Help horse logging

[2dogs]

So, you take a totally green animal, throw a harness on, hook up logs or whatever and start working? And things go well? Nothing broken? The beast automatically understands and all is well?

Here's what happened with my saddle horse and out next door neighbor who was a horse trader/shoer/whisperer. He hooked her up to a sled because he'd been told she was "harness broke". She immediately started bucking and acting up. The sled moved a little bit, the harness broke from all the jerking. She was a saddle horse and not completely new to the world of bridles, reins and commands.

I'd say it takes a bit more than hooking them up and going to work. Maybe you have a special touch?

Plus, nobody has mentioned getting the animal conditioned. They get tired. They get tired faster if they are new to the work. They're like us in that way.

A logger kept his horse corralled at the logging site. The horse broke out and went home, which was quite a ways away. The horse could not work the next day because it was worn out from the trip home.

Horses have to be trained to the task. A horse that drag a calf in the arena would freak out if you hooked it to a cart. Draft horses are much calmer but still, if the draft horse had only pulled a cart it might spook if asked to ground drive logs. Also the horses have to get along with their partner since they work a foot away from each other. Needless to say their pulling abilities have to match. I can only assume mules are the same. And like I said I have no experience with mules (or oxen) but draft horses are heavy animals. Mules are much lighter so won't be able to pull or stop heavy loads.

BTW OP where are you from?

Maybe TUD will join in. He knows a lot about animals.

 

[twochains]

You'll be fine with mules. Are they draft mules I am assuming? Even though they are smaller they have more drive than draft horses. I worked Belgians for several years in the woods. I always really enjoyed it. Mules are a little different...little more spastic and sometimes hard headed.

So it sounds like you know how to ground break them and have got them ready to pull logs maybe. I would start out driving singles until you learn your team. Driving a team in the log woods is a bit tricky, you have to make trails for them wide enough to get through. I had a team blow up on me once...very dangerous! Not to mention you can get your team injured when they go to flailing all about, hooked together.

What are you wanting to know? What are you using for shoes? I always ran Amish hand stamped shoes with 3/4 inch turn downs and drill tech (borium) on the toes and heals for rocky and ice situations. What are you using for drive lines? I always ran 18' leather lines. What about your harness? I ran a stripped down bare essential harness. How is the mules mouth? Are they tough mouthed? If so go with a chain bit to get their attention. What about your bridle? I ran the blinders on mine. Collars?? Surely you have a properly fitted collar for your mules...mule collars are shaped more tear dropped...need to make sure they fit right with a quality pad...otherwise you will make sores on their shoulders. Don't roach their mane, let it lay natural under the collar, it will ad more support actually.

Always feed premium feed when working...don't just feed them corn and think that is good enough. Some horses and mules slobber alot on alfalfa hay...I never fed it, just fed good bermuda grass hay and 14% feed. Get them used to feeding off the truck bed, I fed while mine were tied to the truck bed, I would just creep along till I got to the landing...gets their bowels working early so not to fart in your face right off the bat in the mornings.

If you have any specific questions, I might be able to help you out the best I can. Oh yeh, get borium tipped nails also if on frozen or rocky ground. By the way, how do you talk around your mules...I was always very soft, never just out right shouting. If you have any questions about single trees or what to hook with, I can maybe give some advice there. Good luck to ya...your in for a learning curve.

 

[2dogs]

You'll be fine with mules. Are they draft mules I am assuming? Even though they are smaller they have more drive than draft horses. I worked Belgians for several years in the woods. I always really enjoyed it. Mules are a little different...little more spastic and sometimes hard headed.

So it sounds like you know how to ground break them and have got them ready to pull logs maybe. I would start out driving singles until you learn your team. Driving a team in the log woods is a bit tricky, you have to make trails for them wide enough to get through. I had a team blow up on me once...very dangerous! Not to mention you can get your team injured when they go to flailing all about, hooked together.

