Quick help/advise please, just bought a mini skidsteer, either a great deal or just ok

derikL said:
Flyingsquirrel25
What type of auger and cone splitter are you using? I haven’t been able to get much information about them
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CID auger (hex drive)
Approximately 2’ extension/adapter
Atom splitter with 2 9/16 (i think) round drive.
The extension is essential or we wouldn’t be able to split some of the stuff we do
 
Stephen Moore said:
Cute kid! I see you are training her to be a skid operator?
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My daughter took one look at me driving the mini and immediately wanted on it. She's almost 2 years old.

Congrats on the purchase @evo as I mentioned I am chasing down an issue on mine, but I can already tell it will open a lot of opportunities as well as not being as strenuous to move brush and wood.
 
I had a micro brush rake made for my bucket that is modeled after a skidder. I used it for the first time recently and it is better than the bucket alone for clearing gargantuan black berries and old-growth scotchbroom. The grapple can load a huge wad of blackberries into your truck. Often, I just push them into a burn pile.

Easy money for a job that gets away from people.

I cleared a closed nursery had had lots of hidden 'keeper' plants. I was able to clear around them very well with the bucket, with a little brush cutter use for detail work.

Just cleared 12' high blackberries at my new house...it was a breeze.

Like with wood, if you used to do it by hand, you will smile and laugh at how easy and fast the mini does the work.
 
southsoundtree said:
I had a micro brush rake made for my bucket that is modeled after a skidder. I used it for the first time recently and it is better than the bucket alone for clearing gargantuan black berries and old-growth scotchbroom. The grapple can load a huge wad of blackberries into your truck. Often, I just push them into a burn pile.

Easy money for a job that gets away from people.

I cleared a closed nursery had had lots of hidden 'keeper' plants. I was able to clear around them very well with the bucket, with a little brush cutter use for detail work.

Just cleared 12' high blackberries at my new house...it was a breeze.

Like with wood, if you used to do it by hand, you will smile and laugh at how easy and fast the mini does the work.
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yup, played around organizing my log deck, filling pot holes, grading my driveway, scraping the grass that is growing in between the tire tracks. And that was AFTER work, just messing around putting attachments away and finding homes for everything.
 
evo said:
so what the hell is going on with your profile pic?
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Oh that was a Bull pine we took down a few years ago, the branches were pretty strong! I bucked it and a few of those stayed like that! It was a fairly big pine and it harpooned some branches. The rake person is my wife
 
Any mini is better than no mini.

If you waited a year to find a deal saving $3K, you'd be behind financially, and have another year of wear and tear on your body.

Big removals are NBD if you have hydraulic power. Surely you have big hazard trees sometimes. You mentioned not doing big removals. Just a choice, or a business model, pre-mini, or...???
 
just scooped a 2006 ditchwitch sk650 with 3700 hours with branch manager grapple and bucket for $8k. It just had $3500 in repairs done to it before I bought it... 25hp kubota turbo diesel. Was a little worried bc it's definitely old. Can't believe what it can pick up. Was toying with buying new and I saw this one on craigslist. It's a beast. No electronic fuel shit either. The guy at a 3rd party dealership told me it's probably better and more reliable than a new one even with the hours. Plus the grapples are 3k new. Been using it every day for a month without issue whatsoever. Game changer absolutely. You end up just leaving the chipper on the road, dragging brush with the machine and feeding it on pavement so you don't tear up the yard when you feed. Totally mint.
 
Minis are def the way to go. I have three of the 725 models. I would never recommend buying one from a rental place though. You ever washed a rental car? Of course you haven’t, cause you didn’t care about it. Nobody took good care of that machine because they knew it would at least last till a couple hundred hours when they could pawn it off on somebody else. The Vermeer dealership in Jacksonville Florida was trying real hard to sell me a couple of 800s that we’re gassers. They ordered too many in Irma. I bought a a770 bobcat instead cause I already have 3 minis. They were offering me those 800s for like 25k. Brand new. The machine that you are looking at is coming with a bunch of stuff you don’t need and they are trying to sell it to you at 90% of the original cost. THE ONLY THING WORSE THAN PAYING TOO MUCH FOR SOMETHING YOU NEED IS PAYING FOR SOMETHING YOU DONT NEED! Don’t do it
 
southsoundtree said:
Any mini is better than no mini.

If you waited a year to find a deal saving $3K, you'd be behind financially, and have another year of wear and tear on your body.

Big removals are NBD if you have hydraulic power. Surely you have big hazard trees sometimes. You mentioned not doing big removals. Just a choice, or a business model, pre-mini, or...???
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It’s more so a business model. I’ve done so many big removals I know it’s not what I really want to be doing. I do miss the big rigging though. I have niche here being great at what the other crews can’t market. I did consider pruning only, but felt that was too limited. 31594DE6-E176-4071-BB7F-99BFF907A1C5.webp2220EDD0-4C95-45E4-AB81-95441DC7BB67.webp08C0ADF4-A7C9-4C5C-95A7-53D6EDDD6061.webpE347DBEE-9AEF-4639-BFD5-897A56690B68.webp
 
evo said:
It’s more so a business model. I’ve done so many big removals I know it’s not what I really want to be doing. I do miss the big rigging though. I have niche here being great at what the other crews can’t market. I did consider pruning only, but felt that was too limited. View attachment 52342View attachment 52343View attachment 52344View attachment 52345
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One of my clients asked what a certified arborist was, I said which kind? There are ISA, CUA and a couple others. They all have their little corner of the market.. Some are good, some suck... and just like anyone fresh out of trade school, some have the ticket but not much experience. In that last instance the only thing they are really good for is the ISA number certifying a tree to be hazardous so the client on the beach can have it removed. Us guys that have been doing the "in tree work for years" have the ability to make large trees fit in really small spaces, in many cases the upstart arborists do not. You have experience that takes years to learn, and you should be able to pick your market.
We have a guy across the lake that we refer all stump grinding to, he does only that. He is semi retired and in no shape to be climbing trees, but he makes good money grinding stumps! I was thinking? hey in a few years maybe I'll be a stump removal guy? easy money!
 
Stephen Moore said:
Personally I wouldn’t buy anything from a rental company. Ever. The people that rent stuff don’t check levels, bang the shit of bushings and generally mistreat the equipment. The rental companies, for the most part only fix what’s broken and do minimal maintenance. When it’s reached the major maintenance portion of it’s lifespan they flog it. Case in point 300 hours service point.
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What he said!
 
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