It is a factory hydraulic thumb. I think most being made today in this class are setup, but with the older units. It depends on the brand an unit. Some have the axillary hydraulics and a place for the cylinder. Some just have secondary hydraulics and you have to weld on the thumb.
I ended up buying from a dealer. They leased this machine. When it was returned, they put it on their short-term rental fleet for a short while.
I spent the entire day on it today. I'm starting to get the hang of it. I was mostly grading around the new barn. I had a bit of an issue removing the bucket. The bolt came out with a breaker bar and not too much fuss, but the wedge was really jammed in there. It took a lot of persuasion and help from my neighbor (who had tools) to pop it out. This was my first bucket swap. My neighbor stuck around and helped direct from the ground. Looks like I'm going to need to carry more tools than just the socket wrench to change buckets.
I got a chance to use my inclinometer. I wanted a 3 to 5 degree slope away from the barn for drainage. I swung the bucket to 90 degrees and pulled up to the overhang. I attached the magnetic inclinometer to the bottom of the front crossbar on the rops. I simply dropped the blade until it read between 3 and 5 degrees. That gave me my bucket angle. I kept the high side of the bucket at surface level and just raked back. I then moved out a half bucket width at a time and repeated the process. I worked my way from the low end of the barn to the high end doing it. It seems to work OK. I'll know more when we get the next good rain.
Thanks,
Jack