What are you wanting to know? What are you using for shoes? I always ran Amish hand stamped shoes with 3/4 inch turn downs and drill tech (borium) on the toes and heals for rocky and ice situations. What are you using for drive lines? I always ran 18' leather lines. What about your harness? I ran a stripped down bare essential harness. How is the mules mouth? Are they tough mouthed? If so go with a chain bit to get their attention. What about your bridle? I ran the blinders on mine. Collars?? Surely you have a properly fitted collar for your mules...mule collars are shaped more tear dropped...need to make sure they fit right with a quality pad...otherwise you will make sores on their shoulders. Don't roach their mane, let it lay natural under the collar, it will ad more support actually.

Always feed premium feed when working...don't just feed them corn and think that is good enough. Some horses and mules slobber alot on alfalfa hay...I never fed it, just fed good bermuda grass hay and 14% feed. Get them used to feeding off the truck bed, I fed while mine were tied to the truck bed, I would just creep along till I got to the landing...gets their bowels working early so not to fart in your face right off the bat in the mornings.

If you have any specific questions, I might be able to help you out the best I can. Oh yeh, get borium tipped nails also if on frozen or rocky ground. By the way, how do you talk around your mules...I was always very soft, never just out right shouting. If you have any questions about single trees or what to hook with, I can maybe give some advice there. Good luck to ya...your in for a learning curve.

What is a draft mule?

 

[twochains]

A draft mule is made from a "Mammoth Jack" (!6 hnds +) and a draft mare

 

[2dogs]

A draft mule is made from a "Mammoth Jack" (!6 hnds +) and a draft mare

Thanks!

 

[jdw]

My team is almost 16 hands. I've used them for farming mowing hay plow got a cart I ride some times I've also pulled firewood out with them. My problem ain't so much with handling a team I got that I've used these animals for several years, my thing is figuring what the logs are worth how to get the most out of the logs.

 

[jdw]

You'll be fine with mules. Are they draft mules I am assuming? Even though they are smaller they have more drive than draft horses. I worked Belgians for several years in the woods. I always really enjoyed it. Mules are a little different...little more spastic and sometimes hard headed.

So it sounds like you know how to ground break them and have got them ready to pull logs maybe. I would start out driving singles until you learn your team. Driving a team in the log woods is a bit tricky, you have to make trails for them wide enough to get through. I had a team blow up on me once...very dangerous! Not to mention you can get your team injured when they go to flailing all about, hooked together.

What are you wanting to know? What are you using for shoes? I always ran Amish hand stamped shoes with 3/4 inch turn downs and drill tech (borium) on the toes and heals for rocky and ice situations. What are you using for drive lines? I always ran 18' leather lines. What about your harness? I ran a stripped down bare essential harness. How is the mules mouth? Are they tough mouthed? If so go with a chain bit to get their attention. What about your bridle? I ran the blinders on mine. Collars?? Surely you have a properly fitted collar for your mules...mule collars are shaped more tear dropped...need to make sure they fit right with a quality pad...otherwise you will make sores on their shoulders. Don't roach their mane, let it lay natural under the collar, it will ad more support actually.

Always feed premium feed when working...don't just feed them corn and think that is good enough. Some horses and mules slobber alot on alfalfa hay...I never fed it, just fed good bermuda grass hay and 14% feed. Get them used to feeding off the truck bed, I fed while mine were tied to the truck bed, I would just creep along till I got to the landing...gets their bowels working early so not to fart in your face right off the bat in the mornings.

If you have any specific questions, I might be able to help you out the best I can. Oh yeh, get borium tipped nails also if on frozen or rocky ground. By the way, how do you talk around your mules...I was always very soft, never just out right shouting. If you have any questions about single trees or what to hook with, I can maybe give some advice there. Good luck to ya...your in for a learning curve.

