Mulching & Barbed Wire

[Rip]

Other than avoid it like the pague, how do you guys deal with old fence wire hidden in the brush?

On a lot of old farm & ranch land there often are old fence lines and wire laying around that I would imagine would raise havoc with most any mulcher head.

How much time have you wasted cutting that s**t out of your drums and/or track or wheel shafts? Do you have clauses in your contracts dealing with such hidden hazzards?

Have not seen it mentioned often here, but figure it must happen regularly. I've run into it just with field work trucks and utility ATVs and it was not fun!

 

[TedLaRue]

I feel your pain.

I have a power line right-of-way across the back of my land, and the power company (or a subcontractor) left a 100 foot piece of wire on the ground which I later found when brush hogging. Cutting that stuff off after it's wound up tight is no fun at all. At least I didn't have to deal with barbs.

I can't imagine any way to avoid the problem short of walking the area before clearing it, but even that won't reveal wire that's semi-buried. If you're lucky you might see tell-tale signs like old fence posts or ceramic insulators on trees. It's a crap-shoot.

 

[DirtyWorks]

I hit old wire everyday or almost every day. If it is just a fence then it is usually ok. As long as no one is standing near. I have found pieces embeded deep into my track and into trees like deadly spikes. The head is almost self cleaning. I never have to exit the seat.
Now chainlink and hog wire are a different story. I usually can attach a chain to the wire and around a nearby tree or my truck bumper and drive slowly backward. This almost always works! Nothing like an old roll of chainlink in your head at 7 AM with a new set on! Good luck.

 

[Rip]

Actually have not run into this problem yet (except in trucks & ATVs) as we do not have a mulcher head yet. But I expect to. In fact we got a used CAT 287B with hi-flow last year partially for this purpose.

We have a 160 acre ranch property going into subdivision soon and it had a number of old barbed wire fences running all over (got tangled up just going around with surveyors). Guess we will have to pre-walk as much as we can and carry a couple sets of heavy wire cutters and gloves for the inevitable. Probably should have a couple wire grippers and straps as well.

Was also wondering if some types and/or brands were more suseptible to this kind of damage than others?

 

[riptides]

We just cleared a perimeter of 40 acres that still has the old fence and wire in it. Took three days and a lot of work. Cut the cedars up, hacked out the vines and ivy, cut down a lot of sapplings.

Next step is to remove the fence, wire and do new fencing.

Fence and wire looked to be 100 years old in spots.

Rough, time consuming, no fun job.

But at least my equipment won't hit it.

-Mike Z.