[Sierrajeff]

Looking to see what others are paying to have someone brush-hog a field. (I know often you can find someone to do it for free in exchange for the hay, but right now our field has a lot of junk in it so apparently no one wants the hay.)

We talked with one guy who wanted $65 an hour and said our 4 to 5 acre field (moderate hillside, not steep but not flat) would take 10 hours. That seems pretty outrageous - but maybe it's our expectations that were outrageous.

Any feedback welcome!

[vter]

We just paid $200 to have our 1.5-2 acre field (not sure of exact dimensions but ballpark) mowed/brush hogged (like your field...lots of junk..not totally hay). The field is sloped, but slightly. Took him a little over 2 hours. They have to go real slow while brush hogging as to not ruin the equipment.

[joe moving]

I recently paid $100 for 1 acre slightly sloping. He said it wasn't really $100 worth of work but that was his minimum charge to unload and load the tractor.

[Sierrajeff]

Thanks. Found a neighbor who will do it for "a couple hundred" - from your feedback, sounds like even if that rounds up to $300, that's a fair price for our meadow.

[Sierrajeff]

A further update (in case someone is searching the forum and wants data points on brush-hogging costs) - found another neighbor who will do it for $100 plus keeping the hay; plus he wants to spread manure on the field in the fall so as to improve the hay quality next year (which we're certainly fine with!).

[ArtsVT2015]

I have several acres that are overgrown with berry bushes, weeds, and very small trees. Is this the kind of field a brush hog would clean up? Or do they only want to mow fields of hay?

[Sierrajeff]

Originally Posted by ArtsVT2015

I have several acres that are overgrown with berry bushes, weeds, and very small trees. Is this the kind of field a brush hog would clean up? Or do they only want to mow fields of hay?

Brush hogging is what you want - at a minimum. Sounds like you wouldn't have much good hay at present to entice someone to cut it. You may need to brush hog it for a couple years before it starts to be suitable for hay. (I say that as someone in the same boat.)

How big are your "small trees"? Up to about an inch in diameter a brush hogger might be able to tackle (it depends on the saplings' height too). More than that, you'll probably need to take out the trees manually, first, before the brush hogger can get in there. That's what we had to do; we had black locust saplings all over, and once they got more than pinky thick the hay mower can't hack it (pun intended). So the hay guy stopped mowing, which just let the saplings grow bigger still - and then above about thumb thick / one inch, even the brush hogger can start to have problems.

[suz1023]

Have you any neighbors with goats? Portable fencing and a herd of goats will do the job and be fun to watch while they're chomping it all down.