What do do with slash/branches?

[Suz]

Just wondering what everyone else does with their branches, twigs, and slash when they are cutting trees for firewood?
Do you pile it, scatter it, or burn the piles? I know the best would be to run it through a chipper, but I don't own one, nor do I want to rent one for megadollars per hour.
Jim

 

[beerman6]

burn.

 

[Zodiac45]

Best too burn them if you can or haul them off. Believe me when I tell you, they'll build up in a hurry. I currently have a pile on my property that is now too large too burn (safely). I'm gonna try and talk the local fire dept into using it for a controlled exercise.

 

[MS460WOODCHUCK]

Just wondering what everyone else does with their branches, twigs, and slash when they are cutting trees for firewood?
Do you pile it, scatter it, or burn the piles? I know the best would be to run it through a chipper, but I don't own one, nor do I want to rent one for megadollars per hour.
Jim

We have a recycle-compost in our town. That is where I hall it and also is where I cut alot of my firewood that tree companies dump like it is nothing to them. They have to keep the brush & wood seperate so it usually makes for some easy cutting.

 

[ShoerFast]

In urban and semi urban areas you might want to get rid of them, or if space is limited.

There fantastic wildlife promoters...

Pheasants will harbor storms in them, rabbits will live in them. Deer may browse on them if there is something they like or think nutritious.

Most areas, wetter the better will reclaim brush piles in not a lot of time. Having picked Morral mushrooms on locations that I had stacked brush that nature reclaimed, tells me there might be a fertilizer benefit?

Dry areas

Colorado, some areas will only allow one wildlife slash (brush) pile per property. As there non-defendable in case of forest fires.

 

[aandabooks]

I either burn them on site while I'm cutting or occasionally I'll pile them up for rabbit habitat. Problem is there is so much coyote in the area I haven't yet seen a rabbit this year. Guess I'm going to have to start hunting coyote.

 

[ray benson]

The sign should read - Free kindling, you cut.

 

[JBinKC]

I pretty much try not to waste anything and burn any wood fiber in my stove down to the twigs which make good kindling especially if the source of the wood is a residence. Since most of the volume of the wood I obtain is sourced in a forest I will let the brush lay as cover for the wild animals but will take sizes down to 1 1/2".

In an EPA stove tree tops actually have some decent heating value given their wood conserving design.

 

[gink595]

I pile them up as high as I can and then wait for a rainy in the fall and add some "special catalyts" and burn it off. Around here if you call the dispact and tell them your a farmer and your doing a controlled burn you don't get hasseled, so tire away, I mean fire away

 

[Zackman1801]

it all ususally depends on where im cutting my firewood, if im in the woods in an old cut where i get most of my wood i just leave the limbs like the loggers did, when there are already that many limbs on the ground a few more isnt hurting anything, but it makes for good deer hunting. but if im close to the road or close to my house i pile them or atleast put them in a central location and then leave em, were supposed to have someone come buldoze the property sometime to flatten off some hills and were going to push them over a cliff with the dozer.

 

[savageactor7]

It varies on where exactly I am.

If you spread them all out flat on the ground they'll rot out completely in a couple 3 years.

Or I might pile them up along and on top of some larger rotted logs to promote lower mammal life forms. If you do that make sure you have some big stuff on the bottom to protect against fishers and ferrets.

Then again I might throw 'em on a stump I want to burn out.

 

[J.W Younger]

Just wondering what everyone else does with their branches, twigs, and slash when they are cutting trees for firewood?
Do you pile it, scatter it, or burn the piles? I know the best would be to run it through a chipper, but I don't own one, nor do I want to rent one for megadollars per hour.
Jim

cut bottom out of 55 gal barrel burn stumps

 

[projectsho89]

The sign should read - Free kindling, you cut.

Post that on CL...!!

:greenchainsaw:

Steve

 

[TreePointer]

I am fortunate to do almost all my firewood cutting on my father's farm. Most of the remainder goes into brush piles for critter habitat. A little goes onto the burn pile just to make my father happy--he's the biggest "pyro" in the family.

 

[whiting-5]

heres one of my burn piles after i had some clear cuttin done and thats the same field 2 years later after all the debri had been cleaned up stumps removed and buried lot of work!!! burn what you can !!!!!!

 

[logbutcher]

Burnings' some fun, but work making the pile then waiting for that special day for the permit: wet, snowy.
Best forestry practice is to leave it to rot, make soil, and make babies. We call it "woody debris" to fertilize poor soils like we have here in Downeast Maine. Saves you plenty of extra work and helps put back what is cut. Skidders pulvarize (sp.) the slash to rot in our area at least in less than a couple of years. Some loggers doze it into brush piles for wildlife; piles over 20' high rot down to nothing in 2 years.
Best to leave it where you cut it.

 

[dustytools]

If im cutting here on our farm I just pile it up and leave it in the woods. It gives the Beagles something to sniff around in.

 

[Joshlaugh]

Burn, chip, or if the area is right for it(Not someone's backyard), wildlife habitat.

 

[Octane]

I use some of the bigger pieces for starting a fire. Most of the time though, the smaller branches, twigs and bark end up getting stolen by my parents' 4 Labrador Retrievers. Apparently, the dogs think those make good chewtoys.

 

[Dok]

I hunt quail in the morning then switch to wood cutting. I leave the brush piles as cover for the quail. I can't tell you how many times I have flushed quail out of a brush pile I created just a couple weeks earlier.
Dok