Skidsteer forestry mower attachments

[Dan F]

We may be needing to purchase a forestry mower attachment in the near future. We do not own a skidsteer yet, but if these will work with a Bobcat T300, then that is what we are leaning towards. We don't want a dedicated forestry mower, just an attachment.

Have any of you used these attachments? If so, what were your likes/dislikes about them, not accounting the price. I see advantages to both.....

http://www.timberax.com
and
http://www.fecon.com/bullhog/skid.asp

Thanks!!

Dan

 

[BruceL]

I have sold and run all types of mowers, and find the bushog style are less maintenance, cut faster and will do as good a job as the flail type you mentioned. The best mower for the buck is the Davco. You will need high flow to run it and have too watch where you are aiming because it will throw stuff a long ways.

 

[treeman82]

Get in touch with Yellowdog. He knows all about this stuff.

 

[Dan F]

I'll get in touch with Yellowdog.

Neither mower was a flail type. The TimberAx has fixed knives, the Bullhog has fixed "hammers" similiar to a stump grinder.

Thanks so far!


Dan

 

[BruceL]

I realize they are not flail type, just used that term to describe the way they turn. Watched the Timber ax on an ASV R100 dull the knives in less than an hour with a careful operator. Have seen the Fecon on both the ASV and a Tackeuchi track. Both lack the horsepower to get any production. John Brown makes the Brontasaurus and add a 120 hp powerpack on the back of an excavator to make it work.

 

[kcmack022]

Well I haven't had any experience with the Brushhog or the timberax, but I own both a Brushbuster from Quick Attach and a Tree Shears from them and they work great for regular use. They are located in my state so I didn't have to pay shipping, but the price is reasonable and the quality is excellent. http://www.buyattachmentsdirect.com

 

[SWI Don]

Another option might be.

http://www.brownbearcorp.com/Brush%20Cutting.htm

They are local to me.

My little bro is looking at getting a tracked bobcat and a tree shredder for some clearing work.

Don

 

[Curbside]

I have a T-300 Highflow with a Fecon cutting head. It works pretty good. Of course would always like more power and I have thought of making a dedicated power pack for the mower but it does work quite well. I was always impatient with it as it recharged it's RPM on bigger wood but then I watched the big boys with their Gyro-Tracks and saw that they also had to be patient on the bigger wood and let it recharge as well.

Hammer replacement is easy on the Fecon although they seem awfully expensive. It's frustrating that I can't buy the carbides and fix the broken carbides myself. (At least I have not yet been able to find a supplier.) The carbides seem to break a little to easy and the hammer still seems to be in good condition.

The machine is awsome in 3-5 inch material. Larger stuff you just have to work your way through.

 

[Curbside]

If you do buy a T-300 make sure you get a highflow and the newer K series as it has a 37gpm at 3300 psi. If you don't have highflow I think you would be wasting your time with a forestry mower. Also don't go smaller than the T-300. The mower is heavy and you need the weight of the machine to handle the mower.

 

[Totally Stumped]

I've used the Timber Axe, FAE and the Tushogg, as well as, a few rotary mowers and a 20" shear on my hi flow A220 with mixed results. You can make a pretty big mess with any of these attachments. Don't believe the brochures-none of them is going to give you playing card size chips. If you want chips, buy a grapple and carry the stuff to a chipper or, better yeat, burn it.

What are you trying to do? Do you want to clean up slash and grind stumps? Get the Tushogg or Fecon. Are you clearing small diameter brush? Get the Davco or an FAE. It all depends on what kind of look you are trying to achieve.

You can't beat a dozer for clearing ability so I modeled my operation on what the dozer guys do. My 20" hydraulic shear and grapple give me a similar capability to a small dozer with a shear blade and a rake. Shear it, grapple it into burn piles, then go back over the property with a rotary mower to clean up the flags and other little stuff.

Mulchers can do a good job with repeated passes to reduce the stuff but they are painfully slow compared to a D6 or JD650 with a shear blade and rake. Also, these little machines tend to overheat when pushed hard in the woods.

A mulcher will run you $20-25k new and the T-300 with enclosed cab, A/C and high flow is going to be another $48-50k. Throw in another truck, trailer and a toolbox full of spare parts and its easy to blow $85-100k on a skid steer/mulcher head combo with some real limited capabilites. How bad you need to mulch this stuff?

BTW, Yellow Dog taught me everything I know...

 

[WRTC]

I recently joined the site, and have a Davco 6740 for sale, as well as a Dymax 14" Double Grapple Forestry Shear. Both fit on skid steer type machines. Our web site is www.thewatershedcenter.com if you want to check us out.
give me a call if your interested. i am working to get a post on the equipment for sale forum...

