Machine for trail clearing?

[Buxus]

I have 80 acres and have made trails/fire breaks. Was going to rent a small dozer until I saw the mess it could create. Actually, JMHO, but I think a dozer will create more work than it will resolve. All my trails have been cut by hand with my trusty chain saw. Just flag out the path and whack everything down with a good 'ol chain saw. Then I cleaned up by sawing everything to length - piling in my farm wagon - on to the burn pile. My big, brand new farm wagon was a real help in this situation. This was all completed prior to my tractor grapple. Truth be known - the grapple on the tractor probably would have been zero help. Too much twitching, fidgeting around to make a grapple effective. Besides - picture this. A twelve foot wide trail cut thru the trees - all the trees you have cut to make this trail are 2" to 6" in diameter and 30 to 50 feet tall. There is no way a grapple will help in this situation. As you cut these trees to length - you might as well be chucking them into the farm wagon.

I'll second this suggestion. That's the way I have been doing mine. On the steep hills, that's the only option anyway.

 

[ovrszd]

I have 80 acres and have made trails/fire breaks. Was going to rent a small dozer until I saw the mess it could create. Actually, JMHO, but I think a dozer will create more work than it will resolve. All my trails have been cut by hand with my trusty chain saw. Just flag out the path and whack everything down with a good 'ol chain saw. Then I cleaned up by sawing everything to length - piling in my farm wagon - on to the burn pile. My big, brand new farm wagon was a real help in this situation. This was all completed prior to my tractor grapple. Truth be known - the grapple on the tractor probably would have been zero help. Too much twitching, fidgeting around to make a grapple effective. Besides - picture this. A twelve foot wide trail cut thru the trees - all the trees you have cut to make this trail are 2" to 6" in diameter and 30 to 50 feet tall. There is no way a grapple will help in this situation. As you cut these trees to length - you might as well be chucking them into the farm wagon.

I agree in regards to opening the trails. There's not much way to eliminate manual labor if your goal is a trail you can safely drive on. I built most of mine prior to having a Grapple. I would add, trail maintenance is an Annual event.

 

[airbiscuit]

I have 80 acres and have made trails/fire breaks. Was going to rent a small dozer until I saw the mess it could create. Actually, JMHO, but I think a dozer will create more work than it will resolve. All my trails have been cut by hand with my trusty chain saw. Just flag out the path and whack everything down with a good 'ol chain saw. Then I cleaned up by sawing everything to length - piling in my farm wagon - on to the burn pile. My big, brand new farm wagon was a real help in this situation. This was all completed prior to my tractor grapple. Truth be known - the grapple on the tractor probably would have been zero help. Too much twitching, fidgeting around to make a grapple effective. Besides - picture this. A twelve foot wide trail cut thru the trees - all the trees you have cut to make this trail are 2" to 6" in diameter and 30 to 50 feet tall. There is no way a grapple will help in this situation. As you cut these trees to length - you might as well be chucking them into the farm wagon.

That is a sound plan unless the ground is covered with slash. In that case a set of forks might help. It doesn't sound like trails in all 100 acres have to be done in year 1. Instead of doing it all yourself, maybe you could enlist a couple of friends with chainsaws and a couple of football players who would like to earn a few bucks. They could bang out a lot of trail in a couple of days - or better yet 1/2 days.

 

[tacboss]

For cutting and pulling trees,, check out monster skid steer attachments.

 

[EddieWalker]

I have a fairly good sized dozer at 170 hp that can do a lot of damage going through the woods. When I first got it, I was all excited to clear some trails through the jungle and open up my land. Call it rookie thinking, or just naive. Either way, what I learned is that it's amazing fun tearing up the countryside, seeing trees fall and working your way through land that was too thick to walk through. But then reality set it. First, the mess was unbelievable. The dozer pushes. It really PUSHES!!!! And what it pushes, gets tangled together into something beavers would be proud of. You either just leave it there to rot away in twenty years, or you get it to the burn pile. Since this was before I had a grapple, it was all about wrapping chains around the mess and dragging it out. Usually there was a lot of chainsaw work involved too.

