small logging equipment

[woodmills1]

check this site for some interesting small logging and thinning equipment.

www.cam-trac.com

[StIhL_MaGnUm_1]

Definetly some neat equipment ,but it's too small for me and my operation...

                  Later Rob..

[Tillaway]

I have scratched a pencil on this type of equipment a few years ago.  You need a really good log market for it to work.  The harvester alone would be over 100K new.  That little Vimek has to be at least 50K but thats just a guess.  Maybe two loads a day production if I remember right.

[Ron Scott]

Some neat equipment for "light on the land" timber management and harvesting. Would like to see it available for use, but economics certainly a concern of the user.

However, it might become the only type equipment, if any, pernitted on public lands in the future.

[HORSELOGGER]

Equine-omics:  2 good broke logging geldings....3000.00
           
                      Full set harness & collars..........1200.00

                      Good used horse trailer.............2000.00

                      Good used  4x4 ton truck..........7500.00

                      Chain saws, safety gear............1500.00

                      Rigging, chains, double trees.....400.00

                      Total......................................15,600.00

This is buying good to upper end used and some new stuff. I started with less, skidded white pine pulp with one horse even. If you log with mares instead of geldings you can get replacements every year or so.  Cost of farrier work per team per year ( if you dont do it yourself) runs about 400.00 , feed for a team , if all purchased, is 400 -500 bales good alfalfa hay, 100 bushels of oats, only fed when working.

Average production ( which mostly varies due to terrain and distance of skids to the landing) is 1250 to 3500 bd ft per day, working alone in average mixed hardwoods. That is about a truckload a day average.

I am not an advocate of no machines ever in the woods , but in some sensitive areas that are shut down due to environmentalists or other reasons,  It is very economically feasible to harvest with animal power. I find it profitable no matter where my services are in demand, and am booked up good with work to next summer. Logging on the small scale with horses is very competitively priced to enter for those so inclined, and more forest freindly than the small tractor stuff in my opinion.

[Jeff]

Great post HORSELOGGER. Thanks!

[Bibbyman]

My Uncle Ed had the biggest mule I every saw.  I wish I could find a picture of him somewhere.  Uncle would stage his truck with side-arm loader and he'd go cut a tree.  He'd drive "Old Fox" to the log and hook him up using voice commands - Gee! Haw! Whoh! Back! Get Up There!.  I never saw him use driving lines or a lead rope on him in the woods. Old Fox would head for the truck and Uncle Ed would cut the next tree. Old Fox would pull the log up parallel to the truck bed and look back to see if the end was near the bump board. Then he'd back up and let the tongs fall.  He'd head back up his skid route and find Uncle Ed.  Nothing more was said between them.  Uncle Ed would run the saw, and Old Fox would skid them out. I've seen him get a log caught behind a tree or a ledge rock and he'd rock the log by pulling at different angles until it cleared the obstacle.  

Old Fox was worth more than a man and a skidder.  

[L. Wakefield]

   Bib, that's priceless! I wish you did have a picture. I'd heard mules were that intelligent, but the specifics you give would be worth solid gold to see in action.   lw

[HORSELOGGER]

Shoot , thats nuthin, My ol gelding brings the logs out, scales em, and calls the log buyers on the cell phone. After that he warms up the stew pot for lunch and sharpens the saws while I eat.

[Bibbyman]

My cousin has a picture of Ol'Fox's full sister and she was nearly as big. Maybe I can scan that.  If I see my Aunt Abby again,  I'll ask her if she's got a picture of Ol'Fox.  

I had a light draft mule we named Walter up until a couple of months ago.  After we got the sawmill in 94 we thought we would use him to pull out light logs from around the farm as a lot of what we have to cut is smaller stuff that is dead or damaged.  I had him broke to harness and trained to skid logs by a guy that made a business of it.  

Although I was green and the mule was green,  I could see how they think and how they pickup on things quickly.  One time we had cut several small but tall dead white oak trees in one spot and bucked them up into 8' logs.  We'd hook up and skid a log about 50 yards and then stop to "blow" a few minutes. (Don't want to work a young mule too hard.)  Then we pull again.  By the third pull,  he had come to expect to stop at the same spot and again at the site where we were bunching the logs.  He followed the same path out and back in with very little "driving".

After the novelty of dragging logs wore off,  Mary broke him to ride and would take a tour of the farm every so often.  They'd take about the same route each time and if it varied,  Walter didn't really like it.  If there was a fallen limb across the path that wasn't there a month earlier,  he'd have to stop and examine it before continuing.  


Mary on Walter

[HORSELOGGER]

Dont know anything about mule logging, but my horses are real creatures of habit and fall into routines very easily. Sometimes when working a slope or in the thick and nasty stuff I work with help. One of us leads the horses down to the stump and hooks on the log and the other stays up in the clear. When all is hooked the horses are sent up and out with no driver and they go right for the hole and out to the landing. Never will see them turn around and head in for more with out a driver though.... they know whats in there is less comfortable than loafing at the trailer

[Bibbyman]

There is an Amish family north of me that run a sawmill.  I've got aquatinted with the man when I first got interested in getting a Wood-Mizer mill and have visited with him every year or so since.  

One time I stopped in on his lot and he came out to great me.  Once he recognized me, we visited and talked about the sawing business some.  I soon told him not to let me slow him up,  I'd just like to watch from where I was at for a while.  (He'd just put in a new Amish made bandmill - it ran a 2" blade and was powered by a Chevy 4 cylinder engine - not a shield or cover in sight!)  

I noted a pair of Belgians harnessed up and hitched to a sled next to the log pile when I pulled in.  In 30 minutes all they did was swat a fly or shift weight from one foot to another.  Then he went over and rolled a log on the sled and grabbed the lines and drove the horses up to the skidblocks.  They were still standing like statues there when we left about 20 minutes later.  

The Amish man did come back out to visit and show me one of the blades off his mill.  I asked him about his sled as it was made out of oak 2x10s but had about a foot kick up on the front like a bobsled.  I asked him how he cut the boards on a curve for his sled.  He smiled and said he had the boys hold the end of the log up until he started in and then lower their end while he sawed until it was flat.  I then asked him if he had a front loader on his Belgians as his stockpile of logs we heaped a good 20' height.  I smiled again and said the loggers bring them in on a trailer with a boom loader.  I knew the answer but thought he'd be amused by the question.