Tractor battery

My tractor battery finally died.  Last December the battery started to not work well.  One time back then when I tried to start my tractor after 4 pm I couldn't.  I ended up charging the battery and the next day the tractor started.  Off-and-on since then the battery seemed to be on its last legs when starting the tractor.  The charger helped.  The last couple of times I didn't need a battery charger to start the tractor.

Three days ago, the last time I started the tractor, it started without a charger.  I then spent three hours pushing snow away in the pasture so I could easily feed hay in the feeder to the cattle.  Then yesterday I tried to start the tractor after 4 pm again.  For some reason that appears to be a bad time for me to do so.   The tractor started right up.  Then after 30 seconds or so the tractor quit.   Like it had run out of gas.  When I tried to restart the tractor, the battery quickly went down.  Even using the battery charger I couldn't turn the motor over long enough to start the tractor.

So I put out a few small hay bales for the cattle to eat in the corral and called it a day.

This morning I took the battery in to the "Battery's Plus" store down the road.  They tested the battery and said it was no longer working, or good.  Well, I had this battery from when I bought this used tractor in August 2015; so the battery lasted a long time.

The new battery cost me $150.  It works.  Before I tried starting the tractor I filled the tank with diesel, in case why the tractor had stopped running yesterday was because it ran out of diesel.  That wasn't the reason as I now believe I had at least four gallons of diesel still in the tractor.   When I tried starting the tractor this afternoon I had to turn the engine over and over and over non-stop before the engine started. It was like the diesel was taking longer to get the engine started.  Then I was able to haul a large hay bale out to the feeder in the pasture.  The last time I did so I had finished using the second cutting hay bales from 2021.  Today I hauled out a leftover bale from 2020.  I have about a dozen of these bales left before I get to my first cutting hay bales from 2021.