Heavy Duty Flail Mulchers

[cstamm81]

I'm looking to see if anyone has experience with flail mowers that are set up to mulch heavy material, they go by orchard flails to some. I got a great deal on an 8' Rhino orchard flail with huge hammers, and it mulches branches and sticks up to about 3" diameter with ease. It also cuts grass and weeds extremely well. It's a beast of a mower though, it's a lot for my 60hp Kubota. I'm looking for a smaller mulching flail, ideally it could be run behind either of my tractors, 30HP Mahindra (cat1) and 60HP Kubota (cat2). I know I'm limited buy the 30HP tractors low PTO HP, but my experience tells me as long as I can get it up to PTO speed the inertia of the heavy rotor and flails will keep it moving in all but the heaviest of material.

The only affordable option I have found is from Betstco, what they call a D series trailer cutter: FH-D Super Heavy Duty Trail Cutter/Flail Mower | Betstco Sales, Parts, and Service:. They have a few widths, dual cat 1/2, have rakers to keep material inside the mower to be mulched finer, and are rated to mulch 5" material! I see a lot of offerings from the Italian flail mowers, and it seems $8k is the starting price, and it goes way up from there. I have about 30 dead ash trees to drop, and I fight a never ending battle with broken tree limbs all over my property after storms. My experience with the Rhino is I'd much rather mulch the branches in place, than play pick up sticks for hours.

Anyone on here using a mulching flail mower?

 

[workinonit]

Quite a coincidence. I just bought a Maschio Tigre 300. It is a beast.

 

[ericm979]

Vrismo makes orchard flails here in the US. They're made to chew up orchard prunings.

 

[Fallon]

Peruzzo Brush Bull. The 40hp L4060 is pushed lifting it & is completely tapped out mowing yucca, scrub oak & small Christmas trees. The mower eats wrist sized sticks & makes a lot of noise but handles em fine. I found rocks, cinder blocks & a 20lbs starter motor with the flail. A couple minor chipped teeth but nothing close to me considering putting on my spare hammers yet.

1,700lbs & $8k or so but holds up to the light commercial work I do. Nice knowing the worst case scenario isn't breaking my equipment but having to untangle wire working in rough or trashy fields.

 

[DieselBound]

I've got a lot of grass, trees and brush, in which case I needed to go for an orchard type of flail. So (after a ton of research- I looked at the specs on the most expensive flails), this past year I bought a 7' Nova Tractor MXZ to run behind my NX5510 (55hp). Flail is spec'd for 60hp to 90hp machines. I figured that I could get by with less hp because I pretty much have to run at slower ground speeds owing to all the trees I have and that the ground is pretty uneven: I can't run any machines, even my UTV, at much over a pace of jogging unless I want to kill my kidneys!

My flail has 3.3lb hammers and is "rated" (how the heck does one do this rating?) for 2" material. Manufacturer might be conservative (that or others are pretty liberal in their "rating"). I KNOW that it cannot do 8" material as I snagged a chunk of cedar root of this size and it jammed the flail (and stopped the tractor dead): to be fair it was more the length that caused the jamming as it went in at an angle; I had to drill the wood into pieces to get it all cleared!

Not likely that a flail this size could be run off a 30hp tractor. I doubt that anything comparable in the 6' range would be recommended either. IMO a 5' flail would be a more realistic size. Mulchers/orchard flails tend to be a lot heavier than grass flails. My MXZ weighs 1,200 lbs and I definitely can tell it's on the back of my NX5510; raising and lowering the flail, not to mention traveling along with it raised (or even lowered!), tells me that I'm operating at near max capability. PTO shaft rating might also be a factor.

 

[cstamm81]

Quite a coincidence. I just bought a Maschio Tigre 300. It is a beast.

