Forestry Attachments for 1.5 to 5 Tonne Excavators
The mini excavator class trades lift and flow for access, low ground disturbance and cheap mobilisation, which makes it the right carrier for urban stumps, hedges, orchards and light pruning.
Start from the carrier
Attachments by Excavator Size
Tonne class is the starting point, never the whole answer. Each page explains what the carrier class is commercially good at, which attachment families make sense, the lift-chart and hydraulic realities of that size, and lists every model whose published carrier band overlaps it.
Tonne class is the first question every supplier asks and the least useful answer either of you has. It sets the rough boundaries of what a machine can carry and no more. Two 20 tonne excavators with different booms, counterweights and auxiliary circuits are not interchangeable carriers, and the one with better hydraulics and a shorter stick will out-produce the other on the same head.
What the class does tell you is the shape of the commercial argument. Under about five tonnes you are buying access, not production. Between eight and sixteen you are buying versatility, which is where most contractors get the best return. Above twenty five you are buying sustained output, and the question becomes whether a dedicated machine would be cheaper than an attachment on a general-purpose carrier.
Each page below sets out what its class is genuinely good at, which attachment families are a mistake at that size, and the lift-chart and hydraulic realities that decide the match. Read it alongside the lift chart guide, because the number that stops most pairings is not the tonne rating but what the machine can hold at the radius you actually work at.
Forestry Attachments for 5 to 10 Tonne Excavators
The 5 to 10 tonne class is the first carrier that can run a real stump grinder, a compact mulcher and a grapple saw while still moving on a tag trailer, which makes it the most versatile vegetation platform in most fleets.
Forestry Attachments for 10 to 16 Tonne Excavators
The 10 to 16 tonne class is where the heavy families begin, with the first WR shear, WE stump cutter and SC850 Pro, on a carrier that still floats without the cost of a 20 tonne move.
Forestry Attachments for 16 to 25 Tonne Excavators
The 16 to 25 tonne class is the workhorse of Australian clearing, carrying the full WR, WE, VM and EX ranges on the 20 tonne excavators that civil and infrastructure contractors already own.
Forestry Attachments for 25 to 40 Tonne Excavators
The 25 to 40 tonne class is the industrial end of the published range, where the VM-65SV, WR20, WE15 and EX40 make sense on major corridors and biomass projects but the published catalogue thins out quickly above 30 tonnes.
Forestry Mulchers for Skid Steers and Compact Track Loaders
Skid steers and compact track loaders trade the excavator's reach for forward-travel production, and the Shearex HM range spans them from 68 hp high-flow loaders to 250 hp dedicated carriers.
Prefer to type in your machine? Use the attachment matcher for a filtered list by tonnage and hydraulic flow.
Get a recommendation, not just a price
Send us your excavator model, hydraulic figures, tree species and typical diameters. We will come back with a carrier-matched configuration and a written specification you can compare against any other quote.