[Baystatetom]

I am working on crunching the numbers for a logging job I am lining up for this winter. It is excellent quality hardwood that should bring a premium, the problem is a mile long skid. No exaggeration its exactly a mile. I have a small valmet forwarder and operator looking at the job. My plan is to lay out trails so that my oxen never skid more then 1,000 feet. Although 500 would be a lot better. Then the forwarder can run the logs out to the header. I am considering getting somebody to chop as well. I always enjoy felling trees but if I had somebody else do it I could concentrate on driving the bulls, maybe work them hard half days and go do other forestry projects in the afternoon.
Tom

[Baystatetom]

When a landowner seems concerned about $ I always tell them I can be cheap if I can be fast, but every time I have to stop and explain myself and take hikes in the woods without accomplishing any real task then I have to charge for that time. I would just give the LO a call and in a friendly way explain your concerns.
~Tom

[Baystatetom]

I don’t see a problem with hybrid systems. The same philosophy as was discussed in the Hybrid logging thread. Use each to its best advantage. And who says you have to buy a expensive tractor anyway? They can be rented or leased for short periods of time. You could rent one for a month and turn it back in at after your done with it.
~Tom

[Baystatetom]

Holy cow, glad your place made it through. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your community as you all recover. Even if you made it through it is still is a life changing event for sure.
~Tom

[Baystatetom]

Everybody here has made great points. I prefer to train my own but that requires waiting a solid three years before they can be worked for any duration. However I did manage to get a good bit of work out of my two year olds this past spring. If you do decide to buy a older team be sure you know what they were broke for. I had several show teams that followed every command and put on a great performance in the show ring, however they would baulk at a heavy load. When breaking my current team I concentrated on pulling and put less time into the fancy stuff. The result is a team that will give me 110% on every load but isn’t necessarily well behaved in public. I don’t care if I have to yell “step in” four times before they do it as long as they pull the log they are hitched to all the way from stump to landing. My point is, decide what is important to you and make sure the team you are buying fits the bill.
~Tom

[Baystatetom]

Once again, Well said Carl!
Tom

[Baystatetom]

I have had similar experiences myself, while I hate to think of those mistakes 15 years ago I do think it helped mold me into the forester I am now. I gave up on those big machines and huge crews a long time ago and have only been working with cable skidders and small forwarders for several years now. I will say though, I recently toured a watershed managed by one of my coworkers who is into that bigger and faster type logging and I was really impressed with the quality of the work that was done there. He has spent years getting to know his operators and their limitations as well as working with those operators to get the job done he wants for the land he manages. He had a huge feller buncher on this one site that dropped 40mbf between 7 am and when I got there around 10:30, but this operator carried the trees up right while he backed down his same tracks and laid the trees directly into his skidder roads. I was really impressed at how little residual damage was done to the understory, I am sure it was less then if the trees were felled with a chainsaw. Don’t get me wrong I am not saying I am going to run out and find a crew with a 20 ton machine but there is crews out there that can do a good job in spite of them. I think if you prove to be a good forester the crews you work with will respect you enough to listen to your input as you try and figure out how to do the best job your circumstances allow. As you get more experienced it will be easier to figure out how you can minimize the impacts and when you advance to have total control over the jobs you can put your foot down hard on poor operators. A lot of it just comes down to having the right relationship with the loggers and it can take years to build those relationships. Don’t give up, take your lumps and learn from them!
~Tom

[Baystatetom]

I have a little advantage in that I sell timber for a living, but I have been able to talk loggers/truckers into sharing a trailer with me. Maybe you can talk your trucker into buying the logs from you himself and then loading them onto a trailer with somebody elses wood.
~Tom

[Baystatetom]

I also use polywire and fiberglass post, I fence about a acre at a time and leave them as long as I can, basically because I just don’t have time to move fence every time I turn around. I started using a hose reel to wind up the fence and it works really well. I have also got good at locating my solar fencer so I can move my fence in squares around it, hence avoiding the time to move the post and ground rod every time. I have not put up a permanent fence because the property belongs to my uncle I don’t know his long term goals for the land. I would hate to spend the time and money on a good fence then not be able to use it for more then a year or two.
I have heard folks out west split up their pastures into pie shaped wedges with a water source in the middle so they can easily move the cattle from one section to another and still have a permanent water source. I use a 100 gallon sap gathering tank to fill a stock tank in my pasture. It is a bit of a hassle but it works. We had hazy hot humid weather over the week end and my two steers and a pony drank the entire 100 gallons in a day!
~Tom

[Baystatetom]

Thanks for the great day. I could have stayed home and worked on my own wood, but then I wouldn’t have gotten to see so many great teams in action. Nice to meet you all.
~Tom

[Baystatetom]

Is there any plan on meals, should i pack a brown bag for myself or a cooler of venison steaks to share?, that is if there is a grill around.
~Tom

[Baystatetom]

Sorry it took so long to be official about it but I will definitely be there with my steers. I am really looking forward to playing in the woods with you all.
~Tom

[Baystatetom]

That’s horrible! You will be in my thoughts prayers, I hope you have a speedy recovery.
~Tom

[Baystatetom]

I had a team of jerseys I got for my kids because they were small and cute as calves and also the free price tag helped. I did give them away at age 2 because I wanted a team for logging I didn’t think they would ever be able to pull a log off a mature red oak, however I did find them to be the smartest most easy to train team I ever had. Anybody could drive them no matter how little experience they had. I would think if kept in good shape and trained to work they could do any job typically expected of them on a farm. Plowing may be the one exception you would either have to get a 8″ plow or only do a few lines a day with a bigger one. Sounds like a jersey steer will do well for you. And if you end up loving it as much as the rest of us you might upgrade to something bigger.
Best of luck,
~Tom

[Baystatetom]

The last truck finally left the landing yesterday. Feeling kind of down hearted about the money but I managed to barter a extra carriage for my sawmill into the deal and I did learn far more then I could ever put a price on.
~Tom

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