[Gabe Ayers]

This is a great sharing of information for anyone thinking about this from the business side and many other aspects. This forum is a great place for this community to share culture. The diversity of our culture as animal powered practitioners seems a natural strength we may explore.

To us – Social Capital means making people worth more money, which in turn will help stabilize rural communities.

There are many ways to go about paying for the services, but our Community based restorative forestry approach has usually guided us away from contract harvesting. Although contract harvesting may be exactly the right thing to do for many, in certain regions, economies communities. We generally are taking a slightly different strategy. Hopefully you will bear with me to explain.

There are several inherent problems with contract harvesting that we would like to avoid. The first would be valuing the services in such a simple way that they are easily pitted against someone else’s price in a competitive bidding situation. That system doesn’t work to achieve the best forestry because none of the bid sale systems account for the true quality of services that we all know animal powered methods provide. Often contract harvesting is part of a system that has an outside party mark the trees. This middle management insertion and cost, leads to further reduction of the value of the people actually doing the ground level work. Simple fee contracting lends itself, very easily, to the comparison to mechanized harvesting, by reducing the service to the simplest measure of volume removed. This marginalizes the value of the services and therefore often marginalizes the people that are working on that basis. That really comes home when someone bids to contract for less, in a “similar way” – that becomes a real reduction of value to both parties and usually to the overall health of the forest and the community that is directly dependent upon it.

Contract harvesting is often part of as system where the timber is bought on a competitive bid basis, where the party that pays the most for the described timber gets to cut it based on an estimate or maybe even individually marked trees. That method means that the people with the money up front buy the timber and the more they pay for it the cheaper they want the logging cost to be, as that is the first input cost added to the price of the timber, subtracting from their profit. So it is only natural that they would bid the harvesters against one another for who will do the work the cheapest.

In our area all the lump sum timber sales are bought by the sawmills. Often the very sawmills that you would have to sell the logs to if you out bid them to buy the stumpage. Doesn’t sound like a system that particularly cares about the harvesters. It seems like the classic divide and conquer approach to maintaining an economic caste system that keeps the poorer people from having any real connection with the natural resources.

Like Carl, I’m a forester and have been at this for a long time, (early 70’s) in many different capacities. Yet beyond the magic of working with the animals and enjoying the dignity of practicing true stewardship, this work remains intriguing, because I am still learning.

The difference between a high graded forest and one managed as an improvement harvest, crop tree management or the worst first single tree selection restorative forestry we (HHFF) promote is exponential or beyond measure in a normal accounting sense. These often unquantified values are more important than accounted for in conventional methods. Those values are what we want to use to pay for better or the best forestry. This could be the currency of “Ecological Capitalism”, where those who do the best work in the natural world get paid the most.

Our HHFF goals and objectives include many seemingly obscure statements that are translated into real world decisions in the choice of methods we promote.

One of those goals is: To perpetuate cultural traditions that reward practitioners of true forest stewardship.

Empowering ground level workers with the skills of how to do this work and the ethics of why is how we propose to perpetuate this culture.

One reason we call our practitioners Biological Woodsmen, is because we want them to more than just “loggers” or even horse or “animal powered loggers”. We define ourselves this way to avoid being reduced or marginalized by the definitions of others, particularly the power structure, dominant paradigm, status quo, conventional economy. Biological Woodsmen are essentially organic loggers that use biological power sources, biological principles to accomplish their work and biological science to inform their work.

At the beginning of this thread I mentioned that I had explained our sharecropping approach to getting paid for your services. I want to add to that explanation. Recently I was asked about our sharecropping method that uses a sliding scale pay system. I responded to that email and want to share that with the forum. It is from a private exchange with a fellow that is also a member of this forum. It is somewhat out of context from a larger exchange, but I think it will help explain what we do or prefer to do.

Again this is long and somewhat complex, but it is understandable from the perspective of being the president of an organization that works for the public good, although not the most profitable in the short term. This system requires long term relationships with the land. Any thoughts, questions or response will provide guidance. We certainly don’t have all the answers and appreciate any help.

This is how we pay for timber in a restorative forestry harvest with some brief overview.

To access natural resources with culture or the skills to do certain things that are obviously more gentle and sensitive to the environmental – as opposed to accessing natural resources with just money – is an empowerment of the ground level worker. It is anthropological culture = money. It also means that the common sense economics of restorative forestry actually making the most money over the long term is understandable to many landowners. That understanding includes preserving the landowner values of protecting the visual appearance of their forest, while extracting for immediate human needs. Now our job is to translate and educate how the aesthetically pleasing forest also is the most valuable at providing ecological services for the public good. Those services include the “Carbon Positive” forestry that results from “Ecological Capitalism”.

