Introduction

Because regulations and environmental awareness are becoming a dominant feature of today's timber and land use policies, horse logging has become a very viable proposition. Horse logging is particularly attractive to timber clients with small acreage's or others with larger timber holdings that value the sustained, low impact, technology of horse logging. Horse logging provides the ability to easily set up for a small amount of timber in a short time. There are few horse logging sales set up by federal and state agencies, although that varies depending on location.

Fees For Horse Logging Services

There is no one guideline to use when developing the fees for your horse logging services. There are far too many considerations effecting the cost. Generally horse loggers charge slightly more than a logger using mechanized means to put the timber in the deck. Charges for horse logging can be determined by the ton, cord, thousand, cubic meter, hundred weight or a percentage split. Whatever your arrangement is remember to consider the extraneous costs such as the amount of cleanup and work not directly associated to extraction.

Intitial Cost To Get Started In Horse Logging

Prices will vary considerably. Also bare in mind that you can save money on equipment if you're able to build your own equipment. So just to give you a ballpark idea of what it costs to purchase what you need here are some numbers to consider:

• 1800# draft horse: $500 to $5000 with the average being $1500
• Team of draft horses: $3000-$12,000 or more depending how big, gender, registered or not, and training
• harness; single, leather $1500 or single, nylon $600
• harness; double, leather $3000 or double, nylon $1200
• 2 single trees and a double tree with grab-hook and rigging can be obtained from some sources for an average of $200
• shoes for your draft horse: $ 50-$150 per heavy horse depending on type of shoe
• Feed 20# hay and 8# grain per horse per working day: $2/day
• Veterinary (worming and innoculations): $70-$100/horse/year
• Chainsaw and related safety equipment: $350 to $1000

Realistic Production Levels of Horse Logging

How much wood you can expect to haul out to a landing is dependent on length of skid, slope, terrain and size of timber. In my experience it seems a team and teamster doing his own falling can average 1000 board feet per day (1000 bd.ft = 4.72m3), skidding timber with an average content of 33 bd. ft. (.14m) per log, less than 100 yds. (30m), on flat, reasonably open ground.

Choosing a Draft Horse

Horse logging is a vary demanding and athletic occupation for a horse. It takes a strong, intelligent and calm horse to make a good logging horse.

Draft type breeds are preferred for logging as they have been bred for hundreds of years for heavy work. In a general sense draft horses have a calm disposition and are heavy boned to endure the tremendous demand placed on their physique.

Although draft breeds are the convention, many crossbred horses with draft backgrounds are as good or better than purebreds.

Because of the many variables in types of logging, size of people and types of horses, other considerations such as the convenience smaller horses have over large horses for cost of maintenance and ease of harnessing or the availability and price of horses in a certain locality, what a person starts with and what a person needs may or may not be what you can afford or will eventually end up with.

If you can find a horse that you can put to work the next day, you will be money ahead in no time, recovering your initial investment and earning a wage. Too many times near disaster is the result of a green horse and a green teamster. Until a level of competency by the teamster has been acquired the value of an experienced horse is immeasurable. "A well broke horse can teach you. Go slow, work smart, be steady, the rest of it comes easy."

A Team of Draft Horses or a Single Draft Horse

The size of timber dictates the size and/or number of draft horses. If a single draft horse will do then you will save on overhead. But it is worth considering having at least one additional draft horse in your stable. This will allow you to rotate your horses working them single. Alternately you could have a total of three horses and rotate horses in the team. A healthy, well-kept horse can work day after day for many years.

Transporting Draft Horses

A two ton truck with a horse box is easier to get around in the woods than a horse trailer but has the disadvantage of needing an appropriate un-loading place. Most 2 ton truck beds are 4' off the ground so need a substantial ramp or bank to load from. A 5th wheel trailer is handy if you are hauling every day and is handier than a "bumper-pull" trailer and easy to load and un-load horses.

Shoes For Your Draft Horse?

Shoes are mandatory. Even on good ground shoes may save a horses foot. The danger of slipping, tearing off a hoof wall or getting a "gravel" is less of a worry when your horse has shoes. And there are many conditions such as snow, ice and mud where special shoes that provide traction are necessary. At times, such as in rocky conditions or where work on pavement is frequent, special shoes with hardsurfacing to prolong shoe life or rubber shoes might be in order.

Learn How To Shoe Your Own Horse?

The more skills you have the more money you will save. But that doesn't necessarily translate into more money at the end of the year. You will invest both time and equipment to shoe your own horses. You will need to compare the worth of this investment against the costs of hiring out the work.

The cost of shoeing may vary depending on the size, type of shoe and local availability of a farrier. Currently costs may range from $30 for plain shoes that have already been shaped, to $150 for custom made shoes that have been hardsurfaced and have toe clips and caulks. The one thing you should absolutely know is how to manage your horses feet. Regular handling and inspection of your horses feet is most important. It allows you to keep track of the health of their feet as well as helps your horse feel more comfortable when someone handles their feet. Regular maintenance requires trimming and cleaning the frog of the foot every four to six weeks.

Boarding Draft Horses On the Job Site

There are times when daily hauling of your draft horses is a problematic and it makes more sense to keep the horses on the job and haul feed and water to them. Here are a few ways to keep them contained.

