Travelling on roads with tractors

[Deberosa]

DM, your post on going to get TP was interesting to me. *I have a friend down the road with 40 acres and cows. *She is getting up there in years - a widow. *We reguarly trade birds for veggies, etc. but when I got the tractor she said I could have all of her cow poop. *

The problem is she doesn't have a loader and I am not really excited about shovelling CP into my pickup for each trip! *I have a cool thing for the truck that is a sheet of material that goes on the bottom of the bed with a crank at the tailgate. *I can unload the truck by rolling out the sheet of canvas so it creates a sort of dump truck. ;-) *I don't have a trailer for the tractor.

She lives 5 miles down the road - is this a trip I could make in my tractor? *Could also help her out with stuff while I am there. *How much fuel would that take? *What are the laws on that kind of thing? *How crazy are the drivers? *It's a two lane road between my house and hers.

[DM]

The laws are different in different states, but "most" states will let you travel on the road with a tractor, as long as you have a SMV.... (Slow Moving Vechile sign)

Car drivers for the most part are CRAZY and always in a hurry!! I guess it really depends on how busy your road is? Around here it's a farm community, and folks know there's tractors on the roads here, so they at least look out for them a little...

If you travel on the road, use your whole lane just like a car, don't drive half on the road and half off!! When there's a place that you can, let the cars pass you....

It won't hurt your tractor one bit, and you won't use much fuel at all... A tractor isn't working very hard going down the road, so light load = low fuel consuption... It does cause a bit more wear on the tires, but you have industrial tires on yours, and you won't get much wear on those...

Manure is great stuff and well worth getting, but it's sticky and doesn't like to unload very easy... Putting it in a pu is fine, but getting it back out and spreading it is going to be some work!!!

All manure makes metal rust! So wash it off your truck ASAP and off your tractor when your done too.... Just hose it off out on your grass...

Without a spreader it's going to be a lot of work to get very much of it spread... I guess if all else fails, maybe AT LEAST line your pu bed with a tarp and get enough so you can shovel a bit of it it next to your plants...

DM