Horse Logging

[chevytaHOE5674]

A lot comes from the horse/mules training. My girlfriends horses will skid logs without trying to kill you. They take it nice and slow, and they don't start pulling until you say go. They don't try to run away from you so it is actually enjoyable and not a death trap. 

Many people train them to go when the tongs are hooked, Not sure why. 

[Tom]

I watched a horse pull in Minnihaha on a visit to my little brother's house.  As soon as the hook was dropped, those horses took off.  Sometimes they didn't have the sled attached when they did it and had to come back.  I was wondering if that was how they were trained or  if they had just learned to play the game.
July 4th Dover, Minn.

Horses play games too.  We used to play "badman and posse" when I was younger.  All of us on horseback and one was the badman.  He would take off through the orange grove and everyone else would try to catch him and throw green oranges at him.  My pony knew the drill and would, sometimes, hide behind or under an orange tree without my telling him to do it.  One time he ducked under an orange tree and my glasses got knocked off.  I was trying to figure out where they were and the herd of Posse came barrelling through. As soon as they passed, he jumped out from under the tree and went the other way.  I like to have never found that tree again, but did.  I found my glasses too.

[chevytaHOE5674]

I watched a horse pull in Minnihaha on a visit to my little brother's house.  As soon as the hook was dropped, those horses took off.  Sometimes they didn't have the sled attached when they did it and had to come back.  I was wondering if that was how they were trained or  if they had just learned to play the game.

Thats how the horse pulls are here, when the hook gets close to the sled they are gone. But there is one team that shows up where the horses wait for the drivers commands before they go. Thats how my girlfriends horses are and it makes working them a real delight. 

[thecfarm]

I go to the pulls too.Too bad the teamsters raise so much heii with the horses to make them do that.There are a few that really enjoy the pulling and are just excited to do what they are trained for. Kinda makes you wonder what goes on behind some of the barns. But there are a lot of different noises and smells at the pulls.Horse can be real funny when there is something different to them.It's a lot different with 2-300 people than you and a horse and the woods.Most of the teams,in this area,that pull in the ring,would be lost in the woods,unless they could go in a straight line all the time. It's a hobby to alot of teamsters around here.

[zackman1801]

my teacher logs with horses. he likes them alot, but every now and again they will act up. he tells us stories of the horses taking off and having to chase them down through the woods untill they either get tired and stop or get hung up and cant move. They are neat animals though. but you really have to make sure that they are comfortable with each other at all times or else you will have big problems in the woods.

[moonhill]

Chevytaho, your girl is doing it the correct way.  The team or single horse should never do any thing without being spoken to.  Horses learn quickly, one time is all it takes sometimes and they have a bad habit, or what I would perceive as a bad habit, others may say that it's cute or just shrug it off and continue.  Bad habits are easy to learn and harder to stop.  They shouldn't even move one foot an inch before the the other half is ready, the other half is the teamster. 

I have never seen in the movies, fiction land, the driver of a team of horses ask correctly for them to move.  It seems 99.9% of the time they are slapped with the lines.  That is sending the wrong signal.  The horse sees that as any time the lines are tosses around its time to go, so off they go, BAD.  Horses are tuned into sounds and the first step is to verbally cue them the lines are a secondary system of communication.  Slapping the lines is not the correct cue, light pressure is the way.  The pulling horses are cued into the clink of the chain or the absence of the chain moving, you choose.  What is really sending the team off?  It should be the driver.

Tim 

[WAP Man]

I had a big draft called Jim i logged with and did sleigh rides with when time permitted for over 20 years . I got Jim when he was 16 . At first he was the patience one  and I learned a lot from him . No big mishaps to speak off . For the next 20 years I saw more of him than my kids . Every morning and nite for 20 years . Then one morning in April 2 years ago I had to put him down . Tore my *DanG heart out , who said grown men don't cry .
Any way ,Jim rests on the property and I'm thinking in a few years ( when I retire ) i may get another .