Sliding Scale Pay System

First – you are right you can’t do worst first single tree selection with horse logging and pay half to the landowner. What it comes down to is the average per thousand you get for your logs. High graders pay half or clear cutters, but they destroy the forest. When you take the worst first your average per thousand will be lower, but the best trees will grow faster and make more money for the landowner over the long term. So we pay on a sliding scale by not paying for any low value material at all. In other words we try to establish what we want as a logging cost or amount we make on a per thousand feet harvested and only start to pay a share after that amount is reached on an individual log basis. For us around here that ends up being about at least two hundred dollars per thousand. We sometimes start to pay at 250, it depends on how hard the extraction is and how valuable what we are taking out is. At 250 per thousand we pay thirty percent to the landowner. Then the sliding scale starts. At $400.00 per thousand we pay 40%, at $500.00 we pay 50% and this is what sells it to landowners that are stuck on 50/50 – at $600.00 we pay 60%, any prices above you can pay 60% and they make more money. This is best for you, because there will be so few logs in this value range that you will not have to pay for many. You can move this around all over the place, but the point is don’t pay for the junk at all, because that will represent 75% of your volume. Tell the landowner you actually pay more than 50/50, but just on the higher value logs. They will buy it usually, particularly if they are concerned about the future value of their forest or the appearance of it after the harvest.

Let me know what you think of all this. Sincerely, Jason Rutledge

http://healingharvestforestfoundation.org

[Gabe Ayers]

James,

I wonder how those gypsy’s kept up with anything while living in a wagon and moving all the time. Maybe they are modern gypsies and live in houses will wheels on them but are up on a few blocks too. I have lots of neighbors and friends that live in those lovely dwellings in Appalachia. Lived in one myself when I bought this old clear cut about 30 years ago. I have a daughter and her family living in one today…. a mobile home! That sounds like an oxymoron.

I am afraid it is another fad that will fade in due time as there is nothing about the color alone that would help a horse pay for itself in the collar.

I have seen some of those prices, particularly in DHJ about show horses and spotted horses that are unbelievable. I often wonder if they are just selling them back and forth to each other as a tax write off of something?

I am selling and paying about the same for Suffolk Mares today as I did in the early eighties ($2500-3500). And they are a breed, a breed that needs good owners – that will work them.

Jason Rutledge
http://healingharvestforestfoundation.org

[Gabe Ayers]

This poem pretty much sums up my life as a youngster being raised by my grandfather in the 50’s. When my grandmother finally, as she said, “broke him of his farming habit” he went to town and got a public work job at the tractor dealership.

From that point on we seemed to spend more time together riding in the truck than being on the farm, in the field or woods. Must have had enough time with the animals early on to have mattered. So if you have young kids, spend time with them and your animals. Talk to the kids and the horses. They are both listening.

Jason Rutledge

[Gabe Ayers]

To address/join the conversation between Rick and Simon, we also use sub contractors for the reason of not being able or interested in paying workmen’s compensation on them. We just pro rate the task and pay off the tally sheet on a per thousand board feet basis.

Yep they do work when the want, but the standards of their work are still up to the boss as they are working at a specific job, which has a clear goal, method and objective. Having to have a “track record of being a contractor” doesn’t make any sense, how does anyone get started under that restriction?
So when all the contractors in NH die will there be no more?

We do have to file a 1099 to the IRS reporting their sub contractor income, which they have to take care of their own insurance, taxes, social security and such. We have them sign a 1099 before they hit a lick. This protect us as to their being liable for their own safety. This is the only way small loggers could operate.

We still can require that they use certain equipment like personal protective gear, i.e., chainsaw protective chaps, hard hat with face and hearing protection and steel toed boots. Requiring this doesn’t make them your employees in Virginia.

I think the laws may vary slightly from state to state, but the point is that the government, lawyers and the entire system of the status quo dominant paradigm doesn’t make it easy for anyone to do anything other than what makes the rich richer and everyone else poorer…

Good exchange guys, I have seen some of Simon’s photos and the forwarder looks stout, low set and capable.

I think the harness they have available to use in Europe, is a little less sturdy that what we have in the states, or they look less rugged, particularly the collars – but the reduction of tongue weight on the horses necks is a good thing and the New England D – ring we use helps with that.

There is no doubt that Simon and sons are pulling some real logs out by what is in the photos.

