Winch on tractor forks

[Stroby]

OK, so here's the deal. I have a small pasture, about 4 acres that is VERY steep and has honey suckle, various brush and some cedar trees. All junk stuff but it has gotten so dense the cows don't travel there. I have cut what I can with a bobcat T-630 and a extreme tree cutter head but I have reached the point where it's too steep to navigate. Pondering buying a winch, mount it on my forks (temporary mount ) of my New Holland TL100A to pull what I can out of the ground. My thoughts are that I can then pull them up or down the hill to a safe place to gather them up and pile them to burn. Anyone tried this? Any thoughts?

 

[BarnyardEngineering]

Not sure why you'd bother with the winch when you've got a tractor. The winch is going to be slow spooling in and out, and they suck a LOT of battery, when you can just wrap a chain around the brush and pull with the tractor.

I'd be inclined to try one of these deals:

 

[joeysmith]

I would use chemicals to kill them or hand cut them.
If it's on a slope leaving the roots will help prevent erosion until the grass gets established

 

[DanielW]

If you're thinking of an electric winch, unless you get a really large and expensive one, they usually are very slow and have a pretty low duty cycle. It will work, but don't expect to be making fast progress. And your electrical connections need to be beefy enough to handle the high current it takes, but also detachable (otherwise they'll break when you raise the loader - unless you run the wires down the full length of the arms and along the pivot point).

Do you have a lot of other areas to pull brush from, or do you do any logging for your own purposes? A three point hitch skidding winch is one of the most useful attachments you can buy. Even if you don't do any logging, they're pretty invaluable. You won't believe how much use you'll have for one until you have it. They're faster than the electric ones, more powerful, easier to spool/unspool, PTO-powered, and they have a blade which digs into the ground to take the pulling load so you're not putting much/any load into your tractor's brake system. If you're interested, I'd check out the Krpan or Balfor ones. They're built just as good as the more popular Farmi, Wallenstein, or Fransguard ones, but much more reasonably priced. A 3.5 ton one would do everything you need with ease. We put off buying one for years. Now that we have one, if it ever broke down I'd probably go out and buy another within a week because we use it so much.

At our Northern farm we have oodles of hawthorns to pull; they seem to grow faster and more plentiful than dandelions. One 30 acre section of our pasture is particularly bad. We used to pull them with the tractor and a choker like Barnyard suggests, but you really need two people to make it efficient - otherwise you'll kill yourself getting on and off the tractor a bazillion times a day. And you really need a hydraulic shuttle, or you're going to burn out your clutch going forward and backward hundreds of times a day (maybe not so bad for only 4 acres). Using a three-point logging winch helped us significantly - you can stop the tractor in one spot and get everything within a 200' radius without having to move the tractor. One of the best methods for us was actually when we had a team of horses until a few years ago - using a short choker on the whippletree. No tractor to climb on and off, no controls to walk back and forth to, and once the horses were trained they'd go to the next hawthorn bush and get positioned on their own.

 

[Duner Wi]

OK, so here's the deal. I have a small pasture, about 4 acres that is VERY steep and has honey suckle, various brush and some cedar trees. All junk stuff but it has gotten so dense the cows don't travel there. I have cut what I can with a bobcat T-630 and a extreme tree cutter head but I have reached the point where it's too steep to navigate. Pondering buying a winch, mount it on my forks (temporary mount ) of my New Holland TL100A to pull what I can out of the ground. My thoughts are that I can then pull them up or down the hill to a safe place to gather them up and pile them to burn. Anyone tried this? Any thoughts?

Do you have a bucket on your loader.
If you do you can pull a lot with bucket curl and chains and cable.

 

[john in la]

With enough snatch blocks and a long enough cable you can pull a redwood down with a mini bike.

 

[Geo-TH,In]

OK, so here's the deal. I have a small pasture, about 4 acres that is VERY steep and has honey suckle, various brush and some cedar trees. All junk stuff but it has gotten so dense the cows don't travel there. I have cut what I can with a bobcat T-630 and a extreme tree cutter head but I have reached the point where it's too steep to navigate. Pondering buying a winch, mount it on my forks (temporary mount ) of my New Holland TL100A to pull what I can out of the ground. My thoughts are that I can then pull them up or down the hill to a safe place to gather them up and pile them to burn. Anyone tried this? Any thoughts?

I don't see any advantage of using a wench over using a long enough chain to keep the tractor on level ground.
It would be nice to have a second person driving the tractor and the other person in charge of the chain.
Been there done that.

