Sure. I’ve come in after logging operations and mulched up the slash and ground the stumps flush with soil surface. This size skid-steer forestry mulcher will mulch an 8”-diameter hardwood, which can be 20’-30’ tall, completely top-to-bottom in about 2-minutes. So that’s about as efficient as it gets. If you have larger diameter trees, then other equipment would make processing them more efficient.

I found mulching to be a very satisfying business to be in- provides a huge service to customers by transforming their land, never had a bad customer, worked outside in the woods, and running your own show was always nice. Best of luck with your business!

The knives definitely cut faster, and can get through a little bigger material than carbides. The cost per hour to run knives is pretty close to carbides too, almost insignificant difference. Where I’m at in Tennessee, where it’s a little rockier, I preferred the carbides for durability. Also, I didn’t like sharpening before each days work. But I found that the knives were in the order of 15-20% more productive time wise compared to carbides. So that’s a significant difference if you a quoting a fixed price on jobs. For my business, I gave estimates and then worked by the hour. I was typically within +/-10% of my estimate, it reduced risk for both me and my customers.

It’s a small world, brother😂

I did forestry mulching exclusively for 10 years until I recently retired-retired. It was a good business for me in many different ways. No complaints.

Sure, we can get together to talk forestry mulching anytime. My farm is in Woodlawn. text 757.871.5026

Glad you found it helpful. It's the second biggest operating cost in this business, after fuel.

That whole area you live in in God’s country, brother. As you probably know, there’s no easy way to clear or do big maintenance on a big piece of land. It sounds like you have good equipment to get work done, though. A heavy duty grapple on your Kubota would be extremely useful, too. I don’t know what your plans are with your land, but I turned 30 acres of crappy forest into a pasture. I first had a logger come in and clear cut it, and take everything they wanted. The money from that helped partially buy my equipment- Bobcat, mulcher, grapple, tooth bucket. I picked up all of the tree slash with the grapple, piled it, burned it. Ground down several hundred stumps, and random stuff with the mulcher. I then rented a big dozer to level the ground and push out big stumps. Then seeded it is pasture mix. Having a logger buy some trees on 209 acres might get you the money to buy a mulcher or equipment you need.

You bet! Thanks for watching and your comment.

Been a while for sure. Trying to get my videos out in other languages right now to spread the love, and looking at doing some new content more business-operator related.

Did you see this one? After I jabber for a minute, the action starts. Gives me goose bumps watching it😂What is Forestry Mulching? kzbin.info/www/bejne/j2S4aZ5nh9eejJo

Guessing a lot of laborers and contractors might be Spanish speakers so this might be useful to them.

Exactly. There’s a whole bunch of people out there who might be interested in this information who are not English speakers.

I determined it is a good move to publish this information for the 442 million Spanish speaking people in the world who might be interested in it. I’m also brain-storming on some new videos geared towards the mulching business operator.

Exactly! Let the head do its work. Don’t force it and bog the drum to a stop. Keep the drum RPM’s up while slowly lowering the boom. This video was made to show the design limits of how this specific machine, with this specific mulcher head, was designed to work as a minimum. Every skid-steer and every make of mulcher head combination must be “tuned” so the mulcher drum is spinning at its optimal design speed RPM to cut efficiently. This Fecon BH74 drum RPM is supposed to be 1900+/-100 RPM to be at optimum.

We’ll then, today is your lucky day! 😂 If your interested in the forestry mulching business, I hope you check out some of my other videos, and read though the comment sections for some good info.

Well , I’m publishing my existing videos into some other languages right now to expand the reach of this info. But, no, I definitely like the Fecon BH74 mulcher better than the Bobcat head. The Fecon is engineered very robust and is indestructible.

You bet! That’s for watching.

That’s awesome! Thanks for watching. This video on cutter teeth costs is very important since it’s the second biggest operating cost, after fuel. I also have two other videos on calculating Owner Cost and one on calculating Operating Cost per hour. These two videos are imperative to watch/learn before starting in this business. They will help you make a good Go/NoGo business decision before proceeding any further. Also, check out my channel for a video titled “Things to Know for a Forestry Mulching Business”.

You bet! Check out Part 2 of this video called Calculating Operating Cost. Calculating your Owning-Operating Cost per hour is the first step in this new business process.

