corks

Mark aren’t corks a little soft? I remember doing the same thing because so many people pronounce caulks as corks. Anyway caulks in the woods year round for me. Traction is traction, and traction is confidence when it is needed. Drill-tex has been pretty inadequate for me. In the winter I prefer sharp caulks. On ice I want to see the chips fly. I just make sure that the inside caulk is angled inward so that it is less likely to jab into the inside of the other foot. Horses figure out how sharp those caulks are after a couple of cuts and they stop stepping on themselves. Furthermore, its a long way from the heart, and I’ve never had a wound turn into bad situation. I take a pulling shoe, cut the center out of the toe caulk with a grinder, in essence making two. Then I sharpen the front edge. The turned heel on the outside I cut sharp edge in back. The inside I cut in the other plane, and sharpen the inner edge. This give the horse security against skating too far in any one direction. I have pulled more than a few logs in snow and never put balling pads or rim pads on, but I can see the logic. Of all the miles I’ve traveled in the woods in winter, the few times I’ve had to get down and knock out snow balls has not been a big problem for me. I like to have something to do while they catch their breathe, and handling their feet is never wasted time. Carl

We also use toe plates and heel caulks. We also use the hard face weld on the surface to help with gaining purchase on ice and rocks. The surface will last much longer with the hard face welded on the ground contact edge. We have never sharpened them but they do tend to get sharper with use. We have found that the hard face weld will make the shoes last so long that they wear out from the top and the nail holes first instead of the bottom. We usually get about two years of solid work out of them. The placement of the heel caulks on the inside edge of the shoe definitely helps with them stepping on themselves.

When they do injure themselves, we just gob some furazune on it or a topical antiseptic like the yellow greasy stuff commercially available. I think calm patient driving lessens this from occurring. The key could be making your turns (particularly 180 degree turns) at the log – slowly by controlling speed of the turn through pulsing contact with the horse on the outside of the turn. The bit contact on the inside horse determines the degree of turn and the contact on the outside horses determines the speed the turn occurs.

I do think the caulked shoes are harder to keep on the horses than flat shoes and keeping up with regular resets is important. We also like to use the regular head nails to make for easy clinching along the way to a reset.

These pulling/logging shoes definitely give the horses confidence on a heavy load. They are more able to power walk a big log out and less likely to scramble or hop on a heavy load when they are well shod. One of the most important things we can give our horses is confidence.

You are lucky to have a farrier like John Hammond work on your horses feet. Good draft horse farriers are even more rare than good draft horses users. This is why we had to develop our own ability to shoe our own horses. My son Jagger has advanced his farrier skills to be able to do this work now and it is a blessing and a considerable economic savings. Farrier services end up being the single greatest cost of logging with horses full time.

That is an interesting point too, we do actually work our horses almost every day that the weather will allow. This means no hard falling weather (rain) and wind less than 25 mph gust is working weather for us. This means we (two people,my son and I) work about 200 days a year and produce around a 100K board feet per year of “worst first” selectively logged trees. Sometimes our Sundays end up being rainy days and we do actually work on the weekends when we have the weather. Economically our ox is always in the ditch. It is a matter of making enough money to support ourselves requires this type of dedication and consistent working.

If you can’t work your horses there is often something you can do in the woods, at the sawmill, the wood working shop, the mechanic shop, the barn or the house. You also can work to promote your services in your community. When it is rainy, too cold or windy, then you can write and read information off the net like we are doing now. I am sure there are New Englander’s thinking, “to cold”, this guy has got to be a southerner…yep, I am. A southern Appalachian, that lives at 3000 feet altitude and am glad to have a portion of my forest that is a New England type forest with native Sugar Maple throughout it. Of course we have a few other (marketable) species native to Appalachia that are not found in other areas.

Keep working them when you can. Give John Hammond our regards.

Jason Rutledge
http://healingharvestforestfoundation.org

I got a call a couple of weeks ago from Meg Reige because she had had a conversation with a fellow in Massachusetts who seemed to describe a small collection of drive caulk horse shoes. I followed up on it and ended up with 20 drop forged shoes in really good shape, and three boxes of caulks, sharp and blunt.

Many years ago I got several pairs of Drive Caulk Shoes and grew quite fond of using them, especially in winter, on ice. The shoes are made of hard steel, with wholes in the toes and heels for caulk plugs to be driven in. The ice caulks are shaped like chisels. When sharp shod, the chips fly. I am so looking forward to shoeing again with shoes like this.

If anybody out there has a similar stash, or knows of one please contact me.
Carl

Never found that cauked shoe any harder to keep on flat shoes ,if the shoe is set properly. There are certain horses that are harder to keep shoes on than others. On those you have to figure out what the problem is. I have used clips on some as well as changing the nailing pattern as well as adding more nail holes to the shoe . Also if you are using used shoes check the nail holes if they are worn the shoe will work loose.

Having Had Shod Horses Professionally For 25 Years I Have Caulked Up Many Logging And Pulling Horses The Best Solution I Have Come Up With For Both Traction And Wear Is Borium
Use A Fine Grit Borium And You Can Build A Sharp Caulk On Any Style Shoe Stay Away From The Course Grits As Well As Drill Tex As Thier Course Nature Lends It To Chipping Off There Fore Rendering Its Gripping Powers Useles
With The Fine Grit Borium A Torch And Some Patience You Can Biuld Any Size Or Style Caulk That Is Required It Will Grip On Both Pavement And Ice And Add To The Life Of Your Shoes This Borium Can Be Found At Any Welding Or Shoeing Supply Store You Can Also Build Ice Nails With It And Drive The Nail Without It Breaking Off If Applied Properly But It Can Chip Your Hammer
Bill

would have to say the more traction the harder to stay on just lost a shoe on one of my horses for the first time that was cauhlked never had that happen with flats or d t even though they were way over due as they are know farriers horses are the last ones done that and his buddies but this winter i used cauhlked shoes with d t on them with snowball pads loved them tried just cauhlks last year no good on icey side hills didnt likem in many situations would explain more but i suck at typing but a little coatting of drill tech on the caulks was the answer for me now i lovem

thanks for reply it was close to 12wk so id lean towards that i know frank real well apprenticed there for awhile never lost shoe on a customer that wasnt recoverd un tweeked with in normal intervals but my poor horses are always last to done