Skid steer or tractor or clearing land?

[AGRIMAN]

I agree that with only 9 acres to clear a SS loader is a little overkill and you are better off going the with a tractor, but when it comes to down to work (speed and performance)a tractor & loader will have a very hard time matching a SS.

I have a LS 190 NH that I use on my farm for many different things. My unit my be hauling hay, loading fertilizer, clearing fence roles/land or hundreds of other things daily and I can tell you that none of my tractors can match it's ability.

It also maybe driven miles on dirt or paved roads so a track unit isn't practical for my needs. I will also agree that a wheeled unit is not a mud bogger. We have bogged it down many times, but usually it's able to push itself out on it's own, but in little/mid mud and soft conditions we have little to no problems. We have never had any issues with ground clearance ether. We have jumped it over countless stumps, logs and trees.

A 190 is a large machine and I'm sure performance is don't as good on the smaller units, but I would put a large wheeled SS up against a small dozer any day and a tracked unit... Well that's even better.

The new farm loaders of today are not designed for land clearing, but will handle lots of heavy use it you take your time and use it wisely.

 

[jmfox]

After wrestling with the same question, regarding my 45 acres, I went with the ASV SR80. It has the power, speed and the new suspension provides good mobility. It has attributes of both machines. I can do most of the work, but the very large trees (20" and larger) may require that I rent an excavator or possibly purchase a tree jack for the ASV. I also have a tractor that I use for fine grading since I already had a 3pt box scraper with 6 way hydraulics.

jmf

 

[keeney]

I won't comment on what equipment is best for clearing the land, but I will just point out that from a purchasing / finance point of view, you should not get locked into thinking about this as a one-time purchase.

If you need an excavator or bull-dozer for some of the heavy work transforming the land, find a mid-life used machine, buy it, use it for a year or two, then sell it. Unlike buying new, used equipment doesn't lose value very fast, especially if you don't put a lot of hard hours on it or break it. Yes, your capital is tied up while you own it, but its not gone.

Then, when the land is cleared, and you need a different type of machine like a mid-size or compact tractor, use the money from selling the other equipment to buy that. Maybe at that time, if you want shiny & new and intend to keep and enjoy owning the machine along with your land, get a new tractor.

When building our house, I often wished for a larger machine like a tracked skid-steer or mid-sized TLB, but I had purchased a small sub-compact tractor because I wanted something for both construction and then to keep long term. The sub-compact turned out to be kind of small for the actual dirt work, and its a bit big for just cutting the grass (less than 1 acre) and plowing the driveway. In hindsight, I should have bought a used tracked skid steer or TLB during construction, and then after the grass was in, sold it and purchased a smaller garden tractor to cut the grass.

- Rick

 

[manganos]

My friend just opened a rental place here in Dinwiddie, VA. I got a RC-100 from him last night and used it to take down 15 GOOD sized pine trees today. Anything under 15" I pused over and picked up with the 4 n 1 bucket. This thing has some power! The bigger pines over 15" I put the loader teeth high on the tree while my friend used a chain saw to notch the tree. I would give it some push and BOOM the tree was over. I would come up to the root ball and push the tree back into the woods. I was amazed at the power this thing has. I only had one issue. The hydro lines for the bucket wore thru and squirted fluid bad!! My friend ended up bringing me another bucket and made new lines for the one I busted. I've got it for tomorrow too. I'll try and post some before and after pics soon.

Chris

 

[Piston]

What are you gonna do with the trees your taking off the land? Did you say they were pines? Sometimes you could get some significant money for the lumber, or at the least get someone to take it off your land for free, there are a lot of local people with small sawmills that may love the timber, or even timberframers. I myself would jump at the chance for cheap or free timber that I could use for timberframing.