Traction mats are an EXCELLENT idea! Wish I thought of that.

This size skidsteer, with 92 HP, is designed to much everything in the 6"-8" diameter range. If you want to mulch bigger trees, then find the machine designed for it. Resouces available are normally the driver on selection.

Don't be THAT guy.

I sell blank copies of my Owning-Operating Cost spreadsheet for $25. Venmo, PayPal. If interested, email me at [email protected]

It's very satisfying running this machine. Instant satifaction at the end of the day when you see what you did.

You could if its worth the time spent doing it.

Rough numbers, prices vary by region and model years: $93K- T770 w/ forestry protection package $35K- Fecon BH74 mulcher head $10K- 17,000 lb GVWR trailer $56K- Ram 3500 diesel

Ram 3500. Turbo diesel. AISIN transmission. 3.73 rear.

Everyday in a machine should be a learning experience, but it's much better to learn from others if you can. Ugly things can happen very quickly.

HAHA! You have exellent attention to detail to spot my watch! I also have a Breitling. I'm a little bit of a watch geek.

First machine was also a T770. I trade them in when the maintenance warranty expires. Just how I do things.

I did forestry mulching exclusively for 10 years using Bobcat T770's. I retired-retired in Dec 2023. Personally, I think Bobcat makes the best mulching protection package for a skidsteer-class machine. Drums take a lot of work to puch that drum through material, so I would get as much HP as you can afford. The T770 has 92 HP, and I limited myself to tree in the 6"-8" diameter range and it did great.

@ thxs

This machine ran fine with this mulcher, no issues. Only time hydraulics would get hot is when the AIRFLOW was inhibited through the engine deck screen by leaf/mulch debris or the cooling radiators were densly covered by fine debris/dust. Also, if the operator is constantly bogging down the drum to a stop over 15-30 minutes, this restricts the oil flow through the radiator coolers. Dull teeth also cause the operator to bog the drum.

Yes, that would also work. Always just have to be creative and have a Plan B, C.....

I want a lot of things.

I run these carbides until they just won’t cut anymore. It also wears the steel block out that holds the carbide, so it’s just more time/cost efficient to replace the cutter tool with a new one. Cost of doing business.

Hey Chris- The bolts get torgued to 300-350 ft-lbs on my Fecon BH74 mulcher. Not exactly sure about your head, but the ole "guten-tight" can also work, might just check it after 10 hours of running to make sure it hasn't loosened. That's cool you were a -60 crewchief! I was a Blackhawk pilot. Also a UH-1 crewchief before that. So I get ya.

Thanks, I really appreciate that. I retired-retired in Dec 2023, but I'm still out working on my farm now.

I appreciate that!

Not sure what you mean by chemicals. But this area was grown over for many years. Trees, tall brush, etc. way too big to bush-hog. This forestry mulching process took 1:20 minutes to clear. Doesn’t get any more time or cost efficient than that.

The CDL issue has been clarified a thousand times in these comments.

Charging by the hour reduces the risk of under-estimating a job when you can not see all of the area to be cleared. Also, my customers found this to be very fair. I never lost money on a job, and all of my customers were very happy.

@@clevingerforestservicesllc1164 so you charge per hour with no other fee and still make out a good profit thats crazy no delivery fees dump fees etc

Yes. And after 9 years of working in the woods forestry mulching, I would highly recommend all of the forestry protection kit items- polycarbonate windshield (basically bullet-proof), FOPS, and all of the material covers to keep debris out of engine compartment.

Yes, that would be nice.

Thanks, Tyler. Glad the info was helpful.

Thanks, Mac!

Forestry mulching can really make an unbelievable visual improvement, as well as usefulness, to people’s land. Thanks for watching and your comment. Appreciate that!

I made these videos primarily for customers to see what is possible with forestry mulching, and since KZbin is owned by Google, my videos got a lot of hits when customers searched for brush clearing. So that achieved that goal. Other than that, videos took a lot of time to make and edit, and I had a business to run and family to give my time to. Making money from KZbin videos was not cost effective for me.

My Dec 2023 Owning-Operating Cost per hour was $111 (excluding the operator wage, since I was the operator) I would update my O&O Cost spreadsheet at the end of every year in January when I was prepping for taxes and had all of the actual costs compiled.