Grew up on a beef farm in south central Manitoba.
We had a Belarus dealer near us and my Dad purchased a Belarus 825 when we took over the grandparents farm around 1990. He really liked that tractor. Later he traded it in for a Belarus 8470?(something like that) but had a lot of issues. Mostly with the brakes sticking but also the steering was horrible. He hated it.
We also have several john deere, IHC, etc for haying and are new loader/ yard tractor is a CAT Challenger.
We stopped using the Belarus several years ago except for snow blowing but this year stopped using it and sold it privately for about $15,000.
I myself work full time, live about 30 minutes from the family farm on a rented acreage. Its in a valley along a lake with a long lane so the snow can get deep. Thus the search for a tractor. The yard is completely fenced off with 5 stand electric and I have sheep to keep the grass down so I didn't need a big mower, but have a smaller JD ride on. I looked at several kubotas that would be big enough to handle a bale but being young and not wanting to spend a lot kept searching.
Luckily I was watching all sites and came across a Belarus 820 not too far away with 2700 hrs on it, a nice LEON loader with bucket. Even with my Dads hatred for the new Belarus he said that would be a great tractor. It is very very rough cosmetically, had a few leaks, etc. but he wanted $5000 for it. I drove it around and it felt solid, steered really nice, and just felt nice. I ended up getting it for $4500. And a month later picked up a Inland (red) double auger snow blower from who else but a big new John Deere dealership that had it sitting out infront, it looked really misplaced and was definitely tossed in for likely free with a trade, and with a little talking of how bad it looked was able to get it for $300. I ended up modifying a spare set of bale forks from the farm for free. And I also picked up a 3pt link for $40 that I welded onto a length of diamond harrows (3 wide) I cut off from the farm that I used to rake the lawn/ lane with, and also used to rake up loose hay (yes I cut loose hay by hand for awhile and then would rake it with the diamond harrows, toss it on a plywood bucket that fit on the forks, and then dump into a pile in the shed). I just grab bales from the farm now.
So yeah that's my setup. Besides the pto issue I barely use the tractor and thus has been great. I have replaced a couple hydro lines and wired in some lights to the back for blowing snow in the dark otherwise.
The local dealer stopped selling Belarus a few years ago but there are quite a few in the area.
