Photo from RhinoAg
What is a Batwing Bush Hog?
In short, 3 bush hog mowers in a single unit, driven by one PTO shaft, sharing a hydraulic system. The RhinoAg 4125 is a top of the line brush eating beast.
What Does a Batwing Bush Hog (Rotary Cutter) Cost?
As with most things that depends on size, construction, country of origin, and capacity. Batwing bush hogs generally range from 12′ up to 30′! Thirty feet is huge for massive fields. A 12′ brush hog is much more practical for the average small to medium acreage and land clearing jobs encountered in the Ocala and Gainsville Florida area. The batwing bush hog used by BHS is capable of mowing over 4″ saplings or small trees. This is a unique piece of equipment which gives us capabilities our bush hogging competitors do not offer.
New prices range from $12,000 to $30,000. Decent used rotary cutters are hard to find since they are needed and quite an investment.
12′ Batwing Bush Hog
How Much Do Batwing Bush Hogs Increase Productivity?
The obvious answer is 100% but that is actually incorrect. Going from a 6′ rotary cutter to a 12′ batwing bush hog seems like it would cut your mowing time in half. In fact, it saves more than half the time for several reasons you may not realize.
For each pass you need about 1′ of overlap. This means a 6′ cutter, cuts 5′ and a 12′ bush hog cuts 11′. The 1′ savings from 12′ batwing bush hogs add up on bigger jobs.
If a job requires 100 passes, at 10-minutes per pass, a 6′ bush hog, can mow 500′ in 1,000 minutes. If you use 12′ batwing bush hogs, you cut 11′ per pass for 1,100′ in the same time. Th 6′ brush mower will require ad addition 100 minutes. This means the batwing mower is about 110% more efficient.
Additional savings is found in speed in two areas. When cutting along the edges of fields with a 6′ cutter the tractor must go slower because of branches hitting the tractor. A batwing has standoff distance. A wing can go further under the branches enabling the tractor to travel faster. With a tree eating RhinoAG 4125 with a 4″ cut capacity, it can avoid going around smaller trees and just run them over.
When cutting country dirt roads, batwing bush hogs can often cut the entire road in a single pass, instead of three passes from a 6′ bush hog. On large road maintenance projects, this can save a lot of time and money.
RhinoAg 4125 Bush Hog First Impressions
This 12′ batwing bush hog is a heavy duty, well constructed land clearing implement.
Video Transcription
All right So. I’m back We have successfully I…connected the a rhino 4125 to the tractor And this was last night when it was delivered. I then went out and did about…probably two hours worth of cutting about 45 minutes with light And then I cut in the dark. Since I was doing some stuff I was super familiar with So. very early impressions are that.
you know, I’m super excited It’s it’s really kind of gives me the ability to run over almost anything that I, I think is reasonable. they cut with is kind of a game changer. in some situations I can cut both sides of the road at the same time you know? If the train is right or the road with this Right And I’m comfortable with what’s on either side of the, of the road…
The cut quality is much better than I thought it was going to be. And I’m really surprised And you know obviously it’s got brand new blades on it. So things are really sharp but you know, the triple deck. Configuration. Allows one side to tilt up So if there’s uneven terrain under one wing that the rest is still doing what it needs to do which is helpful.
On country dirt roads Cause you know there, they kind of go high on the sides down up in the middle down and then up again. And it kind of floats across those. Even in places where the dirt was high. It was just leveling the dirt. Which was kind of nice too.
taking some of the high spots out of the dirt it would just basically chug right through it. I’ve got a Massey Massey Ferguson 47 0 7 62 horsepower at the PTO. And, only in a situation where I had maybe two or three blades in the dirt. Did it actually starts to sound like it was slowing down. Other than that it just chugged right through everything that I ran over.
Getting it connected was a bit of a challenge. You know it’s got the slip collar on there It’s heavy The shaft is. for obvious reasons. And the pin configuration was a little bit. you know the the pin I had for my tractor didn’t fit through the the hole on the hitch on the rhino It was actually too big.
So I had to go find another pin who replaced that. unfortunately the young man that came out here to help me set it up. I hadn’t set one up for a while and he put the drive shaft on first. Or the PTO shaft on first and then try to put the pin in. Couldn’t get the pin in So then we had to struggle to get the drive shaft off or the PTO shaft off again.
