Farm Tractor Skidding

[Norm]

I do it with mine (hobby farmer) but of course it's a 14,000lb tractor.

[ljmathias]

Well, I guess I qualify as a farmer, if you consider trees farmable crops... and I also skid with the front of a tractor.  Mine has an FEL on it plus a backhoe attachment on the rear for weight.  With 4WD engaged, I have a whole lot more control of the log than going forward- I lift it just a little to keep the end from digging in, and go slow.  Given the view of the log that I concentrate on, I know pretty soon if things are about to get out of hand. Of course, with ROPS and a seat belt, even if I flip it, not too much damage possible except to my pride (haven't actually done that yet although came close a couple times).  Sure, it might be nice to have a grapple on the back or a drag sled or log arch (most wouldn't handle the bigger logs I've skidded though), but can't see investing in such given the amount of logging I do on my land- it's all for personal use, not commercial, so I don't have to worry as much about beating the clock and getting the loads in like the loggers working up the road- they're pretty scary driving their forwarders and skidders breakneck through the woods; I wouldn't want to be near them, but I guess that only makes sense anyway.

Sometimes, you have to use the equipment you have in the best way you can at the time- safety is all in the mind anyway, so common sense and slow travel work for me.  Just don't ask my wife- no matter how safe I try to be, it's never quite enough!   

Lj

[Magicman]

Oh no,  I'm a tree farmer, with a backhoe, and I use the bucket/loader to handle logs.  I shift the front end into 4WD too.  I'll bet that really messes me up....

[Valley Mick]

No, No Don't get me wrong.  my entire family are farmers.  But when it come to tearing things up nobody comes close.  I am a welder, and do alot of work for the farm supply up the road and have seen some outrageous mangling of equipment.  You have all seen the fella with a round bail on the speer, going like the blazes across a field to feed the cattle.  I'm the guy that gets to fix the loader after the bushing are wore to the pin bosses and the arms are snapped in two.  It's just that most guys think a loader is a loader.  but alot of industrial tractor/loaders dont articulate nearly as much as a farm tractor on the front,  and a pay loader articulates on the rear axle not the front one
to keep the front end stable.  Deepest apologies no insult intended. But there is a big difference from skidding and piling logs on the landing.

[Norm]

Well since you come from a family of farmers than it's ok to give us a little ribbing. I do the same to all my buddies that farm and most take it well and yes as a group we can be a bit hard on equipment. On the other hand most of us have been around heavy machinery since we were toddlers and know how to run it and repair it.

[stonebroke]

I think that farmers that have to fix their own equipment tend to be a little easier on it than say hired men. But you can still skid with a fel if you take it easy .

Stonebroke

[bull]

Valley, I guess we can let it slide... just becareful !!!  We farmers need to be defensive nowadays!! If you start to wander again we'll get intouch with the family, probly got some grandparents who'll will set yeah straight if need be....

[Magicman]

No, No Don't get me wrong. 

Woke up a sleeping     giant didn't you      

[stonebroke]

I imagine there are quite a few full and part time farmers on this forum. Growing trees is like regulart farming only with a longer rotation.

Stonebroke

[ljmathias]

One thing about a tree farm, though, especially if you're careful to plant in rotation so you have different age and type trees on different plots: no matter what the weather does, some (usually most) of your crop survives till harvest.  My heart goes out to the farmers here in Mississippi that loose their entire harvest some years due to too little or too much rain.  God and Mother Nature don't make it easy for them.

Lj

[stonebroke]

Yeah but at least for a farmer there is going to be a crop next year(eternal optimist) When a tree farm gets hit by a hurricane or fire a whole lifes works can be dashed.

Stonebroke

[ljmathias]

Good point, Stoney, but those times are few and far between whereas crop farmers seem to get hit pretty often.  And even when Katrina blew through here, with 100 mph sustained winds, not all the trees went down, not even most.  I was lucky, not smart, in managing to save or saw up quite a few of my downers, but most went to waste and didn't have to- there was a news article at the time about portable sawmills coming in, but not enough and too late to save a lot of the down pines- wrong time of the year for pine beetles (right time for them though).  One estimate I heard was that there was enough downed SYP to build 40,000 homes- would have really helped if the government had implemented a coordinated plan to harvest and use that wood instead of paying $30,000 per FEMA trailer that are right this minute being auctioned off here in the state at roughly $1000 each.  So we taxpayers coughed up $29000 each so people could have temporary housing when we could have purchased a few hundred sawmills, sawed up all the wood, built more houses than they had trailers AND still had the sawmills to put people back to work after.

Hey, why ain't I running things?  Oh, yeah: politics!   

Lj

[stonebroke]

After the hurricane of 1938 the government had a program to cut all the down trees in New England( Yeah we Yankees get hurricanes every once in a while) The loggers put logs in ponds and rivers to preserve them untill they could saw them.

Stonebroke

[ljmathias]

We ain't that smart down here- at least, our government ain't.  Lots of folks still got Katrina logs soaking in their ponds; neighbor down the road won't give me his red oaks when they went down; said he was going to save them in his pond- he's still got them, far as I know, and I hope he finds a use for them before old age makes him forget they're there...   

Lj

[treefarmer87]

ive been pullin with a farm tractor for over a year now and we have never had a problem of course safety always comes first ive pulled 20" or bigger tree length poplar to the loader but we usually cut them in half. our 3 point attachment gets half the tree off the ground most of the time