Flail mower / brush hog...

[Travis]

Hello all...

What is the difference between a Flail mower and a Brush hog? Which would do best in old high grass with sticks and small thorn bushes? I currently own a 48" Land Pride brush hog (recent purchase) but I also have the opportunity to purchase a flail mower rather cheap. Just not sure which way to go here.

I have an early 80's Kubota B6100D 4X4, with a FEL.

Thank you all for your time and help!!

 

[philztoy]

The brush hog will work for sure. Probably gives a rougher end result. But my brush hogs seem to work well on just about everything and I have never sharpened or replaced a blade (but probably should).

Last fall I did a friends vacant lake front lot with a flail. The lot had tall lake grass and some small thorn bushes with 1 or 2" diameter sticks. The flail knives are probably old on my mower, but it took a couple passes or so over everything. It didn't do a good job with the bushes adn took even more passes on those.

I replaced all the knives with new ones so maybe that will help. Check out the blades on that flail mower if you buy it! Mine took 72 knives and they were 6 bucks a piece for the factory blades. I thought it was 6 bucks a pair and half way through replacing the lot I found out I was wrong! oops!! $400 worth of blades and that took a long time to replace them.

Flail mowers are supposed to do a neater job and they definetely vibrate less.

 

[Travis]

Wow... Thanks "Philztoy" for the advice! I definitely don't want to put money into something, on top of paying for it, just to do somewhat the same thing my brush hog will do. On the the other hand, the less vibration would be great too... Do you think my B6100D with claimed 12HP to the rear PTO would run a 5' flail mower?? I know I can run a 48" Land Pride brush hog, but sometimes the vibration is more than I want to deal with while working for hours around the property. Hey, thanks again!!

 

[sheepfarmer]

I was just talking to my dealer, wondering why my 3560 was only rated for a 60 " flail in my owners manual, and several people on the forum are running bigger ones on similar tractors, and he said the flails typically take a little more horsepower, and the rule of thumb was about 8 horsepower per foot of flail. My neighbor has a big JD b25 flail, 6 feet, on a 50 horse tractor.

I think the fudge factors are how deep the grass and how slow are you willing to go. But 12 hp might be a little short for a 5 ft flail. The max weight on the 3 pt hitch can also be a factor.