[AT] Flail mowers

[Greg Hass]

In my opinion the best mower for you would be a disk mower, they cut 
fast and work in almost any conditions without plugging. They also lay 
out the grass nice and flat. The downside is they are quite expensive 
unless you could find a used one cheaper. Also, the way you describe 
things, I think a sickle bar mower would plug more than would be 
acceptable. Another thing I would do if possible would be to rent, hire 
or borrow the various types of machines and try them under your 
conditions and see how they work. That way you wouldn't spend a lot of 
money only to find out what you bought doesn't work as you want it to. 
One thing that a lot of our local dealers have done; but only with used 
equipment, is they will let you try it for several days on your farm. If 
you like it you buy it, if you don't like it you pay so much an acre 
rent (the amount of rent is agreed upon before you try the machine. If 
you don't like it you are not stuck with it and the dealer makes some 
money off the used machine. Several of my neighbors have went this route 
and some bought the machine an a couple of others found it didn't work 
as expected and said "well, this is going to be strictly a rental 
machine". Also, in our county, the road commission only uses disk mowers 
for roadside cutting.
    Greg Hass