How Should I Mow This Property? Brush Hog Vs Flail Mower Vs Skid Steer 

Go pull that fence post out, and mark the stump eliminate the hazards it should be easy mowing for your tractor

Thank God we finally got rain though

9/16/23..Howdy from New Orleans area Brock!..just watched 2 of your videos: fuel transfer & 2-50 gal tanks for gas/diesel + great info on that great gas can with pump action. Then your 7 acre brush cutting job for friend where you analyze costs/depreciation/comfort/safety comparing yur 38HP JD tractor (open station) if used vs. yur Skidd Steer with enclosed cab & a/c. Much enjoy your 'straight talking' style & camera 'awareness' showing all we viewers great landscape (360°) views as well as close ups views of video subjects. So thx for yur camera awareness for viewers & stay safe & carry on!!👍🔧⚙️💪😊🍺

I would go with the tractor. Thanks for the great comparison between your tractor and skid loader. You really got me thinking.

Agree 100% with your hours-to-depreciation logic. It may not matter if you're planning on driving the John Deere until it's completely exhausted, but if you're gonna trade it while it still has some life left, that's good arithmetic.

Always, always go in over gunned, definitely the skid steer!

Good afternoon Brock. I was going to give an opinion but I trust your judgment and you will make the right decision for you. God bless and have a wonderful day. 👍👍🙂

This is the kind of job I was thinking about for a pull-behind Flail mower for an ATV (in my situation). No idea if it would be faster or slower, but I also know Rockhill Farm doesn't yet have a Side-by-side...yet. Does Vevor make a Side-by-side???!? LOL

I’d use my my MX5400 Kubota with the 3” rated 6’ brush cutter for sure. I’d never do all that with a skid loader.

Thanks for your videos, Brock. It really sounds like you should trading in the 2038r on either a 3 or 4 series JD or another cab tractor like the TYM474CH. One plus for the John Deere is that I think a lot of folks are drawn to watching your videos because of your 2038r.

Flail mower is always the best option i think :)

Soft woods, I can handle up to 6" saplings with my 4ft bush hog. 3-4" hardwoods with the same one. My 5ft Landjunk was my field mower that I babied and still blew the gearbox out on. The 4ft is a Howse HD, and it's treated like a forestry mulcher 80% of the time. Thing just refuses to die. 😂

If the rain helped any on the dust situation i would say tractor and brushhog. You have mowed this place several times and have good feel for the land. Ide set the cutter up at about 3-4 inches and have a go at it. Fuel bill will be cheaper on tractor and the truck since you wouldn't be carrying over twice the weight of the tractor. On the other side you are thinking/looking at getting a bigger hp tractor and i just so happen to know were a nice Heston 680 is that could run you a bigger cutter and be faster time wise than what you have now lol.

The little tractor that could will handle that!

I'd go for comfort. Costs the same no matter what equipment is used. Depends if you have another job right away or not for time. Sometimes it's what is currently on the trailer loaded or what will be on it from previous job

You mentioned fuel cost and depreciation, but what about maintenance cycle cost and tire vs track wear?

I'd vote for the tractor but wear some kind of dust mask if it isn't too hot.

Brock, I have a 2022 John Deere 2038R like yours and I mostly use it for Brush hogging, it's paired with a Rhino TW25 witch in my opinion is a BEAST! In my area we have lots of mesquite and its nasty stuff! to cut, its hard on the machine but it handles it well. I'm routinely cutting 2" to 2.5"by 6' to 8' tall mesquites. Love my machine!

Looks like a bunch of ragweed. Tractor can power through that but you may get a radiator full of weeds. My Bobcat has a homemade mower but it does not have air conditioning. I would use a tractor for open mowing and a skid steer for anything with trees, fences, ditches etc.

Only tractor i have ever mowed brush with is a ford 601 selecto speed. And i dont know how big it was rated for but i used to watch my dad mow trees that would lift the front of the tractor up when he drove over them and if the tractor would push them back down the brush hog would mow them.

Brock, thanks but, I have no idea what attachments you run on your skid steer for cutting weeds. Would be a good idea to quickly mention this detail since not everyone viewing knows your attachment inventory. I use a flail mower with tractor for this type work, and also have a Lane Shark attachment for the front end of tractor when it gets really tough. So, for a tough job I actually run the Lane Shark (tractor front) and flail mower (tractor rear) in tandem. Sort of like belt and suspenders, and it works great.

Also. I have a bunch of woods with trails that is not all flat. Seems like when trying to use my brush hog in no flat areas, the ground is always getting scalp in turns by the sides of the brush hog frame. Since the flail lays on a roller, does that help to prevent this from happening, or when you make turns will the sides of the equipment dig into the ground as the brush hog does? Thanks.

My brush cutter is a light duty Bush Hog BH6. It rated to 1.5" diam. trees and I have gone larger occasionally, not routinely. That was when we had property in Central Texas, and nearly all brush were mesquite, one of the hardest woods seen, in even young trees/brush. My rotary cutter, being light duty, doesn't have much bracing across the top deck, and the deck sheet steel is pretty thin. Lots of dings and dents from rocks and sticks have hit it from below. Now I'm in E. Tennessee and the property is primarily grass, so I'll keep the mower. But if I were doing it over, I'd have bought a hammer equipped flail mower, or a beefier rotary mower, like upmodel Bush Hog , Brown's Tree Cutter, or Rhino.

