Bought a farm, now what?

[WVH1977]

Barn fires are expensive.

Brush Piles. lol

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Cows on the land and no bush hogging it, is better than no cows

 

[Creamer]

I am confused. How is the pasture overgrown with cattle in it. Cows do a great job of trimming trees and clearing the underbrush by rubbing on it, walking through it, etc. It takes a fairly mature tree to withstand cow treatment. A few years of a little overgrazing and most of the underbrush should be gone then you are just down to the mature trees.

Sorry! I am lazy and like it when the animals do the work. I do agree with Steve though - what are the fences like? If they are not good you may not be able to do this.

 

[John Fitzgerald]

With the wire and big thorns in there, a bulldozer is your best option for clearing. The place neighboring mine was overgrown just like the OP's. A medium sized dozer cleared it all out and made burn piles in about three days. I think it was about 8 acres that was cleared.

 

[Cataclysm]

Looks like your wanting a nice looking place to call home. We need pictures of the property to accurately give advice.

With the information given so far I'd say one of two things.

1. Hire a dozer to work a day and clear off a likely spot for that house. If they make enough progress let them finish the job.

2. Get a nice 50-80 hp tractor with a cab with heat and air. Get a heavy duty rotary cutter and cut every thing you can. You may be surprised what a rotary cutter can do. Get a pto driven tree saw and a grapple. You can clear a lot of trees with that and have the equipment to keep or sell after.

There is a lot of personal satisfaction in doing yourself if your able. I'd tell the cow guy to hit the trail, nicely of course. After you get some acreage cleared you can get you own cows. They are pretty fun to mess with if you not trying to make a living with them.

 

[Egon]

You bought a Farm?

Keep the day job and look for a friendly banker!

Sheep & Goats may do a better job of keeping green stuff under control.

 

[rd_macgregor]

Do many of the Osage Orange trees have straight boles? OO is about the most rot-resistant wood there is; if you can salvage fence posts, you might consider doing so.

As for clear land vs. forest...unless the land is extremely steep (or has some other limitation for agricultural uses), clear land generally has a dramatically higher market value than forested land.

Nearly half of our 250 acres is clear, and we charge a local dairy farmer nothing for mowing it every year...just to keep the land open. He leaves us a number of round bales for the horses, but no cash is exchanged. Our tax rate is lowered a bit by having a bona-fide farmer using the land, but the biggest value to us is keeping the invading trees at bay.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

Sounds to me like the land makes $500 a year if you do nothing, and it will still only make $500 a year if you spend up to 40K on it! What's wrong with this pict.??

Why not let it go back wild?? I have places on my land I've let go back wild, they are pretty nice... It's great having all the animals around...

SR

 

[BrokeFarmerJohn]

I am confused. How is the pasture overgrown with cattle in it. Cows do a great job of trimming trees and clearing the underbrush by rubbing on it, walking through it, etc. It takes a fairly mature tree to withstand cow treatment. A few years of a little overgrazing and most of the underbrush should be gone then you are just down to the mature trees.

Sorry! I am lazy and like it when the animals do the work. I do agree with Steve though - what are the fences like? If they are not good you may not be able to do this.

I can agree with cattle are hard on trees, I had a dozen 2-3in trees that were 10ft tall or so just completely killed and destroyed by my cattle, it didn't take them long either, they ate down all the poison ivy on my fence lines, black raspberry bushes, you name it the cattle ate it even know they had hay available, I guess they just like the green stuff better.

I pulled up a bunch of brush on a burn pile and they went threw it and and ate everything green on the pile lol, most of it was branches I trimmed off trees in the front yard.

I was really amazed by all the cattle ate, if the tree can't hold up to force of a good neck or back scratch it got broke off.

 

[Creamer]

Growing up in the Dakotas we wanted to keep our shelterbelts from being overgrown fire hazards so we kept a few sheep around even though we were cattle ranchers because the cows would have killed the trees quickly. Sheep and goats will eat the weeds and get up as high as they can but the cows will go right ahead and trample the brush and knock the trees down unless they are 8+" or so. And even then they will be very hard on them and kill some.