Need some bush hogging advice

[jezebel123]

I don't know if this is in the right category but I figured I would try. Boyfriend can drive a bush hog and has done it in the past. Just got hired to bush hog 11 acres in Georgia. Property hasn't been cleared in 10 years so lots of scrub trees, pine trees. Want down, a lot of brush, thickets and thorns. Also, they want a fence line cleared on both sides and they have a 100-yard chicken coop which has been abandoned but want all the vines, brush, etc cleared out from both those areas And the bush hog won't be able to get that close. So we understand the closer work's going to have to be done with fiska's weed eaters, rakes The fence line is really on two sides and the coop has all four sides which need to be done. Terrain is fairly flat and he will be using the gentleman 's brush hog which is a John Deere tractor. I'm not sure of how long the blade is. Could anyone ballpark how much that would be charged per acre including the? I guess it would be called trim work? There are approximately 60 pine trees that'll be taken down with a saw. So I know that I'm throwing a lot out here and asking for a price per acre. If you can give it to me that'd be great. If not, could you just provide as much info on any of these mini projects within a project? Thank you in advance

 

[bcp]

It sounds simple: "60 ten year old pine trees taken down" can be done in half a day or less. But the cleanup can take days. Same with fence lines.

Is this for a friend or relative, or for a stranger? Who pays if the tractor or bush hog breaks? Is the job close enough so you can spend nights at home?

Sounds like maybe all you will be providing is labor. What is labor worth in the area?

So many questions.

Bruce

 

[dodge man]

Sounds like several days of hand work. I’d want to charge by the hour.

 

[RjCorazza]

There are several land cleanup guys here that can provide some insight, hopefully they will come along.
I've done some smaller jobs than what you describe, and they almost always end up being more work than I anticipated. The charge by the hour recommendation above is likely the best approach imho. My rates are $60/hr manual labor, $75/hr chainsaw, $100/hr tractor work, and $200/hr for stump grinding. For most jobs I use a stopwatch app with four timers - one starts, the other stops. Sounds overly complicated, but it keeps me from under charging for a project.

With using the owner's tractor, you're basically manual labor. so I would likely end up charging $330 for the brush hogging assuming a 5-6' cutter. 60 chainsawed trees, cut and stacked on site maybe 4-6 hours = $450. Trimming say a 300' (?) overgrown fence line say 3 hours = $180. Cutting and dragging vines off of a 300' long chicken coop? Never done that, but it sounds time consuming. Cut, drag off & out, mulch with tractor, I would WAG that at 12 hours, or $720.
So all in, my estimate would come in at $1600-$2000, one man show with no overhead. I suspect a landscape company wouldn't even look at that job for less than $5k.
Take all that with a grain of salt though.... It's hard enough to bid a project on site, let alone sight unseen!

 

[2manyrocks]

There is no good way to price that work by the acre because it depends on how much time will be needed to clear what has grown up which could be a lot. Fence rows are very hard to clear because the wire means a lot of tedious clearing by hand. The rest of the open areas depend on how much material has grown up? If it is out of hand, might require a forestry mulcher instead of a rotary brush cutter.

 

[dlctcg]

Who pays if the tractor or bush hog breaks?

^^^ - This is a very important thing to consider... If you are on the hook for damages this project could easily become a huge loss for you...

Also who is holding the liability insurance for damage to property or person?

 

[Hay Dude]

I do this work for a living along with farming.

Price it by the JOB, not by the hour or acre.

Don’t fall into the acre/hour trap.

 

[JRG1223]

I don't know if this is in the right category but I figured I would try. Boyfriend can drive a bush hog and has done it in the past. Just got hired to bush hog 11 acres in Georgia. Property hasn't been cleared in 10 years so lots of scrub trees, pine trees. Want down, a lot of brush, thickets and thorns. Also, they want a fence line cleared on both sides and they have a 100-yard chicken coop which has been abandoned but want all the vines, brush, etc cleared out from both those areas And the bush hog won't be able to get that close. So we understand the closer work's going to have to be done with fiska's weed eaters, rakes The fence line is really on two sides and the coop has all four sides which need to be done. Terrain is fairly flat and he will be using the gentleman 's brush hog which is a John Deere tractor. I'm not sure of how long the blade is. Could anyone ballpark how much that would be charged per acre including the? I guess it would be called trim work? There are approximately 60 pine trees that'll be taken down with a saw. So I know that I'm throwing a lot out here and asking for a price per acre. If you can give it to me that'd be great. If not, could you just provide as much info on any of these mini projects within a project? Thank you in advance

First. Do you have the responsibility of removing trees or simply cutting them down?
Second Stumps will the customer want stumps ground.
Vines and weedeater cost time and money. Be sure you have a blade on the device. Lots of labor.
I would figure number of people needed to do the work
Figure a fair hourly wage for each laborer
You can take that number and do the job by the hour. You have unknowns.
A 7 foot mower can do two acres an hour provided it's not full of debris
Look for things that will damage tires and equipment.

 

[jezebel123]

Thank yo

 

[jezebel123]

Thank you very much. The trees they want taken down can more or less be taken down with a chainsaw. We're in the South so it's saplings and Small pine trees. I'm glad you bought up the labor because they have a 100-yard Chicken Coop, that's no longer used for chickens, they're using it for storage. Storage. But the coop is covered in Vines. Thickets, thorns etc. And it comes out so much. All this growth is coming out so much further from the coop about another 10 ft that the way I'm looking at it people are going to have to be going in with fiskas and weed eaters and things like that. So while I kind of been thinking about it for the final cost, you definitely gave me some information to chew on