We need a bush hog, never had one before. Any recommendations? Would be used to keep down brush and tall weeds on trails at our land.

After fighting with John Deere over their China/Spain produced gearboxes, I would look at Woods.

One thing I learned is that you MUST loosen up the clutch, slip it and re-tighten the clutch properly or you might break the gearbox shaft. This has to be done when it sits over the winter, and if I don't use it for 2 months I will do it again just to be safe. Spending over $1,000 in parts to replace the gearbox isn't my idea of annual maintenance.

Frank,
I own a Howse model 606 6' shredder. Bought new in 2014. Most sturdy implement I ever owned. That rascal weighs right at 900#. If I can lay it over with the bucket on the FEL of my tractor, whatever it is, is splinters. I use it from mowing to land clearing applications. It's a bad boy and I love it. Good luck.
Charlie

I hope the knee cap heals up soon.

My industrial strength Bush Hog brand bush mower has preformed flawlessly for 25 years. And I have beat it to death.

If you get a three point brushcutter, I prefer one that has a stump jumper.

I like to purchase my equipment from the closest dealers with the best service departments. Just like all farm equipment breakdowns are not if, just when. With that said, I have had a John Deere 2005 MX7 Rotary Mower for 11 seasons and the only work I have had to perform is adding grease.

Anthropic,
If you are just maintaining trails, I recommend the DR Field and Brush mower. I have an old one I bought used and it is a beast. Highly maneuverable and not nearly as costly as a tractor and bush hog. My rough area mowing would be very difficult with a tractor due to steep banks and obstacles.

Frank hope the knee gets better
I also have a howse 6' shredder and its like Charlie says solid and tough . Normangee Tractor has them and I don't think anybody can beat their price

We have a Rhino. We use it for some commercial bush hogging as well so we got their heaviest duty one. It's an 8' cutter and weighs 2,000 lbs. I don't see how it could be any better!

I bought a Howse new about 14 years ago. I've used it with four different tractors. I've been pretty tough on it, finding things like grub hoes, backing over rolls of sheep fencing, hitting 4-inch angle iron, etc. Other than sharpening it and keeping it well lubricated I've never had any issues with it.

John..this is a DR tow-behind mower?

I was looking for something I could pull behind an ATV.

As you stated I would like to just maintain a few trails.

I assume you have not had a lot of breakdowns/repairs?

Bush Hog and Rhino both make a good product. What size tractor? The larger the tractor, the better the cutter you need. It is pretty hard to tear up one with a 30 HP tractor, but put the same light duty behind a 70-100hp and you can tear it up FAST.

My D-R is a self propelled walk behind model about 18 yrs old. I bought it used summer of 15. I had to replace one belt this summer after a lot of use, and it appeared to be many many years old. No other breakdowns. I cleared a totally overgrown fence row area last year with this machine, and a chain saw, and have used it to maintain since. There are a lot of trees to mow around. Plus, it is also used to maintain the back of my pond bank, which is too steep for a tractor to be totally safe. You can get a brand new 26" cut one like it for about $2,000. The tow behind model is more powerful, and is 44" cut for about $3,200. After several more mowings, and getting some stumps out, the area I cleared will be maintainable with a finish mower, or hay mower, thanks to the D-R. It goes through 3 foot johnson grass, tall weeds, and small sprouts like a lawn mower goes over a well maintained lawn.

Thanks John....it would be sweet if I could find one "gently used" on Craisglist....I am going to keep an eye out.

Craigslist is where I found my D-R, about 30 miles from here. I think it had been sitting in an elderly man's garage for several years, and he took it to a shop to be gone through and put in decent order, then sold on consignment. It has a 10.5 hp manual start, so it takes a strong pull to start it. Most of the new ones are electric start. I got mine for 1k even.

John is yours like this one?

https://collegestation.craigslist.org/grd/5742200907.html

Yes, but my D-R is an older model than that one. That one looks better than mine, but it's missing the heavy rubber deflector that hangs down in back. You could make one out of a mud flap.

I'm a big DR fan! I was lucky enough to pick this up used for $500 a few years ago and it a BEAST! There's very little it won't obliterate (up to 2" diam) and I use mine a lot!

This is the one I have, and I believe it's a '97 model and although I lost reverse early on, I've only replaced the belt and it gets used and abused!



