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Good part of the day,

I am soliciting opinions on Swisher tow behind mowers. I have roughly 1.5 acre of rather rough terrain wetland, as in - ill graded, tons of bumps and my regular 60"" ZTR can't manage that. It's too hard on my back, too hard on machine. Then again, if I let it be unattended, grass grows fast and I need to higher someone to mow it for me.
I don't really need a tractor. Hence, I started looking into tow behind mowers. Plan is to buy used ATV 4x4 and a tow behind brush mower or trail cutter.
From what I see, it's DR or Swisher. Swisher appears to have better pricing even for Kawasaki engines but, same time, I have no idea how reliable they are or, even suitable for work to be done. It's grass only, no shrubs. Blackberry sprouts, but those are thin wigs.
I am aiming at comfortable ride and reasonable time to accomplish the job. Same time, something that is well capable of mowing thick, dense grass of various stiffness. Wetland grass is some tough one to mow. I am presuming, larger deck will do better due to wide cut? Wetland is part muddy, I sometimes have to wait till June to get to it. Then it dries out but it's unbearably bumpy because of all the grass root clumps and runs between them. Can't grade it either, as it's wetland, so it's a big no no here in WA state. Add to this literally hundreds of mole mounds. Got to be one tough mower.
Thank you for your suggestions.

Either brand makes decent cutters, Just make sure that you look at the brush mower with the free swinging bush hog types blades not the finish mower blades. The trail mowers are better suited for towing behind your Z turn and mow your lawn.

SO I should look for trail cutter then? Like those:
Country Cut 44" 14.5 HP 12V Rough Cut Trailcutter

I have no intentions to tow with my ZTR. It has no suspension and going over the bumps there is killing me. ATV. Which i do not even have one but plenty on craigslist.

That is the style that you need to look for. What I meant by the other trail mower is it has regular lawnmower blades and you could pull it behind your mower to mow your lawn, IE not designed for rough ground or anything other that grass.

They will be a bit more expensive but the flail type mowers will handle the rough stuff much better than the rotary type.
The neighbours have a flail attachment for their back hoe & it is brilliant up to an including knocking the tops of the tress under the power lines.

Another friend bought a tow behind and ended up installing on the front of his ATV.
Set up heel cutting and in front allowed him to knock down sapplngs that he could not do when towing.

We used a Polaris trail mower (by Swisher) with a Polaris Sportsman 400 for 10 years mowing around obstacles like poles and guy wires ( 15 -20 poles/anchors at each of the 7 sites we maintained) with that said pushing the mower around obstacles was better but power steering would have saved the day, pushing it around makes for incredibly hard steering. If your in the open pulling it definitely would be easier on the arms and upper body. We did operate in rural areas that were rough terrain mainly mowing brome grass, the mower actually held up very well.

Thank you all for input.
I think, I found a better option. It's called Dirty Hands Tools trail mower. At $2000 it's 46 inch and 20hp engine. Simply looking at Youtube vids and pictures, I can tell it is much more heavy construction than Swisher. I came across quite a few reviews about Swisher not holding too well to abuse and DTH cutter being literally indestructible. Heavy, but a rhino.
My only concern is lowest cutting height is 4.5 inch. Which is OK for where I shall use it. But say using it as a wide sweep addition to my ZTR, where I have level ground (mine can tow 1500 lb and DHT is rated at 650) will be awkward as I normally mow at 3 inch with ZTR.
Though I am curious if DHT trail cutter will actually go through blackberries. I have a large patch of them that I manually cut walkways in, so that we can get to the berries inside of the shrubs. We like them a lot.

ukrbyk said:

Thank you all for input.
I think, I found a better option. It's called Dirty Hands Tools trail mower. At $2000 it's 46 inch and 20hp engine. Simply looking at Youtube vids and pictures, I can tell it is much more heavy construction than Swisher. I came across quite a few reviews about Swisher not holding too well to abuse and DTH cutter being literally indestructible. Heavy, but a rhino.
My only concern is lowest cutting height is 4.5 inch. Which is OK for where I shall use it. But say using it as a wide sweep addition to my ZTR, where I have level ground (mine can tow 1500 lb and DHT is rated at 650) will be awkward as I normally mow at 3 inch with ZTR.
Though I am curious if DHT trail cutter will actually go through blackberries. I have a large patch of them that I manually cut walkways in, so that we can get to the berries inside of the shrubs. We like them a lot.

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Vines are a problem.
I have an up front slasher ( rough cut mower to some ) with exposed blades at the front that can get under the vines and cut them off at ground level.
However once they get 2' tall or more they get tangled up in wheels & pulleys so I have to borrow the neighbours flail mower.

ukrbyk said:

Thank you all for input.
I think, I found a better option. It's called Dirty Hands Tools trail mower. At $2000 it's 46 inch and 20hp engine. Simply looking at Youtube vids and pictures, I can tell it is much more heavy construction than Swisher. I came across quite a few reviews about Swisher not holding too well to abuse and DTH cutter being literally indestructible. Heavy, but a rhino.
My only concern is lowest cutting height is 4.5 inch. Which is OK for where I shall use it. But say using it as a wide sweep addition to my ZTR, where I have level ground (mine can tow 1500 lb and DHT is rated at 650) will be awkward as I normally mow at 3 inch with ZTR.
Though I am curious if DHT trail cutter will actually go through blackberries. I have a large patch of them that I manually cut walkways in, so that we can get to the berries inside of the shrubs. We like them a lot.

Click to expand...

What you are looking at is a self-powered bush hog. I can be pulled by your ZTR but they do two different kinds of mowing. They are not to be used together. ZTR is a finish mower and the DTH is rough cut.

Here is a local product and for really rough stuff the can not be bettered.
Most rotary mowers just chop the tall stuff down and throw it out.
Flail mowers tend to grind up the clippings turning them into high quality mulch rather than useless smelly thatch.
They also do not leave piles of clippings that purtify rather than decompose aerobically.
Putrifing clumps do not get hot so all of the seeds have the capacity to germinate thus making your weed problem worse.
Aerobic decomposition generates a lot of heat will will kill some of the seeds preventing germination and reducing the weed problem.

https://www.paddockmachinery.com/collections/home-garden-acreage-products/products/atv-slasher-mower

Note on this video how the discharge happens, no tossing grass 30' along with sticks & stones, it just drops to the ground directly behind where it was cut

Rammy do an up front unit which is great as you can actually see where you are mowing and where your are going at the same time
http://rammy.fi/en/rammy-flailmower-120-atv/

Quad X are also popular down here in places where blackberries, lantanna and even native gums are a problem.
Where I am gums can get to 15' tall and 4" thick in less than a year, Blackberries will grow 6' tall and lantanna will grow thick enough to stop a truck.
http://www.quad-x.com/machinery/flail-mower/

It is your decision but I have never known anyone to trade in a flail on a rotary, but there are a lot of used rotaries sitting on the floors of the shops that sell flails.

that's nice but they are all overseas. I'm in Pacific NW and they are not sold here. Flail mowers.
Iron Baltic sells them but they are VERY expensive. otherwise, all flail mowers here in the US are PTO.

Thats a shame so you will have to chose from two less useful mowers which will are not up to the job.

Funny that they are not available in the USA we get them all down here.
Good luck and what ever you buy , please pop bak next season & let us know ( we really like pictures ) how it went.

Well, you Aussies always get interesting stuff. Cars, mowers.

ukrbyk said:

Well, you Aussies always get interesting stuff. Cars, mowers.

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We don't need it we already have all the interesting stuff
Snakes, spiders crocks