Chipper options

[KanakaRick]

My neighbor and myself are looking at reducing the brush on his property. He has around a hundred acres of white sage and bitter brush. The biggest diameter on the bitterbrush is maybe 5in tops. He has a 100 HP bobcat that he uses for snowblowing in the winter. And he is going to purchase a 40-60 HP tractor for pulling brush and other projects on his property. We were thinking of using the tractor with backhoe to pull the brush and then getting some sort of chipper to chip it. I was thinking we could use his bobcat and add a chipper attachment to it as it then would make the chipper "self propelled". The other option is to get some sort of tow behind chipper and use that. He isn't in the market for a masticator as I think those are pretty expensive. We know nothing about chippers. Anybody have any ideas?

 

[oosik]

Welcome to TBN. There are several good brands of chippers and you can find pages & pages of discussion by entering the word "chippers" into the Google search at the top right of the page. Personally I have a Wallenstein pto driven chipper. PTO = power take off. I've had this brand for over thirty years and no problems at all. I know Wallenstein makes both pto and stand alone chippers. I have no knowledge of hydraulic driven chippers but I'm sure there is a brand that makes one that will fit on the Bobcat well. In your case it might be well to look for a chipper with a hydraulic powered feeder chute. If your bitter brush is like ours here its very "brushy" and would difficult to cram down the feed chute manually. A hydraulic in feed chute will handle most all feeding situations.

 

[KanakaRick]

Thanks for the reply- I am sure there are a lot of discussions, but wasn't sure if there were any discussions comparing the bobcat attached vs the stand alone. We were thinking the bobcat attachment would be good as our soil in the summer is very silty and would be very soft to tow something behind, and thus a "self powered" device would be ideal. I was just wondering if either is better than the other. I too think the hydraulic feed would be good as some of the bitterbrush is big and twisty.

 

[RoyJackson]

Self powered chippers seem to come in two varieties:
Very Expensive!!
or
Way underpowered

I'd go for the Bobcat (or a PTO) driven chipper....that also means one less engine to maintain.

Another suggestion...you might want to consider a chipper/shredder. Shredders do a better job on brush...

 

[oosik]

I would think that the acceptability of any unit chosen is more related to good brand vs not so good brand. Stand alone vs hydraulic powered should all be about the same EXCEPT. You will have to buy an extremely large stand alone chipper to match the potential power your bobcat could apply to a chipper. My Wallenstein is the BX62S and will handle stuff up to 6" in diameter. I run everything thru my chipper with out first removing any limbs. I would say 99.9% of what I chip is ponderosa pine. A 6" by 35' long pine tree is a real chore to get to the chipper, get the butt up into the feed chute and lift and feed into the unit. If you are dealing with 4" to 5" bitterroot I can see similar problems. I can see definite advantages to a hydraulic chipper mounted on your bobcat. First - you have almost unlimited power. Second - you have a unit(the bobcat) that will go almost anywhere and the chipper is there with it. Third - you will not have another engine to maintain. The disadvantage some folks see is that it does tie up the bobcat while using the chipper. I've found if I get everything organized - get all my trees piled and ready to chip - its not such a big deal. I just finished chipping 450-500 small pines and it took just a little over ten hours.

 

[KanakaRick]

I can see definite advantages to a hydraulic chipper mounted on your bobcat. First - you have almost unlimited power. Second - you have a unit(the bobcat) that will go almost anywhere and the chipper is there with it. Third - you will not have another engine to maintain. The disadvantage some folks see is that it does tie up the bobcat while using the chipper. I've found if I get everything organized - get all my trees piled and ready to chip - its not such a big deal. I just finished chipping 450-500 small pines and it took just a little over ten hours.

Ok, it appears the Bobcat powered one is a better option. Any recommendations on brands of bobcat powered ones? In our situation, the soil is so poor, if we could mulch the chips, it would work best as we need to add some organics to the literally silty soil. And it looks like the hydraulic feed is an idea too.

 

[kfxgreenie]

I went over this exact same contemplation last year. 4 things swung me to the PTO unit. #1 Price a bobcat chipper new is almost $8000 as you would need the 8B Chipper to do the size you need, and the Wallenstein BX42 was around $2800 (This comparision is a little unfair as the wally is not self feed, wish it was. Now as said the bushy stuff take some muscles to feed. Oh well). #2 Fuel, My Bobcat T750 85 HP can go through 20 gallons of Fuel in 8 Hours no problem, where the deere 2032r will only sip probably about 5 gallons. #3 Weight, we have a some low wet land that we are cleaning. A 100 HP track loader or skid steer will be in the 10,000 LB range before the chipper at an aditional 1600 LBs. Where the tractor loaded rear tires chipper and loader come in around 3500 LB's. I try and stay out of the wet stuff but even when dry i want as little as impact as possible, the CTL does float pretty well but it still can go down easy i prefer the tractor. #4 The skid steer at 85 HP has a lot more lifting capability's than the tractor, so i mostly have the grapple on the skid steer to move, rip out the brush and trees. The wallenstein chippers the way they are set up with the angle on the chute are fairly compact compared to the bobcat design on the chipper, which is similar in design to several of the import pto chippers, once attached to the skid steer it is fairly long as well. In all reality you can get a wally in most tight spots. Now there are several good reviews on the woodmaxx chipper which is a good priced unit with hydraulic feed that may be an option for you. I like the simplicity of the wally chipper the old KISS statment makes maintaince and repairs easy. I'll put a little more labor to stuff the feed chute for the reliability, and dependability of the product personally. That was my thinking on this subject.

Here is the asking price on a used Bobcat chipper size unknown. skidloader wood chipper

 

[pinetree10]

Just wondering what the terrain is like on that hundred acres. Will the low clearance of the Bobcat be an issue in the woods?

I'll echo greenie's comments because we have both a tractor and a chipper in common. I love my BX42 chipper but there are many times I wish I had their BXM42 chipper/shredder for the smaller stuff. I can feed it through the chipper ok but it would be much quicker dropping it in a shredder hopper. My factors were size, simplicity, and weight and the BXM is twice the weight and much bigger than what I have. At 40-60 HP, your neighbor's tractor could easily swing the BXM 42. I've put 5" branches through mine with no problem and my tractor's only 31HP. I've used tow-behind rental chippers with large engines and they work well with the self feed but I like the compact design and low weight of the BX42 and as Roy said, it's one less engine to maintain. All of this being said, if size, cost, maintenance, and clearance are not a problem, a chipper on a 100HP Bobcat must be pretty unstoppable. Good luck with your choice.

 

[Happy Gilmore]

We have a Salsco 627XT 3pt hitch PTO powered chipper. Has hydraulic feed rollers. Works great. I'd highly recommend a chipper with feed rollers, just for the safety aspect.

 

[andrehoude123]

We have a bx 42r on a l45 and have 15 acres to clean up we have about 40 hours on it so far it's awesome the hydro feed is an awesome feature