I wish we could post photos on this site, or at least photos that have high definition and are large and clear enough to see well. I suspect we can, I just haven’t figured it out yet. I think I need to save them into a different file or something to get them smaller, but still clear.

Jason Rutledge

[Gabe Ayers]

Welcome to the site Tim, glad you are here.

Does the PBS station have a way of seeing the show over the internet?

I would love to watch it.

Look forward to hearing from you on the forum here.

Jason Rutledge

[Gabe Ayers]

I bet everyone on this board knows someone with big horses and the accompanying big attitude….which is seldom backed up on a day to day operation in the woods or field…. but they do give us something to grin about.. Our smaller horses are not only usually very game about trying hard, but are much easier to keep and handle in the brush and debris of a forest and logging operation. It is usually more about the teamster than the team.

Chains

We use two 5/16ths chains of the little two wheeled log arch. One is a 16 foot high tensile binder chain with two different hooks on it. One hook is a standard choker hook for the 5/16ths size chain and the other end is a slot hook, same size. The other chain is a 22 foot, same size and test chain with two chokers, one on each end. This arrangement allows for use of the short chain on smaller logs and the long chain to suck a stick out of the brush by pulling from a long distance, (what we call “long chaining”) in a straight line from the log to the arch. (Long Chaining can be a nightmare because the arch will flip if pulled at the slightest angle on a big or long log, that is a play on words about an old actor) Then after a few short pulls using the command to “step up”, which means just a couple of steps, not the normal “come up” command of start and continue forward, we re-hook to the arch and keep repeating this until the chain is straight up to the slot bar on the arch (we call this scoouging) and then and only then get on the arch and go to the landing.

When we have a big log we use a special hitch and we hope to have a few big ones daily. We use the two chains together to do what we call the Appalachian Cradle hitch, (which I actually learned from an old guy from Vermont many years ago). With this double choker arrangement we are able to lift logs off the ground in the front end by having the attachment point at the bottom of the log and then run up to the slot bar. This allows us to provide front end suspension of a log that is actually taller in circumference than the slot bar on the arch. We simply run the chokers through from opposite sides, put the hooks at 5 o’clock and 7 o’clock, run the chain through and up to the widest slots. This provides excellent lift and we use it on all big logs or logs we have to hook from the small end because of convenience. This method provides tremendous lift on the log. Since this choker chain method requires putting the chain under the log sometimes they have a needle on the end to help with that, but we just do a little excavation or dig a hole under a log laying flat to the ground or roll it with the cant hook or peavy we have on the arch. The timber feller often puts a “roller” or logger’s helper limb or piece of wood under the log to keep it open to get the choker under it easily. It takes thought, planning, skill and resulting preparation.

Other practitioners in our group use grabs which they drive in the logs and hitch the chain to the bar accordingly. They do a similar low hitch point to provide lift as the choker, but as anyone that has ever used grabs knows, they are hard to drive in and skip out and they do come out sometimes, usually at the hardest part of the skid…. I have used them historically, but I am just to old to want to hit several steel objects into hardwood multiple times daily and when you do a good job setting your grabs, you have even a harder time skipping them out at the landing. Not an old man’s method, but the young bucks love pounding them in an out and they are faster attachments on smaller logs. Grabs are hard to find, Dixie used to manufacture them but they are not available from that company. David Miller in Pa. manufactures them but they are not as tough as the old cast ones. A skip hammer is a hard thing to find these days too. Some guys make them out of a splitting maul.

I personally only use tongs when the log is a long ways away from the cleared skid trail and laying flat on the ground and that is the easiest way to attach them to the arch. We also use them scooting logs around on the landing occasionally. There are logging tongs and lifting tongs. The logging ones have a swivel between the hook and tongs. The lifting ones don’t have a swivel and some may have slightly different angles

So that is some of how we use choker chains with the log arch. If we are bunching some logs off steep ground with a single horses, on the ground, ground skidding we use a short chain and choker hitched as close to the single tree as possible to give the log some or the most lift possible.

High tensile chain will last longer.

Jason Rutledge
http://healingharvestforestfoundation.org

[Gabe Ayers]

CRtreeDude,

Planting trees is so cool…anywhere we can get them to grow, but the right ones for where they grow best is a good use of science and traditional knowledge.

It is often called aforestration, but I think if it was once forested then it is reforestration. I have consulted on planting old fields back to real woods before and we called it Natural Reforestation.

