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Anybody got any leads on a reputable forestry mulching contractor who's pricing is at least average? Seems the only folks who can get to a job in a reasonable amount of time are charging upwards of 175 dollars/hour or more. At this point, that may be our only option; so don't be afraid to mention your contact if that's the case. I appreciate any info you've got.

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Austin

what part of the state?

I'm aware of a few but none that charge much, if any, less than that. That type of work is rough on equipment.

The jobsite is in the Ackerman, MS area, so east-central MS.

For the size job it is, the difference between $150 (seems to be the average) and $175 can make a huge difference, with all else equal, such as the skill and efficiency of the operator. $150 and $200/hour is substantial.

I found 1 guy charging $70- yes, $70 per hour. Suffice to say he's drowning in work; who knows if his profits are suffering the same fate.

An immediate family member used to do mulching on the side for a guy; said guy has enough money that he bought one for the hell of it. It was a brand new Terex unit, and after 6 months of operations, he promptly said, "**** this ****" and sold it!

I found a contractor for $80/ hour. We'll see how this goes...

I'm replying a little late but I insure quite a few. Know even more than I insure. The price you pay is usually the quality of work you get. Just because its cheaper by the hour doesn't mean it wont take more hours. Old busted equipment, lots of breaks, arriving late/leaving early, etc. That said, if they use CAT machines, tell them you want them to stop twice a day and blow them off and clean them up. Those machines are very prone to burning up. And once it starts it smokes the wiring harness rendering it unmovable. Your trees are next.

TJ Pennick (duckBum on here) owns Land Rite LLC. in the $140/h area.
(601) two five nine-5060

Like all other types of equipment rental..............size matters.
If the $80/hr guy only has a 2 ft shredder head on a trackhoe................your not getting much for your money.
If you find a guy with a 4 or 6 ft on a serious skid steer...........he can eat up 8" and less trees in a hurry.
Most are going to charge you a day minimum price but they can make it fly in a day.

To be more specific, I just had a contractor work 8 hours on a new place I bought. $200/hr which is top end of the market any way you slice it. When I saw the volume and quality of the work he accomplished, I wrote the check without blinking even though it was a little more that I'd told him I wanted to spend. This is a bigger Bobcat machine with the rotary disk cutter, not a drum mulcher. Both have their place, drum mulcher seems to leave a little cleaner (mowable) result but the rotary machine is a beast. Trees up to 6" diameter just disappear, but you need to leave him alone while he's working because it'll chunk debris 100 yards.

I'm sure the size of the contract affects his hourly rates just like anybody else.

I used to have one of these and do it on the side (hence the USED TO) It depends on ALOT of things on how fast he can go. The machine obviously is the most important. A good machine will make it go quicker than an old one, and in this business a machine with close the 2k hours is busted and needs replacing. The type of vegetation is also key to speed and cleanliness. Obviously hardwoods take longer than pine, even if it's sapling size its still a harder wood. Vines are a bitch, they will make a mulcher man angry. I could do some jobs and do close to an acre per hour and others took me 8 hours per acre. If you are looking to take down more substantial trees/saplings inside a more open forest canopy where a trackhoe can walk around, you would be better to get a big mulcher on the end of a trackhoe, if it's more shooting lanes or CRP/WRP clearing or going through pine plantations to reduce the competition, the skid steer mulcher is the way to go.

I used to do some pine plantations because the landowners did not want to burn, the location made them susceptible to liabilities from the smoke, so in place of prescribed burning, I went down the rows and chopped it up and it looked good.

I used to charge $150/hr and had more work to do than I could get to, but it was a side business and it was taking all my time away from my family so I sold it. But I still want one

Rock the flock out dude. I forgot, you're the guy who no one can tell anything. Sounds to me you know more than anyone about the business. Surprised you don't have a machine and a head and doing your own work. I wans just giving advise so when Mr. $80/hr doesn't blow his machine out and burns your place to $#!+ and doesn't have anything to cover the damage, you're not left with a smoldering pile of trees. You can call CNN all you want to, but I don't know what you're trying to clean up and you can't get blood from a turnip.

Benny 2.0, good luck.

As pointed out here, there can be a wide range in operator efficiency and equipment ability. In the last forestry mulching job I was involved with I asked for per acre prices to level the playing field. This was for a bigger job, closer to 2 weeks and not a 1-3 day job. The vendor's would rather do the work by the hour and were reluctant to give a price by the acre. When I asked them how you can make a "apples to apples" comparison between operators and machines they understood where I was coming from. This particular job was not a complex job. It was reclaiming some fields where there were some pines and sweet gums that needed to go.

Just a FYI on the per acre prices of one of the very big mulchers (log skidder size and size appropriate mulching head), it came out to right at $450/acre on a job I heard about.