Last weekend I wanted to clear a new path and the DR was certainly up to the task.




By the way, it won't stop it's forward motion unless you stop it! If it comes up to a big tree it will start climbing it so be careful! I love this thing!!!

i bought a jd 3038e back in december. i got an mx5 brush cutter with it and so far i am satisfied totally. i did add hydraulic top and tilt a few weeks ago. if any of you have been considering top and tilt, do it! it makes everything so much easier. especially when bush hogging. just set the height with the 3pt hitch and then put the top link in float mode. the cutter follows the terrain and doesn't do all of that bouncing and banging. the wheel never leaves the ground.

I bought a Bad Boy 5 ft bush hog for my 40hp Kioti, the thing is a beast, it is advertised to cut up to 2.5 inch saplings but can easily handle up to 3 without slipping the clutch. If you are looking for a PTO one then I would definitely recommend a slip clutch

You have already been given some good advice. I'll add what I can.

Slip clutch or shear pin - it depends.

If you have a tractor on the mower that is on the bigger side for the size of the mower then a slip clutch will prevent a lot of frustration of replacing shear pins. But as has been said, for the slip clutch to work it needs to be loosened up, slipped, and re torqued to make sure it does not "freeze up". This should be done at minimum at the beginning of each mowing season. If it freezes up, you have no protection for the drive line or the gear box. We have three 15' flex wing mowers that all have slip clutches on each of the three gearboxes that have blades attached. We mow road ditches around our farm fields so they are no stranger to hitting dirt and who knows what. Those mowers work the best on 100-125 hp tractors. At one time I did not have any tractors in that range and instead used 160 hp tractors. The problem with having a tractor that is larger than the mower needs to do its job is that you can get in heavy grass or hit the dirt and before the tractor starts to grunt letting you know you are loading the mower too heavy there will be smoke rolling from one of the slip clutches. Slip one for about 15 seconds and the torque bolts/nut will need to be adjusted. If it is not, the clutch will slip to easily the next time. Slip it excessive about three or four times and you need to put new friction disks in the clutch assembly. I have found if we do not put too big of tractor on the mowers, the engine will lug down before the clutch slips making for a lot happier operator and less down time. They will still slip if one rotor hits something too solid, but the operator has warning by the engine pulling down.

Big mowers doing heavy duty work need slip clutches. Small mowers doing heavy duty work (clearing trees, etc.) need slip clutches.

Having said all that, my 5' JD mower on my play toy JD3038E has a shear pin and I would not have it any other way. I think the mower has either a 40 or 50hp rated gear box. The tractor is 38 engine and probably around 36 pto hp. I have never sheared a pin. As long as the tractor is sized a little lower than what the mower gearbox and drive line is maximum designed for the shear pin system has the advantage of not having to worry about freeing up the slip clutch every season. If I had a 50 hp tractor on this mower, I would likely want a slip clutch because when I hit something tough I would be shearing pins and be unhappy. But with the size tractor I have, even if I hit the dirt or get in super heavy fescue it just pulls the engine down rather than shearing the pin. A 50 hp tractor would shear the pin.

So for average consumer type mowing with a mower that is rated a little heavier that what the tractor power is I like a shear pin system just fine. On the other hand a slip clutch would also be fine if the tractor was of rated power less than the gearbox and driveline, because even if it froze up the tractor likely could not damage the drive line or gear box. A slip clutch or shear pin is as much for protecting the drive shaft as it is the gear box.

One thing that makes the slip clutches so poor and such short life if slipped is that they are made of the same stuff the new vehicle brakes are made of. In other words "not asbestos". Just like the brakes on new vehicles suck compared to the old days (that is all that black dust on the wheels) it is the same for the material in the slip clutches. It is just not as good as it used to be and freezes up worse than it used to.

Keeping the mower in a shed and out of the rain helps keep the slip clutch from freezing up but "helps" is the key word, not prevent. Left out in the elements they will freeze up worse.

That is what I think I know. But sometimes I'm mistaken. We have rebuilt a lot of slip clutches over the years.

One other thing.

Our older mowers are of the older design type with all the structural reinforcement above the deck. The last two mowers are of the more modern design where the structural members are either below the deck or part of the formed skin in a dual skin type arrangement.

I'm not sure but what the older design is not at least as sturdy if not more. With structure underneath it can become bent if hitting big nasty stuff.