But not totally, because the plow and a couple centuries of tobacco and corn remove about all traces of the real forest. So you may have to treat it like an abused piece of land, which is probably is…

So as well as digging seedlings (wildlings), and growing seedlings from seed of superior specimens collected locally, we advise that the seedlings that are dug include a healthy “plug” of forest soil. There are possibly/probably life forms there that we don’t even know about or haven’t identified yet. It speeds up the recolonization from surrounding forested ecosystems. This allows for a biological inoculation with the organisms of the actual forested ecosystem. This along with an overstocked mixed species planting that includes pioneers of the region in a mix with intermediate and climax species could be our best effort to reforest, right after a good hot prescribed burn style backfire….

The problem is that this is hand labor and it is hard to find landowner’s that can afford to pay for such a service and it is mostly practiced privately. There are government subsidies for planting trees but nothing to support something as organic as we speak of on this forum, at least not that I am aware of. Most small landowner’s don’t want the government involved at all if they can help it.

I think making the right thing pay the most in the end is the only real way to create change in what is being done conventionally. In general the short term perspective doesn’t support sustainable approaches, which is like telling the choir here to sing the chorus over again.

I have often wondered what the land and environment in CR is like at about 7000 feet, probably pretty nice? Is that to high to be sustainable beyond subsistence?

Glad you are on the site, it adds to a global view.

Jason Rutledge

[Gabe Ayers]

Well my search includes cut copy paste from the other front porch. The same question was asked by the Missouri Woods folks and this was a response on the other site. I think this is appropriate transferring of information given this sites young age and the possibility of some of the members don’t visit both sites.

Hope this helps everyone and the Missouri Woods folks.

“Newco Sales Inc. has an ad in the Draft Horse Journal for grapple trailer systems. Their address is P.O.Box532 Marshfield,Wisconsin 54449 Phone no.715-897-0889.The ad says to contact Brian.”

I think there may be an advertisement in Rural Heritage about this type of equipment also.

There is another post there by a co-member here (Dale Wagner – read wise old timer) that suggests using a gin pole and block and tackle systems to lift the loads on to some/any form of transport. This is good stuff, proven methods and works. Yes it is more labor intensive, but uses less fossil fuel and adds to the true potential for sustainability. Human labor seems a small price to pay for sustainability, it begs the question – “What are people for?” WB. We have a practitioner among our group that uses this method to load fish net poles along the North Carolina coast. Works great for him, although he uses a cable strung between to large trees to hoist the log from using the same block and tackle arrangement and his horses power.

We would like to have some plans for that gin pole system so we could retro fit or rebuild it with steel and make it transportable for low income start up woodsmen who can’t afford an old knuckle boom loader or don’t have them available in their area. If anyone has knowledge of such plans please share them. There was such a diagram in the Small Farmer’s Journal many years ago but I can’t seem to find it now and the editor isn’t aware of which issue either.

The earlier post by Simon is interesting and helpful. An article about his work is in a recent issue of RH. He won an award as the best horse logger in England and will be harvesting some timber on Prince Charles estate as some point in the future. There are a few folks over there working animals in the forest. He said the Prince had a pair of Suffolk horses so I of course encouraged him to work them in the woods too. I bet they are fat and haven’t done much work and probably never worked in the woods. There is awesome grazing in England.

I also encourage the Missouri Woods folks to keep us in touch with what they decide to do. We are all learning together. No organization or individual has all the answers, if they thought they did, someone or reality would change the questions. This type of sharing is what makes this site worthy of being considered a community.

Jason Rutledge

[Gabe Ayers]

There are several companies that manufacturer forwarders that may be pulled by animal power or tractor/machines. The innovators in this field are the Swedish. They make of the one in the attached photo (oops, the file is to big) is Majoraca or something like that. This photo was from few years ago at Horse Progress Days when we hosted the logging section, which ended up being a showcase for all sorts of logging machinery manufactured for animal powered applications.

I think you may do a search on horse powered forwarders or log loaders and find some examples. I will search also and see if I can post an address of the supplier.

We have used the horse drawn models previously and the only limitation is that they are not usually built heavy enough to handle big hardwood logs. Each manufacturer stated that they could custom build one with a stout knuckle boom and all wheel brakes for down hill log moving. The machine is great for larger tracts that have long skids and may be used for reloading onto trucks to transport to the next stop in the processing or turning into money.

