Bush Hogging 8 acres - pricing?

[LD1]

Haydude posted some nice pics.....here are a few of mine:

Those pics are all various parts of a 25 acre job I do once a year. $1200. Bout 7hrs mowing and 2 hours for travel/load/unload.

The following couple are a 80 acre solar farm. (I don't mow 80 acres). I hit the ends rows of the panels and one pass up and down each row. 100 rows @830' long, and 120 rows @460' long. I do this job hourly as a sub contractor for the company that also sickles under the panels once I'm done.

And some jobs I just like to leave pretty stripes

 

[Hay Dude]

The stuff around the pond should be going through a hay baler. That’s some decent looking stuff for cows.
Nice twin spindle mower.

 

[LD1]

The stuff around the pond should be going through a hay baler. That’s some decent looking stuff for cows.

It was pastured for sever years. It's 16 acres.

But it's part of a 191 acre farm that was being sold. The farmhouse and barns sold....which was the only access to this area. This was to sell with the rest of the tillable fields. I had to make my own access by temporarily removing some fence.....and pick the least sever area to cross the road ditch. Ain't getting haying stuff in there without adding a culvert and truckload of stone. And this was just a temporary thing I kept mowed for a year until it sold to a developer

 

[Skramps]

Hey guys. Sorry if this is the wrong forum to post this. I'm pricing out my first paid job with my tractor and rotary cutter. The customer wants 8 acres of knee/waist high fields mowed. It looks like it has been regularly maintained but not recently so there aren't any debris piles, wooded areas, briars or anything like that. Mostly grasses and some small wooded material. Slightly inclined and rolling but not steep. No large obstacles except a few large trees that have enough clearance around them to cut around. I live in Maine and am not new to landscaping or yard cutting but I've never priced this large of a cutting and not with a tractor.

I have my overhead and profit figured out on paper but I have no idea if I'm too high or low.
I'm assuming an hour an acre?
It's close to 40 miles (one hour) from my house.
Without knowing the market for bush hogging and going off my numbers (theoretical at this point) I would want to charge $750.

To me that seems outrageous for just mowing an 8 acre field but I do all of my own work around my property so I'm not accustomed to paying contractors. I've seen a few people on craigslist advertising $50 an hour but that seems way too low to stay afloat. Especially now.
Does this seem reasonable for anyone else?

Not sure how I can reply to everyone at once but I'll try this.

Never again sight unseen pricing on a job. I stopped doing that a long time ago but thought I get away with doing it this one time.

5 acres of normal overgrown field. 3 acres of 2-4" saplings and 6 foot tall grass. The pictures, streetview, and satellite view did not show any of this (not that I expected it to be accurate). I contacted the customer after completing all of the normal mowing and let them know I would need to charge substantially more to completely clear cut the last acres. They were very understanding and we came to an agreement. The property was sloped and steep (some areas inducing the pucker).

I averaged around 1/2-1 acre an hour because of the slope. I would comfortably assume 1 acre an hour on flat areas. I was thoroughly impressed with my little machine and cutter. It was cutting through things I thought would stall it out. If I was to price this job again including the sapling removal and the tall grass I would have priced it at closer to $1,500. But oh well, live and learn.

The customer has since hired me to regrade their driveway and said they'll have more jobs in the future.

Thanks everyone for the information and you're time in helping me out.

 

[Fixastuff]

Not sure how I can reply to everyone at once but I'll try this.

Never again sight unseen pricing on a job. I stopped doing that a long time ago but thought I get away with doing it this one time.

5 acres of normal overgrown field. 3 acres of 2-4" saplings and 6 foot tall grass. The pictures, streetview, and satellite view did not show any of this (not that I expected it to be accurate). I contacted the customer after completing all of the normal mowing and let them know I would need to charge substantially more to completely clear cut the last acres. They were very understanding and we came to an agreement. The property was sloped and steep (some areas inducing the pucker).

I averaged around 1/2-1 acre an hour because of the slope. I would comfortably assume 1 acre an hour on flat areas. I was thoroughly impressed with my little machine and cutter. It was cutting through things I thought would stall it out. If I was to price this job again including the sapling removal and the tall grass I would have priced it at closer to $1,500. But oh well, live and learn.

The customer has since hired me to regrade their driveway and said they'll have more jobs in the future.

Thanks everyone for the information and you're time in helping me out.

Good work!

 

[LD1]

Not sure how I can reply to everyone at once but I'll try this.

Never again sight unseen pricing on a job. I stopped doing that a long time ago but thought I get away with doing it this one time.

5 acres of normal overgrown field. 3 acres of 2-4" saplings and 6 foot tall grass. The pictures, streetview, and satellite view did not show any of this (not that I expected it to be accurate). I contacted the customer after completing all of the normal mowing and let them know I would need to charge substantially more to completely clear cut the last acres. They were very understanding and we came to an agreement. The property was sloped and steep (some areas inducing the pucker).

