A tractor snowblower can be a very useful and time saving piece of equipment. There are basically 2 different configurations, and front mount and a rear mount.
Most people who don't use a tractor snowblower in a full time way will opt for a rear 3 point mount that is drives by a simple power take off. The 3 point mounted snow blower is simple and quick to install, simply back up t the snow blower, connect the 3 point hitch and the power take off and your ready to blow snow. One of the disadvantages to the rear mount tractor snow blower is that you are blowing snow in reverse, thus being just a little bit uncomfortable having to twist in the tractor seat to see where you are going. The other disadvantage that I have heard is that it can be rough on the tractors transmission, since they weren't designed to operate in reverse a lot. I don't know if that is a valid point, but it is worth mentioning.
The front mount tractor snowblowers are very nice since you can just drive comfortably forward to blow snow. The problem with the front mount models is that they are more complicated all of the way around. Usually they are operated by hydraulics and have a large and complicated mounting mechanism.
I have seen some creative mounts where a person puts a 3 point attachment on the front of a tractor and convert a rear mount power take off drive tractor snow blower to hydraulic drive. This way you can get a little bit of the best of both worlds from front an rear mount snow blowers.
All in all tractor snow blowers a re a rather simple and very useful tool when you get a significant snowfall. I remember when we lived in Minnesota and got a 4 foot snowfall on October 31st several years ago. Getting to the barn or getting the driveway passable even for a 4 wheel drive truck was going to take a fair amount of digging. We had a neighbor with a rear mount tractor snowblower on an international 1066. Without asking or anything in about 10 minutes he blew us a path to the barn and blew out our driveway. It was impressive. That was when I was sold on the advantages of a snow blower over other means of moving snow.
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