Lane Shark vs Skid Steer Brush Mower

[deere5105]

The task is trail/road overhang maintenance and edge of yard/field maintenance. Not really interested in major land/tree clearing.

Equipment available is open station JD 5303 4WD with 522 FEL, one rear remote, currently no third function or Bobcat S250 rubber tire skid steer, open cab, standard flow.

Considering adding third function and Lane Shark to the JD or a lexan front door and brush mower to the skid steer. Cost appears to be about the same. Like everyone else we get side creep of limbs into fields, food plots and roads. The skid steer has a Bobcat open bottom type grapple with double clamping arms. For years have used the grapple to push back or dig up the encroaching limbs and bushes. The maneuverability and hydrostatic drive of the skid steer is ideal for this type of work.

Looking for opinions, feed back or experiences comparing the two. Gut feeling is the skid steer mower with a 3-4” cut capacity more likely to hold up better long term and be more flexible in uses and get more work done than the 2-3” capacity of the Lane Shark.

Anyone made this comparison or have any experiences operating similar setups in these type situations?

 

[loggin]

The task is trail/road overhang maintenance and edge of yard/field maintenance. Not really interested in major land/tree clearing.

Equipment available is open station JD 5303 4WD with 522 FEL, one rear remote, currently no third function or Bobcat S250 rubber tire skid steer, open cab, standard flow.

Considering adding third function and Lane Shark to the JD or a lexan front door and brush mower to the skid steer. Cost appears to be about the same. Like everyone else we get side creep of limbs into fields, food plots and roads. The skid steer has a Bobcat open bottom type grapple with double clamping arms. For years have used the grapple to push back or dig up the encroaching limbs and bushes. The maneuverability and hydrostatic drive of the skid steer is ideal for this type of work.

Looking for opinions, feed back or experiences comparing the two. Gut feeling is the skid steer mower with a 3-4” cut capacity more likely to hold up better long term and be more flexible in uses and get more work done than the 2-3” capacity of the Lane Shark.

Anyone made this comparison or have any experiences operating similar setups in these type situations?

Something I usually try to consider is ride quality. Not sure how many hours you will be cutting but sitting in a skid steer for hours is no fun for me especially on rough terrain. I might opt for the tractor in this case but then again perhaps I don't have enough info,

Just my 2 cents.

 

[4570Man]

The 3rd function hydraulic flow on tractors is low flow that wouldn’t be enough for a mower. I can’t vouch for the truthfulness behind this but I’ve read that the solenoid operated 3rd function kits aren’t rated for continuous use. The tractor isn’t a very good setup for heavy duty brush mowing either. The operator isn’t very well protected or not protected at all on an open station and the tractor isn’t very well guarded either. There’s a lot of delicate parts that can be damaged by stobs. The skid steer is much tougher in that regard and the operator is well protected with a demolition door. When you lift the mower off the ground to cut limbs off the risk of throwing chunks is significant. My skid steer cab has suffered some good licks from doing that. Nothing has hit hard enough to deform the metal but it’s been hit hard enough that I wouldn’t want to suffer the same impact on a tractor. I wasn’t sure what a lane shark was so I had to google that one. I wasn’t impressed with the build quality for the price. My Rutt skid steer mower is considerably heavier duty and cost around $5500.

 

[2manyrocks]

If the brush is well established and has gotten pretty big, you might want to pay someone with a forestry mulching head to mulch it up for you. I had a bunch of fence rows that a guy cleared for me like that in a short amount of time. I believe I got my money's worth.

The concern I'd have with either open station is the risk of getting something thrown in my face and eyes doing this kind of work. The polycarbonate door on the guy's forestry mulcher looked pretty beat up.

There are some cutters for standard flow I've seen on YT, but it looks like they slow down when they run into much material.

 

[Lineman North Florida]

Can't speak about the Lane Shark as I know nothing about them , I do however have a little bit of knowledge about skid steer brush cutter's, I have an MTL XCT-7 with carbide teeth that I use on my skid steer and I use it hard and it has been flawless. I have a thread over in the Owning & Operating section titled Pictures of a skid steer mowing contractor that will give you some idea of what I cut with mine.

 

[JCoastie]

from a non skid steer owner and dreamer, the skid steer seems like the obvious choice.
For my own edge limb encroachment, I keep contemplating a trailblazer-hd, I've looked at them online for a few years, but haven't purchased one. Seems like it might fit the bill. They now have a SSQA version, cost is about 4k TRAILBLAZER-HD for TB-2023 – STOUT DESIGNS, LLC

 

[two_bit_score]

JUst like one tractor is never sufficent to do what most people feel is necessary a Skid/CTL may need more than one front cutter attachment to do what you feel you need to do.

