The Life of a Custom Mowing contractor

[Slowpoke Slim]

Do you do those jobs fixed price bid or by time?

If you have a new customer with a mess like that, how do you handle the chance that you might hit hidden hazards / wire / tposts on the ground etc? I'd imagine taking over a reasonably well-kept area has low risk as someone else has already hit the worse of it, but if you're going into a really unkempt plot...

Well, you grin and bear it. Sometimes you're the windshield, and sometimes you're the bug. I "find" all kinds of things in some of the fields I mow. Even the ones I mow every season, or a couple times a season. One of the biggest reasons I'll never mow without my FEL and bucket on. I've found some pretty big stuff that way. Of course sometimes the bucket goes right over the top of it, the tires miss it, but the mower finds it.

Like a single pallet that "fell" (or was pushed) off of last years stack of pallets:

That one just made a bunch of noise and didn't even break the shear pin.

Or this one, a big hunk of concrete:

It got swatted by the mower, you could see the spot in the foreground of the picture where it was laying when hit. Then where it's resting in the picture is where it landed. probably 50-60 pound piece (what was left after getting broken). That one broke the shear pin alright. Lol.

Or a cable, that the owner "didn't know" was out there:

I was lucky that I heard it and got the mower shut off before the cable could wrap tightly around the spindle. No real harm done, it just took a while to get it out since I didn't have any cable cutting tools with me. Just had to unwrap it by hand.

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

I only bid jobs. Never by hour.
That is not a new customer, but I only do them 1x/yr. Problem is, they were last done 3/24
Its now 8/24, so lots of extra growth.
They were charged more this time

I also bid flat rate jobs. Never by the hour. I did raise my prices this year, which is the first time I've done that. Everything is just so expensive now, filters, fluid, insurance. Just keeps going up. I have one more set of filters left on the shelf, but I'm dreading buying them again. Fluids are bad enough but I swear they think these filters are knitted out of gold wire.

 

[Lineman North Florida]

Well, you grin and bear it. Sometimes you're the windshield, and sometimes you're the bug. I "find" all kinds of things in some of the fields I mow. Even the ones I mow every season, or a couple times a season. One of the biggest reasons I'll never mow without my FEL and bucket on. I've found some pretty big stuff that way. Of course sometimes the bucket goes right over the top of it, the tires miss it, but the mower finds it.

Like a single pallet that "fell" (or was pushed) off of last years stack of pallets:

View attachment 3873384

That one just made a bunch of noise and didn't even break the shear pin.

Or this one, a big hunk of concrete:

View attachment 3873386

It got swatted by the mower, you could see the spot in the foreground of the picture where it was laying when hit. Then where it's resting in the picture is where it landed. probably 50-60 pound piece (what was left after getting broken). That one broke the shear pin alright. Lol.

Or a cable, that the owner "didn't know" was out there:

View attachment 3873391

I was lucky that I heard it and got the mower shut off before the cable could wrap tightly around the spindle. No real harm done, it just took a while to get it out since I didn't have any cable cutting tools with me. Just had to unwrap it by hand.

That looks like pure old guy wire, it is tough stuff.

 

[ning]

That looks like pure old guy wire, it is tough stuff.

is this the stuff "wiry" guys are made of

last i checked i don't have any of that in me

 

[anomad]

I just serviced my little 6 foot bush hog today. The gear oil was pushing out of the gearbox and it was creamed. Probably from condensation? Guidance was not clear on the book and everything I could find online. I drained and sucked out all I could and topped her back up with corn head grease.

 

[Lineman North Florida]

is this the stuff "wiry" guys are made of

last i checked i don't have any of that in me

Think power company down guys, one end attached to the pole overhead and the other end attached to an anchor screwed into the ground lol.

 

[Hay Dude]

I also bid flat rate jobs. Never by the hour. I did raise my prices this year, which is the first time I've done that.

Think about the different cutting conditions you can encounter! No way anyone is gonna make money advertising “Bush Hogging $XXX/hour”. There’s way to much variation in what you’ll be asked to cut!

If its a pretty grass meadow I have mowed 100 times, it’s gonna be $250 for the first hour and ~$175 for each hour afterward, but I don’t tell customers that.

If it’s a trash field, like the one I just cut, I’ll charge $250 for the first hour, then ~$225 for each additional hour, but I don’t tell customers that.

In either scenario above, or anything in between, I just give the customer a bid or proposal. They don’t need to know how many hours it’ll take, so that works best for me and has built me a pretty decent sized field mowing business - about $50K/year in Field Mowing alone.

You must not only make good money for now, but also for repairs and eventual equipment replacement later!

Never “give yourself away”, or work for “beer money”. I know guys that do, and they don’t last.

Act, conduct, and price your work like you are a top notch professional and gain the respect of your customers.

Everything is just so expensive now, filters, fluid, insurance. Just keeps going up. I have one more set of filters left on the shelf, but I'm dreading buying them again. Fluids are bad enough but I swear they think these filters are knitted out of gold wire.

Oh man, tell me about it, bro. I just bought 2 tiny Kubota transmission filters for the zero turns 200 hr service interval and 1quart of Super UDT-2, and it was like $75!
It’s $100 bucks to spin on 2 fuel filters on the bigger tractors.

 

[ning]

Think power company down guys, one end attached to the pole overhead and the other end attached to an anchor screwed into the ground lol.

oh I recognize it well

I still remember this one night in college
I failed to get an invite to stay over by my gf and it was 1AM (the true "walk of shame"!), I was walking home along the drive which lead from her place to mine and as I passed over this one very low lying part of the road - with the ocean beach on one side and a lagoon on the other - I was already leery about the waves crashing into the riprap on the side of the road and suddenly a huge wave I swear it was a tsunami lol (there was an offshore storm, I guess it was a storm surge) came crashing and it was easily 3' deep coming across the road and the only thing that saved me was I was very close to a power pole and grabbed that guy wire and held on as the flood crossed over! As soon as it had passed I booked it up the hill and basically jogged the rest of the way home and had a nice hot shower.

^enjoy the dramatization, that's exactly where it was though I don't recognize any of that vegetation any more... it's been quite a while