Part II
The L2800 should drive a 4 or 5 foot bush hog with no problem. If you mowed regularly and the vegetation is thin, then you might even try a 6 foot, but very few dealers, tractors, or bush hog manufacturers would recommend that for every type of mowing. I use a five foot with my B7800. The L2800 has a hair more PTO HP than the 7800, I believe. If I let my grass grow to 3 feet high and try to race through with a full 5” bite, it bogs down. When that happens, I can either raise the mower and use multiple passes, slow down to a crawl, or just take lesser swipes each pass (or mow more often). Mowing 4 acres with a 5 ft cutter won’t be especially taxing or time consuming. I won’t estimate how long it will take because that depends on terrain and how often you mow, but it’s a good match. I assume the SQ price is for a 4-6 foot model?
Did you plan on simply bush hogging the blackberry bushes, or are they so thick that they need another remedy (uprooting, cutting)? I have mowed several clumps of our wild raspberries with both a finish mower (regrettably before I had a bush hog) and a bush hog. There are several good threads on bushogging and reclaiming wild land in the other forums. Many people advise keeping the front end loader real low to hit rocks and stumps before your mower does. This method works well for raspberry plants too, effectively knocking down the plants and protecting the driver a bit. It may take several passes to mulch the stems, but a bush hog sure does a good job on anything less than 1” thick. The more times you “hog it” the less wild it will be.
I regards to a shear bolt, I again suggest looking at other bush hog threads to make a decision. The upgrade from a simple shear bolt is a slip clutch. The purpose of both systems is to protect both the mower and your tractor from (more) serious damage when (not if) you hit a rock or stump. A shear bolt requires the operator to replace the bolt before continuing on with mowing. Depending on your acreage and time concerns a slip clutch can be an attractive option. Here in Maine, I couldn’t find a dealer who sold a bushhog WITHOUT a slip-clutch—it’s an upgrade very few customers pass on. Same goes for a heavy duty laminate tire on the tail-piece. How you rate these upgrades depends on condition of land.
For real wild acreage, some other posters have suggested renting or hiring SOMEONE ELSE’s bush hog for the initial clearing and then using your own once it has been tamed. This is a little extreme, but there’s plenty of merit in the suggestion if the ground is particularly obscured. If the blackberry plants don’t allow you to look out for hazards on foot, I would proceed very cautiously the first time through. Another important bushhog issue is safety. I have no trouble respecting my bush hog for many reasons, including: (1) it makes my 6 ft rear finish mower look like a toy, (2) it spits out basketball-sized boulders like they were…. umm…basketballs, and (3) the blade keeps spinning for up to five minutes after you stop the tractor! Anytime when bushhogging, but especially when attacking overgrown land, you should keep people, pets, other vehicles far away. Fifty to one hundred feet may even be two close, stuff gets flung out of there in all directions at great speed.
Finally, I left the brands for last. There are as many TBN members who swear by the cheaper brands as there are TBN members who deride those same brands. The difference in cost is at least 2 to 1. The 3 brands I considered were all on the higher end: Land Pride, Woods, and Bushhog. All three will be more durable than a $450 model. With optional slip clutches, and different tail wheels, I’d expect 4-6 ft models to run from $800-1,400 for these three brands.
Such a long two-part reply to say: “Yes, I think you’re looking at the right sized tractor and implement for your land”, huh?
