West Texas grubbing and land-clearing projects
Brush country doesn't look the same from one county to the next. Heavy river-bottom mesquite in Stonewall is a different job than thin pasture in Garza, and the man quoting you ought to have run both.
Here's some of what we've done and what it took.
Private Ranch — Shackelford County
~520 acres · 2026 · Mesquite grubbing
The problem: The 440-acre NRCS EQIP-approved zone carried very heavy canopy mesquite throughout. The primary objective was to increase the pasture's grazing potential, with active pipelines requiring careful work around designated corridors.
What we ran: A Cat 330 excavator for grubbing, a Cat D3 dozer and skid steers for raking. The job took about six and a half months and included roughly 80 additional acres of cleanup beyond the EQIP scope.
What we left: We retained the bushy plants that provide quail cover and piled the removed brush for future burning.
Result: The pasture has shown a great grass and forb response, improved grazing potential and preserved the cover quail need.
Private Ranch — Garza County
320 acres · 2024 · Mesquite grubbing
The problem: This pasture had been anchor chained decades earlier, leaving very large mesquite root structures beneath an intense, heavy canopy.
What we ran: Cat 330 excavators and a skid steer over roughly a year. We completed about 240 acres through an EQIP cost-share and another 80 acres on the same property.
What we left: The EQIP acreage was grubbed in a deliberate grid pattern.
Result: The pasture has shown an incredible grass response, recovered much of its quail use and gained substantially more grazing potential for cattle.
Private Ranch — Kent County
120 acres · 2025 · Exotics habitat & grubbing
The problem: Custom traps for an exotics operation needed different levels of brush retention for the species assigned to each trap. Some zones carried very thick brush, and fence-line corridors had to be opened across the property.
What we ran: We worked directly with the landowner and exotics consultants to set the brush pattern for each species. A Cat 323 handled the grubbing, with skid steers providing thorough cleanup.
What we left: Brush and native cover were retained where they served the animals, while trap interiors and fence corridors were opened and finished smooth enough for grass planting.
Result: The finished traps provided the intended habitat for the exotics placed in them, created clean corridors for fencing and retained useful cover for native wildlife.
Private Ranch — Floyd County
~200 acres · 2024–2026 · Designed clearing & restoration
The problem: The landowner wanted more than broad clearing. Each phase needed to improve grazing and habitat diversity while creating a deliberate, attractive view along the ranch roads.
What we ran: We drew a strict clearing design in shapefiles and followed it on the ground with a Cat 323 excavator and skid steers for fine cleanup. Work has taken place across 2024, 2025 and 2026.
What we left: The designed brush pattern preserved habitat structure and road appeal. Grubbed zones were finished clean enough to plant immediately with a Truax no-till drill.
Result: Native grasses went back into the cleared ground right away, producing stronger grazing along with better grass and forb diversity across the property.
Private Ranch Reservoir — Garza County
25-acre reservoir · 2023 · Pond, dam & watershed work
The problem: A preexisting pond and dam had lost capacity to accumulated silt. The landowner needed more dependable livestock water, enough depth to hold through drought and a reservoir designed for recreational fishing.
What we ran: We completed watershed analysis, enlarged the existing dam and removed the silt with Cat 650 loaders and Cat 730 haul trucks. John Deere 9R tractors pulling 22-yard Humdinger scrapers cut the reservoir and more than three miles of watershed channels.
What we left: The finished 25-acre reservoir includes varied shelving and fish structure, with watershed channels shaped to move more runoff into the impoundment.
Result: The property gained a larger, deeper water source built for livestock use, drought retention and fishing recreation.
Our own place — Rolling Plains
~1,300 acres overall · Ongoing · Grubbing, water & habitat
Every method we recommend, we ran on our own ground first. The 60-acre block pictured here carried extremely thick, dense mesquite that would have been costly to clear, so an EQIP cost-share made economic sense. The tradeoff was less tree retention than we would normally choose for strong quail habitat, leaving wildlife to adjust to a much more open landscape. Elsewhere on the ranch, we have used selective, non-cost-shared clearing over many years to leave mottes and more cover. Living with both approaches helps us show landowners where EQIP fits, where it may not and how each clearing plan should follow the property's real objective.