But............ I really like the clean top deck design. So much easier to blow the grass and junk off and clean the mower up. If a person takes the time to blow the debris off and not let it become a wet nasty mess, either design is fine. If the mower sits outside all the time water and grass mat up, form acid, and eat all the paint off and eventually rust everything. If you keep the mower in a shed or clean it off after each use (compressed air wand) not a big deal. But the newer deck design is much easier to clean off and if it does rain even if not cleaned off the water sheds off. So the newer deck design (clear of any bracing on top) tends to keep the mower looking new a lot longer. Of course if a person is really good about cleaning his equipment after each use, not so much difference.

Lots of brand names are good. We own Rhino, Great Plains, John Deere and have owned Sidewinder and Bush Hog. They all are fine as well as other brands I suspect. Sold Sidewinder mowers for about 6 years, a lifetime ago when I owned an equipment dealership.

If you are going with a 3pt hitch mower, some sort of flexible upper link is a plus. If the upper link of the 3pt is rigid, as the rear wheel moves up and down over terrain it has to lift the entire mower. If there is flexibility in the upper link, either through the tractor top link or the linkage going back to the mower, the rear wheel can follow ground contour and the lower links of the 3pt will keep the front of the mower at the proper level.

If you are planning on using a quick hitch attachment system, be advised that not all mowers will work properly with one. Without going into detail, the flexible upper link needs to be part of the mower hitch mechanism if you are going to use a quick hitch. I've had to do some modifications to various machines but finally have everything I use on my 3038E quick hitch friendly. Makes hookup a lot easier. The easier it is to change implements, the more likely you are to change them for small jobs. Or at least that is the way it works for me.

snrub, so that's why the upper attachment on the JD 72" brush hog is hinged! Thanks.

JD4720 with a JD 72" brush hog w/stump jumper. Kept inside all the time, and after fighting with JD to get them to replace a bent gearbox shaft before it was 6 months old, and having to replace a gearbox because I broke the shaft one Spring by hitting a stump, I learned that even though loosing/slipping/re-tightening and gapping the clutch is a PITA, it's less of a PITA than replacing the shafts in the gearbox. It's also a bit cheaper too.......

If anyone is looking for a good mower that pulls behind your ATV I have a Swisher Rough Cut that has a 14.5 HP motor that will basically go through almost anything. Here is a like to a YouTube video and mine works the same.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35DPo6WCQR4

Snrub, your play toy is probably more in line with what many here call a tractor.

I've got a rusty, unidentifiable, very heavy rotary cutter that I inherited with the property. Don't know who made it, but I've killed the engine on the 50 horse Ford while using it. Many times. No slip clutch, never sheared a pin, no damage. That thing is tough.

Snrub, I only have a shear pin brush hog, and my experience with it is exactly how you are portraying it. I have really liked it over the years. I am going to need a new one someday soon (it is a Woods mower that is about 45 years old), and I have always wondered if the slip clutch would be better. However after reading your experience with them I am leaning toward sticking with the shear pin. Sounds like the slip clutch is actually a lot of maintenance. I can jump of the tractor throw a new pin in and be working again within 5 to 10 minutes. How hard or how much time does it take to change the friction discs, and how much cost is that to pins?

i have a 3038e also with a quick hitch. the hydraulic top link makes it a totally different machine. i have never heard of a flexible toplink. i have heard of people using a chain instead of toplink, but there have been deaths because of it. the cutter has nothing to hold it down and supposedly can fly up and kill the operator.

Some of the mowers have the top link flexibility in a U shaped bracket that is attached to the mower top link frame where it can pivot and the top link attaches to this. They work fine but will not hook up to a quick hitch. The ones that work with a quick hitch have the flexibility built in behind the A frame where the top link attaches, or in this case the upper attachment point for the quick hitch.

As I recall, on the Frontier (sold by Deere) 5' mower I have the flexible upper A frame was an attachment and did not come standard on the mower. It was part of a package that made the mower quick hitch compatible.

Oh, one other thing. A chain guard on the rear of the mower (usually an option) will reduce the hazard of the mower throwing projectiles that tend to break windshields or other important things. Some mowers offer them as an option for both front and rear. I have a chain guard on the rear (removed the back baffle plate to install it) but the front has a belting type shield to keep debris from being thrown up by the operator. The front shield was standard but the rear chain guard was an option.