Funny, I searched Maschio Tigre 300 and found your thread on a Deere forum. Do you know what diameter material it is rated to cut, and how wide is it overall? It looks similar, overall, to my Rhino flail mulcher. Big heavy hammers and heavy duty all around. My Rhino does not center behind my tractor though, I can cover my left tire with it all the way to the left. If I pivot it all the way to the right, the belt drive is about centered with my PTO, and it's hanging way out to the right. Specs show it weighs about 1800lbs! My Kubota groans a bit picking it up, and with it never being truly centered, the weight is not distributed well on the 3 point. With it extended all the way to the right, it really seems sketchy picking it all the way up with the 3 point. I have been purposefully mulching branches up to about 3" in diameter, and I can't see any wear on the hammers. I did find a rock with the right edge, and it shaved the hammers down pretty significantly.

 

[cstamm81]

Vrismo makes orchard flails here in the US. They're made to chew up orchard prunings.

I did see Vrismo made them, and I believe they are ungodly expensive. These have been really hard to find used, especially in less than 7 foot widths. I'd prefer to buy American or Italian, but I can't justify spending over $5k.

 

[cstamm81]

Peruzzo Brush Bull. The 40hp L4060 is pushed lifting it & is completely tapped out mowing yucca, scrub oak & small Christmas trees. The mower eats wrist sized sticks & makes a lot of noise but handles em fine. I found rocks, cinder blocks & a 20lbs starter motor with the flail. A couple minor chipped teeth but nothing close to me considering putting on my spare hammers yet.

1,700lbs & $8k or so but holds up to the light commercial work I do. Nice knowing the worst case scenario isn't breaking my equipment but having to untangle wire working in rough or trashy fields.View attachment 705179View attachment 705180View attachment 705181View attachment 705182View attachment 705183View attachment 705184

Very nice, I have been eyeing the Peruzzo's and Ventura's on Iowa Farm Equipment's site for years. The Bull series is what i would want, rated 4" to 5" material. The 47" or 55" would complement the huge Rhino I have well, and I could probably run it behind either of my tractors. Are you glad you went as large as you did, and are you happy with the hydraulic side shift?

 

[cstamm81]

I've got a lot of grass, trees and brush, in which case I needed to go for an orchard type of flail. So (after a ton of research- I looked at the specs on the most expensive flails), this past year I bought a 7' Nova Tractor MXZ to run behind my NX5510 (55hp). Flail is spec'd for 60hp to 90hp machines. I figured that I could get by with less hp because I pretty much have to run at slower ground speeds owing to all the trees I have and that the ground is pretty uneven: I can't run any machines, even my UTV, at much over a pace of jogging unless I want to kill my kidneys!

My flail has 3.3lb hammers and is "rated" (how the heck does one do this rating?) for 2" material. Manufacturer might be conservative (that or others are pretty liberal in their "rating"). I KNOW that it cannot do 8" material as I snagged a chunk of cedar root of this size and it jammed the flail (and stopped the tractor dead): to be fair it was more the length that caused the jamming as it went in at an angle; I had to drill the wood into pieces to get it all cleared!

Not likely that a flail this size could be run off a 30hp tractor. I doubt that anything comparable in the 6' range would be recommended either. IMO a 5' flail would be a more realistic size. Mulchers/orchard flails tend to be a lot heavier than grass flails. My MXZ weighs 1,200 lbs and I definitely can tell it's on the back of my NX5510; raising and lowering the flail, not to mention traveling along with it raised (or even lowered!), tells me that I'm operating at near max capability. PTO shaft rating might also be a factor.

Thanks, I had seen that brand but didn't notice they made heavy duty flails. I agree with the HP ratings, it seems you can easily get away with less than the recommended PTO HP, and run them fine. I believe my 8' Rhino wants an 80hp tractor, and my 60hp runs it very well. It does seem like the 2" rating is conservative in this case, as you said, given the hammer and rotor specs. I like the idea of a 4 to 5 inch rating though, given my intended usage.

Nova shows another heavy duty series rated to cut 2", with less wide options: Nova Tractor MFZ heavy duty flail mower series. I believe I could run the 53 or 61 inch behind my 30hp tractor, and obviously very easily behind the 60 hp tractor.

 

[Hay Dude]

John Deere 390 flail mowers are pretty stout. At 90” wide, they have good cut size and they are available with offset. I have one, don’t use it much anymore because I have gone bigger.