Bush-Hogging Bid - Your Input, Please

[Pecker]

Hey guys,

What would you charge for this? Bush-hogging/brush-hogging/rotary cutting. It is a 15 acre tract hay field that needs to be mowed before the hay starts growing so the crop will be more pure. Tall grass only, no woody stuff. . .pretty much the ideal property as far as wear and tear on equipment goes. In ideal conditions (not muddy, no extra heavy stuff to cut, no steep hills. . .just sitting on the tractor and mowing), what would you charge?

Also, its a one-time cut. I'd usually give a lower price if the work will be on-going but on one-timers I usually go a little higher.

Your thoughts, please on what you would charge and how you come up with your rates. Thanks!

[dwmason]

In Oklahoma, I would get somewhere around $400

[JB1]

I would be around $375. Didn't we just go through this the other day.

[lawn king]

How many hours will the job take you?

[8404]

I'm not wanting to bother anyone set on their state pricing but in the great red neck state of Mississippi I get 50 bucks an hour so you just need to know how fast can you mow each acre. I have a 15 acre lot with hills ditches and a large pond that i get paid 750.00 for and its usually overgrown when it gets cut.
so to be fare to yourself i would ask to cut it at an hourly rate you want then next year you will know. this helps on the event that you run over some unknown object and run into some repair cost too. next year you will be faster at cutting it and will end up makeing even more per hour since your farmilar with the property.

[Pecker]

I quoted $400-500 which I feel was a fair price. Turns out they were price-shopping me because he said the guy who cuts the hay may be able to do it afterall. Give me a break! Odds are he used me and others to figure out his hay guy's price was in line afterall. Win some, lose some. . .

[Heavyduty1]

I quoted $400-500 which I feel was a fair price. Turns out they were price-shopping me because he said the guy who cuts the hay may be able to do it afterall. Give me a break! Odds are he used me and others to figure out his hay guy's price was in line afterall. Win some, lose some. . .

Thats the way the bushhog business is sometimes. I had a local landscape company call me 3 differnt times for price quotes on jobs before I found out he was just seeing what he should charge. The LAST time he called I told him it would be $10,000 (really was a $2000 job) over the phone, no more calls from him.:laugh:

[8404]

Ive lost some bush-hog work due to a neighbor offering to cut the field for free so he could sell the hay as profit, how can you compete with free mowing?

[mbstump]

Hi everyone,first time poster here,I enjoy the site,very informative.I understand your problem of trying to compete with someone that will work for free,it just don't work.I have a problem with a fellow down the road that has lots of money and bought some used equipment just because he could,he isn't trying to make a living from it like I am,and he works for beer,I gave prices on 2 jobs a while back and the customers booked me,I set a date to do the work and the next day they both called and said they didn't need me because so and so stopped by with his machine and done the work and all he wanted was a couple beer.VERY frustrating:cry:

[Morningside]

I was paying $25 an acre. The quotes I got ranged from $25 to $35. No discount for volume. No nudging on price. It was expensive so this year we bought a JD 5075e. Now I am dealing lowballers or as I call them" people with no overhead " trying to get extra work to pay for the new machine. Set your price and stick to it.
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[8404]

Morningside, what size cutter did you buy for that John deere?

[Morningside]

Morningside, what size cutter did you buy for that John deere?

8 footer. I bought the MX-8 $5995 fits snuggle on the trailer.
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[8404]

How do you like the way you 5075e gears work, Ive been considering getting one but the tractor i have now has the shuttle shift forward and reverse and the 5075e doesn't offer shuttle shift so Ive been holding off and looking at other brands. I would love to se a picture of you tractor if you got any.

[Morningside]

How do you like the way you 5075e gears work, Ive been considering getting one but the tractor i have now has the shuttle shift forward and reverse and the 5075e doesn't offer shuttle shift so Ive been holding off and looking at other brands. I would love to se a picture of you tractor if you got any.

Its got three gear ranges with three gears each. I only use two or three gears most of the time. Works great. Pics in my phone trying to upload to site.
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[Morningside]

jd 5075e new

[8404]

now thats cool, are you going to widen the tires out some or leave it 6 foot wide?

[skennedy04]

Down here we charge $15.00 per acre if it's easy mowing and not over grown to much and with a lot of obstacles .....trees etc.Price goes up from there.
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[WPS85]

If I get a call for Bush-Hog work I'll go out to look at it first and I'll give a free estimate if local. . I like to look at it before I haul equipment out because they never can explain the "lay of the land." . (etc, ponds, ditches, hillside and how tall the weeds/brush is). . And you never know if the area has a swampy place. .You'll find out the hard way.:laugh:

If I charge by the hour, It's $60 an hour and I charge $60 for a "show up fee".

