Anyone have experience with the cost of clearing land for barn and pasture? Looking at some land lots. Some are light to heavily wooded (mostly pines). I’m in the Sandhills of North Carolina.
Thanks for any insights!
'Dozers around here run in the $80-$90/hr. range. They will clear about anything. Then you have to have a plan to prepare the surface for grass and that is a whole, other effort.
Contact your local Extension office and ask them your questions.
G.
Can cost several hundred an acre to more than a $1000++ an acre. Depends on location and EXACTLY what you want done.There are a number of “steps” involved. IME no one company covers them all. In most cases, areas you would need to hire a general contractor. I just did this. Most of which myself. And luckily having friends with BIG equipment. That only asked me to pay for the fuel. I have a lot of the equipment needed to finish things off. There is a thread on this recently from a poster in Md.
G, you must have the best extension office in the country. Or you are married to one. lol You seem to be a big believer in their expertise. IME with them, they are generally only good at quoting from the “book”. IMO they would be clueless on this.Unless they have a relative or friend in the business.
$80-$90 an hour is a bargain for the size and type of machine needed. A big track hoe is usually the best for this. They cost around $500,000 new. A dozer tends to make a mess of things. Adds a lot of extra expense and work IME.
My experience with them has been generally positive. I don’t often add Soil Conservation as they do, at least around here, mouth the “party line” of the agency. But sometimes the “party line” is a good idea so why not?!?!?! 
In any event it can be a good place to start. In addition to human agents ours has a vast library of helpful stuff on about any ag subject you can think of.
Not married to Extension, but sort of worshipful from afar!!! 
G.
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In our area of the Northeast, the cost for clearing will depend on how dense your woods are and what you are having done. We cleared more than 25 acres when we built our place. It was a very costly project. First the trees were felled and then cut up in to lengths If you are lucky you can find someone to fell the trees and take the log lengths as payment. If not, you may have to pay to have the log lengths removed. Next you’ll have to address the tree tops. Chipping or burning is common in our area. Next the stumps will need to be addressed. They can be pulled up and buried elsewhere or they can be ground down below the dirt line. In our area we have rocky soil so our next step was to have a rock picker come in and go over the area a few times. Next, top soil was hauled in and spread and finally the whole area was seeded. Nine months after seeding we were able to use the pasture lightly for turnout.
You’ll get a lot of advice that burying the stumps is more desirable than grinding. We did both. If I had to do it again, I would NOT bury one single stump in an area that was to be used for paddocks. I don’t care what the contractor says, buried stumps settle over the years and you’ll end up with depressions and evenly possibly some dangerous voids.
Overall, it was a very costly project. Thousands per acre, but we had very mature hardwoods and rocky soil.
Best advice would be to contact a few excavators and have them come in and bid the job for you. They are likely to sub out some portions of the job, but it you ask them to itemize the quotes you can start to get your head around some of the costs entailed.
This is one example of why it is more economical to buy versus build, if it is possible.
We just had 6 acres cleared and graded and a old logging road cleared and widened. The total was just under $9,000 He did a great job and burned the trees after pushing them into piles. Removed the the trees and stumps at the same time. He was also able to ballet dance that huge machine around a few trees we wanted to leave standing with out any damage. He did a really great job. He also dug out for the basement/foundation of the house. the land was very densely wooded and a lot of hills and valleys. We are near the triad/Piedmont of NC.
I was recently quoted $100/hr or $750/8-hr day from one person. I don’t know how many acres they typically get done in a day.
Another quoted $1800/acre, this company mulches everything up as they go.
We used Dustin Smith for our clearing, and he serves all over the Sandhills. I believe you can pay by the acre, but I don’t remember his rates on that, or by the hour at ~$150 an hour, I think. He was very honest and worked efficiently (we paid by hour, as we had some onsie-twosie places for him to rip out too). He rips out the stumps entirely, and if you pay by the acre, he does everything to include burning the piles.
I also had him renovate my ring and when I second guessed the footing depth, he brought all the equipment back and made my requested change with no additional charge.
I would have him come out and do a site estimate for the one or two lots you’re most interested in. Keep in mind that once the trees are ripped out, the “sand” of the sandhillls is very loose and has no stability. Ideal situation is to seed it and let it sit (with mowing periodically) for a year to get the grass established before putting horses on it. I know most of us can’t do that, as we want to move into the farm right away. But it will mean it’s harder to get really good grazing for the first few years.
There are a lot of lots available in the area (Moore County/sandhills). But not only is clearing an issue, but look at drainage. We had problems with washout when we removed some stabilizing trees or grass. So try to envision the topography minus-trees, and see where you’ll need to plan for drainage. When factoring in cost of building a farm from scratch, don’t forget that fencing costs a fricking ton. Brad Charles is the best, Greg Beal is also very good. But all are $$$. We did some of ours ourselves (tractor with auger, wood from General Timber) and it’s miserable work…
I’ve had good friends buy turnkey, and others build from ground up. Honestly, your money goes further if you buy something already there, and just renovate it to meet your needs. Also easier to get financing. Just my thoughts, feel free to PM if you have questions.
Want it to be pasture worthy in a year? 1500- 2000 per acre. And no one wants a small acreage of scrubby pines.
Last year I had 15 acres cleared in Central Florida and it was a much more significant job (and bill) than I had originally thought it would be. The land had been used as a horse farm in the past but neglected for many years. We had to have some large live oaks taken out (to make room for a covered arena), small scrub and non-native invasive trees taken out, and remaining oaks trimmed significantly. Old overgrown perimeter fencing taken out. Hauling the debris away would have been VERY expensive so my contractor arranged to have it burned (once we could get a burn permit). They dug a huge trench, pushed huge tree stumps, trunks, branches etc in, and then used some sort of machine to burn it all. There were some trees we couldn’t burn (smoke issues) that had to be hauled to the land fill. Then a pasture renovation guy came and prepared the land for pastures, fertilized, and seeded. When you get quote(s) be sure to include everything that will be needed to get the land ready for building/pastures/grazing.
