What kind of brush hog for my B7100?

[grossgary]

This is my first tractor and since it is a smaller I figured I'd ask here first before reading much about specific brush hogs, posting in the attachment forum or looking to buy. I have a couple acres of flat land and a couple acres of heavily sloped area (side of a mountain) that I'll be mowing and will probably buy a used mower. Any feedback given my smallish B7100 for these:

The pull behind with no 3PH mowers that are shaft driven
the typical 3PH style that can raise and lower and are shaft driven
and then the trail mowers with a dedicated engine

the dedicated engine mowers seem neat because i could pull them with other things and they can be offset (for hills/banks) and i could pull them with something other than a tractor if i wanted to.

but of course there's an extra engine to maintain!

Thanks for all the help so far...answering questions and just providing a great resource to read too. My kubota runs excellent and is well tuned now thanks to this site, thanks!

 

[BigD23]

Have owned a Kubota B5100 (12hp) for over 3 years and have run a 42" Bush Hog Squealer off the back 3pt...Mowed 2 1/2 acres of flat and slight slope with it...Been a great mower and have had absolutely no problems with it...Selling my B5100 and although I have a 54" MMM, I'm keeping the Squealer for my BX23 because it's nice to be able to back the mower up to things at times to cut 'em down...Lots of mowers out there to choose from I'm sure but this one has been excellent.

Don

 

[Bird]

I believe the Kubota manual recommends no larger than a 42" brush hog, and while I'm certainly not going to disagree with a manufacturer's manual, I felt they were being conservative. Naturally, it also depends on just what you'll be cutting; just grass and weeds or small saplings, etc. At any rate, I used a 48" Bush Hog Squealer with my B7100 and was quite happy with it. At least in my part of the country, finding a used brush hog less than 5' width would be pretty rare, so I had to buy a new one. The pull behind types (not 3-point hitch), but still PTO powered are also pretty rare; more expensive and I've never seen one that small, although they certainly may exist.

And I think you've already stated the pros and cons of the dedicated engine type.

 

[Sherweld]

Several years ago I had a 48" Woods brush hog mower which I used regularly on a B7100 (gear) with no problem except one time I cut clean through a hidden 3/4" pipe corner stake which broke a PTO gear tooth.

Another time I cut a couple of acres of very dense 5 to 7 ft tall "buck brush" adjoining a very small lake. This was on a peat bog so nobody with anything bigger would venture out on it. My B7100 Bota could lay the brush over with the FEL and with FWD, scramble on top of the laid over brush (approx 3/4" dia) and the mower would pretty well shred it. The first pass on top of the laid over brush left approx foot long "trunks", but the shredded mat supported the B7100 well. So a couple more passes took care of the remaining stubs gaining the owner a couple additional acres of mostly year around pasture. The only problem was watching the engine cooling because of all the leaf trash sucking onto the radiator grill

 

[sunnyside360]

I've had several Bush Hog and Woods 3PH rotary cutters over the years (among others). Both brands are higher priced than some others but very good quality. In fact, I still have a 20+ year old Bush Hog that's had the snot beat out of it but still works great. Although, on my 4th or 5th set of blades and have had to weld the deck several times where objects flew out the side. Also have had many shear bolts replaced due to rough treatment -- probably 40 to 50 bolts over the years.

 

[Dirk Lately]

This weekend I rented a John Deere MX5 rotary cutter to pull behind my L3000 and boy, that thing felt big. I had to carefully feather the clutch when starting up the blade to avoid killing the engine, and I had to use 2nd gear most of the time.

On the other hand, I'm a novice, so any or all of this could be my own dang fault. It was a heckuva lot of fun, though.