Bought a farm, now what?

[N80]

Do many of the Osage Orange trees have straight boles? OO is about the most rot-resistant wood there is; if you can salvage fence posts, you might consider doing so.

As for clear land vs. forest...unless the land is extremely steep (or has some other limitation for agricultural uses), clear land generally has a dramatically higher market value than forested land.

Not around here. Hunting potential and timber tend to drive the land prices. Certainly properly prepared pasture will bring a premium too....but it costs a premium to make it that way.

 

[RPW]

For me if I wanted to clear the land I'd be looking at a medium sized bulldozer. litely run the blade on the ground to clear the brush and push over any trees you don't want. Push into piles and as long as you don't have any problems with burn bans then have at it. Just be safe.

 

[N80]

RPW, I agree. But buying a medium sized bulldozer is no small endeavor. And buying a used bulldozer can be a tricky and potentially expensive thing as well.

 

[Redneck in training]

not all bulldozers are created equal. The type of blade makes big difference. The 5-way blade is the best for uprooting trees together with most of the roots.

 

[RPW]

N80 your correct but I was more thinking of renting. Generally speaking your not going to do the entire project in one sitting. I cleared 38 acres on a 3 day weekend (16 machine hours) of medium to dense juniper trees. For your acreage could be done in a week without wearing yourself out.

 

[RPW]

Meant to add that for the weekend it cost me about 1500 dollars and that was for a 8ft. blade. For the week I was quoted about 3500.

 

[JRobyn]

Doing clearing yourself with a rented dozer would be very satisfying. But when we cleared for our house and the in-law's field, we hired a skilled operator with a mid-sized dozer with a 6-way blade. Total of about 2-3 acres. I believe it was money well spent. What that guy could do with that machine was like ballet. Not the slightest wasted motion. It would have taken inexperienced me at least 10 times longer to do what he did. And the burn piles he made were nice and tightly packed so they burned well.

 

[Creamer]

Yes but but watching someone else do it is just no fun.

 

[txdon]

Yes but but watching someone else do it is just no fun.

I had a lot of fun watching my cousin, a skilled operator, clear some woods and make a pond. It took him about a week. I did not think he was having that much fun in a cloud of dust and 100˚ temperature. When he took off his goggles he looked like a raccoon. Mostly no AC cab in dozers.

 

[Egon]

Dozers and clearing do have some specific requirements such as proper small opening metal mesh to keep pointy sticks and tree trunks out of the equipment and away from impaling the operator. Most will not have this. And, as always, competency is a big factor. It can go quick & look very easy but that is only decided by the operator.

There is a difference between most skilled operators and those of us that think it's easy.

 

[Creamer]

I had a lot of fun watching my cousin, a skilled operator, clear some woods and make a pond. It took him about a week. I did not think he was having that much fun in a cloud of dust and 100˚ temperature. When he took off his goggles he looked like a raccoon. Mostly no AC cab in dozers.

I would take that any day! And yes it would be fun. On the farm growing up we had an old AC HD5 with the 2 stroke Detroit diesel in it. There wasn't one bit of comfort about that machine but I was just reminiscing with my older brother about that beast about a month ago. He sold it and now wishes he had it back.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

We had a small JD dozer on the farm, which I started using as a teenager. Only hydraulic was up down on the blade, Manual angle and no tilt, but we cleared a lot with it.

 

[Creamer]

That's like ours was - about 40 hp and only up and down. there wasn't even manual tilt on the blade. It would do a lot of work.

 

[Egon]

No cable blades??

 

[TerryR]

No cable blades??

Well, yes. We had a Cat 60, butane fueled, on our farm when I grew up. Hand cranked with a "Johnson bar." Had a cable blade and used it only for clearing land. Gave you a thrill when you pushed brush into a going fire and lugged it down to near a stall, since at full throttle it ran at a few hundred rpm.