How Much Does Bush Hogging Cost in Arkansas?

Most bush hogging runs about $75 to $180 an acre. National cost guides put the middle of that range near $125. By the hour the common number is $60 to $120, with about $90 in the middle. Those are market numbers, not our price list.

Small jobs price differently. Many outfits set a minimum of $150 to $250 for one visit. A lot under an acre is often quoted as a flat $150 to $350. Loading and hauling the machine costs the same on a quarter acre as it does on four. That is why bush hogging a small lot gets priced per visit.

What Does Bush Hogging Cost Per Acre?

The condition of the ground moves the price more than the acreage does. A field cut within the past year mows fast and lands at the low end. Waist high grass and weeds take longer. Chest high growth with saplings and briars takes more passes at a slower speed.

Here is what published cost guides show. Use it as a range to compare against.

Small lots carry a minimum because of that travel line. Cost guides show $50 to $400 just to get a machine to the property. That cost is the same on a quarter acre as it is on ten acres. So a small lot gets a flat price for the visit instead of a rate per acre.

Per acre rates fall as the job gets bigger. Ten acres lets the machine run long laps with few turns. A half acre is mostly turning, so the per acre number climbs. Work that goes past mowing into real clearing is priced another way. We break that down in land clearing cost per acre in Arkansas.

What Does Bush Hogging Cost Per Hour?

Hourly pricing is common when a field is odd shaped or full of obstacles. Cost guides put the rate at $60 to $120 an hour for most work. Bigger machines and heavier growth sit at the top of that range.

Pace is how the hourly number turns into a total. Guides figure roughly half an acre to two acres an hour, depending on how thick it is. Thin grass moves fast. A field nobody has touched in three years does not.

Ask which way a price is built before you compare two numbers. An acre rate and an hour rate can land in the same place on an easy field. On a rough one they can be far apart.

What Drives the Price of a Bush Hogging Job?

Six things move the number more than anything else.

Height and thickness of the growth. Grass a foot tall is one pass. Chest high weeds are two or three passes at a crawl. Cost guides show maintained ground running about half the price of waist high overgrowth.

Saplings and briars. Cedar and sweetgum sprouts, blackberry canes and greenbrier all slow a cutter down. They wear blades faster than grass does, and they take a second pass more often.

Terrain. Flat Delta ground prices lower than a slope on Crowley’s Ridge. Wet spots, old ditch banks and soft field edges all mean careful work at low speed.

Obstacles. Stumps, fence posts, culverts, rocks and old trash hide in tall grass. Every one of them means slowing down or going around, and both cost time.

Access. A gate the machine fits through is worth money. A long haul in, a soft entrance off the road or a locked county road all add to the bill.

One time versus seasonal. A single catch up cut on a field that got away costs more per acre. Mowing the same field twice a year costs less each time. Published guides show 15 to 20 percent off the per visit rate for standing seasonal work.

Is It Bush Hogging or Brush Hogging?

Both. People mean the same job either way, which is rotary cutting overgrown ground. The word started in the early 1950s as a brand of rotary cutter built in Alabama. It spread until folks used it for any rotary cutter, and the spelling drifted to brush along the way.

Search either spelling and you get the same work. Around here you will hear both in the same conversation. Neither one tells you anything about the price.

When Has a Lot Gone Past a Cutter?

A rotary cutter is built for grass, weeds, briars and light brush. Most are rated for stems up to about two to three inches, and heavier heads go a little past that. Above that size you are asking a mower to do a mulcher’s job.

There are a few plain signs. Cedars and sweetgums standing over your head. Stems you cannot snap by hand. Woody thickets where grass used to be. When a lot looks like that, forestry mulching grinds the material down and leaves the ground covered in mulch.

Pastures that cedars took over usually sit in the same spot. A cutter whips the tops off and the cedars come right back the next year. That job is pasture and fence line clearing, and it prices like clearing rather than like mowing.

When Is Bush Hogging Season in Arkansas?

The National Weather Service puts Jonesboro’s average last spring freeze around March 30. The average first fall freeze is November 3. That leaves roughly seven months of growing weather. A Delta field can go from mowed to knee high in a few weeks of summer heat.

Two windows do most of the work. Late spring into early summer catches weeds before they seed, which is what University of Arkansas Extension advises for pasture. The second window is late summer into fall, once the heat breaks and the year’s growth is finished.

Waiting until October on a field you never cut means the heaviest growth of the year. That is the version that prices at the top of the table.

Getting a Number for Your Property

Every figure above is a market range pulled from published cost guides. Your field has its own growth, its own gate and its own soft spots. The way to get a real number is to have somebody come look at it.

Craig Land Management is based in Monette and works about 50 miles around Jonesboro. Our brush cutter runs on a skid steer. It fits into lots, fence rows and ditch banks that a wide deck cannot reach. Call (870) 351-5107 for a free estimate on cutting your field or lot. We look at the ground, then put the price in writing.