I'm still seriously considering a CTL for clean up of fence rows and under brush in several areas. I have also come to the conclusion that only one cutter will not be sufficent.

 

[2manyrocks]

Fence wire can bring one of these things to a quick stop and be a pain to cut loose.

 

[leonz]

The task is trail/road overhang maintenance and edge of yard/field maintenance. Not really interested in major land/tree clearing.

Equipment available is open station JD 5303 4WD with 522 FEL, one rear remote, currently no third function or Bobcat S250 rubber tire skid steer, open cab, standard flow.

Considering adding third function and Lane Shark to the JD or a lexan front door and brush mower to the skid steer. Cost appears to be about the same. Like everyone else we get side creep of limbs into fields, food plots and roads. The skid steer has a Bobcat open bottom type grapple with double clamping arms. For years have used the grapple to push back or dig up the encroaching limbs and bushes. The maneuverability and hydrostatic drive of the skid steer is ideal for this type of work.

Looking for opinions, feed back or experiences comparing the two. Gut feeling is the skid steer mower with a 3-4” cut capacity more likely to hold up better long term and be more flexible in uses and get more work done than the 2-3” capacity of the Lane Shark.

Anyone made this comparison or have any experiences operating similar setups in these type situations?

Renting a small aerial lift and buying a full body harness and
using an engine powered chainsaw pole pruner or circular saw
attachment or a sawzall with a generator on the ground would
be less troublesome and you will only have to shove the limbs
back out of the way later.

Using a rented aerial lift will let you cut everything way back to
the length of the upper boom to prevent any overhangs for
many decades.

With a lane shark you have no idea how far that crap is going to
fly off and you have a limited amount of access to reach up to
clear anything and any weed tree is going to take advantage of
the sunlight you give them.

You have to reach the top of the tree canopy like the forestry
clearing heads on railway brush clearing machines to cut it back
as it will grow back very quickly otherwise.

 

[AirOpsMgr]

The task is trail/road overhang maintenance and edge of yard/field maintenance. Not really interested in major land/tree clearing.

Equipment available is open station JD 5303 4WD with 522 FEL, one rear remote, currently no third function or Bobcat S250 rubber tire skid steer, open cab, standard flow.

Considering adding third function and Lane Shark to the JD or a lexan front door and brush mower to the skid steer. Cost appears to be about the same. Like everyone else we get side creep of limbs into fields, food plots and roads. The skid steer has a Bobcat open bottom type grapple with double clamping arms. For years have used the grapple to push back or dig up the encroaching limbs and bushes. The maneuverability and hydrostatic drive of the skid steer is ideal for this type of work.

Looking for opinions, feed back or experiences comparing the two. Gut feeling is the skid steer mower with a 3-4” cut capacity more likely to hold up better long term and be more flexible in uses and get more work done than the 2-3” capacity of the Lane Shark.

Anyone made this comparison or have any experiences operating similar setups in these type situations?

I've been using a Lane Shark LS2 for the past 8 months, also recently rented a SkidSteer with HD brush cutter that would do up to 6" trees.

The Lane Shark shines in the versatility department as you can rotate / flip the deck out 90° and run elevated straight down a path or line to cut limbs or brush back as you go. With the deck in the standard position in front of the FEL, it does the same job as a SS brush cutter until you start getting into bigger or denser stuff, which is where the SS brush cutter will be more efficient as you can get through faster with less extra passes.

I rented the SS & brush cutter to get through some of the thickers areas of our woods we were cutting trails in, it was twice as fast as the Lane Shark and handled thick vines without them getting entangled, but couldn't reach as high, so used the Lane Shark to go back and clean up the higher sections later.

The only issue I've had with the Lane Shark is the rear back plate bending out a bit, fully my fault, was fully down on the ground cutting going forward, cut through some bigger trees and the back plate got hung up on them as I tried to keep pushing forward.

Maintenance on the Lane Shark has been minimal, have flipped the blades and about to install a new set as I've worn down both sides of the originals already. Not the easiest task to unbolt unless you have a 2nd set of hands to help.

If I had to do it all over again, I'd do the same; Rent a HD brush cutter for the big stuff or large projects, but I use the heck out of the Lane Shark for a lot of brush and branch maintenance around our 20 acres.

Hope that helps a little

Best regards,
Greg