What can a 4' bush hog handle?

Bcamos

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Nov 1, 2016
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I searched this a lot and didn't really find any definitive information. So today I figured it out for myself. I hope this is helpful for someone out there.

I set the deck to be about 5" from the ground and just used my discretion to figure out when I needed to lift it higher to give it a break.

The lot was severely neglected and about 2.5 acres. This took me about 3 hours to complete. There's a downed tree that I need to remove and the smaller batch or trees will come down easy, I just ran out of time for the day.


Started out as this.



And ended as this



It doesn't look like it in the photos, but that's not just tall grass. It's mostly thorn bushes and small sapling trees. Some small pines too.

Largest trees were maybe 2" in diameter. Anything bigger got cut with the axe and the "stump" would get ground down by the cutter. Anything that I could easily push down with the bucket was turned into pulp by the hog. I had to take it slow and sometimes make a second pass but most of this cleared out fairly easily. The dense wet grass bogged the tractor more than any sapling/wood did. The blades are in the same shape now as before the job and no damage to the cutter deck except for this odd exit hole here


Pretty impressive. Whatever caused that went through 3/16" steel. I'll hammer it back down and probably hit it with paint. Otherwise, my little B series didn't do too bad and the payment for today covers my first tractor payment :)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Last edited:

TripleR

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Looks pretty darn good. That's sure a lot more than I would want to tackle with my 4' cutter.
 

Bcamos

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Looks pretty darn good. That's sure a lot more than I would want to tackle with my 4' cutter.
I told myself that I'd stop if I felt uncomfortable or if I felt the tractor was struggling. Not a single part of it made me feel that way. The saplings pushed down with ease and most didn't offer more than a single "thump" when the blades first engaged them. Now there were some actual logs hidden under the brush that made it sound like rocks in a washing machine, but a lift of the 3pt usually fixed that issue.

I found a way to ease some of my anxiety of finding a hidden engine block or anything crazy and that was to float my bucket about 3-4" off the ground. Anything big enough to catch the bucket was big enough for me to hop off and investigate. It also ended up grabbing some of those hidden logs I mentioned and I was able to just push them out of the way.
 

TripleR

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I have no doubt the machine could handle it, I couldn't. Man they are NOISY in those saplings and 4' doesn't cover much.

I've done similar work with an old Ford and 5' cutter, but I was oh so much younger then.
 

Bcamos

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I have no doubt the machine could handle it, I couldn't. Man they are NOISY in those saplings and 4' doesn't cover much.

I've done similar work with an old Ford and 5' cutter, but I was oh so much younger then.
Ah! Yeah, I turn 27 in a few days, so I've got some learning to do still haha.

The ear pro I use for shooting (Howard Leight electronic muffs) has an input jack. So I can listen to music and the mic's on the ear muffs will let me know if anything crazy is going on around me.
 

OldeEnglish

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I've wacked down some pretty gnarly stuff with my old woods 4' hog behind the old b7100. This past summer my father in law was clearing an old pasture that has been overgrown with 30 year old briers, most were over 6' tall. The 7100 only has 13 hp on the PTO (I think) so we would generally only take half width cuts. That worked out well because it ended up double cutting it. That old girl didn't skip a beat.

Last year I was cutting down maple saplings that were a good 1" to 1 1/2" thick with it. So with a tractor with more HP I wouldn't doubt it could make quick work out of cleaning up the old pastures. My blades are shot on the hog so I would bet it would go smoother with some sharp blades.
 

Bcamos

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I believe I'm around 17HP at PTO and I was still making half or 3/4 cuts on most passes.
 

85Hokie

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There is nothing like hitting that hidden large stick or piece of log, and the mini explosions that sound off.......and the pieces that fly out up under, towards THE BACK of your head!"

I thought I was a turtle sitting in the seat - hunched down as if I had a shell on my back!:D
 

sdk1968

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nice input! this is exactly the kind of clearing ive got to do & have been talking to the guys here about putting a 4' behind my 7200...

good to know it will be just fine!

& great pix!
 

kckndrgn

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The 4' hog can do its fair share. Running my BX with a 4' I did this.

The first picture I'm about to cut through a blackberry patch (glad I had on bluejeans but needed a long sleeved shirt - OUCH).
second pic is what I had to go through to get to the blackberries, last pick is what the in process hogging looked like.

Slow and steady and it cut just fine. Only had one OH SH!T moment when I "found" an old metal bucket with the hog. No damage but it sure made a racket (and I wear hearing protection while operating the tractor).
 

Attachments

Southern Yankee

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What hit you? It looks like a bullet hole, especially that high up.

I had to look it up but I am using a 60” (4’) Land Pride RCR1860 with a slip clutch. As we have previously discussed, I have taken on brush and dead sumac twice that high and got away with it. I agree that 2” is about the limit unless you knock it over with the FEL. Looks good, thanks for the pics. You’re having fun with that orange tractor aren’t you?

Richard
 

PHPaul

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Please pardon me if I'm belaboring the obvious, but it ain't the width of the cutter that counts, it's the quality.

I ran a Woods M5 "Dixie Cutter" behind a JD750 for years, and cleared some NASTY lots with it. Wore it plumb out, replaced it with a Landpride RCR1860. Both medium-to-heavy duty cutters that handle anything I throw at them.

Neighbor has a 5 foot cheapie (Busy Bee or something like that) MUCH lighter all around behind a 40-ish HP Branson and has beat that thing to death on much lighter cutting than I have done.

As an aside, I get told by the "old pros" that there's no way I can run a 5' hog behind "that little tractor", and I need "5 HP per foot of cut".

Could've fooled me...
 

sdk1968

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As an aside, I get told by the "old pros" that there's no way I can run a 5' hog behind "that little tractor", and I need "5 HP per foot of cut".

Could've fooled me...

^^^ this is what all the farmers around me have said ... which is why ive been asking so many questions on a 4' hog on my 7200.

glad to hear thats not just a regional thing to my area. THANKS!
 

Bcamos

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What hit you? It looks like a bullet hole, especially that high up.

I had to look it up but I am using a 60” (4’) Land Pride RCR1860 with a slip clutch. As we have previously discussed, I have taken on brush and dead sumac twice that high and got away with it. I agree that 2” is about the limit unless you knock it over with the FEL. Looks good, thanks for the pics. You’re having fun with that orange tractor aren’t you?

Richard
No clue. I was also thinking it looked like a bullet exit. If you look, there's a small dent to the left of the hole where it looks like the same thing tried to get out but didn't push through. There's no way a stick made that hole. But nothing made a loud enough bang for me to assume something had ruptured the side of my cutter. Nothing's missing from the mechanical side of the cutter so it wasn't a bolt that got loose.

Also, this is a cheapie J-BAR that came with my tractor when I bought it.
 

OldeEnglish

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No clue. I was also thinking it looked like a bullet exit. If you look, there's a small dent to the left of the hole where it looks like the same thing tried to get out but didn't push through. There's no way a stick made that hole. But nothing made a loud enough bang for me to assume something had ruptured the side of my cutter. Nothing's missing from the mechanical side of the cutter so it wasn't a bolt that got loose.

Also, this is a cheapie J-BAR that came with my tractor when I bought it.

Must have been a stone, steel isn't what it used to be. New steel today is cheap Chinese junk forged from scrap. My old woods m4 has been used and abused hard, I bought it second or third hand for $200. That hog has been stored outside all it's life in the snow, welded back together, and the steel is still strong as could be for it's age. Like PH Paul said, a cheapo will probably not hold up like a quality HD hog.