We have hired commercial loggers to forward with their big machines and it did increase the production tremendously. When we had one of our Biological Woodsmen’s Week we rented one that moved 80k in two days. The was servicing five crews of horselogger’s strung out from the bottom of a long sloping ridge to the top, about a mile long old haul road. He would start at the top and load a few logs, come down a little ways, load some more and so on until he was fully loaded at the bottom and on his way to the landing.

I will post again on this once I find some sources for the machinery. Anyone that wants to see the photo may send me an email (rutledge@swva.net) and I will send them the photo. The cost is somewhat prohibitive with them starting at over 16K for the lightweight models that will handle soft wood and small hardwood.

Jason Rutledge

[Gabe Ayers]

I have heard that wood miser has a site of their own that sells used machines as well as locates folks that have bought new ones on a regional basis. This is how we find band saw operators on a community by community basis.

Jason Rutledge

[Gabe Ayers]

Well it seems the banned member is back as “Johnny”. It would also seem that the post could be controlled by the isp number or some identity from the sender. I suppose a free, kind hearted site like this is going to be vulnerable to mean spirited folks beyond the reasonable capacity of the site administrators given the nature of this system and approach.

Any ideas from the administrators or other members?

This may lead to less participation, particularly by those who are being attacked by such a member.

Given how small this community of interest is, a divisive presence is not helpful. Maybe that is the point of the negative poster?

What is the status of junior member and just “member” about?

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Jason Rutledge

[Gabe Ayers]

Since I have been interested in animal powered equipment for a long time, I have been lucky to find a few pieces of old equipment that is still very serviceable. A good example is a Galleon Pony road grader that I saw sitting in the edge of a field for a long time and finally stopped and looked at it, found the nearest neighbor and eventually bought it for $300. It was a bargain. This thing will move snow. It is a really fun tool to operate if you are one of those folks that like to see your work in an immediate result way, you know – sweet instant gratification. I really think the horses love it too.

Sometimes in the winter when there is no chance to log or move wood to the mill, because of deep snow and deeper drifting – we run the road grader all over the community. Our place is on a gravel back road that is always last to be plowed by the state trucks. Once we get the farm opened up we hit the road and work all day opening our neighborhood up. There are always some neighbors that don’t have a tractor and with this grader it is a matter of a trip in and a trip out and the driveway is cleared. Neighbors are very grateful and often pay us for the effort. When we think they can afford to pay, we accept the money or whatever they offer. For many it is a lot better than a snow shovel.

It is just a fun device to operate. One person drives the team and the other operates the blade depth and angle. The weight of the human operators actually contributes to the grader staying on track and moving snow.

So if you can find an old road grader and it isn’t completely worn out, it will move snow and is fun to operate.

Before this machine was found we used a v-shaped wooden device that was fun also. It just didn’t do as good a job on heavy snow or crusty snow.
They did work and the kids love riding on it. The key is to keep the tip of the
v from digging in and flipping the whole thing forward.

I would love to have one of the push blades described in the earlier post. I have seen photos of one used to scrap a cow lot once, it looked pretty cool.

I have also seen photos of large plow devices used by folks in India to turn huge piles of compost with oxen.

It seems like there is plenty of snow in the northeast and many places out west. We have only had a few dusting’s in the Appalachians so far….but there is allot winter left.

Jason Rutledge

[Gabe Ayers]

Well this is an important question for anyone that is going to do this work of harvesting timber, logs or any forest product. I don’t think there is a patient answer. The value of forest products varies region by region, on a species and grade basis. I think there are several ways to get to a price for stumpage, or the value of standing timber or trees.

First one should consider that the value of a single item is only one part of the whole forested ecosystem, that is the Sustainable perspective. This is often a key consideration for landowners, because they may have been offered a certain amount by someone else and they are shopping for the greatest return. That can be a problem for an animal powered logger because there are other “values” to their services other than the immediate products extracted. More on that later.

Our group works on a sharecrop basis and pays a percentage of the proceeds of the product to the landowner and that percentage varies according to the value of the product on the market divided by how difficult the harvesting is.
More on that later.

One way would be to back into a price, by knowing what the market value is for the finished product or to the end user and then pro rate each component of getting it to the end used and assigning your cost to the portions of the work you do.

Since I have no idea what that material is worth in your community and region I can’t help you much with a dollar amount, or penny amount.

Our goal is to establish a living wage amount for the work and pay a share after that amount is made by the folks doing the work. This is a complex issue and one we work on daily in Appalachia.

It will be interesting to see how other advise you on this. If there is an interest I will write more about how we pay for stumpage in a later post.

I will suggest that if the landowner inquired about your services as a modern animal powered sustainable logger then the money they get from any low impact harvesting is not as important or valuable to them as the condition of their forest post harvest.

