Mini digger vs skidder

[Excels1or]

26 minutes ago, Clutchy said:

I'm in the Sherpa camp, but looking at a 2.7t with a rotating grab to add to the fleet. 

 

My concern if you went straight to a digger is that for domestic jobs, surly it shreds the grass up? Vs a sherpa on grass tires which doesn't and will fit in more places, can fit in the back of a custom and can be towed by all tippers. A 2.7t (3.5t with trailer) restricts towing vehicles a bit. 

 

It's a really hard decision to be honest. When we were deciding, we went a month and wrote down the number of times a digger would of been better on a job that day vs a sherpa 

 

For us, the sherpa won so we bought. Now we would like to add a digger as it of course can do a lot of things a Sherpa 

Good idea, a list of pros and cons 👍

[Spruce Pirate]

Never used the wee skid-loaders, but would reiterate what others have said that the mini-digger is a great tool in the woods.  If you're worried about tearing the ground up you can always work stuff out slowly with it so you're only tracking over the ground once.  Take material, slew round with it and stack it as far as you can reach, track back and repeat.  Works well with logs, wouldn't think it would work so well with brash.  You can also reach over and around things better with the digger I'd think, so you could lift over a fence with it rather than having to track around it with a loader.  All depends on the job I suppose, in an ideal world you'd get both, and a tractor, and a unimog, and a lorry, and a lightsabre, and, and, and, and........ My list of things I need seems to be never ending!

[Excels1or]

1 hour ago, Spruce Pirate said:

Never used the wee skid-loaders, but would reiterate what others have said that the mini-digger is a great tool in the woods.  If you're worried about tearing the ground up you can always work stuff out slowly with it so you're only tracking over the ground once.  Take material, slew round with it and stack it as far as you can reach, track back and repeat.  Works well with logs, wouldn't think it would work so well with brash.  You can also reach over and around things better with the digger I'd think, so you could lift over a fence with it rather than having to track around it with a loader.  All depends on the job I suppose, in an ideal world you'd get both, and a tractor, and a unimog, and a lorry, and a lightsabre, and, and, and, and........ My list of things I need seems to be never ending!

Boys don't grow up, their toys just get more expensive 😂

[Mark Bolam]

Clutchy’s advice is golden.

 

Do the maths regarding which is the better machine for you.

 

My WQ has worked for me because of narrow access and speed, and the Klou grab with ball hitch has made me a lot of money on tight access jobs.

A rotator is a must on some jobs, but kills the capacity on a mini loader like mine enough to make it worthless.

 

Intermercato tigercat on a 5t machine was unbelievable, but totally unrealistic on my jobs due to transport.

[John Shutler]

it all depends on what work your doing. when i bought my boxer back in 2011 we were doing a lot of back garden jobs and moving the timber with a 3.5 tonne truck. you could sneak it though a garage or down the side of a house and remove decent sized chogs or rings. it worked particularly well for me as i’d not long bought a grcs so the size of stuff we were rigging had increased. 

fast forward 12 years and our work (and setup mog, tractors and merlo roto) has changed, we do a lot more clearance, woodland, estate, and local authority works. access is less of an issue and a 2 tonne digger with rotating grab is out most days of the week. i’ve got a 7.5tonne machine for larger jobs as well. the digger is great as imo it’s far better for stacking than a little skid steer and that means we can stack and leave or stack for the heizohack. we’ve a small timber trailer that goes behind it so if we can pull out a fence panel we can sneak into a garden if we need to. 

if i think about the last 4 or 5 years there’s only one or two jobs when a loader type machine has been better for that job and on those two occasions i’ve borrowed a mates avant. 

[maybelateron]

I initially bought some 8x4 stokboards to protect the ground under my mini digger, when needed. Rapidly changed to using OSB boards as so much easier to move around. 

Also I can use the OSB boards to fix to a fence post knocked in lightly to make a temporary box to chip into on site, typically with a decent amount of chip being made in rear garden where tracked chipper just managed to get in and customer (with or without persuasion) wants to keep all the chip

[josharb87]

Whichever you get don’t scrimp on attachments, get a few straight away

[doobin]

46 minutes ago, josharb87 said:

Whichever you get don’t scrimp on attachments, get a few straight away

Yes! Stick them on the finance, the monthly extra will soon be forgotten. Can never have enough attachments. 

[woody paul]

Buy the biggest you can get into big back garden with. My loader is 42 inches wide had a couple of jobs where we couldn't get it in so, planning on buying narrow wheels and tyres to take it down to 36 inches wide which will make it more use able. 

 

[Mark Bolam]

19 minutes ago, doobin said:

Yes! Stick them on the finance, the monthly extra will soon be forgotten. Can never have enough attachments. 

I’d go with that, but within sensible limits.

 

A bloke on one of the arb sites last week was asking if anyone made a topper, a haybob and a small baler he could run off his Avant!