How Does Your Utility Machinery Roster Stack Up?

Push, scoop, lift and dig — equipment that plays the game year-round.

Industrial equipment — dozers, wheel loaders, excavators and backhoes — has become agriculture’s mechanical equivalent of a baseball utility player. While planters, combines and sprayers are agriculture’s designated hitters or relief pitchers, specialists who do their specific jobs well but sit on the bench much of the year, industrial equipment is in the game year-round.

Here’s a list of industrial machines found on hog operations with strengths and weaknesses to identify which players might fit well on your machinery roster.

Skid-Steer Loaders

Skid steers come in a range of sizes, from compact units that can clean confinement pens to large machines designed to move bulk commodities.

Scouting report: Rubber-tired, skid-steer loaders work best on pavement or hard-packed dirt. They often fumble in soft dirt or mud. Their greatest strengths are their optional front-end accessories including grapples, post hole augers, snow blowers, pallet forks, oversize buckets for carcass management and trenchers.

“We offer more than 100 different optional front-end attachments,” says John Deere’s Luke Gribble, solutions marketing manager for wheel loaders and skid steers. “Quick-tach front plates make switching easy, so a skid steer ends up being a multipurpose machine.”

Compact Track Loaders

(CTL) are skid-steer loaders with tracks instead of wheels. A CTL can do everything a skid-steer loader can with the same front-end accessories, but it performs better on specific playing surfaces.

Scouting report: Tracks excel off-road, in mud, slop, loose dirt and conditions where their flotation and increased traction outperform rubber tires. Metal tracks stumble on pavement where they slip and slide, making them second-team for work inside confinement barns. Rubber tracks are an all-surface option.

“Eighty percent of the skid steers I sell are on tracks,” says Ziegler Cat’s Matt Johnson. “They’re so much smoother riding than wheels. Anybody who rides in a track skid-steer loader never goes back to wheels.” Compact Track Loader

Utility Work Machines

Bobcat’s Tool Cat is a unique blend of a side-by-side-style utility vehicle and a light-duty skid-steer loader.

Scouting report: Tool Cats aren’t for day-long digging and loading, but they offer a platform for a wide range of boom-mounted accessories, including a standard bucket, a grapple bucket, a tined rock bucket, snow blower, snow blade and front-mount-rotary cutter. A two-range transmission gives road speeds up to 16 mph. Utility Work Machines

Wheel Loaders

Wheel loaders are designed for heavy-duty lifting and loading. Small wheel loaders are popular in higher-clearance buildings that accommodate their 10' to 15' cab heights.

Scouting report: Wheel loaders offer easier cab access, better visibility and higher lift-height compared to skid-steer and CTL loaders. A new generation of mini-wheel loaders brings articulated frame, higher ground clearance and rubber-tired traction in a smaller package that’s well-suited for work inside deep-bedded hoop buildings and other large structures.

Excavators

Excavators used to be specialists, like designated hitters or relief pitchers, but they have become utility players in farm and livestock operations. The track-mounted machines reduce problems associated with tractor-mounted backhoes in soft ground. They range in size from mini-excavators like Kubota’s 10.3 hp K008-5 excavator that can carve a 1'-wide trench up to 6' deep to industrial diggers like Case’s 460 hp CX750D with capacity to open an 8'-wide trench 30' deep.

Scouting report: Interest in excavators on agricultural operations has surged. Not only do they excel at trenching and general excavation, but optional concrete breakers, post hole augers and other boom-mounted accessories expand their functions.

“We do a lot of digging and trenching with our Case excavator, but we really like it for working with manure pumps,” says Greg VanDonkelaar, with Hoogland Dairy at Maurice, Iowa. “We’ve got a lot of pumps that need to be lifted up and down, and the excavator works great for that because it has long reach and you can be very precise and gentle to put things exactly where we want them.” Excavators

Backhoes

Rubber-tired industrial tractors with a bucket loader on the front and a boom for digging on the rear, often find second careers on livestock operations after retiring from big league construction companies.

Scouting report: The ability of a backhoe to move and load dirt with its bucket and also dig holes or trenches with the backhoe makes it a multipurpose machine. They offer reasonable road speeds, reducing the need for a trailer when moving moderate distances by road. Backhoes can only rotate 90 degrees to their axis to dump dirt, and their hydraulic stabilizers must be raised and lowered every time the machine is repositioned, which can slow progress when digging long ditches.

Telehandlers

Telehandlers look like a wheel loader but their single-boom design and unique steering give them useful skills. A flick of a switch offers a choice of front-wheel steer, rear-wheel steer or crab steer. Low-positioned, side-entry cabs provide easy access, and their single-arm boom gives exceptional lift-height. Some come with a boom that extends hydraulically to increase its reach.

Scouting report: Telehandlers are designed for lifting more than pushing. They can be used to lift and load materials but favor straw or corn stalk bedding rather than gravel and rocks.

“We sell a lot of JCB Agri Telehandlers,” says Reuter’s Equipment’s Broderson. “A lot of mid- to large buckets for general bucket-work at livestock operations. Guys also put a man-basket on the boom and use them to trim trees, do roof repairs and other elevated work rather than climb a ladder.”