Time to kick the hornets nest... bush hog, rhino, or woods 10' Brush hog?

[Elton67]

Get a good commercial 6' zero turn mower. Easy to haul, load/unload, and fast. Bobcat makes a tough one. It will go 19 mph. I have cut that fast.

i have mentioned this already but i dont want a ZT for the pasture grass as im only mowing it a handful of times a year and the mower decks of ZTs are made to cut fine clippings, which is bad for the animals. a bushhog just cuts and throws it out the back, minimally cut.

 

[leonz]

A six foot HINIKER flail crop shredder would be a better option as it has a tight turning radius due to its CV Joint PTO shaft and it will shred the brush up and not leave windrows. It can be equipped with a ratchet jack height adjuster or a hydraulic height adjuster.

 

[mo1]

All 3 are reputable brands for sure, but im curious about your thoughts considering i cannot find youtube videos and reviews on the dual spindle, 10 foot cutter from these brands.

here are the 3 specific models:

Woods DS10.5 10' deck, 10 guage steel, 3" cutting capacity, 2937 ibs, and blade speed 15,974 fpm
$12,400
closest dealer is my john deere dealer about 30 mins away.

Bush Hog 3510 10.5' deck, 10 guage steel, 3" cutting capacity, 2900 ibs. and blade speed 16,881 fpm
-$14500
i actually have about 4 dealers within around an hours drive.

Rhino Tr310, 10' deck, 10 guage steel, 3" cutting capacity, 3100 ibs, blade speed 16,215 fpm
-$16500
closest dealer about an hour and a half drive.

The Rhino is obviously the most expensive, also being around 200 ib more than the other two. the bush hog is oddly the lightest, but it also has an extra 6 inches and has a noticeably higher blade tip speed, which actually bumps up to around 17,400 fpm when using a 1000 rpm PTO. whether this would make a difference in the cut quality id have to find out.
I plan to use mostly on horse and cow pastures, shredding corn stalks, and taking down random brush and other odd jobs when needed. i think the 3" cutting capacity wont give me any issues for anything i might be cutting. anything thicker than that a chainsaw or an axe would be used anyway.

i dont mind driving the distance and paying the money to get the rhino as long as its really worth the 16 and a half gs and i wont be constantly bringing it back with problems. im slightly leaning towards the bush hog because of its slightly larger deck and higher blade speed, not to mention its so reputable most have taken to calling any cutter a bush hog. but im a little concerned that it weighs 200 ibs less than the rhino and even less than the cheaper woods which makes me wonder of they skimped out of some heavy duty parts for cheaper ones... probably not the case tho. i have heard mixed things about the woods line of hogs but it seems like a good budget option, yet a solid cutter.

what are your thoughts?

I would look at a used batwing for that kind of money, if you are going to be cutting hundreds of acres per year. Around here you can get a decent condition 15'er for about half of what those 10' units cost, and if it's a 1000 RPM unit, it's about 1/3 the price as demand on those is less than for the 540 RPM units. If you are not cutting that much ground, a decent 6' single spindle unit is $2-3k brand new.

 

[jyoutz]

I can say I grew up on a farm a few miles from the Woods headquarters. Dad had a Woods rotary cutter - he called it a 'field mower.' We abused that thing. Stored it outside, ran it over all sorts of junk in the pasture (dirt mounds, old fence wire balls, rocks, logs,.....) and banged it off fence posts. It certainly suffered some, but never quit working and cutting what we asked it to. But that was back in the late 70s/early 80s. Who knows what they make now.....

I bought a used Woods pto rototiller from an equipment rental company 20 years ago. It it didn’t live an easy life before I owned it. I used it for 20 years and it always worked flawlessly. I never had to repair anything. I sold it to my neighbor a few months ago and he’s happy with it ( he alway borrowed it anyways). I wouldn’t hesitate to buy anything made by Woods.