4 to 5 acres warrants a 60 inch mower, whether a belly mower or finish mower on a tractor or a zero turn mower.

 You do not want a "garden tractor" with a 18 or 20 HP motor and a 52 or 54 inch deck, you'll be out there for five hours or more, and won't be able to catch up during a rainy spring.

A 72 inch mower might fit your need if there are few or no obstacles.

Your $5000 to $7000 budget buys a nearly disposable new machine good for 8 to 10 years if you're careful.

Look for a Cub Lowboy or a Farmall Cub first.  If you're willing to trailer one home a few hundred miles you should be able to find a good tractor.

After that, look for a second hand zero turn, especially at farm and estate auctions.  I regret passing on a upper end like new Grasshopper with an electric deck lift last summer that sold for $7500.

Which brings me to swapping blades.  Think hard about how you will access the blades for sharpening.  I drive my tractor onto ramps to access the center blade by wiggling in between the ramps.  I chock the rear wheels, and it's dangerous anyway, besides just plain sucking when the temps are in the 90's.  Sucking more, that maneuver always sucks.

OP I would find a dealer you really like (not big box), and get them to tell you the combination of the biggest deck you can get for the correctly sized tractor (the engine/housing that moves the mower) to cover the ground you want to cover.

A 60" deck would be really nice for you but they have disadvantages.

1-They won't go through many gates

2-They are very expensive  (for a reason--they require bigger everything to carry and run that enormous deck)

3-They have limitations you need to consider when going between trees, shrubs, garden beds, trees and fences, or other objects.

4-They tend to be just a little less "maneuverable" (best word I can come up with for this situation) than a smaller deck.  It's still a zero-turn mower, and it still does all the same stuff, but like anything big, "give me 40 acres and I'll turn this rig around" is the way you have to think.  That's an extreme exaggeration, but you want a mower (I'm guessing) that will go around your landscaping near the house, easily cut along a fence, AND cover a lot of ground.  I personally don't like the 60" decks, because of this last issue.  I just can't whip around and move as fast without tearing turf.   For what I do/need, they are just too big.  And so very few situations, even with larger acreage, don't have a lot of obstacles.  Many people love them.  I don't.  You might.

I like a 52" deck, for the maneuverability and for fitting through most (not all) gates.

So pay attention to your situation, walk your property, and consider not just the area you want to mow, but the stuff you want to mow AROUND. The bigger the deck (for MOST homesteads) the more you will have to push mow and string trim.  Sometimes bigger does not save time.


I'm a huge fan of Exmark (their commercial mowers at 52" were around 7K when I got mine. (ETA: That's with a really good bouncy seat. ) Prob more now, but often, there is zero percent interest at a good dealer, so that might work for you.  Part of the reason I love my Exmark so much, is their deck suspension.  In years of mowing commercially, I have never scalped a tree root, and never scalped a hump or the edge of a ditch.   Not because I haven't run over them or because I'm that good.  It's because their suspension has some extra bits to keep it from scalping.  I have customers with a lot of maples.  I would run right over those roots at a low HOC.  No scalping.  It's like freaking magic.  It means less blade damage, too.

I disagree that this acreage requires a tractor.  Unless you plan to farm, or do other things that a tractor can do, it is my view that a lawn needs the money put into the good deck, good spindles, high speed spin, and a solid brand track record.    Lot of people mow lawns this size, and they are gorgeous.  I really like what I have seen over the years from Gravely, and they are often a little less expensive.


ETA:  By "dealer"  I mean a MOWER dealer.  Sometimes they are part of ag equipment dealerships.  Mine is independent, a small shop, and I would pay an extra THOUSAND DOLLARS (I didn't have to) to buy from this man again.  He has taken care of this tiny, independent, one-woman business, since I started.  He is loyal to his customers, and they are loyal to him.  There's a reason for that.  You may or may not have this near you.  The dealer is far more important than the color or what's written on the side, and that good dealer will fit you with the mower you NEED, not just one he wants to sell.


I say all this because you have a situation where the mower is going to get more use than the average 5000-10,000 square foot lawn.  Tractor Supply ain't gonna take care of you. Not gonna do what you need.  Neither is Lowe's (dear God please don't do that) or Home Depot or anybody else who sells thousands of mowers a year.  Even if you buy a homeowner mower, buy one from a commercial BRAND who also carries homeowner lines.  From a real dealer.

Some of them have a jack mount built into the frame.  Mine does.  Takes all the pain out of the blade change (with a jack stand for safety.)

I have a couple of neighbors who run those things.  I like the deck placement, but they are indeed pricey.

Hustler makes some very good mowers.

Your dealer did you right.

My  Exmark dealer also sells Hustler, and he has told me that certain Hustler mowers are made to a lower standard, and others are awesome mowers.  He can tell which is which (I think he does not sell the bad ones) and obviously yours can too.  I doubt the big decks are in the "lower quality" production, but it's worth knowing those do exist, for anybody looking at Hustler.  I recommend Hustler to a lot of folks around here because the dealer is trustworthy.

I don't remember.  S or E maybe?

Don't be afraid to go up a deck size to 54 if you think that will still fit through your gates, store reasonably, etc.  

I ain't sayin' that extra inches on a deck aren't useful.  But you get to a point where the trade off no longer saves you time cuz you can't cover tight areas.

How do you like the dealer?

How is he sounding about engines, warranties, etc.?

Is he offering you commercial grade mowers?  Or homeowner?

ETA:  I walked out there and looked at it.  My mower is a Radius, with some upgrades.  I don't know if it's S or E.  