So, don’t sell your services short, try to get all you can and give yourself a chance to actually make a living doing the environmentally sensitive work.

Jason Rutledge
http://healingharvestforestfoundation.org

[Gabe Ayers]

Dubba,

Yep, they are $25 each. Seems expensive maybe, but remember the money goes to the non-profit and the products are gifts from the author and producer to help the group survive. Fund raising is difficult particularly when you are physically located in an economically poor area. Thanks for asking.

Happy Holidays to all.

Jason

[Gabe Ayers]

I couldn’t figure out the quote thing on the site so I just copy and pasted.

“I’ve heard that there is more variation within any given breed than between breeds.

I have two grade percherons that if they were red could be called suffolks. But being grade percherons they didn’t cost nearly what they would have were they red and called suffolks instead. But as horses they are just as good.”

Ah, My Good Companion, I disagree with some of these quotes.

First I agree, your horses could be just as good as a Suffolk and the implication that Suffolk’s cost too much. The Suffolk by line is “The Using Horse” but most folks that will actually use them can’t afford them. My horses don’t cost too much. I only sell young horses because once I put my time in them they are much more valuable, but I only have so much time. But I also understand how in some areas the horses are much higher than grade horses. This is why we work so many grade Suffolk horses in the woods. The people that really will work them can’t usually afford registered Suffolk horse prices. Yet they are still cheap compared to what some of the sale reports have hitch horses and show horses of other breeds selling for. Dirt Cheap, which anyone that has bought any land lately knows dirt really ain’t cheap.

There is certainly some variation within breeds, but having owned hundreds of Suffolk horses over the last thirty years they are more alike than different. This may be more true for this breed, than for others – as it is less influenced by the show ring and simply has fewer numbers in the population to present as much potential variation.

There are major differences between the European breeds despite a hundred years of American farmer’s influence.

I can speak to this from the perspective of a long time Suffolk breeder, but someone that has owned and worked all the major breeds.

The conformational difference is the split of the leg – front and rear. The Suffolk horse has the shortest cannon front and rear than any other common draft breed. You can find lots of draft horses with short cannons in the front, but look at the rear. The hock is higher and the cannon represents more of a percentage of overall leg from ground up. What a short cannon does is allow the horses foot to break over quicker and the forearm not be raised as high to take a step. This means they are more efficient. They actually travel faster with less anatomical movement and muscular effort. They don’t have the action of other breeds because the don’t lift their feet as high off the ground. The old Englishmen said it was a waste for a horse to step any higher than the depth of a furrow.

I bet there is some mule guy reading this saying, yeah that is just how my brutes move too…he’d be right…don’t dare tell any Suffolk people I said that….

The selection of horses based on phenotype instead of genotype has influenced the Suffolk draft breed, which also has one of the oldest traceable bloodlines. The Suffolk registry is second oldest next to the Thoroughbred. This means selection for disposition, conformation, tractability instead of just genes.

There is an old book about the Suffolk called “The Horse in the Furrow” written a long time ago by a man named George Evans and he quotes Herman Biddell. He says that all Suffolk horses can be traced back to one stallion in the late 16th century named Crisp’s horse in southern England. He was called a dark liver chestnut. May be just a historical myth, but it is in print.

That the English farmers developed a horse that does breed true to color is a by product of their selection and not noted to be the original goal. It was most likely just the dominant color in the foundation stallion and mares and has remained dominant throughout several hundred years of breeding as a dominant color gene. The shades of Chestnut are all over the scale from nearly sorrel to almost mahogany bay, liver and chocolate chestnuts. So yes there is some variation in color among Suffolk horses but they are all some shade of red and they are all built quite the same.

I think the most attractive thing about them is their disposition. It doesn’t matter how big, strong or what color they are, if you don’t get along with the horses you are not going to work them. They are simply the easiest horse to get along in my experience. This doesn’t mean they can’t be brats if allowed to but they are truly very gentle and exceptionally hard pulling given a chance. There are other subtle differences between Suffolk horses and any other breed. Just because they are red doesn’t make them a Suffolk.

So I guess the conclusion of this post is that Suffolk’s are my favorite breed for many reasons, more than I am willing to write about at this moment.

Ex-Motor head humorous redneck metaphor:

You can get a Ford or a Chevy, but once you have a Rolls Royce anything else is just a ride….

Thanks for reading.

Merry Christmas to y’all….stay warm

Jason Rutledge

[Author]

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