Alex Cousins
The Watershed Research and Training Center
530-628-4206

 

[CUCV]

I have a Hydra-Tach brushcutter style mower for my JD 250 high flow. It works great for me and is designed to cut a 4" tree. On the timberax site it has a photo section, In the bobcat and JD section, my brushcutter would fly through that stuff shown in those photos.
Anything bigger than the 4" stuff I would pull out the chainsaw.
A friend of mine runs a Meri Crusher on his tractor. It does everything, brush, stumps and pavement but is very slow. http://www.hud-son.com/crusher.htm

 

[JohnH]

We run fecon, FAE, and rayco which is FAE and have run Loftness mowers. By far the the best mower we run is the Fecon. I find they are the easiest to work on and are bullet proof. The teeth are the easiest to change.We run them on skidsteers 4810 ASv,Rayco cl85,Gehl 7810 I think and excavators 318 320 cats.

 

[brett1again]

What is going to work Best?

Hope someone can help, I am timbering and clearing about 150 acres in central MO and need some direction on what kind of machinery is going to work best. The timbering will be done by someone else but I am going to be left with hundreds of small to large OAK stumps that I need to get rid of in order to plant some food plots. I have read about and looked at almost all of the mulch heads like, FAE, FECON, MAGNUM, and Tushogg and although I think these units may do fine clearing the tree tops and debris, I am wondering if I will have any success grinding large stumps down with them? I am trying to avoid bringing in a bull dozer and tearing up the land removing and burning stumps. I am hoping that there is a product out there that I can put on a PTO tractor or a skid steer and clear the ground enough to plant some clover? Any and all advice or help is greatly appreciated as I am very new to forestry and don't want to waste money on something that won't work.

 

[hammerlogging]

Brett1, I would leave the stumps high (3' plus). Try and work around them, and if doesn't work for your feedplots, you can still get a dozer or excavator to dig them out, or maybe just some of them. You could paint the tops brightly so they can be seen if there will be brush mowing going in down the line. I don't thnk you're going to want to grind hundreds of oak stumps just for some feed plots. I wouldn't worry about the soil disturbance, seems awful, but you're about to seed it, it'll be ok as long as its not steep.

 

[Curbside]

Brett1

Talk to someone with a large horsepower self propelled stump grinder. You can grind a lot of stumps in a hour especially if your only worried about taking them a few inches below surface. This way you don't have to worried about torn up property and you don't have a mountain of root balls to take care of.

 

[Totally Stumped]

Hey Brett,

Go back and read my earlier post. A skid steer on 150 acres is just pissing in the wind. What ya gonna do, rent it? Good luck. Rentals on this stuff are higher than a cat's back and you will have damage no matter how careful you are so be sure to tack that on the bill. Gonna buy it outright? Let's see, $60k for the high flow skid steer, add a brush kit, spare parts, trailer, fuel tank, tools and another $25k for the mulching head. Sounds great. You're all set up to knock out 1-3 acres per day in perfect conditions.

There are so many contractors out there hanging on by a thread, seems like you could get 3-4 competitive quotes and make an informed decision.

Why is everyone so opposed to burning? Why does everyone want to spend $150-300/hour to mulch the stuff when you can rake it up and burn it for much less? Get a dozer with a shear and a rake and be done with it. A good operator will not tear your place up, can pop those stumps out and you will be suprised how quickly it rebounds on its own.

Or forget what I just wrote, go buy $100k worth of light duty equipment and fiddle around on your land for the next six months.

 

[DENISCIMAFsouth]

Two different issues here.

For clearing the 150 acres job there are two options. If you require grinding the stump below grade then you would be best served to have a stump grinder come in and work them. It would be faster and a tracked stump grinder would be very efficient. Then a mulcher can make quick work of the remainer and be efficient at it's job. And I agree for your first timber job there are plenty of mulchers that would like the job and you can watch and see what direction you would like to go. Hey you may be able to fill a void by being able to do both.
Now for a mulcher in general the brands mentioned earlier are good units. But they are beating the wood to death. I can put one of our high flow units on and out produce a carbide hammer anyday. Also while leaving a nice small chip size with a rough cut forward pass and one backdrag.
Tractors are your choice. Whoever you can get service out of and what you prefer. I can tune our head to them all.

 

[pork69]

Equip

I am located in Northern California looking for a flail mower atatchment for a asv 4500 with high flow, thinking fecon t-300 or something compared to this machine, used. I can arrange for shipping but would prefer something close by. This seems to be the best bet through my research, any suggestions would be appreciated........Go 9ers:hmm3grin2orange:

 

[pork69]

T300

I have a T-300 Highflow with a Fecon cutting head. It works pretty good. Of course would always like more power and I have thought of making a dedicated power pack for the mower but it does work quite well. I was always impatient with it as it recharged it's RPM on bigger wood but then I watched the big boys with their Gyro-Tracks and saw that they also had to be patient on the bigger wood and let it recharge as well.

Hammer replacement is easy on the Fecon although they seem awfully expensive. It's frustrating that I can't buy the carbides and fix the broken carbides myself. (At least I have not yet been able to find a supplier.) The carbides seem to break a little to easy and the hammer still seems to be in good condition.

The machine is awsome in 3-5 inch material. Larger stuff you just have to work your way through.

was looking for one of these used