Skid Steer Attachments Explained (and What Each One Does)
A plain-English guide to the attachments that make a skid steer the most useful machine on most jobsites.
A skid steer is more than a tractor with a bucket. With attachments swapped in seconds, the same machine grades, augers post holes, pulls stumps, breaks concrete, and cuts brush. Here are the attachments that show up on most Mann Hauling jobsites and what each one is for.
1. Smooth Bucket
The default attachment. Loads, carries, dumps, and back-drags. We use it for spreading gravel, mulch, and topsoil, loading the dump truck, and rough grading. Back-dragging the cutting edge is one of the fastest ways to fine-grade a yard or pad.
2. Tooth Bucket
Same shape as the smooth bucket but with bolt-on teeth that bite into hard ground. We swap to a tooth bucket for digging out compacted gravel, breaking up clay, and prepping for a new gravel base on a driveway excavation.
3. Pallet Forks
Two long steel forks for lifting palletized material — pavers, retaining wall block, sod pallets, bagged mulch, or landscape stone. Also useful for moving culvert pipe and lumber bundles around a jobsite.
4. Auger
A hydraulically driven drill that bores clean post holes in seconds — even in compacted Indiana clay or frozen ground that defeats handheld augers. Standard bits are 9, 12, and 18 inches. See our post hole drilling page for what we use this for.
5. Grapple Bucket
A bucket with hydraulic teeth on top that close down to grab brush, branches, and debris. Indispensable for brush clearing, storm cleanup, and demo work where you're grabbing odd-shaped material the bucket alone can't carry.
6. Brush Cutter / Rotary Cutter
A heavy-duty mower-style cutter that drops grass, weeds, and saplings up to about 3 inches. Used for fence-line clearing, knocking down overgrown pasture, and prepping a lot before pulling stumps.
7. Hydraulic Breaker (Hammer)
A pneumatic-style jackhammer mounted to the skid steer arm. We use it for concrete removal, breaking up slabs, busting frozen ground, and prepping subgrade where a bucket can't get through.
8. Trencher
A chain-driven attachment that digs narrow, consistent trenches for irrigation, electrical conduit, and shallow drainage runs. For deeper or wider trenches, we switch to the excavator instead.
9. Snow Pusher / Snow Bucket
Wide pusher boxes or snow buckets for clearing commercial lots, long drives, and stacking snow. Seasonal — we run it on a few commercial properties during Indiana winters.
Which Attachments Show Up on Most Mann Hauling Jobs?
On a typical week, the bucket, tooth bucket, auger, and grapple are on the trailer. The breaker, brush cutter, and forks come along when the job calls for them. That's the real value of a skid steer — one machine, one trailer, one operator, and the right tool for almost any residential or light commercial dirt job.
Common Combinations We Use
- Gravel driveway repair: tooth bucket → smooth bucket (spread) → smooth bucket back-drag (grade)
- Brush + stump clearing: brush cutter → grapple → excavator for stumps → grapple to load truck
- New shed pad: tooth bucket (dig) → smooth bucket (spread #53) → smooth bucket back-drag (finish)
- Concrete tear-out: breaker → grapple → smooth bucket to load truck
- Fence install prep: brush cutter → auger