PIERCE
LAND
CLEARING
Every land clearing timeline article says “it depends.” It does, but not on a mystery. It depends on acreage, brush density and the machine, and we have the day count from every job we have documented. Here they are, so you can plan a build, a pasture or a sale around a real number.
Most Texas lots under four acres clear in one machine day. Five to 18 acres runs two to four days. Twenty to 40 acres runs one to three weeks depending on how thick the growth is. A 125 acre pasture reclamation took us 37 days, and utility scale solar sites run five to eight months with several machines. Add a week or two of lead time to get on the schedule, and add weather.
The number that matters is acres per machine day, and on our documented jobs it runs from under one acre a day on the hardest ground to over six on the easiest. A dedicated forestry mulcher on typical Central Texas growth covers two to three acres a day. A skid steer mulcher, which is the right machine on a small lot with trees to keep, covers half an acre to three quarters. Solid cedar on rock, heavy timber, and anything that has to be grubbed rather than mulched all run slower. Open mesquite pasture and light South Texas brush run faster.
Every row links to a project write up on this site with photos, the machines used and the published price. Days are machine days on site.
| Tract size | Typical days | Documented examples |
|---|---|---|
| Under 2 acres | 1 day | Austin house pad, 0.75 ac; Horseshoe Bay homesite, 1 ac; Fredericksburg pile shredding, 2 ac; Moody trail widening, 2 ac |
| 3 to 6 acres | 1 to 2 days | Cleburne homesite, 3 ac, 1 day; Elgin selective, 4 ac, 1 day; Llano trails and cedar, 5 ac, 2 days; Universal City windrows, 6 ac, 2 days |
| 8 to 18 acres | 2 to 4 days | Elgin full clearing, 8 ac, 3 days; Dale pasture, 9 ac, 2 days; San Antonio grubbing, 12 ac, 3 days; Hico cedar, 15 ac, 5 days; Evant selective and grading, 18 ac, 4 days |
| 22 to 40 acres | 6 to 17 days | Jacksboro cedar, 22 ac, 7 days; Dripping Springs cedar, 34 ac, 14 days; Brownsville commercial, 38 ac, 6 days; Bastrop full clearing, 40 ac, 17 days |
| 125 to 177 acres | 32 to 61 days | Elgin pasture reclamation, 125 ac, 37 days; Rosanky solar, 159 ac, 61 days; Clifton solar, 177 ac, 32 days |
| 800 to 1,200 acres | 5 to 8 months, multiple machines | Brownwood solar, 800 ac, 154 days; Rosebud solar, 1,200 ac, 242 days |
Look at the 22 to 40 acre row. Brownsville, 38 acres of light South Texas brush, took six days. Bastrop, 40 acres of full clearing with invasive tree removal, took 17. Same acreage, nearly three times the schedule. That spread is why nobody honest quotes a timeline from acreage alone.
This is the big one. Open pasture with scattered mesquite is the fastest ground in Texas. Yaupon and greenbrier thickets are slower because the machine has to work through them rather than over them. Solid cedar on limestone is slower still, and mature hardwood or East Texas timber is slowest of all. When we quote from your photos, density is what we are reading.
Mulching cuts at the ground and moves on. Grubbing takes the root out, and it is excavator and dozer work at a fraction of the pace. A tract that needs the mesquite gone permanently, or a pad footprint cleaned to bare soil, takes longer than the same tract mulched. Our 12 acre San Antonio grubbing job ran three days, which is fast for grubbing and about what mulching would have taken on thicker growth.
A skid steer mulcher is the right tool between keeper trees on a small lot, and it is slow by design. A dedicated high horsepower mulcher covers three to five times the ground. On big tracts we run several machines at once, which is how an 800 acre solar site finishes in five months rather than two years. The equipment guide covers what each machine does in a day.
Selective clearing, where the oaks stay and everything under them goes, is slower per acre than flattening a tract because the operator is working around trees rather than through them. It is also almost always the right call on a homesite, so the extra time is worth it. The brush vs underbrush clearing guide explains the difference.
Saturated ground stops the job, especially on Blackland clay where a machine ruts the tract. Bottomland stays wet longest. We push start dates rather than work wet ground, and the day rate does not change. Rock slows grubbing and grading but not mulching.
Machine days are the middle of the schedule, not the whole thing. Quote: from photos and acreage, usually the same day. Lead time: our crews run on a route across Texas, and getting on the calendar is typically a couple of weeks, longer in the spring rush and shorter in the heat of summer. Commercial jobs with a hard date get scheduled to the day. Mobilization: a skid steer arrives on a trailer the morning of the job. A dedicated mulcher or dozer moves on a lowboy, which is why the high horsepower rate is quoted plus transport. The work: the machine days above. After: nothing to haul, nothing to burn; the mulch stays. If a pad or driveway is being built, the dozer follows the mulcher by a day or two, and the clearing land for a house guide lays out the sequence for a build.
Published rates are $3,000 per day for the skid steer mulcher with transport included and $4,000 per day plus transport for the high horsepower machine, so the day count on this page is also the price. The cost to clear land page runs the documented jobs the other direction, by dollars per acre.
If your tract is in the Comal County corridor, from New Braunfels down to Universal City and up through San Marcos, the New Braunfels land clearing page covers the ground and the local jobs, including the 6 acre Universal City windrow job that ran two days and the 8 acre San Marcos homesite prep that ran four.
A dedicated forestry mulcher clears an acre of typical Texas brush in a few hours; a skid steer mulcher takes most of a day. Solid cedar or heavy timber takes longer, open pasture less. On our documented jobs, one acre lots are always a one day job because transport and setup are the same whether the lot is one acre or three.
One to two machine days on typical growth. Our 5 acre Llano trail and cedar job ran two days; our 4 acre Elgin selective clearing ran one.
Two to four days depending on density and whether it is mulched or grubbed. Our 9 acre Dale pasture ran two days, our 8 acre Elgin full clearing ran three, and 12 acres of San Antonio grubbing ran three.
About a week on cedar or mixed brush; our 22 acre Jacksboro cedar job ran seven days. Light open brush can go faster.
Roughly a month to six weeks with a single dedicated mulcher on pasture reclamation; our 125 acre Elgin job ran 37 days. Adding machines shortens it.
Dense cedar or timber, grubbing instead of mulching, selective work around keeper trees, wet ground, and using a skid steer where a dedicated mulcher was needed.
A couple of weeks is typical to get on the route. Spring fills fastest. Commercial jobs with a fixed start date get scheduled to the day. Which season to aim for is covered in the best time of year to clear land.
Send photos and the acreage. We read the density, pick the machine, and give you the days and the price, usually the same day.