[Baystatetom]

I think I have made a pretty near full recovery, although its hard to tell if its the Lyme Disease or the manual labor in the summer heat that is kicking my but now :p

[Baystatetom]

Here is my boys Rock and Star bringing home a stick of black birch firewood last winter. They are still young but are for sure the best pulling team I have had yet. They just don’t quit.

[Baystatetom]

Sorry Ethan for taking this so far from your research question.
~Tom

[Baystatetom]

It seems like we all agree here. I am the only one arguing a little little bit for machines but I would still rather use my steers. Of the last two jobs I marked I don’t think either could be cut with draft animals. The first was mostly hemlock under severe stress from the wooly adelgid. I was marking 5-7mbf/acre of wood that is worth $180/mbf delivered to the mill 15 miles away and good ground scarification is a must for the future of that forest. The other lot was a mix of cabbage pine and hemlock. It was the mostly the first generation of trees since agricultural abandonment except it had already been high graded at least once. I can’t see how a draft animal can compete in those cases with such a high volume per acre of low quality wood.
We will always need machinery for those jobs. The real trick will be making it common for the line to be drawn saying its okay here but not there.
This discussion would be better if we had a few skidder operators to through their two cents in.

[Baystatetom]

Its tough for sure. I had a team of jerseys that I decided were not going to be strong enough to pull the logs I wanted to be cutting. When it came right down to it I would have kept them forever before sending them to slaughter. Luckily I talked my cousin into taking them. Now they are living on the other side of town and we can visit from time to time. I don’t envy you in the least. Good luck
~Tom

[Baystatetom]

Hey Carl, your preaching to the choir brother I am already there! I do want to shift into working my team in the woods. I am not sure draft animals are a superior silvicultural tool, however I do belief working with my oxen will better suite the relationship I have with the forest in which I work.
I have been slowly building up to it. Doing more chainsaw work in an attempt to build logging skills, collecting equipment etc.
My 5 year plan is to split my time three ways between running my grandfathers old handset chase mill, ox logging and forestry. The only thing I really need help with is convincing my wife:o.
Mitch I also feel your pain. For a few years I marked and sold pretty close to ten million feet, I used to have 15 loggers at every showing. Now its more like 5 and only 2 actually bid. I have had to diversify and do things like GPS trails in State parks and spray herbicide on invasive plants in order to pay the bills. Things can’t be bad forever, stay strong.
~Tom

[Baystatetom]

What I should have done to start with was to reread Carl’s earlier post and take time to let it sink in before I opened my big mouth.
Alternatively what I really should have said is that under the situations in which I usually work a horse is not a superior tool. Meaning that if I marked a stand of timber and had a skidder on half and a horse on half, after 20 years there should be no difference.
A horse would be superior to a skidder if it came to pulling 150 ft of cable to retrieve a single tree, but I wouldn’t mark timber that way to start with. I make sure the loggers have a full hitch within reach of the cable. ( the wiseguy in me wonders what if we used a horse to pull the skidder cable)
So why wouldn’t I mark timber that way. Simple, supply and demand. In some parts of the world there is a limited timber resource, therefor every acre of forest must be managed to reach its fullest potential. Frequent thinnings and perpetual single tree selections would let a draft animal system really shine. But here in north America we have such a great volume of forest that the value is lower. Rather then marking lite thinnings I just wait longer between harvests and then do heavier cuts. Supply and demand is behind the economics which control timber markets and forestry.
I do think there will be a time when draft animals are more common in the woods, but I really hope its not because we run out of timber and supply and demand shifts the other way. I think it will come because eventually the cost of oil and fuel will get high enough that the local horse logger will have a lower production cost then big timber business. Thats not going to happen right away so lets keep passing on our skills to our kids and grandkids so they can take advantage when its time.
In the mean time if you all can do that kind of harvesting now and make a living doing what you love, great I am envious.
~Tom

[Baystatetom]

Carl every time I read one your post I wish I was as well spoken as you. Maybe sometime I can check out one of your jobs.
~Tom

[Baystatetom]

Again its the logger that makes the difference. I know two brothers with a pretty new JD 548, its a monster of a machine. But they manage to work around regeneration and take rainy days off. If you are a good conscientious horse logger Mitch I bet you can apply the same principles to logging with a machine.
Hey I am not knocking you, if I had horse loggers to work with here in Western Mass. I could keep them well supplied with woodlots. I hope to log with my team as soon as they are grown up a little.
I think of a conversation I had with a organic farmer one time. He said he wasn’t really strongly opposed to pesticides but that organic produce was what people wanted at the local farmers market.
I don’t see anything wrong with skid trails being wide enough for a skidder, or having the ground scarification they create. I often wish we had better scarification because thats were the best regeneration is.
But if you or I or anybody else can make a living catering to people who don’t like machines, while practicing good forestry and working with the animals we love, why not!
~Tom

[Baystatetom]

Let me first apologies because I know I am going to really tick off a whole lot of people when I say this, but I have been a professional forester for 15 years and I think a good conscientious logger with a cable skidder is equally as good as a team of draft animals only a lot faster. Trust me I am a life long ox man and hope to start ox logging 1/2 time soon but its true. I work with a few guys with older smaller skidders that do so good no horse, mule or ox could compete. Yup some loggers are horrible with skidders and fellerbunchers, but some guys highgrade the hell out of woodlots with horses too.
I truly do believe the difference is in the logger not the equipment. Maybe the logger you want uses horses maybe the logger you want uses a skidder but its the man (or woman) that makes the difference not the the equipment. Think of it like plowing a field. Is a field plowed with horses different then a field plowed with a tractor come August?
Sorry everybody,
~Tom

[Baystatetom]

I know of several broken yokes just in the small circle of friends I have with oxen. Of course they are all into ox draws and hook to loads you would never ask of a working team.
I agree most of the force should be on the yoke, but you can see when a team is really lugging hard on a heavy load that the bows sink in between the shoulders and the neck. They have to be absorbing at least some of the load. But it should be the sides or vertical parts of the bow not the bent bottom.
The other thing not to forget is anything that can go wrong will go wrong
~Tom

[Baystatetom]

The math is to much for my small mind as well, I think I’ll just keep hooking onto things and pulling them without worrying about anything but how hard it looks like my bulls are working.
I did however just break my yoke by hooking a rock with the corner of my stonebolt with a load on. The team felt it hit and jerked it loose, I heard a big crack and that was all she wrote. Ever catch something like that on your draft meter? Must have been a lot of force there to break a 7″ yellow birch yoke.
~Tom

[Baystatetom]

From what I have seen of the Canadian head yoked teams that occasionally show up at New England ox draws, the teams are usually herfords or herford/shorthorns. They are short and stocky animals. I think the line of draft defiantly plays into it. I have never seen a mature pair of Holsteins or brown swiss in a head yoke. I wonder how it would work on a tall team. Maritime ox teamsters on facebook has a ton of photos and members. I bet they could add to the discussion.
~Tom

[Baystatetom]

Is what you had in mind?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQev3UoGp2M&feature=player_embedded
Kidding aside lets also not forgot that pigs are a highly invasive non-native to the U.S. which cause substantial damage to property and crops. All due care would have to be given to be sure they stayed confined.
Also reminded of the saying “whether you think you can or can’t you are usually right”.
~Tom

[Baystatetom]

A friend just emailed me this video, you got watch it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQev3UoGp2M&feature=player_embedded

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