A Field for Toby, Part X...

[mkane09]

A couple of years ago, I bought 25 acres of woods, with the plan of clearing about 4 acres for pasture for my horse, Toby. I had a man come in last fall and do the heavy clearing with a large hi-lift and excavator. I am now in the process of clearing a drainage to build a pond, dig some drainage ditches, knock down probably another 50 or so 6-20 inch trees, dig 150 post holes, and clear a ridge of blown- and knocked-down trees. I have a Kubota L2800 with FEL, bolt on forks. I fully intend to have the pond professionally built, so I'm not concerned with taking down the bigger trees. But, I'd like the capability to take down the 6-12 inch trees myself, clear the ridge of downed trees, dig the post holes and drainage ditches. All of the trees are in soft ground. My questions are:

1) Should I buy a used, yellow iron backhoe to do all but the postholes?

2) Should I rent a yellow iron backhoe for several 3 day periods to do MOST of the heavy work and finish with my Kubota?

3) Should I buy a subframe backhoe attachment for my Kubota, instead of the yellow iron? How big of a tree should I realistically be able to take down with this (9' backhoe)?

4) My Kubota has a total of 44 hours on it. Should I trade up to a 40+ hp farm tractor with subframe backhoe and grapple (I really think the grapple would be great for cleaning up all the downed trees).

5) Is a wheeled backhoe the piece of equipment I need in the first place? I guess this should have been the first question.

Any other observations would be welcomed.....

mkane09

 

[teg]

How much time do you have? How much money do you have?? ...and do you enjoy doing this kind of work??? I'd go with #3 and a grapple, take your time and you should be pretty good at it after the first dozen trees but it will still take a whole lot of time ("yellow iron" will speed it up). Can you burn there... I might even look into a large chipper...

 

[jenkinsph]

I think the cheapest and fastest way to do this is to hire out the heavy work including taking down all but the smallest trees. Hire someone to dig the ditches too, then think about a larger tractor to take care of the balance of the work. I would look into a 40 to 60 hp tractor with fel and attachments. Something else not mentioned here often "have the excavator you hire furnish you a copy of his insurance".