I averaged around 1/2-1 acre an hour because of the slope. I would comfortably assume 1 acre an hour on flat areas. I was thoroughly impressed with my little machine and cutter. It was cutting through things I thought would stall it out. If I was to price this job again including the sapling removal and the tall grass I would have priced it at closer to $1,500. But oh well, live and learn.

The customer has since hired me to regrade their driveway and said they'll have more jobs in the future.

Thanks everyone for the information and you're time in helping me out.

Glad you got it done.

I have never looked at a job prior to showing up with equipment ready to cut, (after price is established already).

So I always cut sight unseen. Time is money, and with fuel prices, and doing 100 jobs a year.....simply don't make sense to go look first.

Satellite viewed around here are usually pretty up to date. Never more than a year of two behind at most.

But hence why I said ask relevant questions. Like when was it last mowed. If a customer says "last fall" you know it isn't gonna be 4" saplings or briars so thick you gotta back into them.

If they say 4-5 years ago.....assume the worst and price accordingly.

I'll mow over an occasional 2" sapling....but won't mow "acres" of 2"-4" saplings. A sub-50hp machine and pto cutter is the wrong tool for the job. I advise them to hire someone with a skid loader. Just ain't worth the risk of damage to equipment or flat tires from running over all the remaining stumps and debris.

 

[Hay Dude]

I always view any new customers with my eyes first. Existing customers I don’t have to of course.
Have had a few new customers call me and its usually the same conversation:
Q: “Is there anything in the field I need to be aware of, like stumps, rocks, well heads, pipes, etc.?“
A: “Oh no, there’s nothing out there. It’s safe”

Then I come out to cut and find any combination of stumps, rocks, well heads, pipes, etc.
One guy sent me out into a new field and there was an iron gas line valve hidden in the tall grass. Would have destroyed mower quickly. Owner told me nothing about it yet bragged he “knew the fields like the back of his hand”. A competitor company (I am friends with them) went out to cut a field once and ran over an electrical box that controls the flow of public water. It was a huge insurance claim to fix.

Make sure you take the time to inspect with your eyes, not google maps, the property yourself. There’s quite a bit of liability involved in cutting property-especially when there’s utilities running through it.

What most guys contemplating a “career” in field mowing concentrate on is what equipment is needed, and thats the fun part, but the MOST important thing is knowing WHAT you are cutting and following proper safety procedures. It’s not just about sitting on a tractor making money. I know someday there’s another accident waiting for me, too. I’d hate to see anyone think this is easy and doesn’t involve risk…
You can get “certified” in working around pipelines & utilities.

 

[Citydude]

A friend of mine got fined by the city for not mowing his 2 acre property behind his house. It was about three feet high. He told me the only thing out there is golfballs.

Twenty minutes later I was hung up on a rock with my drawbar. Smh.....

 

[Hay Dude]

A friend of mine got fined by the city for not mowing his 2 acre property behind his house. It was about three feet high. He told me the only thing out there is golfballs.

Twenty minutes later I was hung up on a rock with my drawbar. Smh.....

I remember one time cruising through a new field with a hay mower. The field seemed totally clean, just hay grass waving in the breeze. Suddenly there appears a 6” diameter, 4’ tall yellow pipe, marking a concrete box with water valve equipment inside. Good thing I was watching carefully.

Another time I had a customer with a hayfield I had cut a few times. It had maybe 10 trees in it spaced out very far apart. One winter he decides to cut one of the trees down. He leaves the stump. Never called me and told me this.
First cutting hay comes up, hiding the stump. I hit that stump with my discmower going about 7 MPH. Folded the cutting bar into a pretzel. $13,000 repair. Face planted into tractor windshield pretty good, too. Fortunately, insurance covered me and he stepped up to the plate and paid my $1,000 deductible. I had to rent a mower for 2 weeks while mine was repaired to get the rest of my customers hay cut.

 

[Citydude]

I remember one time cruising through a new field with a hay mower. The field seemed totally clean, just hay grass waving in the breeze. Suddenly there appears a 6” diameter, 4’ tall yellow pipe, marking a concrete box with water valve equipment inside. Good thing I was watching carefully.

Another time I had a customer with a hayfield I had cut a few times. It had maybe 10 trees in it spaced out very far apart. One winter he decides to cut one of the trees down. He leaves the stump. Never called me and told me this.
First cutting hay comes up, hiding the stump. I hit that stump with my discmower going about 7 MPH. Folded the cutting bar into a pretzel. $13,000 repair. Face planted into tractor windshield pretty good, too. Fortunately, insurance covered me and he stepped up to the plate and paid my $1,000 deductible. I had to rent a mower for 2 weeks while mine was repaired to get the rest of my customers hay cut.

I would classify the stump incident as a full fledged crash when I was mowing the friends field, the golfballs were flying everywhere. It was pretty fun until I hit the steering wheel with my gut.