Caroni & King Kutter Rotary Mowers

Spaceman · Mar 4, 2009

Does anyone have any experience/own/opinons on Caroni & King Kutter Rotary Mowers? Someone had said Land Prides and Bush hogs are good, but they are a little pricy.
Also, what would be the biggest brush I could knock down with a rotary? I have a hedgerow which has sumac growing up to 3" in diameter. Will a 5' be too big for my 21hp Kubota? There's 16hp at the pto.
So many questions. Thank God for the many experienced folks on Tractorbynet.

Spaceman · Mar 4, 2009

That should have been 19hp pto

Lunk · Mar 4, 2009

Spaceman said:
Does anyone have any experience/own/opinons on Caroni & King Kutter Rotary Mowers? Someone had said Land Prides and Bush hogs are good, but they are a little pricy.
Also, what would be the biggest brush I could knock down with a rotary? I have a hedgerow which has sumac growing up to 3" in diameter. Will a 5' be too big for my 21hp Kubota? There's 16hp at the pto.
So many questions. Thank God for the many experienced folks on Tractorbynet.

Would 5' be too big? - Yes. Even with 19hp at the PTO (instead of 16), it will not "cut it" (no pun intended) in anything but light growth, let alone 3" sumac. I think KK only rates their Light duty cutters for up to 1 1/2" growth.

General thought around here is that you need about 5hp per foot of cutter width. I run a 5' KK in heavy 3'+ marsh grass with 35hp (I believe 31 or 32 at the PTO), and I'm glad I have every one of them.

Someone will no doubt jump in and say they mow 4" saplings with your intended set-up year in and year out, but I think you'd be disappointed. A 4' cutter would be more appropriate, but I'd still chain-saw the sumac at ground level, rather than try to shred them. It takes a heavy duty cutter and some serious PTO hp to shred that stuff effectively (keyword - effectively).

I hope this helps.

Lunk

IslandTractor · Mar 4, 2009

I can vouch for Caroni equipment generally. I have one of their flail mowers and it is well engineered and manufactured. Agri Supply sells both the mowers and parts so there is no issue there. My impression is that Caroni is the Italian equivalent of a Landspride/Woods/BushHog level of company and perhaps a notch up from King Kutter. On the other hand, there are a lot of people with King Kutter mowers that are perfectly happy with them.

5ft for a finish mower would be the right size for a 20hp tractor/15hp PTO. I ran a 5ft Rhino on my CK20 and it was fine.

greenmule · Mar 4, 2009

Yeah,4 ft is as big as you want. I got a light duty kk,one of the old blue ones,had it about 7 years now,still works fine,good value for what I paid for it.
And with your tractor and one of them thats four feet,you will be just fine,for cutting light brush and grass,thats all,by light brush I mean maybe 1/2 stuff with an occasional bigger one throwed in.

Course sumac is not very dense,and if you just took a little at a time,you might get it done?

IslandTractor · Mar 4, 2009

greenmule said:
Yeah,4 ft is as big as you want.

For a finish mower I'd go to 5ft but agree that 4ft is right for a bush hog.

fairlane · Mar 4, 2009

I have used a caroni 5 ft finish mower for years the only thing i have had to do to it was replace one of the spindles( I hit piece of firewood) and replace belt and blades. the parts are very reasonably priced and I have them shipped directly from Agri-suppy. I pull it with a 31 horsepower tractor and I cant even tell its back there.
Thanks,
Fairlane