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Advanced Member
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It seems as if there is always a stump in the way, but like everything in life there is more then one way to get them out. There is also a sort of "secret" to removing stumps. Once you understand the secret, you can try different methods to get the stump or stumps out.
The big secrete is this. Stumps are pretty much held into the ground by suction. You would not think that is the case but its true. Its like trying to pick a piece of glass off a piece of glass. Once you get air under the stump, (or glass) you break that suction and the stump comes out.
An excavator or tractor does it by sheer force. They rip and tear until the stump moves. An excavator does it faster because it can pry upwards. A bulldozer does it by levering the stump side ways. It works but its hard to do sometimes especially with its tracks sitting on top of the roots it needs to tip up! If you can, get an excavator to pull the stumps rather then a dozer. Its cheaper in the long run.
Dynamite; and my favorite trick, fuel oil, copper sulfate and ammonium nitrate work well by simply forcing the stump upwards and drawing air in, in a big way and in a hurry. Works like a champ but not for the faint of heart, nor people with close neighbors. I learned the hard way a little goes a long way!
But the big question is, would a garden hose work? Maybe. It would certainly loosen the soil and make it easier to pry out. We like to stump in the Spring for this reason. And the water would certainly help get air under the stump after the water drained away. It might not float the stump out entirely, but I know it would help if you were underpowered with say a tractor.
Oh almost forgot the easiest and most tasty method. Take a bag of salt and dump it on the stump. Fence the stump off and let in a pig. The pig will root and burrow through the stump going after the salt. Keep adding salt if the pig looses interest. After the stump is gone, celebrate with bacon wrapped pork chops! :-)
******
Tell a welfare recipient they must work and they call their congressman. Tell a farmer he can no longer work and he commits suicide. No wonder 1/2% of the population feeds the other 99-1/2%!!
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| Back in the day, we would pour hot grease on the stump. The catahoula curs would chewing on it until the stump was gone. We had this old tongue oil tree that the "K" hurricane took down. Once we got electricity back out came the big round electric fan and we started to burn around and in the stump like a fire barrel (of course once the burn ban was lifted).
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Average Member
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| Hey DB, how much of the stump does the pig eat out? I have a paddock that is 0.75 acre and I cut down over 200 Box Elder trees. I took the stumps down to about 1" above ground level. Would the oinkers eat the stump underground a way?
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Oh for sure. This was a trick the old settlers used a lot here in New England so it was nothing new. Even my Uncle suggested doing the same thing on some stumps I have. The hardest part is fencing that area in as pigs tend to get out easily.
I would love for someone to try it though and really document on how long it would take.
If you were really crafty Britboy, you could apply for a SARE Grant (Sustainable Agriculture Research Education Grant) and do an experiment. Split the section in half and see how long and how well the rooting pigs did in one half, and natural decay in the other. You know a control/test plot. Use some National Agriculture Statistics in your area on rainfall and moisture amounts and you could get a prediction on how many pigs could take X amount of stumps down in a given acres to a tillable level. In that way you could get paid to get your stumps out rather then paying for it! (LOL)
It's not a joke at all. Some SARE Grants are really beneficial, but some SARE Grants are a waste of money. I would just like to see more practical tests like this.
******
Tell a welfare recipient they must work and they call their congressman. Tell a farmer he can no longer work and he commits suicide. No wonder 1/2% of the population feeds the other 99-1/2%!!
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| Talking of fencing for this. At the moment I have t posts and two HT wire. What is the absolute cheapest option that WORKS for oinkers? This paddock is at least a quarter mile away from a road and half the perimeter has a huge mosquito pit (AKA a pond) (Not on my land) What age would they need to be to be able to fend off Coyotes? Do they just need shelter (pig arch) or do they need putting away at night? Do they become available spring? young ones. How many would do the job in a year? or spring summer fall then chops? Regarding the sare thing. As you may have noticed I have an inbuilt distrust and disrespect for any sort of government, not just yours but mine and everyone elses. Actually inviting these people into my life would be my idea of a nightmare. I dont mind posting the results with pictures etc here but I am not doing the other thing.
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It was just an option.
As for the pigs, I think you are going to have to go with some hog panels and then run an electric wire on the inside to keep them in. (Maybe the pig panels will work well enough alone?) They have insulators at TSC that snap to T posts. Cheap $20 per 1/4 mile wire will be fine. If its too far to run power, a solar power unit may be in order...grid powered is far cheaper though.
I think it will take trial and error on the panel size, but I would keep it small and move often. In that way you can decide how much rooting they do.
All in all you will have to decide if the effort was worth the cost. Here a decent digger runs you $100 per hour. At that rate a $200 dollar charger and pigs looks cheap.
As for the SARE Grant...I don't blame you on that. For people like me who are already UDSA recognized and deal with them a lot, SARE is not a bad idea. It does let us try off-the-wall ideas. I just wish sometimes they would filter out what they try. Last year they allowed a Vermont Farmer to grow rice. Their final report was quite predictable without spending 1000's of dollars, "we were able to grow rice, but the farms of VT would have to be situated adjacent to water bodies and the farmers would have to sell at niche markets to make the labor intensive rice farm profitable."
As I said, I think we all could figure that out without actually starting a rice paddy in very mountainous and very cold Vermont!
******
Tell a welfare recipient they must work and they call their congressman. Tell a farmer he can no longer work and he commits suicide. No wonder 1/2% of the population feeds the other 99-1/2%!!
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