Clearing land, stupid or crazy?

[Carykong]

Install a skid pan on your tractor if you plan on hogging small trees. Otherwise, you will tear up your belly hydraulic lines. Avoid backing up to protect your radiator and fan. All this happened to me with my TC35 NH. Good luck

 

[Redneck in training]

We hired a bulldozer to remove brush and trees from about 31 ac. Guy with D6 had it done in about 8 hours plus 1 hour cleaning the machine. Cost me $1200. The key is 5 way blade. Some trees were 2ft thick multiple trunks hedge apple. He would turn the blade on one corner and got under the tree, cutting the roots and pulling it up. When he pulled several trees he would push them on a pile. Then I spent several days pulling leftover roots with my small tractor.

 

[Mike476]

Great thread and a lot of great advice but it really does depend on what your intent is for the property. I understand the property was a horse farm and that you'd like to leave trees on the property over a certain size, but as has been mentioned, if it is your intention to keep horses on the property, any tree left inside pasture will be destroyed by your horses. Also, while horses won't plow though fences, they will roll just about anywhere, so little 1 to 2 inch nicely sharpened saplings missed after cutting / box blading / raking etc can cause you some serious problems.

When I cleared part of my property for our two horses (only 2 acres / 1 fall to spring season) I stripped the land completely, milled the logs to build my barn. Used the chainsaw to cut, tractor to haul brush to burn piles and skid and brough logs but hired an excavatour with root rake to stump and rake the property. Burned the brush piles / leveled and seeded the property myself. Excavator was there for a full 4 hours at a cost of $125 / hour. Trees were white / red pine, black spruce and popular.

Lots to consider, will be interested to see what you decide is best for you. At the end of the day, no matter what, the need for a tractor is definitely in your future. :thumbsup:

 

[TripleR]

This post is full of great info, but why no cab??? I have found an amazing deal on a 2010 Kubota L3940 4X4 HST with a cab, only 30hrs on motor. Thanks, Andy

I have to add something here. We no longer buy open station tractors and find they work quite well if used correctly and you accept that a single machine is not going to do all of this. We bought a Stihl pole saw and have paid our grandson to operate it in some places and my son in others. We do have an old open station tractor for the occasional times a cab unit won't fit. If we didn't already have one, we would do everything we could with the cab and then rent an open station.

For maintenance after the fact, I much prefer a cab unit.

Some people just simply prefer open station and I used one for well over forty years, but some like or need cabs. I am too old to run open station anymore.

The cab v open station is another one with lots of old threads.

As stated previously, I have done this type of work and it requires a lot of work on and off the tractor and it is much easier if you are willing to spend a little money on a rental unit when need such as excavator, skid steer etc.

 

[Rob-D]

With a backhoe you can dig out most any size tree within reason. With a loader the conditions can greatly limit how big of trees you can dig/push out. There are some situations where my little B3200 can get 10" trees out, whereas there are others that a 10" tree stops our M9540 in its tracks. If you have many trees in the 8-12" range that need to go the best two options are either hire an excavator or a track loader. A dozer can do the job, but the two aforementioned machines will do it faster and cleaner.

Hope some of this helps

Hi,
What I found is that my 2720 with a 46 BH could pull smaller trees out, say in the 6"to 8" range. Once I got to 10" trees it became a real chore and forget deep tap roots like Walnuts. I'm pretty experienced at pulling stumps and using the tractor.
My 3320 with the 485 BH is much quicker but it's got a lot more digging power. Either way if I have to pull 20 stumps in the 10" and above range I call my dozer guy. I like my land level and pulling all those stumps leaves things messy and the ground undulated. Let the dozer guy do the heavy work and do the lighter stuff yourself. The time will be greatly reduced and so will the wear and tear on your machine.
Here's a fruit orchard I made last year. You can see one of the large rocks in the picture. It's quite big although the picture doesn't show it. Way more than my 2720 could move and a chore for my 3320 too, but doable. The dozer guy moved it for me and saved me the work. He also leveled out the field. It's now all grass and mowed. Originally it was full of Hornbeam and Hawthorne in the 6" to 12" range. More than the 2720 could do in reasonable time. I think you can see where the dozer pushed the brush. All I had to do was move it over to my other field. Believe it or not I only had to take down one hardwood (Cherry) about 4" in diameter. Hornbeam can take over in some soils.
Rob

 

[funwithahoe]

I am with Jay - You will do more damage to a tractor than it would cost you to pay for a dozer.

That 10K price seems high. If the dozer is $100 an hour that's 100 hours???? 2 and a half weeks of dozing would do a lot more work than you are talking about. Oh and around here small dozers are more like $70/hour with operator. Which would mean 142 hours.

Excavators around here usually try to quote by the job so before they give you a quote ask how many hours they think it will take? Are they doing a lot of cutting and replanting too - maybe that is why the 10K price??

As someone who had experiences with both horrible and awesome excavators I can tell you they vary TREMEDOUSLY!! It seems that industry attracts a lot of people who want to play with equipment (Nothing wrong with that until you are paying a moron to do a job wrong then paying a good operator to do it right).

I think a new quote would probably surprise you.

 

[Rob-D]

As someone who had experiences with both horrible and awesome excavators I can tell you they vary TREMEDOUSLY!! It seems that industry attracts a lot of people who want to play with equipment (Nothing wrong with that until you are paying a moron to do a job wrong then paying a good operator to do it right).

I think a new quote would probably surprise you.

Boy, I know exactly what you're talking about!! I've had both too and this is a small town.
Get a contract before they even move an inch of dirt. Make sure they're bonded, be there when they start the job (I've seen kids go nuts with a dozer) and make sure you know where the brush pile is going to be left if they are not taking it. Brush is something that costs a lot to deal with and if you can do it you'll save a bunch.

 

[logan97]

I tried a dozer...huge mistake..pushed off all the top soil.If you are going to hire out;use a bobcat with a forestry head(mulcher).I am in the process of doing 90 acres(long term job for sure) with my L4240,grapple,tooth-bar and brush-hog.Chain saw the larger stuff.We are leaving the mature trees that we want,trimming the apple trees etc,using the junk trees for firewood.
Plow or boxblade the open areas and plant buck-wheat.(buck-wheat kills the brush root systems and adds nitrogen to the soil.

we have hired out to one of these machines a couple times. They work wonders will not disturb top soil, and you can flag any trees you want to keep.

YouTube - Specialized Forestry Solutions Demo

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNZSnL5a4XI

 

[funwithahoe]

we have hired out to one of these machines a couple times. They work wonders will not disturb top soil, and you can flag any trees you want to keep.

YouTube - Specialized Forestry Solutions Demo

YouTube - Forestry mulcher 500 HP GALOTRAX

Those machines are incredible - How much an hour are they?

Thanks.

 

[funwithahoe]

Boy, I know exactly what you're talking about!! I've had both too and this is a small town.
Get a contract before they even move an inch of dirt. Make sure they're bonded, be there when they start the job (I've seen kids go nuts with a dozer) and make sure you know where the brush pile is going to be left if they are not taking it. Brush is something that costs a lot to deal with and if you can do it you'll save a bunch.

Oh and don't think the Big companies will be more expensive - I tried a small crew first then figured out the big companies got big because they are good. To be fair I have also had a real good experience with a one man operation (real fair and honest just never sure when he was going to show up or how long he was going to stay when he got here.) When your with a big company they usually try to fit you in between big jobs so your at their mercy that way.