 

[Janicholson]

Kill them with a brush killer, cut the stumps close, and reseed with? Jim

 

[Geo-TH,In]

Not sure why you'd bother with the winch when you've got a tractor. The winch is going to be slow spooling in and out, and they suck a LOT of battery, when you can just wrap a chain around the brush and pull with the tractor.

I'd be inclined to try one of these deals:
View attachment 97939

Where did you get this gismo? How small of saplings will this pull out of the ground without stripping the bark off and leaving the sapling behind?

 

[Watthour]

I would use chemicals to kill them or hand cut them.
If it's on a slope leaving the roots will help prevent erosion until the grass gets established

Except that the cattle may travel there, and presumably graze.

 

[RobCons]

If your working by yourself a remote controlled winch would be handy in saving you trips up and down the hill plus getting off the tractor constantly. Park the tractor, run the cable to a tree, pull it up, disconnect and reattach to the nearest tree. Repeat as neccesary without moving the tractor. I would probably mount the winch on a box blade but thats just me.

 

[joeysmith]

Except that the cattle may travel there, and presumably graze.

Follow manufacturers directions most all chemicals for brush are animal safe in less than 24 hours

 

[Steve in VA]

OK, so here's the deal. I have a small pasture, about 4 acres that is VERY steep and has honey suckle, various brush and some cedar trees. All junk stuff but it has gotten so dense the cows don't travel there. I have cut what I can with a bobcat T-630 and a extreme tree cutter head but I have reached the point where it's too steep to navigate. Pondering buying a winch, mount it on my forks (temporary mount ) of my New Holland TL100A to pull what I can out of the ground. My thoughts are that I can then pull them up or down the hill to a safe place to gather them up and pile them to burn. Anyone tried this? Any thoughts?

Just my 2 cents worth, but, I don't care to torque a loader. It's made to go up and down but won't tolerate any sideways stress. Added to that is the concern I have with loading above the center of gravity of the tractor.

I guess in summary, I side with BE and favor using the tractor draw bar and chains.

Just my view.

 

[Hayfarmer]

Where did you get this gismo? How small of saplings will this pull out of the ground without stripping the bark off and leaving the sapling behind?

Northern tool, I have one also but haven't really tried it. Looks like it would hook to smaller brush

 

[Mule Meat]

It's do`able. Be a lot of climbing up and down a hill to get a little work done. And it would be a slow process.

I would ask around about hiring a dozer to do the work. Depending on your location a lot of them may be out of work now that winter is here. A dozer could pile up a lot of brush in a days time.

Know anyone that owns a herd of brush eating goats?

 

[300jk]

It's do`able. Be a lot of climbing up and down a hill to get a little work done. And it would be a slow process.

I would ask around about hiring a dozer to do the work. Depending on your location a lot of them may be out of work now that winter is here. A dozer could pile up a lot of brush in a days time.

Know anyone that owns a herd of brush eating goats?

I agree with the dozer. I’m getting wore out just thinking about walking backs and forth if I had to work alone.

 

[Geo-TH,In]

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[matthies]

A small chainsaw and a quart of Tordon goes a long ways.

 

[Russ from MN]

I don't see any advantage of using a wench over using a long enough chain to keep the tractor on level ground.
It would be nice to have a second person driving the tractor and the other person in charge of the chain.
Been there done that.

I wish I had a picture of the wench that someone posted a few weeks back!!!

 

[caterpillar guy]

24D on them will kill them much faster than your metod and probably about as cheap by the time you figure in your time and fuel for the tractor. A 200 gallon tank will do a lot of ground using a wand you can spray from the seat without getting off. I spray fence rows during the summer this way with a 10 gallon tank. For what you want to do I would ad some Roundup to the 24D it will help with the kill and will be gone when the brush is dead. You would need to read the withhold time for pasturing after spraying. I think it is only a few days. With the sprayer mounted in the bucket or on the 3pt you could control the wand and pump easy.An electric pump will pump plenty for this job no need for a big centrifugal pump. where there is room you could also mount a boom on for a narrow strip spraying if you wanted with 3-5 nozzles to spray the width of the tractor on more open areas. The wand will spray brush 10-15 feet tall and with the wind right it will go a bit more. Cross bow is a brush killer you could also use on this job but is more money. A dozer will just make a big pile of dirt to have to level back out and if that steep will wash a lot before you can get it leveled out and sodded over.