 

[Rick Alger]

I log full time with horses. Production is low but so are expenses. Most of my work is on sites that the machine guys can't or won't touch because of wetlands, soil types or esthetics.
I work alone,so it makes for a long day, but the pace is calm and you can feel good about what you're doing.  You only take what is ready to go, and when you leave, the forest is still intact.

[thecfarm]

That is a job I would like to see. There is a guy at work that says horses make more of a mess than skidders because there is no way to smash the brush down. A skidder can run over the brush.  :  I tried to tell him I use a tractor in the woods and there is no brush sticking up in the air.I guess he never heard of cutting the brush up too until I tried to tell him. Some people are just too much in a hurry to do a good job. The old I can cut 20 cords a day story.Maybe so,but not on my land you won't.That is with a chainsaw and a skidder.

[maple flats]

My brother had a team several years ago and I used to log it with him and the horses during the winter. We would make a small trail and then drop a tree and buck the first log, hitch the horse and drive him out. After the one time I would drop trees and buck logs. When the horse came to the log I would get him lined up, back him to the log and hook the chain up. On command the horse took the log out to the landing where my brother was who unhooked the horse and send him back in. We would do this for up to about 2 1/2 hours and then break for lunch and feed the horses hay and a little oats. We most often logged with 1 but the other was there for bigger logs. When the horse was on his first trip out my brother often rode horseback, over the harness because the horse walked faster than my brother could safely thru the snow. The heavier the log the faster the horse would pull. The second horse did not log well alone, it needed to be a follower, but when teamed they would both pull well. About 1999 or 2000 my brother got a job that kept him away too long to tend the horses so he sold them. Now he uses an ASV, 80 HP version with a hydraulic shear which will cut anything up to 16", over that is still chainsaw work.

[woodrat]

I got to do this on a small sawmilling job in Northern CA once. The guy had hired a horse logger to get all his logs together, so I went to the job a few days early and helped. It was so much nicer than setting choker behind a diesel machine. The horses were calm and smart and had been logging together most of their lives. Like someone else said here, they didn't even need to be guided up and down the trail, but we walked alongside with peavies in case something got hung up. I had such a great time that I started setting up my next few jobs to get the logs out with horses, but then the guy retired his horses and bought a backhoe.

I spent a few years looking at teams and gear and thinking about getting into it myself, but then I moved back to SW Washington where all the logging is huge, corporate scale with huge machinery and I doubt I could find enough people who would pay to have their logs brought out with horses.

but it was fun and I think about it still...

[thompsontimber]

A local environmental group known as the Concerned Citizens of Rutherford County used to hold an annual "horse logging day" and invite foresters and landowners in the area to come witness horse logging and meet folks willing to log with horses as well as "teach" all the forestry professionals about how to conduct sustainable hardwood management and particularly uneven-age stand management.  There silvicultural methods were lacking in substance as you might imagine from such a group, and they basically attempted to teach people how to grow yellow-poplar and red maple in small scattered canopy openings, but the horse logging was neat to watch.  As for the environmental impact, some of those slopes they would work sure looked more like an erosion issue after those hooves dug there way up a few times as compared to a cable pulling the timber up the hill. 

[chevytaHOE5674]

Many claim that horse logging causes more soil compaction and erosion than a winch skidder. If you can get the horses to walk different trails all the time its better. But a team of horses constantly using the same trail can do lots of soil damage.

Edit: My preference is winter harvest with a small skidder, no soil damage or erosion issues.

But horses sure are fun to toy with, and pull out the occasional firewood.

[woodrat]

I've seen hillsides in southern Oregon that were yarder logged, probably decades ago, since I've been driving by them and looking at them for over 15 years, and you can still see the yarder trail scars from miles away. No team of horses could ever match that. And on my own land that was dozer logged in 1985, you can still see every single skid trail in the woods, clear as day. Even with my limited experience with horses, I have a hard time believing that a team of horses is going to leave behind a trail that will still be obvious 25 years later. Besides horses, I've personally used a small dozer, a Unimog and a small 4x4 tractor with a Farmi winch to skid logs. The Unimog, the tractor and the horses were all pretty low impact, but the dozer left a mess.

