Why You Shouldn't Brush Hog Your Land (With Examples) 

Just wanted to say I enjoy your channel and have learned a lot since I have been watching.

Goats plus cutting the bigger trees for firewood seems to be an great option! idk about all the fence complains here, in my country are an lot of spaces that are managed with goats, i never even heard of an goat escaping here, i think the main reason for them escaping must be to small spaces and bad pasture. Ive seen simmilar damage being done to soil, peole often understimate that you should never drive on whet soil. Thanks for the video! Great as always :) Greetings from Germany!

As another mentioned, fencing for goats has be to top notch or you're going to have a ranging herd at best or a free meal for predators at worse, so there's a lot of prep work that has to be done for them. The other important factor not considered is time, which is just as important as money and energy. There's going to be time to put up proper fencing for goats and even that might require a tractor to clear a strip of the land well enough to allow for a perimeter fence. Then there's question of how long will goats take to clear out the material that's wanted to be cleared, which may or may not be their top palate pick, or will that require additional work post-goat. It seems to me that there was a lot more equipment traffic that would have cause that amount of soil compaction and tire ruts than just a lone tractor, but then maybe they were dumb enough to drive on very wet land.

The hard part is trying to keep the goats inside the fence.

One of the main reasons rotary cutters are so popular is they are the least expensive mowing attachment you can buy for a tractor. A flail mower would do better in most places where people use a brush hog but most tractor owners won't spend the money to buy one. Your field appears to have been mowed when the ground was saturated. Was that the fault of the guy with the tractor or did the land owner tell him to get it done any way he could? Last summer was especially difficult in New England due to wet conditions. Many farmers were only to harvest one cutting of hay because of wet weather and soft ground.

What you have is a Realtor hack job. Two criteria were given; 1) Get it done right away 2) As cheap as possible. Why? The Realtor had one two part priority; flip the property and deposit the commission check. It's that simple and they do it every time. That's the Realtor formula for rural land. Now that you own the hack job, you're going to have to fix it. Hire a farmer and a tractor to come in with a disc and harrow at the driest time of the summer - probably mid August when you land is as dry as it gets. Look for a compact or mid size tractor with wide tires. Disc the pasture parallel with the ruts once. Then disc at 90 degrees Then harrow the disked area at 45 degrees once. That will break up much of the organic trash left behind and mix it up so that it decomposes faster, You may have to do this once a year for 3 years to make a good pasture. As to the brush piles - let them decompose in place. They are not worth the trouble, time and cost of picking through and hauling out. Buy 3 weaned female kids and put them in an electo-net enclosure as soon as they come available. Buying kids gives the opportunity to fence train. Goats love the little tree sprouts. Serving the Halal market is good business. If you want to breed your little goat herd when they come of age, hire in a ram.

We have 400 acres that is rugged and wooded. We are planning to eventually maintain our property with goats exactly as you describe, however the property when we first bought it was so overgrown I don't think even goats could manage it, plus we needed access. I'm talking about groves of 3-6+ inch trees that are so thick you can't even hike through them. Even wild turkey were kept out by the thick brush. On top of that the tick issue is out of control and I think goats would just make that worse, and it'd be bad for them. Fortunately this land was virgin, so no garbage issues, no wire, etc, except very close to the road, and we cleared that by hand. There are also a massive amount of larger trees we need to remove, stumps, fallen tries, and standing deads that have to be cleaned up as well. So we are using mulching and forestry equipment to do an initial clearing of this stuff and getting the brush and woods more cleared and down to a manageable level, while letting guinea fowl and ducks help with tick reduction. Then we're going to use goats to maintain the brush and hopefully never use the equipment again. It'd be my preference to not use heavy equipment, and I agree with all your points 100%. I think our particular project would be impossible without an initial clearing though.

I just found your channel today. Welcome to NH, we live a bit southeast of Concord

I think overall you have good observation and interaction with the land, you care! Perspective and ultimate goals can play into certain realms of the conditions of that land. For pasture and domesticated animal keeping I agree that it appears the tractor has caused setbacks. For something like reforesting and re-wilding tho, pits and mounds serve a very important function of water, organic matter, and seed collection points. Also it diversifies the landscape for various critters on the small scale to start to establish which creates biodiversity. I've been witness to this over the last several years at my property where areas I disturb will now expose new life of native seed and flora banks that have been waiting to emerge. If a person has the space, try some disturbance here and there, and be patient, while also of course monitoring and maintaining invasives like bush honeysuckle - which can be a challenge! The number of wildflowers, baby trees, frogs, toads, dragonflies and birds have increased tenfold at my place from driving my tractor around digging and selective mowing. But its not in a haphazzard way, I pick and choose where swales, micro ponds, paths, etc might fit well to help slow and spread the water and also grant me easy access across the property. Certain areas get brushogged every 2 weeks (works fine for me as a finish mower) , certain areas every 2 years, certain areas never! Good luck on your journey friend, overall I do think a light, natural footprint is a great approach and ill likely sell my equipment one day in the future to pursue that path.

nicely formated video of your perspective.

I'm impressed with your knowledge.

Thank you for this video. Soon my family will be moving onto a 34 acre property. Most of the land has nice paddocks ready to go for cattle and sheep. Along the perimeter of the property though the terrain gets rough and has overgrown vegetation. I need to get the vegetation under control as the property is in a bush-fire prone area. I don't know what I'll do exactly yet but I suppose in the short term I will see what I can do with a ride-on mower. Long term it would be great to have goats but might take a while to get the fencing sorted out. What do you think a good short term solution might be? A ride-on mower with some sort of brush attachment?

Did they use a drum mulcher with tracks? Much finer mulch and much less soil disturbance. You get what you pay for..

I don't see brush hogging as a waste. The materials go back to the soil. Also, millions of people use tractors safely. Yes, they are powerful, but they can be used safely. Using goats requires intense labor. Most people have more money than time. Brush hogs will continue to sell. Goats are a niche for most folks.

They did a wonderful job that just needs to be finished. Tractors buy time,that simple. It still has to be farmed for grass,trees,food,space. That's why farms need farmers.

Really, the contractor can only be expected to do what he is contracted to do. Probably the owner was in a hurry to get the brush hogging done, and too cheap to pay for clean up, etc. So the contractor went in on wet land and left the scrap laying. Would you do the extra work for free? If so, then just do the extra work and quit whining.