Sid steer, at 300 an hour times 9 hours comes out to $2700.00. You got equipment cost, your labor, and fuel cost.

I have a Frontier SB3108 sickle bar mower that I use on my 2038R. Granted, I use it on hay fields. But it cuts five acres per hour in low transmission range. It is capable of doing the work you have in front of you there. No, it doesn't chop everything up like a bush hog. But if you're not keeping the property mowed and short apparently the appearance isn't top priority. The SB3108 will cut from vertical to -45* angle on slopes. Bush hogging that property will take time... Depreciation is more about how the machine was taken care of rather than the number of hours. Most people buying a compact tractor are freaking out when they pass 100 hours (if they ever even get to 100 hours). If that wasn't true you wouldn't see all the "used" tractors that are 5 to 10 years old and haven't hit 100 hours. Makes you wonder why they bought a tractor... Next week will be two years since I got my 2038R from the factory. I'm at 625 hours and the tractor is in better shape than the day I received it because I had the joy of fixing all the stuff that was wrong from the factory. Take care of your tractor and you'll get near what you paid for it when you trade up or sell it. My neighbor just traded off an older 4 series with a loader and a lot of hours that he paid $23k for brand new probably 15 years ago. He traded it on a new 5075R and the dealer gave him $21k for the trade even after they had dropped the price of the new tractor by $10k. He got the new 5 series with an MSL loader for about $30k plus his trade.

Man this gives me perspective. If it takes you 6 hours to do 7 acres, then I am definitely mowing too fast with my tractor :) My tractor only works in 1st and 3rd gear so I have been using 3rd unless I get bogged down.

What if you got to spec an ideal machine rather than choose among only those which you already have? My choice would be something like a 50-60 horsepower cab tractor with heat and air conditioning and about a 6-foot flail mower, cutting off to the side -- not behind -- the tractor. Also, cutting it more than once a year would be a plus.

That would depend on what is buried in there and how far it could be throwen by a bush hogg

I would go with the tractor

This appears to be a great candidate for a longer test of your new air hood mask system while brush cutting with your tractor. You could do half the area with the flail mower and the other half with the brush cutter to see if there is any difference for the air hood, since the brush cutter lays everything down in larger "pieces" and the flail "mulches" things more. A week or two ago this would have likely been an easy decision, Skid Steer w/ A/C in the 90+ heat. Slightly cooler now I am assuming so the tractor won't be as brutal 🤣. All that said, 49 or so hp tractor with a/c cab and a 6 or 7 foot flail mower would be more ideal here...... but you already know that🤣 Course if I think that is ideal, why not a 90+ hp tractor with a/c cab and a 15 foot bat-wing brush cutter!! Cause they don't offer those with hydrostatic drive and cruise control...... Yep, getting lazy here, don't want a shuttle shift or any clutch🤣 Have a good one!!👍

I would probably use the tractor as I would it is a smotther ride than the skid loader would be pretty jarring for 9 hours.

Those are fields of weeds.

Simple answer is get a tractor with a cab with AC

Flail 100%. First pass with mower a foot up, second pass run the skids on the ground.

5 times the hours is "high hours" on a skid steer? Lol. That's because they're such inefficient "tractors" and that depreciation is if it's used as a LOADER. Use attachments - tractors use IMPLEMENTS - and you can toss the "depreciation schedule". CUTs and skid steers are NOT "interchangeable" nor is depreciation "standard" across makes and models. And of course a skid steer large enough to have high-flow hydraulics doesn't even "notice" a shreder - not mower - attachment 60-72" wide. It has double to triple the horsepower of a CUT OR 801 Ford and when "mowing" 90% of it is "hydraulic horsepower". Get a tractor with "equal" horsepower that's 90% PTO horsepower and you can EASILY double the "mower" width and at ONLY 3mph - single and double-blade rotary cutters can handle any material short of soaking wet 3-4' high late-spring "jungle" mix of grass, weeds and "brush" at 3 mph providing "overlap" is possible - that's a 3-hour job TOPS. AND you'll have 20 mph transport speed with no need to "tow" your "mower" too and from the "close by" job. Tractors "equal" to large skid steers do not need "towed" within 10-15 miles of jobs AND can "carry" multiple "attachments" at once. A "loader tractor" can "mow" while remaining a loader and in most cases of CUTs a more "efficient" one than a skid-steer and they do not need "towed" anywhere beyond walking distance from "headquarters". And the "depreciation" is only "higher" when the equipment is "Brand X" and there are few if any "attachments" available from the OEM for them. A Deere CUT can be an ACTUAL mower with a mid-mount deck AND a rotary/flail CUTTER and a LOADER simultaneously. Only crooks and fools ever use a skid steer "mower" on ACREAGE "mowing" jobs OR a tractor that can't "mow" wider than a modern large commercial MOWER DECK. A 7' SICKLE MOWER on a Farmall C will mow circles around either of your "options".

use a flail

👀

So.....how much are you charging him....Im guessing your gonna use the tractor & charge $325 plus fuel costs. (How close was I ?) pc

Way to much talking, sorry, thumb down