Removing rocks from pasture

[beenthere]

I don't want to hijack, but I have a similar issue. My mother has 40 acres with about half wooded, the other half field and homestead. She wants to cut trails in the woods to ski and walk on. She hired a guy to cut the trail 10 years ago, but he left all of the rocks. Is the FEL still the way to go? There is not a ton of room to move around, and I just want the rocks off of the trail, really don't need to pile them, but I may if I get bored. I was thinking of using a box blade to pop them up from the ground, and then using the loader to move them around? Same size as above- maybe even a little bigger.

If you can rig up some forks, or fork-like tooth bar, that is the best to pop rocks out. Can run down in front of the rock, and curl it out. Much less gouging and soil disturbance than using the bucket, doesn't take much room to maneuver, easy to roll them off to the side with that same tooth, and makes quick work of it (without getting back problems, and plenty of seat time). :cool2:

 

[easygo]

From your description it sounds like you can see that rocks just fine. Why not use a subsoiler to dislodge them? You could sit on the tractor and lower the subsoiler 3-4" under the ground before it hits hits the rock. As the angled part is under it just raise it up and drive to the next one. That way you can pull the rocks out of the soil. When done with that switch to stone boat or trailer and load rocks onto that.
Just an idea.

 

[rcowan]

I use my grand children and the little John Deere with a dump trailer.

 

[Mace Canute]

The stoneboat is probably going to be your cheapest solution. I really like the Dirt Scoop idea, not too expensive, handy as all get out for a lot of things and will work quite well for what you want.

Sometimes, there just isn't any easy way to pick rocks. Back when I was a young teenager we had an 80 acre pasture that hadn't been broken because of the large number of rocks it had. The step father and his older brother decided that they were going to break it and crop it, soooo we ran the cattle on it much later in the fall than we usually did. Normally we would let them have the run of the stubble fields after we finished harvesting because of all the food they could forage. They ate the grass down very low and ate everything they could get at, really made a good job of exposing all the rocks that were just above the surface. Next spring as soon as the snow was gone and the frost was out, we grabbed crowbars and pickaxes and walked the pasture popping out all the rocks we could see. The ones too big for that got popped out by the use of an old plow shank with a point cut on it with an acetylene torch. (Looked like this but without the plowshare and moldboard). The ones too big for that got dynamited. After that, we walked the pasture again, this time with a rockpicker behind the tractor. Because the forks on the picker wouldn't work on sod, we hand picked the rocks and threw them into the bucket and the ones too big to pick up, we pushed onto the tines and the machine loaded them into the bucket. The ones too big for the rock picker got towed off with a chain, and those ranged from several hundred pounds to a few thousand pounds. We picked well over 250 bucket loads this way, and those loads were heaped up too! That was about 375 tons of rock!

Sometimes picking rock just requires lots of plain old elbow grease.

 

[pitt_md]

I don't get it. The man said he does not have a FEL.
Retention problems?

 

[beenthere]

Mace
Good story on the rock picking. I can relate to that well.

And your suggestion the stone boat is a good way to go as well. Moved many a rock that way, ...... easy and cheap, but just a tad slow. The way they moved them back in the horses-only day.

 

[crusty 1]

3ph dirt scoop,being you don,t have fel the scoop could be used for other uses as well.Not near as good as a fel but much cheaper.And you realize that for every rock you remove 5 more will show up next year, at least thats the way it seems:laughingave

 

[ChuckinNH]

From your description it sounds like you can see that rocks just fine. Why not use a subsoiler to dislodge them? You could sit on the tractor and lower the subsoiler 3-4" under the ground before it hits hits the rock. As the angled part is under it just raise it up and drive to the next one. That way you can pull the rocks out of the soil. When done with that switch to stone boat or trailer and load rocks onto that.
Just an idea.

I have used my middlebuster that way, and it sure makes less mess than a bucket. I would expect that a subsoiler would work even better. It would be nice to have it just a bit further back from the tractor, and perhaps with a steeper angle though. Here is what our forefathers used around rocky New England. The two tines make it even more effective in keeping the rock from turning so much.

 

[sparkyaber]

I think some of the responses are getting crossed between the OP and my post. I apologize for that. I also thought about the FEL with the addition of a tooth bar. Just like the loader buddy.

 

[magicheater]

I think some of the responses are getting crossed between the OP and my post. I apologize for that. I also thought about the FEL with the addition of a tooth bar. Just like the loader buddy.

A bucket with a tooth bar is NOT "just like" Loader Buddy. The teeth are the only similarity and even then, they are not the same.