Hey DeeDawg - I thought the same thing. Got some nice spots near a spring on my farm that I thought I'd tow the Swisher mower back to and keep it mowed down for my girls to play on.

Trouble is - while the quad has enough ground clearance to get up the trail to that spot, the mower does not! Drags on everything, bangs around, gets hung up. There's no way to raise it up high to get over a rough trail.

Grrr! Swisher should have put a 'quick raise' mount to quicky jack the mower up for trail clearance.

One nice thing about the 44" swisher - it's hard to ground it out. The blades are right in line with the wheels, so if you come over a sharp rise in the ground, the blades don't hit the ground.

 

Thanks for the input.

Mike N, The rough cut might not be a bad idea for an initial try. I mean, it is cheaper than going whole hog on the finish mower and I always have a use for heavy mower/cutter. Right now I use an old John rider to plow through my weeds around the barn and in the lot and around the pond. It's a small mower, I have to take it really slow and make 2 to 3 passes. Basically I use it wherever I cannot get my JD 3020 and brush hog in. At least the rough cutter would give me an idea if I would care to use something like that on my yard.

 

jd3020

I like the quad and Swisher for the smaller lots as a tractor with stubble shredder is just too big to get into the corners. I have had excellent results with the Swisher and am really glad we got the bigger engine with the electric start. I have even beat down sagebrush with this thing. Just about anything the quad will run over the Swisher will grind up.

Keeping the blades sharp is very important for getting anything done. When the blades start getting dull the quality of the mowing goes down quick. With really sharp blades and keeping the speed down to around 2-3 MPH you can do a decent job on lawn grass but it won't be cut very short.

 

I don't farm or ranch, and was considering pulling a rotary mower or gang mower behind the quad as avoiding another engined piece of equipment. I need a finish mower for a large area of yet to be planted decorative grass and after reading all the informative posts on this topic, it looks like my best option is a dedicated riding mower.