Alan Cole farms 130 acres in Co Kildare. He lambed 320 ewes last season and grows about 30 acres of barley every year and hopes to expand his sheep enterprise more. When the family Zetor came to an age where it needed changing, having been a Zetor farm since the early 1980s he decided to talk to Micheal Brogan of Brogan Tractor Sales. Michael mentioned the ArmaTrac brand to him and once Alan saw the specification of the 1104, he decided to buy it.

This tractor has a Perkins power plant and axles and transmission from well-respected manufacturers zf and Carraro. Alan uses this tractor for everything on his farm, from herding to the weekly run to the factory with lambs. It is the farm jeep, tractor, loading shovel and quad all rolled into one.

Alan says that, so far, the ArmaTrac has delivered on everything that he wanted from it. The only issues that he has come across are the visibility when hooking up to a trailer and the external lift arm controls are on the right side and he always gets out the left side due to the loader controls.

This tractor was fitted with a Rossmore loader from the day it arrived. Alan’s main loader work consists of lifting bales of silage and general loader work around the yard. Alan also has some forestry on his land and uses the loader to do all the forestry work from inspecting the trees to removing any thinnings or clearfelling.

Alan finds that the ArmaTrac has great clearance when entering the forest. Power is something that Alan says is available in abundance. Alan has used the tractor to pull a grain trailer with about 10t on board and says that the little ArmaTrac was comfortably able for the load at a maximum speed of 40km/hr.

Last spring, Alan was undertaking some reseeding and borrowed his neighbour’s 3m mounted disc harrow. He left the loader on and found that the 1104 was well able to both lift and pull the disc in what were tough enough ground conditions. Sitting in the cab, it is very comfortable and most of the controls are in familiar positions, if a little odd, eg the knob on the dash which is used as the hand throttle.

Some nice extras on this tractor are both the hydraulic link arm and top link. Alan says that he had no interest in them being on the tractor if they were going to cost him but they came as part of the deal. Now Alan wouldn’t be without them as he can adjust his mower/topper from the cab with no need to get down. A machinery man is not something Alan would call himself and he says that his worst days are days spent in a tractor. This tractor is at the budget end of the market but Alan finds that it does everything he needs – and more – on his farm.