Hammer Flail vs Forestry Mulcher vs Brush Hog vs Brush Hog with chains.

[CliffordK]

My goal is to much up some down branches, and firewood leftovers. And overall to be safe.

Maybe also attacking blackberries.

Ok, I started looking at small consumer quality skid steer forestry mulcher attachments. The attachments are almost reasonably priced, but have a ravenous appetite for hydraulic flow/pressure.

Unfortunately a high flow skid steer may not be in my near future budget.

I had issues a couple of years ago pushing an older brush hog through an oak grove with quite a few down limbs. Ultimately killing the brush hog gearbox.

I just purchased my little Landini 60F. It is still being configured and tested. Tiny little crawler, but with a 58 HP rated engine and a 53 HP rated PTO. Good things come in small packages.

However, to achieve high flow hydraulics, I'd probably need a PTO to Hydraulic adapter, and still would need to control a font operated loader which I don't have.

However I was browsing and started thinking of a rear PTO controlled hammer flail. It has to be somewhat similar to the forestry mulcher.

Then a thread popped up with replacing brush hog blades with chains.

I'm leaning to PTO powered over hydraulic powered, although there are benefits of the natural slipping of a hydraulic/hydraulic coupling.

And suddenly I have too many questions and not enough answers.

 

[mikester]

The forestry mulcher does a great job. These heads see a lot of abuse and so does the machine. I rent a commercial machine with head by the week. No maintenance, breakdowns are someone else's problem, I get 100% write off that year.

Due to the abuse these heads get I wouldn't spend my money on consumer quality lightweight heads. They won't last long. It would be way cheaper to rent.

 

[ptsg]

Having a perfectly capable PTO that delivers most of the HP of the engine, I find most hydraulic driven solutions to be quite a waste of money.

The crawler coupled with one those brush cutters with chains will be a great setup and easily out works an hydraulic rotary cutter on a higher HP skid steer.

Just my opinion based on seeing both setups working in person and what people that do brush cutting for a living use over here.

Anything that's not smooth a pasture, chains will be the way to go but I suspect in the US this will need to be a custom attachment.

A PTO mulching head is also good but those things are very expensive and probably won't handle rocks like chains do.

 

[Rustyiron]

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I have bought from them through the local JD dealership.

 

[Rustyiron]

...dang it,
I had a several paragraph explanation on my above post before I left to find that link.
Part of it was ptsg's points about the advantages of mechanically driven "tools".
In a nutshell, start with a purpose built rotary cutter. Not a pasture mower.
I just replaced all of the "hammers" on my 8' FAE flail mulcher to the "tune" of $1600 just in parts.

 

[nch77]

look for a Brown Tree Cutter, they are extremely heavy duty bush hogs.

 

[EddieWalker]

How big are the branches that you want to cut up? How much HP do you have? How much land are you wanting to maintain?

I started with a 37hp tractor and a 6 foot light duty Landpride rotary cutter, and used it for almost two decades. I beat it up pretty bad, but since it's easy to get pats for it, I just replaced what I broke. When I bought my land, it was impossible to walk it, so I slowly opened up paths, that I later made into roads, and eventually created pastures.

Now I'm using a 12 foot medium duty batwing with a 70hp tractor. It's faster, more comfortable, and it does a better job.

My neighbor hires guys with skid steers and has them clear his land, but he doesn't keep it mowed, so he does this over and over again, every couple of years.

If I knew what I know now, I would should of bought a bigger tractor and a heavy duty cutter. I still think 6 feet is a great size for opening up the land and going after everything you can run over, but it would of been better if I had bought a heavy duty cutter instead of a light duty one.

Adding a slip clutch was a game changer. I went through a lot of sheer pins the first couple of years.

 

[scootr]

It sounds like renting a forestry mulcher and then keeping it mowed with a good quality BH is the way to go. I have a quality hydraulic motor BH on my SS that is an absolute brute when it comes to thicket and branches plus it cuts the grasses nicely. The flail I have has the big hammers you show. It will beat branches into pieces but rocks beat the hammers unmercifully. I learned a hard lesson having to replace broken hammers after mowing a rocky field, $400 later....I did the chain modification on a free BH. This is the first season using that. I cut 5 acres with it yesterday, it was unknown ground. Glad I had that mower on when I found the rocks.

 

[nybirdman]

After ten years and two tractors + bush-hogs and renting a 100 HP with and eight ft.bush-hog;I finally rented a SS with a FECON head+operator.He did more and better in four days than I had in ten years.
Money well spent.Maintain with tractors now.

 

[2manyrocks]

The Fecon dealer in middle Tennessee rents mulchers to commercial users who carry enough insurance coverage to meet their requirements. They basically told me I couldn't afford to rent one. I ended up paying $185 an hour to have someone mulch with a Cat 299 equipped with a Cat mulching head.

There seems to be a limit of about 5 -8 inches where it's too much to mulch, especially if it is laying on the ground.