Price to brush hog/mow

   / Price to brush hog/mow #1  

kodiac

Bronze Member
Joined
Oct 14, 2002
Messages
70
Location
Charlottesville, Va
Tractor
kioti DK45, FEL
I am not into hiring out to do work with my tractor....prefer to use it more for playing and not having commitments to people about needing to be somewhere at a particular time etc. However I did tell someone I would mow their fields. ALOT of field...maybe 50 acres and I only have a 5ft brush hog. I am looking for suggestions on what to charge. By my actual time (per hour) or actual tractor hours or per acre? And what would be the rate? I have heard $35 per hour which seems a bit low to me considering my time and the use of the tractor.
Thanks, Dave
 
   / Price to brush hog/mow #2  
Wow, 50 acres/5 ft mower! I wouldn\'t want the job

At least you will be bonded with your machine after that!

A lot of variables you didn't mention: How tall is the stuff? How many obstacles like rocks/trees/gulleys?

I'd not want to do that job with what you said, if for no other reason than boredom.

How about renting a 10 ft mower if your tractor can pull it? Should cut your time in half. Or even rent a different tractor and mower to do it faster, if your tractor can't pull it.

Fifty Acres is a BIG area, when you go back/forth five feet at a time, and counting some overlap, you'll be looking at 4.5 feet or so.

An acre is 8.25 ft wide x 1 mile long Fifty acres is 412 ft wide x 1 mile long. Figuring 4.5 ft each trip, you're looking at 92 passes to cut it.

If you can do it at 4 MPH, you're making 4 passes each hour, so your seat time would be 23 hours (ok, I'm rounding here) assuming no obstacles and flat ground and no time for each of those 92 turns to go the other way.

Even if you bumped it to 6MPH (doubtful), you'd be looking at 15 Hrs. Bump up to a 10 ft mower (figuring 9.5 ft each pass), now you can do it 11 Hrs @ 4MPH (same assumptions, no obstacles).

I used to plow 1/4 sections of ground as a farm kid. Round and Round with the plow not much wider than the tractor. Round and Round, over and over, 3 MPH. Long Days! Boring!

My opinion is you need more power! Best wishes.

Ron (loving excel for the math, hope it's right as I'm not awake yet, your mileage may vary, but not by enough to want me to mow that acreage!)
 
   / Price to brush hog/mow
  • Thread Starter
#3  
Re: Wow, 50 acres/5 ft mower! I wouldn\'t want the job

Well Ron,

I will say your calculations are pretty accurate. I actually completed about half of this job and have logged 9 hours seat time and 10.5 hours on the hour meter. The equipment I have is what I have. I knew it would take a long time to complete. I was more interested on what the going price is for this kind of work and not so much on how long it would take. I assume if one has larger equipment and can complete the job quicker then they probably would charge more per hour.
Thaqnks for the reply! Dave
 
   / Price to brush hog/mow #4  
Re: Wow, 50 acres/5 ft mower! I wouldn\'t want the job

Kodiac
Hope you got a price before starting the job. $35 an acre is the going price in Md VA area that I remember.

I once did a job did a job for a neighbor/sub-contractor on a
$300 K + house. He needed a large pile of dirt rocks and construction trash remove from his property within a 3 day time frame, or it would not pass a final inspection phase.

No one else would do the job for him!!!!!

I re -arranged my whole work schedule for him and left a job I was doing in Charlottsville VA at 4:00 Am , and drove 5 hours up to MD.
Put in 6 hours of seat time and 4.5 hours on tractor,plus I had to jump on and off the tractor about 40 times to do phsyical things. He is an older gentleman and I did not want him doing the hard phsyical work,but his son shows up and works for about an hour and a half.The son said he was getting tried and then disappeared.

When I finished the job for him My payment was that he offered to wash my tractor but we would have to drive it to my house because he had no water at his place.......

About a month later he re-appears and says he has a gift for me ( his wife kept making him feel guilty I guess). I return home one day and find a basket of crackers jelly and misc junk on my porch

My wife said it was cute but I don't remember having a sign on my tractor saying "I WILL WORK FOR FOOD" I refused to let that junk in my house and sold it at an auction we had

I got $7 for that food basket

Hope you got a price up front

Bartman /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
   / Price to brush hog/mow #5  
Re: Wow, 50 acres/5 ft mower! I wouldn\'t want the job

Kodiac,
I think $35/hr is fair for that job. Depending on rates in your area (its closer to $25/hr up here, alot of people w/ thier own equipment) if you shot a little high when estimating you can always give the guy a break at the end of the job if you feel the need. That many hours = a lot of gas, oil, maintenance, wear and tear, etc. but if you get through it w/ no problems / break downs, you may want to knock a little off the price......
BTW: If your like me, hours on the tractor at 25-35/hr is alot better than my "real" job and actually enjoyable, especially when your making money for it! Considering there are times when I would pay to be bored! /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
   / Price to brush hog/mow #6  
Hey Bartman, I got a job for ya!

And it's only in KS, so you can make a vacaction out of it. None of that cheesy cracker/jelly stuff from me--I'll give ya a box of prime Kansas Beef. It'll be worth at least a $100! When can you be here?

Hey, just kidding of course. It was nice of you to help the person out. I'm sure you have a bad taste in your mouth when you work that hard on a $300K house and are expected to do it for free. I plan to do FREE work for my friends, neighbors, and my church. I can get pleasure from that in lieu of $$$$$.

I'm hoping to start a part time side business with my Bota, and I'm planning on people having sticker shock when I give them an estimate. If they try to counter on price too much, I can walk away. I've calculatred that insurance alone is going to cost me $9 an hour, equipment about $20 an hour. So I'm almost $30 an hour in my planning for estimate, before any $$ for me.

If someone thinks I can mow or till for $10 an hour, they get to do it themselves................

Best wishes,
Ron
 
   / Price to brush hog/mow #7  
<font color="blue"> I am looking for suggestions on what to charge. </font>

In upstate New York -- Capital District area, bush hoggers charge $40-50 per hour.

..Bob
 
   / Price to brush hog/mow #8  
I have recently started doing work for some folks around here in So MD. Nothing too skilled, mostly mowing cleaning up brush, spreading material. If I bring the tractor to the site I charge $40 an hour, me by myself it's $20 an hour. I have had only one person try and talk me down so I didn't do the work for him.

Steve
 
   / Price to brush hog/mow #9  
Me by myself it's $20 dollars per hour???????????

Does that mean plain manual labor?????

With a shovel/rake/wheelbarrow??

Or $40 per hour for tractor and $20 for operator

I swore next time I turn the key it's going to $40 -$50 an hour as long as the tractor is on-site or else $30 for tractor meter hours and $15 an hour for operators time on-site

Haven't narrowed it down yet..................

One may be a discounted rate for friends /neighbors

Bartman /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
 
   / Price to brush hog/mow #10  
I paid $50 an hour for BH work last year. After seeing how much was done in 2 hours it was the best $100 I ever spent!

2 hours w/ a 5' hog can do mucho clearing. It took me 3 weeks of HARD manual labor to accomplish less and I probably spent more than $100 on beverages to keep cool! Any homeowner with 1/2 a brain will see the value of you and your machine if they give you a chance at a rate around $50hr.
 
 
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