Yes seems like you have to keep a low pitch when talking to them, they seem to get tore up if you get alittle loud. I have been kicking around the idea of getting a team of Belgians passed up a good deal on a well broke pair a while back should have bought them. I've been working these mules I have for a while on the farm brought logs off the hill for fire wood there still young but doing great with working.

 

[twochains]

What are your mules made from...what breed mare ? Yes, I like the Belgians..Percheron are prettier in a way but they are always figgetting in the rigging. Seems to be the breed, even the mules out of them are twitchy. I had an "Old World" Belgian mare once...sshe was pound for pound one of the strongest horses to pull logs or weight sleds. She was a red roan outfit, about 15 hnds, she wore 6's and wa medium boned but huge girth...short coupled little outfit. I was sitting on an oak log with about 300brd ft. in it...she pulled it 20ft before I let her up. Problem was she was bat **** crazy and had no respect for me at all! LOL! I say that because a true horseman traded me out of her...she would do anything that man wished.

I have my eye on a horse I been seeing for a couple years. Prolly 17.2 Belgian gelding. I had been seeing this horse for a bit and it disapeared...well on my way to where I started cutting last week, I saw him in a pasture...I'm gonna do a stop in I think. See, that's the thing about Belgians...VERY VERY level headed, I don;t even have to know anything about the horse and I can be skidding logs within a week. Well...I left out the part that I can see his tail has been bobbed....only carriage horses or work horses have their tail cut...so my chances are pretty good that he'll work. Horses are cheap...I bet I can walk up with (5) long wheel base tens and load up the horse...wondering if $300 wouldn't have bought him! LOL!

Hey, I just remembered...DON"T SKID SHORT LOGS SINGELY....that crap will get you killed! What happens is the singles skid by themselves...they can stob roots or stumps and hang up, raising up into the air and hitting you in the head potentially killing you...and you won't even know it happened! VERY DANGEROUS!!

 

[jdw]

My mules are out of a mammoth jack and a walking mare. Good size mules I've yet to hook them to anything they couldn't pull. There 4 years old now working great I wouldn't call them dead broke but well broke for sure. I've often wondered how to skid down hill with out logs rolling any advice on this?

 

[jdw]

Where you located twochains?

 

[twochains]

Man that sounds like they'd ride good too! Tennessee Walker? Interested if you can clean up a gait on them? Ya, know...a good actual gait not just a break over at the ankle. Saddlebreds throw a gait to their mule colts sort of regular. I had a Mammoth Jack, son of Tennessee Tex at the time was 5 time Tennessee Champion Mammoth Jack. Mine was 16 hnds at 2 years then died of acute ruptured gut (colic)...what a shame, black with white points, beautiful knees. Those sorrel Mammoth Jacks have pumpkins for knees...look painful! LOL! I got him as a weenling colt and had him line driving in 2 days. I just sort of imprinted him...he was missing his Momma and needed attention so that's what I did with him. He would have been pretty stout..I bred him a few times and ruined him really. He got pretty mean, and if a horse trailer pulled in, he'd freak out thinking he was gonna breed a mare...terrible scenario...you should NEVER work a stud animal...they will hurt you!

North Central Arkansas.

 

[twochains]

I've often wondered how to skid down hill with out logs rolling any advice on this?

What are you going to be cutting? I was logging ERC. Well one thing is you have to have your trace chains set right, the mules should do pretty good down hill, they are generally more sure footed. I used to do either straight down or sidehilled as long as there was suffeicient underbrush to keep the log rolling down the hill on ya. Down hill is dangerous...the mules will have to get used to the feel of the weight transfer...if it gets light....they better speed up cus the log is coming too quick. One thing you can do for yourself is to not wear steel toe boots! Oh, and cut your toe nails! LOL! Steel toes will cut the tops of your feet where your toes start.

Downhill is where the "pulling" shoes come in. The animal has to feel secure on their feet.

