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Started by HORSELOGGER, January 10, 2003, 06:52:10 PM

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HORSELOGGER

I am long overdue for some horselogging photos, and I hope to try and post some on a regular basis. I dont know if the picture is going to go with this, but if it does, it is a shot my wife took yesterday of my friend Steve Elliot and his team of Belgian mares. Steve helps me in the woods during the winter with his horses and it really ups my production. He is a dairy farmer, so cant get to the woods untill around 10 or so. I usually have my team there and some logs ready when he shows and we work together untill 3 or 4 when he goes home to milk. The team he is using in the picture is a couple of mares he bought from the kill pen at the auction house this summer.  They were nutso horses running wild on a pasture on a semi demented old guys farm. There was a Sheriffs foreclosure on the property, and the horses were rounded up and sent to the livestock barn. They had never been handled up to a few months ago. Steve has them going pretty good now!  This picture of him says everything to me about low impact horse logging. Look at the skid trail. We took about 2000 bft of saw logs up that trail , right between the young trees. Nice.

Heritage Horselogging & Lumber Co.
"Surgical removal of standing timber, Leaving a Heritage of timber for tommorow. "

RMay

Horse Logger hope you get it worked out . I would like to see more photos of horse logging good luck with it  8)
RMay in Okolona Arkansas  Sawing since 2001 with a 2012 Wood-Miser LT40HDSD35-RA  with Command Control and Accuset .

Jeff

Horselogger, I sent you an email. we will get ya up and postin pictures yet.
I can change my profile okay. No errors. If you can,t remove all the extra info in other fields and try.

Jeff

Horse Logger your picture is so small you cant see it! Send me an original big one and I will optimize it and put it up. Honest, the one you had on there was only 1bout 1 and a half wide on my screen and my 41 year old eyes couldnt make out the horses.

jeff@forestryforum.com
I can change my profile okay. No errors. If you can,t remove all the extra info in other fields and try.

Norm

It's amazing how some guys like you and your friend can work horses so well. My wife has a 3 1/2 year old Belgian mare that I bought when she was a 2 year old. (the horse not her) ;D Her favorite pastime is breaking down fences to get to the proverbial greener pastures. I plan on getting her breed this spring so we can start on raising a logging crew. One thing I have learned is that steel toe shoes are a must when working with her, also that no farriers will do draft horses so that became my job also.

Nice pics, keep working at it you'll get the hang of it.

bull

Horselogger give it a gee and a haw and get some more pictures...  ;) nice pair of mares, its good for them to have a little spirit!!!    Bull

Phil

Horselogger,

How do they do on steep terrain (as in southern WV and eastern KY)?

Phil

HORSELOGGER

Hi Phil,  I am not experienced with logging in those type of hills, but we do have some steep slopes here in northwest Illinois, they just dont go as high!  On the job we are working now, we have had to pull somme 30" bur and black oaks up out of a ravine. The team of geldings could pull it but kept losing there feet on the ice. We have had a funny winter here , with temps in the upper 40s one week ago and a stiff north wind and overnites around zero today. The horses are bare foot so the ice is hard on em. We hooked another team in front of the geldings ( the mares in the picture ) put a steel neck yoke on the geldings, then ran a chain from the double tree of the mares , through the ring on the neck yoke and back to the tongs. Yanked em all right up no trouble, and was easy to rig quickly. The logs are big enough to put the extra time into, but it really doesnt take much longer. I like to pull down hill straight, rather than on the side slope, or straight up if the horsepower is there. There are some tricks to working slope that other horseloggers have developed, like leaving a little of the first limb or to trimed long to stabilize the log if it decides to try and roll while skiding. There are some ways you can buck the tree into saw logs on a slope that leaves a small amount of " holding wood " so the log doesnt roll away while you are rigging, but the team can snap it lose on the first hit.  We have a couple more bur oaks to come out of the ravine in a day or two, so I will try to get some pics of the two teams rigged together and post them .
Heritage Horselogging & Lumber Co.
"Surgical removal of standing timber, Leaving a Heritage of timber for tommorow. "

Don P

You two ought to do an article  8)

thecgirl

hi,

steve called and said you might be putting on a picture of bomber.  just wondering if you're going to. ;D

bomber's mom
Sue

Phil

An article sounds good to me.  Most of the forestry related mags I subscribe to, though, have done horse logging articles in the last year or two, so I'd have to tailor it to a more alternative type publication.

Phil

beenthere

Horselogger

How is the horse logging going?  Any new pics to put up?

Now that the weather has cooled a bit, maybe getting to be a better time than when it was so hot.
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

HORSELOGGER

Hi Beenthere ;D Nuthin new lately, stay out of the woods till fall. Did get some nice big and long northern reds a few weeks back though. Needed some 14 foot clears for a moulding job i have. Got plenty ;) Where are you in Wi. maybe you could visit this fall and bounce a few out with the boys.
Heritage Horselogging & Lumber Co.
"Surgical removal of standing timber, Leaving a Heritage of timber for tommorow. "

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