Brush Cutters

Hey all. Looking for something that does a good job of maintaining fence rows and ditches and stuff.

Needs to handle brush, like 2 inch or so. Do the flail mowers hold up to this? Been doing a lot of looking, some say they handle 2 inch brush and have hammer flails and grass flails. But the 3 minute video only shows mowing ditch grass. How exciting.

I want something built decent, don’t mind paying some extra for durability.

MUST tow offset to the tractor, brush hog type or belly mower won’t do. Doesn’t have to be real wide as long as it sticks out offset.

Just looking for suggestions hopefully something you have a few good years experience with.

Those offset rotary cutters are very hard on the back end of the tractor from the twist they impart. We've seen two busted off requiring rear housing replacement on the tractor(s). I would seriously look at a "Batwing" style mower myself. They can be had and operated with only one wing attached, or operated depending on how it's set up. 

A "good" batwing mower will really have no problems. Woods, Rhino, Schultz, and a couple others, (names escape me) build very robust units. They are heavy, and cost a lot, but you get what you pay for in these. Woods is one they sell and they really give little problems if kept up on maintenance meaning greased pto shafts, spindles, and universal joints, along with the gearbox lubricant maintained. I've seen these ordered with a six foot wing on one side, and a four foot wing on the other, and a wing on one side and a blanking plate on the other also.


Edited by Codger - 09 Aug 2023 at 8:09pm

I mow with a 15’ woods it has one wing and is offset to the right the left edge is between the rear tire tracks and the right edge sticks out 8’ past the right tire. It will mow 3 to 4” Russian olive. 2” anything is easy.  The swinging blades are just shy of 3/4” thick. I can mow 10’ tall cattails in one pass. You do need a large tractor.  CIH 8910 works the best at 170 horse it works great. When I,be down sized to 130 horse 1086 I need to slow considerably or cut it twice.

Just for reference, I currently use either the biggest or second biggest DR Field and Brush mower they make. Not a “trimmer”, the walk behind brush hog. It’s rated for 3 inch diameter and it’ll do it. The thing is an amazing beast. The diameter rating basically boils down if you can lean it over it’ll cut it.

I only have 1 complaint about the DR. There is basically no offset or at least very little between the edge of the deck and your hands. So if you’re walking close to the fence, the whole point of it, and the left wheel goes into a hole or the right wheel goes over a bump it throws your left hand and arm into the fence. With barb wire that kinda hurts. To complicate things, your left hand is what is on the operator presence switch and the wheel drive clutch. The clutch works “backwards” so to speak, you squeeze it to go. So it happens from time to time if your hand goes into the fence just right, it traps your hand and you can’t let go so it keeps driving into the fence escalating the issue rather quickly. The only option at that point is to reach over and turn the switch off with your right hand. Which I’ve gotten pretty fast at!

The current method is mow sort of close to both sides of the fence with the DR. Then I use a weed whacker with a steel grass blade , then pruners and chainsaw to get the stuff that’s a little bigger or weaved into the fence or really close to posts or whatever. I figure whatever I buy to run with a tractor is still going to require a trip on foot to clean up. It also seems it wouldn’t take much of a tractor implement to equal my DR. I don’t want to cut very wide, often one side of the fence is a hay or crop field. If I make this trimming trip annually, there’s not going to be much big stuff.

I pull a Swisher 4ft rough cut mower behind my ATV. Has a double jointed swinging tongue to offset for fence rows. There is a guard in front of the tires to push the mower over when it runs in to fence posts. You’d still have to follow up with a string trimmer depending on how clean you want it to be. I go along the edge of a corn field with it also. I’ve had it some 10 years or so and it has never given me trouble short of replacing a belt now and then

Tbone95 wrote: I’ve thought and designed in my head a way to move the handle bars and controls over to the right some. Looks reasonably doable. Just takes the precious commodity of time.

We used to use an old gravely 30" walk behind, with a sulky, on the fences,  but then there's that whole squarshed nuts thing...

I don't mow fence rows but I can see that being a problem first time it snaps off a soft post and wraps the fencing up in the tractor or operator.

plummerscarin wrote: Well it might be fine all you're doing is cutting tall grass.

NOT just cutting grass! Autumn Olives, vines, box elder saplings, whatever else pops up. Lots of grass, but not only grass.

DiyDave wrote: This just popped up in my YT feed... https://youtu.be/qmeCNvQ8f5Q

That looks pretty good!