Ride On Mowers

After 2 years of fixing old falling apart second-hand ride on and using push mower in between to mow 5 acres (the other 5 we get slashed) we are looking into buying ourselves a 'new' one for Christmas.

I am struggling with handing over 4-6k for a mower - even though I do the lawn mowing. It is borderline necessity - grass needs to be short becasue of Snakes - had one at the back door yesterday. A ride on saves time.

Which mower? (needs to be touch, can handle the odd stick, rock etc and at times thick long grass - so more a slasher type not a finishing mower)

Hubby likes the Greenfield - but its $5500! (are you just paying for a name?)

MIL recently bought a Craftsman $4500 - you can't cut in reverse.

Thanks
 
We live on a bush block so we are mowing fairly rough ground too. We just bought a Cox last week for 4.5K. We've only mowed a couple of acres worth of grass so far but it is doing a good job with the rough ground and the hills. The grass was also at least two feet high and it mowed through it no worries.

We had a look at the craftsman too but decided on the Cox for the better quality. We were told the Craftsman just weren't quite as tough as the likes of Cox and Greenfield. They would hold their value more too if you sold it down the track.
 
5 acres is pretty big, might want a fairly large cutting deck for that, or plenty of time on your hands and fuel for the smaller rideons.

Cox is supposed to be tough (at expense of rough ride?) but my Husky is the smallest rideon in Huskies and handles our sloping bumpy approx 1 acre of houseyard pretty well...if you look after it and dont flog it full speed that is.

Depends upon how rough the ground is etc. Rideons are not tractors and I would not mow a paddock unless it was dressed to smooth out the bumps pretty well.

We slash the rest of the paddocks with a tractor.
 
I too have 5 acres. The best move I made was moving to a zero turn from a traditional ride on. Cut mowing time for me by 60% and is a much better finish. Pretty rugged ground in parts at my place and no issues with durability. I have a Simplicity 50inch 24hp which cost about 5.5k 5 years ago.

Only issue is if you need to mow across a gradient, you can lose traction. Up and down a gradient is fine.
 
Great fun racing ride on mowers when we were kids (we had two), the old man bonused with willing child labour and nice looking lawns
 
Thanks for the replies everyone.

We have thought of sheep for the 5 acres we usually get slashed. It means we need to upgrade the fences and then worm, drench and shear them. I don't know how much that costs.
We have also thought of agisting horses - passive income but again fences need upgrading - so it would take a while for agistment fees to pay for the fences.


I will be back behind the push mower this week - see if it irks me enough to spend the $$.

Munchkin - did you get hit by the storms?
 
Yes, the storm was absolutely insane. the hail was huge, and the noise so loud we could barely hear each other inside the house.

Luckily there was no damage at our place. my brother had smashed window from hail and a drive through Mount Helen, Mount Clear and Sebas this morning showed some huge damage. There were entire streets with trees down all the way along, roofs blown off, powerlines down. Pretty sure some people didn't get power back until tea time Saturday.

My brother lives about ten minutes away and he called me and told me something not normal was coming and to get ready for a doozy. I though he was just paranoid and exaggerating lol but he wasn't wrong!


Apart from the fact I was a bit paranoid one of the hundreds of trees around us would fall on our house it was pretty awesome to watch.
 
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Yes.

We spent most of Saturday chainsawing large fallen trees. Fortunately none hit the house. Still a bit of clean up to do. Our power went out as soon as the storm hit but was on again the next morning.
 
I went from a normal ride on machine that regularly broke down and chewed belts and stalled in high grass to a zero turn Hustler Sport . Has never missed a beat and cuts like a dream and has a bullet proof front deck, not the thin plated stuff. Cutting time dropped by 30-40%.
 
Was looking at a Hustler zero turn the other day ... but at near $6,000 they are not cheap ... will have to shop around to see if can get a better deal
 
Interesting the zero turns....saw a Victa in Bunnings the other day just under $5k.

Didnt think that was too bad it had a pretty large deck 48in I think...but then my memory is failing...:confused:

Anyone with a Victa? Good brand name at least....
 
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