New guy starting from scratch needs some advice

Bee950 · Jul 28, 2012

I am working on the master plan now. I borrowed a friends small tractor to brush cut the clear areas where the road and barn will go, so tomorrow will be spent mowing weeds. A lot of this property hasnt been touched in 100 years, and in one 100 acre block, only 5 acres or so are clear. A D11 would be nice, but that isnt going to happen. I would spend days if not months in reverse on a tractor! The Davco brush cutter is on the short list...

Once I get it down to where I can actually see the grade, I will have a better idea of what needs done. The place I picked out for the house and drive is pretty level.

Gary Fowler · Jul 29, 2012

I wouldnt think that you would want to clear 100 year old trees, just the small scrub stuff. A D6 will do that with ease and is really not that expensive when you look at the work it does. I assume that like most retired military, you will be looking at a second career and not want to spend 24-7 working on underbrushing. Getting too aggressive with tractor or other small equipment will cost you in repairs and wear and tear on the equipment much more than the dozer work. I know it is tough to lay out the money lump sum like that, but really that is the cheapest in the long run.
Get your tractor with FEL and add a backhoe if you really need it. I do a lot of stuff with my B26 but it isnt a land clearing machine. Yesterday I cleaned up a blown down pine with it that was about 12" at the butt, dug up the stump, loaded up the roots and hauled away the tree, It took me about an hour on the one tree, so my comment is while a TLB can be used to remove trees, it isnt the most effective tool for the job.
With a 50 HP tractor with heavy duty bush hog, you can simply push over much of the scrub stuff with the FEL and chop it up with the bush hog. I cleared a lot of my place with a 45HP CUT and Bush Hog but pretty much did away with the hog in the process. Any thing that I could pushover with the tractor got chomped with the cutter. With the toothbar on the FEL, I scraped up the remains of larger ones into burn piles. My point is, you dont have to mow in reverse for scrub removal, if fact that is a good way to bend up your mower like I did backing into a briar thicketwith mine an hit an unseen object the pushed in the sheet metal that the blades the chewed up a bit. The tail end is not as strong as the front and hitting immovable objects with it will really bend it up, break off the tail wheels and even warp the whole frame. Best way is to lower your FEL with the bucket tilted up slightly so it will ride up on rocks etc and go really slow in thickets where you cant see what is there. For 4" diameter trees you may need to raise the bucket high to get some leverage to push them over but lower it down as the tree starts to go over.
Good Luck in what ever you decide to do.

Bee950 · Jul 29, 2012

Thanks for all your information. I will be looking at tractors this week to see what will work for me.

clemsonfor · Jul 30, 2012

Your retired military and can afford 100 acres! Must have been smart all those years and saved and used the housing stipend and no more and not bought a new escalade every 4 years and pimped it out with 26'' ers. I work for the military on active bases and see it all the time. Even see many guys retirement age and they have nothing casue they spent it all or were so underpaid that they could not save.

Congradualtions on retirement and thank you for your service.

Also being a forester i suggest NOT pushing over 100 year old trees. You may want to get the state forestry agency out there for an opinion. If you want much of it cleared you could log it and then use that money to rent a track hoe to stump the place. All the small brush will be pull or run over in the skidding process, opening it up where you can drve a tractor in there.

Bee950 · Jul 30, 2012

I have no plans on mowing down the big trees, but the brush is so thick in spots you cant spit one foot into the wood line. After looking at options, a skid steer is still at the front of the line. It seems to be the most versatile for clearing brush, putting in the road, building the house, running an auger for fence, a trencher for the water line, etc, etc,....

I cut brush clearing an area for the barn yesterday. Once it got to 100 degrees outside, The fun factor died pretty quick. A skid steerwith AC (or anything with an enclosed cab and AC) is a necessity since the sun and I dont get along anymore....