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More likely just power hungry.

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DD1, think back 20+ years ago. Was the brush just as thick and dense as it is now back then? Turkeys don't like habitat that is as dense as your place is, they need to see and to be able to fly away from ground predators.


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I remember as a kid we had rabbits all over this part of kansas. Now there isnt hardly any around.


The people who say I can't do it can just sit the @^#% down and watch me. Friends call me Rusto I also subscribe to pond boss mag. http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=504716#Post504716
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How has the predator populations in your area changed over that time? We have a lot less quail, but a lot more hawks and owls on our place. Rabbit populations seem to cycle like normal here though, perhaps due to available thick cover.

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Scott, the brush was actually much thicker. I'm going to selectively clear some that has grown up from when I had it dozed. I can't see that the predator situation has changed. That means coyotes in my area. We still have hawks but not as many owls. No eagles in the area.

Pigs have clobbered the snakes. I rarely see a rabbit and there aren't as many squirrels. A shortage of tree rats doesn't bother me.

Before clearing I was butt deep in quail but can't figure out how/why they existed on the place. But quail decline has happened everywhere in Texas.


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Boy, if I say "sic em", you'd better look for something to bite. Sam Shelley Rancher and Farmer Muleshoe Texas 1892-1985 RIP
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Dave:

Wildlife love "edges". So by clearing land that creates many "edges" for them.

Instead of having a dozer come in is there a guy in the area that has a Fecon head on his skid steer? That chews up the brush and small trees into mulch. Let me see if I can find a picture or video to show you what I'm talking about.

I think the thicker brush is really cutting down the available area that the wildlife can utilize and still have a buffer sone away from predators. Think of a pond and having strategically placed brush piles and cover vs. weeds growing so thick that you have a hard time fishing in them over 90+% of the pond.

Here are 2 videos. The first one shows it going thru brush, the 2nd shows how it can chew up smaller trees. I have seen them large enough to take down and chew up 12" diameter trees. I know you have a lot of rocks and the operator will have to watch those, but it leaves a layer of mulch which will help things grow. Better for your area I think than using an dozer to push brush into piles and then having to deal with those piles.






There is an equipment rental place here where I can rent one, and I've used it to clear acres of brush and small trees (up to 6" dia. We don't have many rocks here and I was able to go about 2"-3" below the ground level to chew up the stumps and some roots. Throw on some high nitrogen fertilizer to help with decomposition, seed and there is the open area for wildlife.

Here's one last video.

Last edited by esshup; 01/20/20 11:57 AM.

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Scott, it will one old goat with a chain saw, JD tractor with FEL, and some firewood/brush piles. Might get help from Grandson and his buddy. I want to do selective stuff. Then come in and plant wheat in late October. I’m also going to plant wheat in the pasture in front of the house plus on the cleared power line area that I showed you. The other areas are just too rocky


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I’ll probably do some of it during our nice cool summer. Then plant in the Fall. Hoping the hogs don’t tear up the wheat areas too much. And, I am butt deep in hogs.


It's not about the fish. It's about the pond. Take care of the pond and the fish will be fine. PB subscriber since before it was in color.

Without a sense of urgency, Nothing ever gets done.

Boy, if I say "sic em", you'd better look for something to bite. Sam Shelley Rancher and Farmer Muleshoe Texas 1892-1985 RIP
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We tried the mulcher thing and it just pissed off the youpon and it comes back with avengance. Only good thing is that you can leave oak trees where a dozer would get the youpon but damage tree roots. Can’t till in seeds when using a hydro mulching machine

Dave the pigs were worse before the seeds sprouted but didn’t bother it after it came up

Last edited by Pat Williamson; 01/20/20 10:07 PM.
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Originally Posted By: Pat Williamson
We tried the mulcher thing and it just pissed off the youpon and it comes back with avengance. Only good thing is that you can leave oak trees where a dozer would get the youpon but damage tree roots. Can’t till in seeds when using a hydro mulching machine

Dave the pigs were worse before the seeds sprouted but didn’t bother it after it came up


Pat, you mean Ilex vomitoria? I googled youpon and got a result I wasn't looking for.........

Dave, you are supposed to get smarter as you get older. We have this ability to make tools to make our jobs easier and faster. Remember once you have heat stroke you are liable to get it easier next time.

Or you could do like George G. did. Get a herd of goats and let them go to town in an area.