 

[jdw]

The mare is gaited I was offered some good money for her but she worked to good to sell. I'm in eastern ky

 

[twochains]

I was born and raised in Louisville Ky. Lived there till I was 20. So what are you going to be logging? The best horse logging would be in ERC in my opinion. It's lighter and you can run single and swap yer animal every 30 minutes er so. Are you gonna ground drive or use an arch? Your probably in steep ground...forget the arch.

FS still uses a horse crew down South of me...now those FS Foresters will almost keep you in timber if you can get the unit done in decent time...they fricken love horses in pine thinnings and select cut oak units.

 

[jdw]

I've got an arch but most of this land here is steep so most of it will be ground driving. I hope to do select cut mostly. But around here there's lots of small tracts of land with good timber that the big log operations won't do I hope to get the work they turn down. I also have a portable sawmill so might pick up work there as well.

 

[twochains]

Picture this...haul your mill to the woods, cut and skid with your mules, and pay % to LO on all sawed product! LOL! I have heard of that being done but you would have to make your paces count everywhere, the cutting and skidding plus your saw time and productivity level. I saw a truck you need the other day....a full functioning side loader with trip bunks! I am pretty sure they designed a side loader for horse logging...well, it sounds good anyway. Ha!

A good logger with a good horse setup will rarely be out of work. I logged alot of land where a skidder would never have been allowed.

So about your mules...are they broke to ride? Are they gaited? Reason I'm asking is you may have some very high dollar mules. Did you say they were matched or not? People pay big money for that size mule...and of they are gaited...damn! You might ought to just work them light and get a team of Belgians for the heavy stuff. Look at it this way, I would sure hate to wreck a high dollar riding mule, by skidding logs full time. Meh...I'd probably work the pee out of 'em if they were mine.

 

[floyd]

I doubt you can compete with mechanical logging, I couldn't.
Butt chains are nice so you can get the evener off their heels with relative ease when going back for a load.
Start at the back & work toward the landing. No use skidding through slash.
Make sure there is a swivel on your grab hook.
A chain with a ring on one end is better than cable. You can hook shorter.
It is handy to have remote control on the team for that log that ends up in the nasty hole with no place for the human being to stand.
Stay out of the bight.

Have fun, I did.

 

[northmanlogging]

If its just the logging end of things. Then it shouldn't be any different than regular logging, you just have a "green" slant to your operation.

So start with calling some mills in your area and get an Idea as to what they are buying and for how much, from there you can figure out your costs and whether or not its going to be worth it.

Second, get really good at hand falling timber

Third learn to identify all the different species in your area (critters too...)

Forth go see a shrink... cause if you're serious about getting into logging you are crazy

 

[exSW]

Picture this...haul your mill to the woods, cut and skid with your mules, and pay % to LO on all sawed product! LOL! I have heard of that being done but you would have to make your paces count everywhere, the cutting and skidding plus your saw time and productivity level. I saw a truck you need the other day....a full functioning side loader with trip bunks! I am pretty sure they designed a side loader for horse logging...well, it sounds good anyway. Ha!

A good logger with a good horse setup will rarely be out of work. I logged alot of land where a skidder would never have been allowed.

So about your mules...are they broke to ride? Are they gaited? Reason I'm asking is you may have some very high dollar mules. Did you say they were matched or not? People pay big money for that size mule...and of they are gaited...damn! You might ought to just work them light and get a team of Belgians for the heavy stuff. Look at it this way, I would sure hate to wreck a high dollar riding mule, by skidding logs full time. Meh...I'd probably work the pee out of 'em if they were mine.

What twochains said about take the mill to the woods,that's exactly what they do here.Usually amish cutting blocking or ties.Have a crawler/loader with forks to load the truck when it comes but skid with the horses.Keep your skids 800' or less that's where the studies show the productivity break is against a machine.If you have a market for grade your mill will help you out.A log that won't grade can be thrown on the mill and some grade can still be cut out of it.