Low flow Forestry Mulcher for CTL

[Ventryjr]

Does anyone have any experience with skid steer low (standard) flow hydraulic forestry mulchers?  Are they worth the money or just stick with a rotary  brush hog.  It would be for personal/ hobby business use.  No big lots or commercial work. Just maybe some saturdays in someone's back yard. I already have an auger and brush hog.  I have a kubota svl75-2 75hp track skid steer.  It doesn't have high flow hydraulics.  Thanks in advance. 

[sprucebunny]

I can't say for sure.... I have no experience.... but i'm guessing that similar to snowblowers, the ones that work the best have two engines. So I don't think a 75hp machine is going to be very effective and if you manage to go slow enough to put the hp all to the mulcher, it will take all day to churn up a garden. 
But I'm just trying to use logic.... and I hope someone will say I'm wrong.

[YellowHammer]

I run the 97 hp Kubota and a Disk Mulcher and it is like bomb going off, I can cut down trees as big as telephone poles and make them vaporize into a cloud of chips.  Here is a video of mine.  

  
You have a 75 Hp "normal Flow" but you can get a smaller unit matched to your flow rate.  There is zero comparison between a disk mulcher and a bush hog, this row of trees in the video destroyed my bush hog, bent the blades unto uselessness, but I finished this quarter mile of trees in a couple hours. Since then I've done other places, this thing is nothing but bad to the bone.  Incidentally, some people actually prefer the smaller 4 foot flywheel disks because they are more maneuverable. 

If you get a drum Mulcher, you will need an aux cooler, and they are very hard on a CTL.  

[trimguy]

I have no experience with either mulcher, but out of curiosity, why is the drum mulched so much harder on a CTL than the disc mulcher ?

[mike dee]

I have no experience with either mulcher, but out of curiosity, why is the drum mulched so much harder on a CTL than the disc mulcher ?

I've used hi flow drum mulchers on 100+HP machines and have tried a lower flow unit on an SVL90. I personally wouldn't bother with the low flow because the recovery times take too long meaning your operating costs skyrocket as you are paying to keep your machine running but are unable to do useful work while the head is recovering.

The drum mulchers severely abuse your machines. The mulcher will easily fire logs or rocks into your undercarriage like being fired from a cannon. You also generate a lot of heat and your machine is subjected to an extreme dust and wood fluff/chips debris operating environment that will clog all your screens very quickly. I hope your machine has auto-reversing cooling fans.

My experience is that it's cheaper to rent a late model 100+HP machine with hi flow and drum mulcher than to buy a mulcher due to the high maintenance and wear and tear costs.  I want wood debris cleaned up and mulched. Let the rental company deal with maintenance and breakdowns. You WILL have breakdowns $$$$.

Trying to save a little money on the mulching equipment is like trying to saw wood only using dull blades and installing them backwards.

[Ben Hartwell]

I have no experience with either mulcher, but out of curiosity, why is the drum mulched so much harder on a CTL than the disc mulcher ?

Drum mulchers are harder on a CTL due to higher hydraulic power demands and heavier weight. They use a grinding action for finer mulch but require slower passes, putting more strain on the machine. Disc mulchers are lighter, use slicing action, and work faster, making them more efficient for larger areas.

[trimguy]

Thanks Ben, and welcome to the forum.

[YellowHammer]

Drum munchers usually need a "Top Hat" auxiliary cooler because they are so much harder on the CTL.  It was one main reason I bought a big carbide rotary cutter because they have huge double layered 4 foot diameter steel disks acts that serve as a huge flywheel and deliver the incredible energy to the trees, and also absorbs much of the impact so the CTL doesn't have to.   

I do not recommend routine cutting the lawn with rotary cutters on CTL's as if they are not perfectly balanced, (I balanced mine) they will shake and vibrate and will wear the pins out.  On the plus side, unless you go into the business full time, it's so fast, you won't use it enough to damage the CTL.

For all out destroying stuff a tractor mounted bush hog won't cut or can't reach, nothing beats a true Mulcher, either rotary or disk.  If I was you, I would call up a dealer about the low flow, the going thing in rotary disks is to drop down in size to a 4 footer, it's more precise for "urban" work and if like my excavator Mulcher, can be sized to your machine'e flow rate.  Yes, I like these things so much, I bought one for my excavator and it is small, but "tuned" to it's low boom flow rate, only about 12 gpm, but incredibly destructive to anything it touches.  Make no mistake, these are bushhogs or flail mowers x 10. 

For example, my son in law's Dad had several acres of the nastiest small tress, up to 10" diameter, impenetrable buck brush, briers, just a disaster, and was so thick it was hard to walk in.  He and his neighbor had been using a small 40 hp tractor bushhog with FEL and they had been struggling for a couple summers on weekends to clean it up.  The trees were too big for the tractor to push over, too close to effectively bush hog  between, and a horrible mess to run a chainsaw.  I volunteered to "help" with the beast, trailered the rig down there, and I asked him which trees he wanted left when I was done?  He said get as many as I could, and I said no, he didn't understand, I could cut the telephone pole down he was standing next to, no problem, so which trees did he want to save, because I could take them ALL down?"

My SIL said he'd never hear his dad cuss so much during the day!  He said he would watch as I would track up to a wad of trees, his Dad would say "No way he can get them!" and then say "Holy ##***!!" as the trees would vaporize in a cloud of chips and debris.

Anyway, by dark I was heading home, the place had been cleared to the dirt, and he told me I saved him three years of weekends of work, in one day.  They mow the acreage with a lawn mower now, it's that clean.  Yeah these things are bad to the bone.

   

[KWood255]

I've never operated a mulcher attachment before, but as others have already mentioned I suspect it would be pushing most skid steers/CTL's to the limits with the ability to keep the hydraulic system from overheating.

Just this week I hired a local company with a dedicated 100hp Lamtrack type machine to clear and mulch about 4 acres of 5-7" black poplar that were about 30' high, and clumps of willows near the same size. In 2.5 days it was all done, and looks about perfect for what I wanted. I hope to get them back in the spring for another 1-2 days to tackle more of the same area. My intention is to turn some unused land into more eventual pasture ground for my cows. This area held so much moisture that my skidders and little dozer would just make a mess, and take months to accomplish what the mulcher did in days.

I don't have any "before" pics handy, but I could see 20' into this area last week. Not it's essentially unobstructed for 100+ yards in any direction.