I guess if you're just clearcutting anyway, and treating the land like a field that needs to be plowed, then I suppose it doesn't matter what you use to drag the logs out, every square foot of dirt is going to get disturbed anyway. But I can't stand looking at those huge muddy clearcuts, and I can't stand looking at my creek after it rains hard either. I'd rather everyone used horses or small rubber tired skidders and cut selectively or only in small clearcuts, and there would be a lot more jobs in the woods, too.

[chevytaHOE5674]

Repeated horses dragging logs on a single trail can create ruts as well. The butts of the logs dig in because most just use tongs without a sled  of some kind. Using an arch or sled will virtually eliminate this issue... With any harvesting system proper skid trail layout is key.

Also horses hooves have lots of weight on them so they compact the soil pretty good. When horses "bite" in they can tear up lots of ground. My girlfriends team of horses will throw dirt 10+ feet when hooked to a large log and dig holes in the ground. Where a small tractor can skid it without spinning a tire or disturbing much at all. 

IMO/ IME horse logging is pretty low impact, but a good crew with a small skidder can be just as low impact. The nice thing about horses is they are easy to maneuver and work with in small tracts, and tracts with lots of residual left. But with proper road and trail layout just about any equiptment can be "low impact".

I have seen ruts and trenches left from past horse logging. So it can be done.

[thompsontimber]

But I can't stand looking at those huge muddy clearcuts, and I can't stand looking at my creek after it rains hard either. I'd rather everyone used horses or small rubber tired skidders and cut selectively or only in small clearcuts, and there would be a lot more jobs in the woods, too.

Logging impact isn't simply a matter of machine size or harvest size.  The idea that "clearcutting is bad" and selective harvesting with small machines and horses is the answer for an environmentally friendly logging solution is based much more on propaganda and the logic of the uniformed than it is in reality.  Reality is that clearcutting is often an appropriate silvicultural prescription.  When even-aged stands reach maturity and a regeneration harvest is appropriate, clearcutting is certainly not "bad."  Perhaps some will find it aesthetically unappealing, but forest management is long term, and not based solely on whether or not someone likes to see a bare spot of ground for a short time following a harvest.  Timing, type of harvest, terrain--all come into play when conducting a harvest and making sound environmental decisions.  Take a small, light weight 548 size class skidder with 23 tires on it in wet conditions and start dragging up a primary skid trail all day long and watch the ruts form.  Then run a heavy 848 machine with 35.5 tires on it on that same job and watch it set right on top of the ground with no rutting, hardly leaving a footprint behind.  Sure, conventional logging with rubber tired machines can have a devastating environmental impact, as can yarders, track machines, or animals.  The key is skid trail layout, harvest techniques, timing of the harvest, and matching appropriate equipment to the task at hand.  Simply saying everyone should use small machines and select cut is off base. 

[Gary_C]

 
The key is skid trail layout, harvest techniques, timing of the harvest, and matching appropriate equipment to the task at hand.  Simply saying everyone should use small machines and select cut is off base. 

Well said. The other thing I would add is if you have to say bad things about someone else to promote your way, you are not doing everything the right way.  :

[chevytaHOE5674]

Simply saying everyone should use small machines and select cut is off base. 

Exactly, the key is to select the right silvicultural prescription (usually to mimic natural disturbances, [be it total clearcut, small patch clearcuts, selection cut, etc...]) for the stand in question. Arriving at a management plan for that stand and from there selecting the proper equiptment and cutting system. There is a time and place for every piece of equiptment and knowing when and where to use each is crucial.

[woodrat]

Fair enough. But in my neck of the woods, apparently every single forestry unit calls for exactly the same treatment: to be clearcut up to 240 acres, even if the adjoining unit has only regrown to 10 feet tall or so. And if there weren't regulations about that, the clearcuts would be even bigger. And the creeks around here all tell the same sad story. I don't think clearcutting is always a bad thing, or always has to be done badly. I just look around me and see that there is no such thing as careful forestry around here, or applying different treatments based on the landscape. I can't remember the last time I saw a logging operation that wasn't a complete and total clearcut, regardless of slope, stand makeup or anything else. Every now and then there will be a handful of scraggly survivors left behind, spaced hundreds of feet apart, and they frequently blow down in the first good windstorm. And the "even aged stands should be clearcut" thing is sort of a self fulfilling prophecy. Once you turn everything into even aged stands, then every thing "needs" to be clearcut, and once everything is done with  giant scale machinery, with giant sized mortgages on it, then more and bigger isn't just better, it becomes necessary to keep  the bankers happy. And  now that the prices for timber are in the toilet, everyone is crying out for the state and the feds to release more timber for sale. How is that going to help in the long term? to flood a depressed market with more product?

