Bush hogging is best without front loaders on

[Sawyer Rob]

I am a little shocked that anyone would mow an area, not having scouted it first and relying on the loader to find stufff.

Me too actually...

Yeaaa, the loader pushes stuff over, but all that comes back up after the loader pass' and it still rubs the under side of the tractor...

SR

 

[ptsg]

I am a little shocked that anyone would mow an area, not having scouted it first and relying on the loader to find stufff.

Sometimes it's just not possible to scout:

 

[Industrial Toys]

I mean, MOST of the time, you know your own land and where the hazzards are. Funny, I am always at odds, to have the loader low in order to lower the centre of gravity and in no case would I want it to contact the ground unintentionally. In, fact, if it does, I feel like a pretty poor operator.

Depending on where you live, you could always check things out in spring.

We have no shortage of stones here. You simply could not afford to go mowing blind.

 

[BrokenTrack]

I mow 600 pass miles of highway ditches: there is no way I am scouting that. (LOL)

Even then, I will make my first pass, see something in what will be the 2nd pass and think, "Wow, that is a big rock there, I will have to remember where that is", but I never do. Except for the biggest stuff, forget about remembering rocks, debris and trash from year to year.

As for hitting things, I have a notepad where I write down the strange stuff I have hit. Right now it is a toss up:

1. A brand new chainsaw that slid out of a guys truck and landed in the weeds.
2. A boat anchor...on top of a big hill, well away from the ocean
3. 250 feet of phone line, ripping it right out of the woman's house who was talking on the phone at the time.

There are others though: sheep fence, barb wire...sheep fence and barb wire. Property line pins, telephone pole cables, shoes, purses, tires...tons and tons of tires... I even hit an oxygen bottle hidden in the grass. That was kind of exciting. But hitting a kids bike was kind of sad.

So far, no drunks passed out in the ditch, or dead bodies, but even then, I would not be surprised if I hit them someday!.

I am not sure why we have dumps: apparently we have the American Highway System!

 

[shovelmike]

Me too actually...

Yeaaa, the loader pushes stuff over, but all that comes back up after the loader pass' and it still rubs the under side of the tractor...

SR

Indeed, I wish these new compacts didn't have such vulnerable underbellies. One more good reason to use the TO35 for the mowing, a solid cast iron underside.

 

[MechanicalGuy]

All great points made in here to a tractor newb.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Well if I couldn't scout an area, then I sure wouldn't want anything (like a FEL) to be blocking any possible vision as to what I might be driving over. Honestly, some of this just makes me shake my head. Using a FEL like a white cane! lol

 

[TractorGuy]

It's all a matter of personal preference. I rarely drop my loader but I usually drop the bucket off when mowing. Then again I hardly ever run my brush mower. In those areas I tend to drop the bucket flat on the ground and uproot the mess.

This is how I proceed into an area looking for stumps. I use my backhoe/loader for that and scoot the bucket along flat until it stops the tractor. Then I turn around and dig out the stump.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

Well if I couldn't scout an area, then I sure wouldn't want anything (like a FEL) to be blocking any possible vision as to what I might be driving over. Honestly, some of this just makes me shake my head. Using a FEL like a white cane! lol

AMEN to that!

I go slooow and pay attention...

SR

 

[BRMyers]

I mow with the grapple on. More than once come across down limbs that I was able to pick right up and move to the side or take to the brush pile.

 

[LouNY]

Depending on the location and if it's on our farm or a bid job and how tall and heavy the brush is dictates how we set up a tractor.
Quite often it will be a loader tractor with the bucket curled back and running low, if it's a location that hasn't been cut in several years with lots of briars and such a sheet of 3/4" plywood fastened to the front axle and the rear drawbar works real good for equipment protection, even at $25-$35 per sheet it's cheap.
I would much rather find a fence post or hidden obstrution with the bucket then the belly of the tractor.
I'm not concerned about the bucket hitting the ground or anything else that I can't see.

 

[bcjmmac]

I keep the loader on so that I can get out of wet spots - property had top soil removed years ago (before I purchased) + there are big ruts/ wet holes left by heavy equipment. Also good ballast - 2520 running a 5’ medium duty bush hog - very light on front ent without the loader. Run without the loader when using fisishmower.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Does anyone get off their tractors?

 

[3gunr]

I spent 10 hrs last weekend brush hogging and had to get off a hundred times to cut trees and branches that fall constantly . with the loader off it would have been 2 hundred times. whats your point?

 

[LouNY]

Does anyone get off their tractors?

I try not too.

 

[buck12]

I mow with the grapple on. More than once come across down limbs that I was able to pick right up and move to the side or take to the brush pile.

Me too. If I find a downed tree I can get it out of the way and continue cutting. Another reason I like the loader on is that I have been known to get impatient and cut a couple of low areas when they are too wet. Having the bucket or grapple on allows me to do the old curl trick to push myself out.

The other thing is I tend to be lazy. I owned my last tractor for 12 years and never took the loader off.

 

[Hay Dude]

I spent 10 hrs last weekend brush hogging and had to get off a hundred times to cut trees and branches that fall constantly . with the loader off it would have been 2 hundred times. whats your point?

I just run em over and let the CX-15 turn em into wood chips :laughing:

 

[Hay Dude]

Me too. If I find a downed tree I can get it out of the way and continue cutting. Another reason I like the loader on is that I have been known to get impatient and cut a couple of low areas when they are too wet. Having the bucket or grapple on allows me to do the old curl trick to push myself out.

The other thing is I tend to be lazy. I owned my last tractor for 12 years and never took the loader off.

Agree. A loader is excellent for un-stucking oneself. ‘Specially when youre a long way into the woods.
Theyre also great for shearing off branches from trees.
I never take my loaders off, and the first time I do, is the time Ill need it.

 

[BrokenTrack]

Every few years I go around the edge of my fields and take the excavator and bat down the limbs that grow out from the trees. With the excavator, you can reach up pretty high.

It makes a huge difference. Those limbs like that sunshine and really stretch out to get it. Then as the fields are being worked, no one wants to get knocked in the head with a tree limb, or break a cab window, so they steer out around the limbs, and soon the first row of corn, or the mown hay, is 30 feet out from the edge of where the field should be.

Maintaining field margins in Maine anyway (the heaviest forested state in the nation) is a never ending battle.

 

[BrokenTrack]

I know where there is a field that is ruined because the farmer did not have a loader on his tractor...

It was a nice field, perfectly rectangular, but then an old dead tree fell over the winter, and tipped over into the field. Without a loader or bucket on to push it out of the way, he just mowed around it. Then the small saplings started to grow up near that downed, dead tree...

I have watched this field for the last 20 years now, and there is this big bulge where they have to drive out around, instead of the field being rectangular, all because of one tree that fell into the field, and nobody pushed it out of the way.

20 years ago it would have been a 30 second task. Now it would take chainsaws and excavators to make the field rectangular again. What a shame.