1. A tie-line run from tree to tree, over the head of the horse, to which the lead rope is attached, is fine if the horse is easy to keep and used to being tied.
2. A portable electric fence is especially effective and is very versatile, the worst problem is if the fence should quit working because a horse, cow, deer or tree breaks the circuit, you may be looking for horses when you show up for work.
3. Portable metal panels attached to the side of an 18' 5th wheel trailer, with a horse on each side of the trailer is a great option if you have the money to invest. The trailer can be used to keep feed, harness and tools as well as for cooking and sleeping.

Basic Equipment for Horse Logging

To get started in horse logging you'll need at least one good draft horse, harness, single-tree, rigging chain and a chainsaw. There are a few other accessories that you will eventually find useful such as cables, block and tackle, tongs, cart, and a bobsled. Eventually you may want to work with a team of draft horses but for starting out a single draft horse, ground-skidding timber is sufficient.

Where To Find Horse Logging Equipment

You can find both new and used horse logging equipment on the Internet and in print advertisements in trade magazines. And there are few sources that specialize in the manufacture of equipment designed for horse logging. The reality is that most horse logging equipment is modified, locally manufactured or home-made. The Horselogger's International News, is collecting sources of equipment to refer others to and is developing merchandise that we make and have available.

Horse Logging with Carts and Sleds

On the right ground a cart saves both the team and teamster energy. A cart or arch allows the teamster to ride saving many miles of walking and can be designed to raise the front of the log off the ground making skidding much less work for the horses. Although a cart or other device makes skidding easier, ground skidding is the convention and until experience is gained, the beginning horse logger should spend considerable time ground skidding.

Decking Logs

Stacking logs where the log truck can pick them up is called decking the logs. Putting up logs in the deck can be difficult for a horselogger. When spread out side by side, on both sides of a road, logs take up considerable room. It is not uncommon to run out of room before the log truck can get them out.

A horse logger can take advantage of natural features of the terrain such as a handy ditch or ravine that can be filled up, or trees used for bunks on the down-hill side of a road. Using self-loaders has been the making of horse logging but even with this handy equipment its common to run out of room for decking. Many truck-loads can run up to 80 logs. Cross hauling, using a block and tackle in a tree, a teamster can pile up many logs. An A-frame or hoist can be used to deck and load trucks with. A tractor or other machine can also be used for decking.

Is a Crawler or Tractor a Worthy Investment?

The more equipment you have the more overhead and maintenance you have, which takes time away from the main job of falling and skidding. One of the reasons horselogging is viable is the low start-up costs and overhead. Many of the things you need a machine for such as road building, and snow removal can be hired out.

There is no denying a crawler with a blade greatly enhances the business of logging. Logs can be pushed up in considerable piles in small places using a machine. Road building and maintenance, culvert installations and even pushing in main skid trails are a great consideration that a machine alleviates. In some localities having a machine on the job is a government requirement during fire season, if you dare work in such conditions. I firmly believe that to be a good horse logger one should spend as much time with the horses as possible before considering the addition and expense of a machine to the business. The fact is, although slow, horses can do the entire job, even road building and snow removal if necessary.

How Many Horse Loggers Are There?

Horse loggers are an extraordinarily independent lot and it is hard to say how many there might be. We at Horselogger's International News [1], are dedicated to networking with horseloggers around the world. We can say there are an average of 100 horseloggers in the each state that timber production is a resource. Outside the Pacific Northwest including British Columbia, the largest number of horseloggers is in North East United States. Outside of the US, the largest and most developed horselogging industry is the Scandinavian countries of Norway and Sweden with thousands of horses employed in timber extraction. Research and development of horselogging and equipment has been extensively pursued by the University of Garpenberg, Sweden.

Horse Power and Endurance

Without getting scientific, he rule of thumb is 'a horse can pull his own weight'. Some draft horses can pull more than there weight for short distances. Horse drawn farm equipment is engineered with a horse's 'draft' (i.e. the resistance of the load being pulled by the horse) in mind. A single 14" single bottom plow has about a 400# draft. A horse can be expected to pull 10% of his body weight at a constant hourly labor. It would take two, 2000# horses to pull a 14" plow all day.

Horse logging, on the other-hand, has many variables to contend with. Each pull has a different weight and terrain to be dealt with. As an example, a green Pine sawlog 13" in diameter on the small end measuring 16' long will weigh 1000 lbs. This is half the weight of a 2000 lb horse, obviously he can pull the log but you shouldn't expect the horse to pull for any great length of time without a rest.

Herein lies the secret to logging with horses. The ability of the teamster to consider the weight and difficulty of the skid. To make pull after pull 8 to 10 hours a day with the same horse or team takes some creative and judicious consideration. A 13" x 16' log has 100 board foot of timber, weighing 1000 lbs., if we hold that a team will pull 1000 board foot per day that would be 10,000 lbs of weight pulled. In an average year of 300 working days the team will have pulled 1 million pounds of timber. In a carreer of 10 years that would translate into the astounding accomplishment of pulling 10 million pounds of timber in every conceivable weather condition over who knows what kind of ground. Every consideration must be made for the welfare and condition of these wonderful workmates if such demands will be expected of them.