I don't know what engines or decks they offered in 2023.

My deck is a series 3.  

I would say do not purchase a Quest series mower.  That's too small and not built for the use you will give it.

I don't know.  My dealer sold me the Series 3 specifically because he said he had better luck with those.  

But I would assume whatever mower you get comes with one or the other, and I would not be afraid of it.  

I will be interested in how you like the SCAG.  I was set on buying a SCAG and even had the paperwork done, when the dealer here pissed me off and showed his true colors.  So I went on with my search and I'm glad I landed with my current dealer, but he was Exmark.  

What I noticed was...the Exmark hydraulics are so much easier on me than the SCAG.  SCAG took actual arm strength to move the control levers forward or back.  The Exmark I can move with one finger, which is nice for me since I'm a small female, but is just generally less tiring on the operator when you're on the thing for long periods.  I'm interested, if you get to drive a SCAG and an Exmark, what you think.

I meant to tell you...one thing I have that is a MUST for me is a grass flap.  

My mower dealer became a dealer for Grass Flap BECAUSE I didn't want the Exmark one.

The REASON I wanted the Grass Flap is that it's foot operated.   Most chute blockers are lever operated.  

And I needed it for a reason that may not apply to you.

1-It's easy and quick and I can use it to feather the output when I'm mulching leaves.  

2-My hands are small and I cannot drive my mower with one hand.  I can make it GO with one hand, but I can't pull one lever forward and the other back with only one hand.  My dealer can do this, and when I couldn't he scratched his head and signed up to be a Grass Flap dealer cuz that's what I needed.  I would have to STOP THE MOWER, operate the chute blocker lever, then start mowing again. Then STOP MOWING, operate the lever to CLOSE the chute blocker, then start mowing again, every time I used it.

Going around landscaping, trees, paved areas, I sometimes operate that chute blocker several times a minute. No way was the lever going to work for me.

My grass flap at the time was  about $300.  We just built that into the cost of my mower, and he installed it for me.

I'm sure it's more now, but mine works great.

Is it PERFECT...meaning not one blade of grass gets through?   No.

But it works plenty well enough that I don't have to ever blow out flower beds.  

Here is the Grass Flap in action.  




If you're handy at all, you could install it yourself.  They have good videos on the site.  You do have to order it for your particular mower.

Here is the Grass Flap site


YOu will find that the vacuum/lift of the deck is insanely good on the Exmark.  My buddies with SCAGs say mine is better than theirs.  However it might be their mowing technique vs mine. Not sure.  I do not leave windrows, even in heavy grass.  Part of that is that I don't have the directional chute on the mower cuz that comes off when you put on a grass flap.  Even so, the only time I've ever left windrows was when I was mowing waist-high grass, and only then do I have to double cut.  

The mower mulches LEAVES like a demon with the grass flap. It's how I do leaf "removal" in the fall for my customers. HOWEVER...my mower does not have a mulching kit on it, and when I bought my mower, my dealer hated them because at that time he said they were harder on the decks.  Keep in mind, my dealer wants his customers to be happy, but he's the guy fixing the mowers.  He wants the mowers happy too....

Further, I noticed that folks in the business don't use mulching kits as a rule, and my mower is a business tool.

NOW....Grass builds up and dumps in a pile if you run the grass flap closed for a long while.  BUT...I'm not set up to mulch grass.  Ask your dealer about it.  See what he says.  With the mulching blades, I don't know how it would act.  To an extent, a chute blocker is a chute blocker. However it's not quite as simple as that, so....talk to him.

I honestly don't see a reason to mulch on larger acreage, so once again...you figure out what YOU need cuz all any of us can do is share our personal experiences.

Re: deck series:

I don't even know if the series 4 was available when I bought my mower. I kind of think Series 3 was the latest, but I'm not sure about that.

I was sitting there at the shop counter, BSing with the guys when the regional rep and my dealer were talking one day, and they were discussing decks.  I was paying only partial attention, so not sure what they were comparing and it may not be the 3 to the 4.  That's been...two years maybe.  ALSO...SIZE matters, and which deck with which tractor and what size is not like leggos.  You need the ones that work together and even though one might fit, there are certain "magic combinations" from my observation.

The LazerZ that was mentioned above--that's one of the magic combos.  It's Exmark's flagship for a reason.  But the cost of it is prohibitive for a lot of people.  It was for me, getting into business because I'm not a business that is going to scale.  I didn't want the debt, nor the weight, and like I said...it won't go through gates.  Had I done that I would have also needed a stand-on for back yards, and that meant even MOAR debt.  So my answer was the Radius, which served me really well and was within my budget for bootstrapping a new business.  

ETA:  Full disclosure.  I still can't take some clients because of the back gate.  When they call, my first question is, "do you have a fenced yard, and how big are the gates" because that rules out at least a third of the people who call.  For a lot of businesses, that's NOT okay.  They want those customers and they want to have the equipment to serve them.  I don't. I have more business than I can keep up with.  So that' just weeds out some of them automatically and I'm good with that.

That's a great dealer, to tell you to go up there!  A lot of them will give preference to what they sell.

Here is somebody who bought a 60" Exmark in 2022.  Last spring we emailed, and I think he likes his mower.

He may have gotten the LazerZ. Not sure. But maybe worth asking him into this thread so you can pick his brain for any questions on mowers newer than mine if you go Exmark.

@Volstag

I'm giving most of my back yard and all of my side yard to weeds so I can make medicine.  We have tons of bunnies in there.  Love watching the babies play.