Kids & Tractors

[skyhightree1]

Commercial is very true and very easy way to get hurt that way. I planned on letting them learn while on a cabbed tractor with me crammed in there somewhere just to watch and tell them what to do with them on the clutch figure worst would happen in the cab is my head bumping into the glass or something.

 

[Commercialfarmer]

I think that would be the way to go. Of course, your hear some say that you shouldn't operate something you don't know how to repair. So around our house, we start em out early.

My wife found this tonight on her phone, so I thought I would throw it in here. You can't tell, but that is my youngest girl. She looked like a sumo wrestler back then. When I went in to grab a drink, she figured she just finish things up- she'd been paying attention. So she donned my hat (proper attire is important you know) and grabbed a screw driver.

 

[skyhightree1]

priceless

 

[dieselbeef]

me and my 6 yr old son put up 1/4 mi of fence. we have 24 hp kubota compact with an auger. he did all the drilling and running the auger. i did all the dumb labor of setting posts running the wire. he did it all almost w/o any direction..kids awesome. if i had known they could be so much help i wouldve had another right away!

gary

 

[skyhightree1]

Diesel thats great.. I may try that this weekend since im putting up some fencing now. They know how to cut the pto on and off no problem just the moving of the tractors and reaching the clutch and brakes is my worry lol

 

[dieselbeef]

mines a compact and its hydro so he can do it...he made my job easy..hes a great kid

 

[skyhightree1]

I like hearing things like that Diesel so many kids today would rather play video games or watch tv. The smallest tractor I have is a 28 hp long tractor.

 

[dieselbeef]

he had fun til bou the 20th post. then it was ..how many more dad..but he stuck it out. then whilei was wiring he played his ds..was a nice day...we got alot done too.
i know what ya mean. most of his friends inschool live in town. no 4 wheelers/no cows/dont fish...times of old are becoming...the times of old.
hes an only child so he gets to do whtever we do always...so maybe some of it ll stick!

 

[M5farm]

I was 8 or 9 and started with a 275 massey running the pto for the feed mill. didn't take long and I was the driver to fill approx 25 hog feeders every day. 10 or 11 I was learning to disk on a 1155 massey. but my grand daddy would let me plant or run the culitvator till I was grown. He always told me that people judged how good of a farmer you were by how straight your rows were. By the time my kids came along granddaddy was gone and my uncle was still farming and my boys learned around 9 or 10 to drive a tractor. they were driving my truck sitting in my lap around 5 yrs old. My daughter never wanted to drive the tractor growing up and over the christmas break I made her get on the tractor and taught her how to drive it and now she wants to drive it all the time. she will be 21 in march.( and single)

 

[skyhightree1]

Diesel times definately have changed but im trying to keep the old ways so my kids can understand how and why i am the way i am. M5Farm that is good my daughter is the first one to run to the tractor when she see's me get on son right behind her lol.

 

[hillbilly beef man]

My grandpa had me driving his JD 2350 when I was 6, and I was kicking hay and disking by 8. But I was 11 before he let me run the round baler. His theory in life was to teach children to work when they are young, and they will be able to do anything on the farm by the time we were young teenagers. I hope that I can do the same thing with my children.

On a side note, I saw this on a bumper sticker.
"A boy never forgets the first tractor he ever drove or the first girl he ever kissed"

JD 2350 and my wife

 

[skyhightree1]

lol good stuff. I definately want mine to be able to do anything by the time they are teenagers.

 

[Limomike]

I remember when I was about 7 or 8 yrs old riding with my Uncle plowing his field for planting alfalpha on his Farmall model H tractor. I think it was a 52 or 53. He finally let me drive it one summer. never forget it.

 

[skyhightree1]

I have same memories that stick out about first times with tractors as well. I spend so many hours on tractors and various machinery all the time and atleast 1 time out of the day I think about my grandfather and uncles farming.

 

[sim.-ang.king]

I was 8 or 9 and started with a 275 massey running the pto for the feed mill. didn't take long and I was the driver to fill approx 25 hog feeders every day. 10 or 11 I was learning to disk on a 1155 massey. but my grand daddy would let me plant or run the culitvator till I was grown. He always told me that people judged how good of a farmer you were by how straight your rows were. By the time my kids came along granddaddy was gone and my uncle was still farming and my boys learned around 9 or 10 to drive a tractor. they were driving my truck sitting in my lap around 5 yrs old. My daughter never wanted to drive the tractor growing up and over the christmas break I made her get on the tractor and taught her how to drive it and now she wants to drive it all the time. she will be 21 in march.( and single)

Use to have a 1155, always loved the sound of the V8 threw a straight pipe. ;-) But we traded it in on a new planter because it started having injector pump problems, and would hardly start anymore, so it was time for her to go.

 

[skyhightree1]

I normally mow my grass at home with my Cub I think that will be the kids starting point lol

 

[M5farm]

I was 8 or 9 and started with a 275 massey running the pto for the feed mill. didn't take long and I was the driver to fill approx 25 hog feeders every day. 10 or 11 I was learning to disk on a 1155 massey. but my grand daddy would let me plant or run the culitvator till I was grown. He always told me that people judged how good of a farmer you were by how straight your rows were. By the time my kids came along granddaddy was gone and my uncle was still farming and my boys learned around 9 or 10 to drive a tractor. they were driving my truck sitting in my lap around 5 yrs old. My daughter never wanted to drive the tractor growing up and over the christmas break I made her get on the tractor and taught her how to drive it and now she wants to drive it all the time. she will be 21 in march.( and single)

Use to have a 1155, always loved the sound of the V8 threw a straight pipe. ;-) But we traded it in on a new planter because it started having injector pump problems, and would hardly start anymore, so it was time for her to go.

nothing like that slow lope when you first cranked it and it was a hoss. we had a 1100 also that i was using one day to retrieve a boat froma dug pond with a pretty steep side and I choked it down. the brakes don't work if it aint running. just before my azz got wet I got it cranked and pulled out. If it would have went under I wouldnt be here today.

 

[Dave]

One of those find out years later stories with kids. One time I had a couple thousand small squares in the field and had to be gone for a few days for the day job. The older kids put the youngest daughter (who was 6 or 7) behind the wheel of a Minn/Mo G1000 while they loaded bales on a trailer. She was a pretty small kid and no way could reach any of the peddles. They just put in first gear at an idle and told her to drive up and down the rows of bales. They used that tractor because it had such a big open station that they could climb up there with her to stop it when they needed to. The older kids would have been 10-14. They got all that hay put into the barn in the couple days I was gone. They didn't tell me that the young one drove because they knew I wouldn't have approved. I always figured that you should be at least big enough to reach the pedals before you drive.

 

[skyhightree1]

I agree about reaching the pedals but also have legs strong enough to push them.

 

[cow pollinater]

I have a little 50hp case that's PERFECT for training kids. I have enough deck to stand on and guide them and it has a safety shutoff under the seat(which absolutlely drives me up the @#$%^&* wall) so that if they squirm around or stand up everything shuts down. It even has twelve gears so I can get the speed just right for each kid.
I'll let the boy,age 9, drive a few of the bigger tractors in low gear with something easy behind it , but otherwise I'm kind of a stick in the mud... Every man in my family has scars from something that they did right that turned out wrong and their reaction time saved them... I think that it takes years of slow building to get to where staying safe and still getting it done is instinctive.