front end. It looked like it hadn’t been touched in years. Definitely wasn’t taken apart when someone gave the tractor a paint job. But that also meant while we were there we may as replace some things. So that meant radiator hoses, hydraulic pump drive bushings, fan belt, fuel line, hydraulic steering line, the plate itself which caused this whole mess, and a few other hoses.

There were some other jobs to take care of in the midst of this so it wasn’t able to be finished all at once. But eventually things started going back together.

So. One evening dad, Noah and myself got with and and finished putting everything together. I had Noah cleaned everything up. Last thing to do was fill the radiator. I thought it looked rough before I had Noah wash it. Afterward I was a bit nervous. The radiator looked in worse shape than I’d thought. Sure enough! The damn thing started leaking coolant right away!

This happened on a Friday. There is only one guy in the area that still rebuilds radiators and he’s about to retire. Come Monday we dropped it off to him. He checked it. It was going to need a new core. Now this happened during the cold, snowy spell we had. Took him a day to look at it. He ordered a core. The core came from Texas. Took a week to get here. He put it in. It leaked worse than the one we had! So he sent it back. That timed out when Texas was shut down due to the winter weather. So that set things back. Then the guy hurt his hand doing something and that set him back. It took 3 weeks to get this damn radiator back!



Finally on March 2 I got the radiator back and got it on the tractor.

The next day on the 3rd it was finally going and out of the shop! Finally! This thing had been sitting in the same spot since late July. That’s a long time.

So after many headaches. Many issues.
Lots of money. Lots of waiting on parts to arrive. It was finally running and done. It’s still not 100%. There’s some more I’d like to do to it. But it’s ready to go. It’ll likely get feed grinding and auger time this year. But at least it’s going better than it was.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Don’t worry! That’s definitely not it. There is a lot more to get to. But it’ll take some time.

 

[BORING HOP YARD]

Wow nice update, thank you for sharing!

 

[jollygreengiant]

Thanks for the update!

It's a good thing that tractor isn't one of your main ones and you could afford to have it down for a while. But it ***** that it took so long lol.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Thanks for the update!

It's a good thing that tractor isn't one of your main ones and you could afford to have it down for a while. But it ***** that it took so long lol.

Yeah luckily the PTO issue happened when it did. But had it happened when we needed it we would’ve definitely overnighted all the parts to have them right away.

The 4010 issue there wasn’t much we could’ve done. Other than just ordered a new radiator from Deere and said the heck with having the old one rebuilt. But I don’t think there would’ve been much of a pressing situation that we would ever absolutely need the 4010 going since it doesn’t have many jobs and can easily be tagged out by one of the others.

 

[captain14]

Thanks for the update. My biggest concern would be all the parts you removed and kept them straight and separated for 8 months. How did you manage that with all the other repairs going on in the shop. Just day to day jobs requiring certain tools etc?

 

[XJSuperman]

Damn. I knew it was going to be bad, but not that bad! Glad you finally got it together. Thanks for the update on here, it was long anticipated.

Thats a hell of a stack of tires you had there. Pricey Firestones but they should last a lot longer than some of the cheaper options. Even though I work with the new stuff, I'm glad to the older tractors getting "restored" with cab interior kits and new tires to keep them working and feeling good.

 

[XJSuperman]

....

 

[XJSuperman]

....

 

[Sifan]

I realize I'm late to the dance, and yours is a 4010, here's a youtube on hydraulic repairs with new style couplers to a 4440

might help if you have other problems.
Have a safe spring!

 

[west_perf]

Glad you made it okay through another winter. Hope you don't get any major spring floods this year.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Thanks for the update. My biggest concern would be all the parts you removed and kept them straight and separated for 8 months. How did you manage that with all the other repairs going on in the shop. Just day to day jobs requiring certain tools etc?

Well tools weren’t kept to the side for it. Unless I have things sitting out that I absolutely know I’ll be using the next day, it all gets put away, each day. Everything gets wiped down, put in the box and boxes locked over night.

As far as parts go on the 4010 I lucked out cuz most of it was small. Shields were all under it or against the wall. Hood was against the wall. Bolts were separated into magnetic trays. Those were left sitting where they were used stick to the tractor.

The valves and couplers parts though I put in these. Popular brand is ViewTainer. I was able to get several for nothing one time and I made the holders to put them in with some board we had around and some magnetic paper towel holders. I was able to separate all the parts and wrote down which parts in which container when to which valve. I have 3 of the trays with 15 of the containers all together. I was able to keep them out of the way til I assembled them.