I'm not saying that nothing should ever be clearcut, or that horses float above the ground and never disturb it, but I'll stick by my assertion that smaller scale forestry and more local decision making would result in healthier, more intact forests, more jobs in the woods, better prices for wood, less drastic flooding events and cleaner water for fish. And horses, smaller machines, smaller clearcuts and more uneven aged stands I think would all be part of that.

But, that is just my humble opinion, and if you guys want to call me a wacko radical eco-nut, you wouldn't be the first... ;)

[cheyenne]

IMHO and I'm no Forestor or logging genius. But I think the only reason for clear cutting and the way things have been done since the begining is economics. It is easier,faster & more profitable to clear cut 240 acres than it is to take the same amount of timber from a 1000 acres......Ponder....If there was no clear cutting & all cutting was done with a healthy forest left after logging there would be more work & timber prices would be higher. But the big corps will never go there. It's about the bottom line & stockholders dividends.....Cheyenne

[chevytaHOE5674]

Clearcutting mimics the natural disturbances in many pine dominated forests. That disturbance would be large scale stand replacing fires (that we have now suppressed for many many years). So by clear cutting these pine forests roughly the same effect takes place as a large scale fire.

Also clear cuts are economical.

[woodrat]

I don't live in pine country so I don't know about pine. I live on the wet side of the cascades, with over 100 inches of rain a year, and where there have rarely been large fire events. I know that Douglas fir likes the sun, and that that is often given as the reason for clearcutting, but the scale of it has gotten way out of whack.

Economics is the main reason, and short term economics at that. And I don't think that short term economics should be the main motivator when dealing with tree species that can live for over 1000 years.

And the economics of salmon fishing has been all but extinguished, in large part by bad land management practices. The creek here was over 20 feet deep at the mouth 50 years ago, and now it is about 20 inches at low tide. I think that better and more careful forestry could have prevented that.

But hey, we were talking about horses originally, so I'll shut up now and let people get back to that.

Anyone ever see the Small Farmer's Journal out of Sisters, OR? It's a great magazine, centered around using horses for all kinds of work.

[thompsontimber]

Point taken woodrat, and certainly not intending to imply that you are a radical eco-nut.  My point is simply that you can't paint the entire timber industry or the forestry prescriptions used across the nation with the same broad brush.  Unfortunately, when such debates break out people tend to gravitate to solutions that regulate what can and can't be done based on acreage or something of that sort rather than regulations that require sound forest management by forestry professionals.  Too often legitimate management activities are deemed "wrong, destructive, and greedy" by folks that just quite honestly don't know any better.  I understand that you preface your comments with the basis of "where you live," and that is probably the key to your point of view.  Certainly stand dynamics in your area differ greatly from my area. You comment on what you see, and I certainly don't know much about how things are being done in the Geat Northwest.  I agree that nationwide, big timber companies and the bottom line too often trump what is right, but I think we are also seeing that trend decrease and foresty practices are improving all the time.  At least that's what I see in my area. Big timber hardly even owns any land around here anymore, and of course federal land is a minor component of the timber industry here as compared to all that BLM land out west.  The biggest culprit in bad management decisions here seems to be the propensity for landowners to avoid seeking professional advice, even though its often free and just a phone call away.

Nope, haven't seen that Small Farmer's Journal--dunno if we have any such local publications centered on horse logging, but the horse logging definetely has a niche here locally.

[woodrat]

check it out:

http://www.smallfarmersjournal.com/

[thompsontimber]

thanks for the link!