If the area is 5 acres and under, I do it on contract. . I'll look at the area and tell them a price and still charge a show up fee.

[Mark Oomkes]

Down here we charge $15.00 per acre if it's easy mowing and not over grown to much and with a lot of obstacles .....trees etc.Price goes up from there.
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Hack

Lowballer

PS If you need some help, I finally stepped up into the real world of brush hogging\field mowing.

[skennedy04]

Thanks Mark .....:hammerhead::hammerhead:

[Kreios]

I have an apt. complex that I mow that has a 1 acre empty lot that the owner bought so nobody could build on it. I bushhogg it 5 times a year for $235 a cut. Takes longer to get rigged up than to do the job. But easy money.
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[Heavyduty1]

Hack

Lowballer

PS If you need some help, I finally stepped up into the real world of brush hogging\field mowing.

Depends on what your doing and what eq your using. If your cutting a couple ac at $15 an ac, yes a hack but if your mowing many ac using a 15ft batwing at 5 miles an hour=:usflag:

[Mark Oomkes]

Thanks Mark .....:hammerhead::hammerhead:

Anytime, anytime.

You've been sort of quiet lately. Not much plowing to do down there?

Depends on what your doing and what eq your using. If your cutting a couple ac at $15 an ac, yes a hack but if your mowing many ac using a 15ft batwing at 5 miles an hour=:usflag:

Oh, trust me, he's a hack. lol

[skennedy04]

Not much plowing down here of late........lol,smallest I do down here is 4 acres which is next door to a 125 acre farm I mow once a month.How's things going up there ????
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[White Gardens]

As a farm boy, it's hard to beat low prices on bush hogging as you guys call it.

Farmer just know other farmers or even the rural folk with small spreads usually know a farmer or someone with the equipment.

Everyone helps everyone else out, so it's not really a business when you think about it. It's just something that needs to be done.

I've got one client that i do the landscaping for and her husband has tons of equipment lying around. Every time he gets the chance to help someone out, he's on it.

Most farmers don't have a lot to do in the middle of the summer. :laugh:


....

[lawn king]

That job would go for $500. here in massachusetts.

[skennedy04]

49 acres yesterday = $735.00 good day out I would say.
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[FoghornLeghorn]

17 acres-$1000

[skennedy04]

$59.00 per acre no way you could get anywhere near that here.
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[Mark Oomkes]

$59.00 per acre no way you could get anywhere near that here.
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That's cuz you're a hack.

[skennedy04]

I must be !!!!!
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[skennedy04]

Wish o could get that kind of money per acre I would only work one day a week and just go fishing the rest of the time!!!
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[Mark Oomkes]

Wish o could get that kind of money per acre I would only work one day a week and just go fishing the rest of the time!!!
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I thought you were getting rich off your snow and ice management division down there?

[skennedy04]

The snow and ice management isn't as lucrative as I thought it would be down here...lol!!!!!
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[Mark Oomkes]

Well according to the resident tree huggers here at LS, I'll be in the same position as you inside of a year or so.

[skennedy04]

Well according to the resident tree huggers here at LS, I'll be in the same position as you inside of a year or so.

If you listened to to much on here it would make you want to neck yourself !!!

[FoghornLeghorn]

$59.00 per acre no way you could get anywhere near that here.
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Well, Valley Crest charges $1200 for bush hogging a 3 acre retention pond here. We just bush hogged and string trimmed half an acre for $450. You just have to find people with money who care about you having liability insurance. Otherwise, some meth addict borrowing his brother's cousin's in law's tractor will do a $450 job for $50.

The thing people don't understand is this, "yes, it costs $100 in diesel to cut your however many acres, so yes, I COULD just charge you $250 for the job and make money." But what happens when you hit a pile of buried re-bar under 4 feet of grass and have to spend $2000 on a new PTO clutch, or you bend a $130 set of blades and have to spend half a day driving back home to grinder cut the twisted rebar away from the axle of your bush-hog?

Too many guys screw themselves trying to just get work without looking at the hidden and underlying costs of doing that work...

[Hogjaw]

$65 an hour

[samjdmosher]

$60/hr with a discount given if I don't hit anything or get stuck in your crappy swamp that you forgot to tell me about.
Back a few years when housing was just starting to peter out in the suburbs I paid for my rig in a summer and made a little extra mowing developments that were overgrown. I learned quick to charge by the hour with all those obstacles and piles of unknown garbage in the way. It also helps when people figure out that if they have it cut more than once every other month it takes less than 1/2 the time and actually costs less overall.

1977 Case 1370 with a 15' John Deere rough cut bat-wing mower

[lawn king]

49 acres yesterday = $735.00 good day out I would say.
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I would get $1500. for that here!

[OrangeToys]

im getting about $75/hr right now to brush hog