And do it So get it connected to your trailer hitch and then the PTO shaft. As far as the rest of it goes you know set up. You know getting the weights. which are here, not the weights. The spacers that really determine how high or low the deck’s going to go.
That was relatively an easy process.
that’s just. You know the more you have the less. It’ll go down towards the ground. Oh the wings popping up was kind of new and interesting having seen you know experienced that for the first time, it does tend to dump everything on the wings into the middle. So you create more of a mess in the middle and the more you got to move the wings up and down without cleaning them.
The. I’m going to flip you guys around. Hang on…
So these are the spacers that are used. That’s a, I believe it’s a travel. Lock. these are travel walks here. Lock into place.
One thing that the. the guy told me was. When they’re locked up and you go to unlock them to let them down after transport make sure that you wiggle the PTO to make sure that there’s a hydraulic pressure on them. If you could somehow get that loose without hydraulic pressure it would fall to the ground. So that was a good safety tip.
this has got the top of the line tires on it…
Obviously they are not. to go flat. Got a little tread on there for traction on hillsides which I don’t do. Not a big deal. It’s got a Jack stand that comes with it.
A little concerned about that handle Getting Denton ripped off. The other thing back here you know I got the lower lift arms and…the quick attach that they tend to get in the way a little bit when you were trying to really turn around or to make a hard turn. Got to keep an eye on the hydraulic hoses make sure that they’re not getting caught. On those or you don’t turn in the Mo maybe the mowers. Ms up higher than usual.
potentially run into those. On the back of my tractor I just got a mess I got a lot of things going on here. Really what I need to do is just take this off. You know right now it’s just kind of hung up They’re not really doing anything. And getting it out of the way.
I’ve got some other lines that go to the front. Of the tractor for the front cutter. But
this comes in and actually. This is the…
I don’t know I don’t remember if it stood. The deck height. Or. It must be the duck height, but anyway…
Actual splitter So. Hydraulic fluids coming and going from the same. cylinder, which I thought was interesting I’m not quite sure how that works. Maybe one of you guys know and then you got two others that. Plug into those.
We’ve controlled the up and down So. you know just a quick overview from someone who has never owned a bat wing before Certainly nothing of the size and magnitude. super happy. Early on I think it’s going to be great I’m…going to go do some stuff today. I got a 25 acre job on a power line that needs to get done this should be great for that.
And I’ve got a customer’s property that, I actually subbed out to somebody cause I didn’t have time. And he wasn’t able to cut it off because he didn’t have. His brush cutter Wasn’t big enough to cut some of it So, And the tractor was too small. So I’m going to have to go back and take care of that stuff but I’m looking forward to seeing how this kind of just…
cuts through all that I did a cut over or cut a three inch tree and a four inch tree. The foreign street I pushed over with the tractor and let it slide onto the tractor and then come up underneath the cutter. I have a steel plate under my tractor. Which I had custom made. And attached down below you can see it there.
That’s still played down there on the bottom runs the entire width of the tractor. and also the entire length of the tractor. Let me see here’s the front mounting. Deck of it. It was just too many small pipes and things like that under the back of this tractor for the type of work that I do not to have some additional prep.
protection So now I just push a tree over and then I can just let it run underneath the tractor, knowing nothing is going to get hit or damage. Then it comes out right underneath the brush cutter. The front part of the tree is still under the under the steel plate. And then the,
you know the bottom of the tree is getting cut by the time the. By the front part comes out So it cuts it off the base of the tree and it gets laid down. And then the rest of it runs over. with the three industry I just hit it with the wing. Went slow and you know the wind kind of lifts up but then the tree gives and then I ran over and cut it.
Pretty quickly So very little effort on the, on the cutter’s part. so that’s the early review Hope you enjoy it. You know if you’re looking for a heavy cutter, this is certainly want to take a look at. You know if you’re looking for a grass cutter this is overkill, but you know I run over a lot of different stuff so, enjoy And if you’ve got any comments or feedback let me know
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If you need field mowing, brush hogging, bush hogging, land clearing, or other tractor services in any of the following areas, call or text 813.699.9062.
Ocala, Williston, Bronson, Chiefland, Otter Creek, Cedar Key, Crystal River, Morriston, Archer, Raleigh or Dunnellon Florida