Another lesson learned over and over again, was to NEVER drive over any debris in a dozer. The tracks will twist and drive the smallest branches in between an opening and destroy something. I lost numerous hoses that way, and even had a small pine work it's way into the engine and take off my oil pressure sensor. Fixing these things always meant chainsawing away the trees that where in the way, and then working in very uncomfortable conditions. Dozers are for smoothing and spreading dirt, nothing else.

Then one day a light bulb went off in my head and I realized that using the backhoe to take out the trees and saplings was faster, easier and it left the ground in better shape. I didn't even need the dozer to smooth out the ground after taking out most of trees, and where the bigger trees came out, a load of dirt from the front bucket and back dragging worked better then the dozer!!!

I'm clearing my fence line. I've removed every tree, 50 feet from the property line with my backhoe, and carried almost all of them with my grapple. A few had to be dragged because the loader can only pick up 4,000 pounds. I'm getting close to have all 68 acres cleared, which is in the neighborhood of 6,000 feet. Not once did I use the dozer, or even consider it. I will use it when I'm done to grade some of it, but that's less then half of what I've cleared.

 

[ovrszd]

I have a fairly good sized dozer at 170 hp that can do a lot of damage going through the woods. When I first got it, I was all excited to clear some trails through the jungle and open up my land. Call it rookie thinking, or just naive. Either way, what I learned is that it's amazing fun tearing up the countryside, seeing trees fall and working your way through land that was too thick to walk through. But then reality set it. First, the mess was unbelievable. The dozer pushes. It really PUSHES!!!! And what it pushes, gets tangled together into something beavers would be proud of. You either just leave it there to rot away in twenty years, or you get it to the burn pile. Since this was before I had a grapple, it was all about wrapping chains around the mess and dragging it out. Usually there was a lot of chainsaw work involved too.

Another lesson learned over and over again, was to NEVER drive over any debris in a dozer. The tracks will twist and drive the smallest branches in between an opening and destroy something. I lost numerous hoses that way, and even had a small pine work it's way into the engine and take off my oil pressure sensor. Fixing these things always meant chainsawing away the trees that where in the way, and then working in very uncomfortable conditions. Dozers are for smoothing and spreading dirt, nothing else.

Then one day a light bulb went off in my head and I realized that using the backhoe to take out the trees and saplings was faster, easier and it left the ground in better shape. I didn't even need the dozer to smooth out the ground after taking out most of trees, and where the bigger trees came out, a load of dirt from the front bucket and back dragging worked better then the dozer!!!

I'm clearing my fence line. I've removed every tree, 50 feet from the property line with my backhoe, and carried almost all of them with my grapple. A few had to be dragged because the loader can only pick up 4,000 pounds. I'm getting close to have all 68 acres cleared, which is in the neighborhood of 6,000 feet. Not once did I use the dozer, or even consider it. I will use it when I'm done to grade some of it, but that's less then half of what I've cleared.

View attachment 539373

The value of this testimony cannot be overstated. For anyone considering the purchase of a dozer with no operator experience, take heed!!!!!

If a land owner has a large dirt project such as building a pond or terraces, etc., a dozer is valuable.

For the topic of this thread Eddie's backhoe has made his dozer unemployed. Not prying into his business but he probably has more money invested in the dozer than the backhoe.

Lastly concerning a dozer. A LOT of guys can "run" a dozer, myself included. Very, very, very few guys are dozer "operators". Huge difference. Side effects are described in painful detail by Eddie above.

 

[ultrarunner]

I sure do miss my D3... it did fantastic work putting in fire trails and roads... simply ran out of work because one 6 hour stint a year was all it took to groom the trails each Spring.

Lots of shale where the Dozer Blade would shatter it and produce gravel...

Kept the Deere 110 Backhoe but it just can't do what the Dozer did...

A year after selling my brother buys a place and needs to clean up fence lines and access the back of the property.... find a Deere 350C and bring it home... the D3 is at least 50% heavier than the 350C... plus the blade is wider.

Did the same kind of work with the smaller Dozer... took longer but it got done... it was also much more stable on the steep hills... more like a little Mountain Goat...

Owning the equipment lets a person like me do projects when time permits and when the soil conditions are optimal.

Delivery fees are quite high on a rental dozer... last I check it was about $1000 for a day rental delivered...

Plus it held it's value real well... something I had not planned on... aside from having the money tied up... it cost very little each year and sold almost what I had paid for it 20 years later.