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Heat stroke? I’ve had one and a case of heat exhaustion. Never again.

The heat exhaustion, the stage just before heat stroke happened about 3 years ago. In August I was loading rocks in my FEL to repair washed out roads. August and 103. I finished about 4:00 and came to the house. I sat outside and drank some water to cool down. Charlene made a pitcher of margaritas and, still outside, I drank 2 of them. Got up and headed to the front door. I fell twice, dead drunk, before I got to the front door. She helped me into the house and A/C. For about a month I was only good for 3 or 4 minutes in direct sunlight.

It actually lasted about 2 months before I could stand heat.


It's not about the fish. It's about the pond. Take care of the pond and the fish will be fine. PB subscriber since before it was in color.

Without a sense of urgency, Nothing ever gets done.

Boy, if I say "sic em", you'd better look for something to bite. Sam Shelley Rancher and Farmer Muleshoe Texas 1892-1985 RIP
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ESSHUP those machines are extremely nice and handy for woody undergrowth that has to go, it will mulchify the brush and leave it as a very beneficial ground cover to avoid erosion like would be much worse when clearing with a dozer. there are places for everything, places where a dozer is necessary but for just clearing brushy undergrowth the smaller machines are priceless, my preferred method is to clear strips with them, that way small animals and birds are always close to a thick protective cover but can venture from under it to feed.
We have a woody plant here local that they call a Russian Olive or Autumn Olive, but it goes by different names, the Government introduced it, why I will never know, but it is extremely invasive once it gets started and will pretty much choke out anything in its way once it finds a little opening to get started in. what used to be open land 20 yrs ago, if left unattended, cant even be accessed anymore by a human.


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I hired two guys that had a Bobcat mulcher to clear out a couple of areas to where I could build a wildlife food plots. I wanted five acres cleared. It took them a month to clear what I wanted. The bobcat was always having some type or other mechanical problem. I am sure they spent more than they made on this project. After watching all this I decided there is no way I would buy one of those to throw my money into one of those money disposal units.


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They are pricey setups.

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I rented one for a week a few years ago. $3,500.00 including delivery and pickup. It did blow a line and they came out and replaced it. It does like diesel fuel, I was feeding it roughly 5 gallons per hour. BUT, in that 40 hour stretch of run time I cleared 2 acres and about half of that was packed with 4"-6" trees so thick that you had a hard time walking between them. The carbide teeth on the mulcher were pretty well rounded over, and I think it would have gone a lot quicker if the teeth were newer. Took everything down about 2" below soil level so planting could be done in that area.

gehajake, we have Russian Olive here too, and the next year I basal sprayed all the volunteers with Garlon. I have an area at the back of my property that is getting overrun with it, and it will be basal sprayed this Spring because they and Japanese Honeysuckle are becoming a problem.

Last edited by esshup; 01/21/20 03:31 PM.

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esshup, the price sounds a little high to me. I can rent a 60+- hp excavator with a thumb and with a dozer type blade for around 4 to 5 thousand including delivery and pick up from bout 30 miles. Rental cost is for a couple of weeks as long as I don't go over 40 hrs per week. Then the price goes up. Using the thumb I can for the most part hand pick what tree or brush I want to move out. So I tend to leave any of the nicer of the small Oak trees when I go out to thin out an area. Its not that I use it for the same thing as what I want when using a mulcher but for the most part I like it better than I do the mulcher.

Last edited by TGW1; 01/25/20 06:58 AM.

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I used to quail hunt with my Dad from the mid 60's to late 70's. We had lots of Bobwhite quail, and never saw a coyote, and very seldom a deer. His last bird dog died somewhere in the early 1980's, and by then there were more deer around, and a few turkeys, and only a few quail.

He transitioned to deer and turkey hunting by the late 80's. Now there are way too many deer around, and hordes of coyotes that you hear every night. The deer have wasting disease. Lots of hawks too. There are still plenty of gray squirrels. Lots of wild hogs in some way out rural areas. We used to see a good many feral house cats, but it seems the coyotes have wiped them out. That's probably a good thing.

I have not heard a Bobwhite quail in probably four years.

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Tracy, you are probably right, but when it's the only rental place within 100 miles that has one, there's not much that could be done. It was a 50 mile, roughly 1 hour trip one way for delivery.

I could have rented a backhoe from them for a month for that price.

Here's their current rental inventory, no prices though.

Wakarusa Heavy Equipment


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