I bought a new place up in the Hill Country last year and the roads were just pasture roads. Lot of rock and after the fall rains they washed bad in a few places uncovering more rock. Through a friend I found a company out of New Braunfels called Terra Nova Rock Milling to come out and work on the perimeter fence roads and some interior roads. The machine was only a little over 5' wide but that was good for pasture roads or my Ranger. Any road that I would drive a truck on he made 2 passes for 10' width. The price per mile to do this was much cheaper than getting a contractor to build the roads. I had some caliche on the place but not enough to do all the roads. The cost of doing it would have been way more than what I paid to have the rock milled. I did about 5.5 miles of pasture roads and about .75 miles of easement road. It took 5 days or 50 hrs of work to complete the roads. I was pleased with the results and hope I can get some light rains so it will pack good and settle. Luckily most of land is flat to slightly sloping with a few draws, so if the grass gets to growing it will keep most of the roads from washing any. I liked the texture of the crushed rock mixed with the topsoil. My plan is to overseed with grass seed also.
Before

After

Before

After

These are all after pics. On some of these pics you can see the amount of rock on the sides of the road that was basically the same in the roads.

That turned out really good. Bet those guys are going to stay busy.

I bought one of those a few years back for a job and your comment should read “I bet those guys stay broke down a lot” They do an awesome job and it looks great when it’s finished but damn it’s hard in the equipment.

So what's the rate, 100-120/hr? Can't fathom the beating that a small machine like that takes. I asked one of the guys but he wouldn't tell me about the equipment.

For that reason he bought one of the largest skid steers with hiflow capacity. Said it handles the heat in summertime much better and for that reason he does not break down nearly as often as they do. IIRC he said the rock milling unit uses just over 40 gpm flow rate. Set of carbide teeth is $5,000 and you get from 50 to 450 hrs per set depending on the operator and the rock.

yep I could use that guy for a month of Sundays........

$250/hr. Most wanted $300 to $350/hr I checked with. One guy had 6' wide machine the rest were 5'.

They are busy. They do a lot more homesites right now than ranch roads. I think there were 7 rock milling contractors in the New Braunfels area a year ago and now there are over 25 of them.

That looks awesome. I wonder if it would help to come back and go over it with a big compactor? Looks like that might keep it from washing out until grass grows back.

It definitely would help. But the ground is powder dry right now. A light shower and then roll the roads would make a huge difference.

We had a 1/2 mile long driveway put in at a place we used to own and they rolled it and crowned it. It held up really well for years. Even oil field trucks couldn't tear it up.

Really like how that worked! I had no idea - thanks for sharing this.

Figured with equipment like that you either have to keep it working or its not worth it.

Thanks. Glad to hear it held up. I wished I had a roller to go over those roads. From what I was told a good slow soaking rain will compact it some. Just don't want a hard rain right off the bat till they settle in.

Really nice

Looks great saw an ad for that company on FB. Considering getting someone out to do the same, mill perimeter and driveway unit the house on the ranch. Then maybe do some interior roads to smooth them out a bit.

Looks great!

Very true. And most importantly is don't drive over it until it is dry.

That is impressive, really improved what you had, maybe you can get a bit of rain today or tomorrow to help with the program.

100% agree and that is my plans to stay off of it till it will not rut or stick to tires. Then drive on it to compact it as much as I can.

Wait, let me get this straight. You paid someone $250 an hour?

If it could only turn clay or mud into rock.

I tried to trade the guy a spotted hog, but he would not take it

Looks great! It rained for 10 minutes yesterday morning at my place. The dust was terrible before.