How to prevent mower theft on farm?

powernoodle said:
Gollnick speaks the truth.

I may have my parents convinced to do the transport thing, and I offered to haul it myself. I'm running into a little bit of Powdered Butt Syndrome. Once someone has powered your butt as a baby, they are thereafter reluctant to take advice from you.

But just transporting the dang thing is really the most safe bet. Everything else is a wish and a prayer.



Its in plain view of a little-traveled 2 lane country road.
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transport is your best bet -- I had an entire tractor stolen the day before moving into my house. (electrical system was disconnected)
I had been working on the house 3 nights a week and weekends but was not sleeping on site so one night around 10 PM someone came in, took the steel gate off the post, took the loader bucket off the tractor, and winched it up on a trailer then drove off. got my brush hog as well. :(
 
Pay the neighborhood kid or yard service to do the work and save on the hassle and worry.
 
If you know, and trust, a neighbouring farmer who can store the mower then try that.

Otherwise NO, there is really nothing you can do, TRUST me. I have had hundreds of dollars worth of timber stolen almost a year ago on my ranch when no one was there.

Thieves have time like Gollnick said, and ones that steal from farms usually come very prepared with generators and angle grinders and other tools. They will cut through and break ANYTHING to steal expensive machines/hardwear and other stuff. A long time ago I had a thick steel padlock cut with what must have been an angle grinder, at one of my front gates. The thief must have had a gas generator in his truck.

Just be lucky that you don't have livestock there yet. We are having a HUGE problem with sheep and cattle rustlers around here. Really. Old school stuff. (actually it's a problem all over the country as far as I know)

Good luck.
 
We kept our work trailers chained up to a 6" pipe/4"x4" angle iron bollard/rail at the office /warehouse. This is in sight of a major 4 lane highway on a well lite street/parking lot with a grade 8 chain and the heaviest lock we could buy. Camera system filming away. Got to work on Monday to find the one in front gone - cut links of the chain laying on the ground. They will steal anything they can get their hands on. I live in a rural area and the Monday paper is usually repleat with theft stories out in the county. One of the items that comes up on a regular basis are riding lawnmowers. If your parents leave the mower out on the property, I would bet that it will be gone before the weather turns cold, regardless of what they do to secure it. I definately agree with all who advise to keep it at home where you can keep an eye on it.
 
Well guys, I think I have pretty much convinced my parents that the mower is going to get stolen if they leave it on the farm, so they are pretty close to just keeping it at their house and transporting it. I think that a recent theft of an air conditioner compressor at a vacant rental house they own has something to do with this.

I appreciate the responses.

Now I need to start a thread about home security systems . . . :)
 
Emanuel said:
.... ones that steal from farms usually come very prepared with generators and angle grinders and other tools. They will cut through and break ANYTHING to steal expensive machines/hardwear and other stuff. A long time ago I had a thick steel padlock cut with what must have been an angle grinder, at one of my front gates. The thief must have had a gas generator in his truck.
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These days, you can buy a cordless angle grinder at Home Depot for about a hundred bucks that will cut most any chain or lock shackle in minutes... and no noisey gas engine either. And, of course, hand-held torches are common too.

I once saw a video of an interview with a car thief showing his tricks. The Club? No problem; he produced from his pocket a cordless Dremel Tool and, like the proverbial hot knife through butter, just cut the steering wheel in four quick cuts to remove two bits and then The Club. The steering wheel was damaged, of course, but was intact enough to drive the car and a replacement wheel can be had at a junk yard for cheap.
 
Most locks and such can be defeated, but what about setting up some game cameras to get pics of the offenders in the act? I know of some people who had success in getting pics of license plates of vehicles entering the yard.

Placing cameras along the driveway or trail is one good place, and the other would be using the mower as bait by placing the camera(s) in some bushes nearby.
 
I might install a lowjack on it for recovery later.

Maybe a game camera so they have a picture to identify thieves to police.

Then, maybe a four station OC Pepper spray alarm. With four loads, they have to be really thick to try it more than 2-3 times.

If your dad has a backhoe there are more lethal alternatives.

:-)
 
rig it with claymores.

barring that, hire full-time ninjas.

if that fails, you really don't have a choice other than don't store it there. :/

like has been said, with all the time in the world, it wouldn't matter if you had it encased in a 15foot thick slab of solid glass. (granted, that would be rather expensive and extremely unproductive)

if they can see it, they'll take it. I've had stuff stolen out of my house before while people were home sleeping. Gutsy b@$tards.
 
Run an underground high voltage line to a buried high voltage transformer (neon sign transformers are good). Connect the positive lead to the tractor, and ground the negative near the tractor. Be pretty hard to steal something that gives you a healthy possibly lethal shock.
 
I specifically recall from law school that the use of booby traps to protect property results in rather nasty civil and criminal consequences for the land owner. Sad, but true. Were it legal, I would prefer the old string-operated shotgun behind the door trick.

My 72 year old uncle and I have ganged up on my parents, and pretty much talked them into submission on this one.
 
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