[PeytonM]

The way I would also do it is, I get paid by the hour, I’ve been told you need about 50, Clock starts from the time the horses are harnessed and ready to go to work, un till the harnesses are off them. If someone cried about that amount I would reduce it some and take some of the wood of the lot. I would help them find a buyer for the lumber if they would want but I would not buy any from the land owner, they also have to find their own driver. I thought of having a dually goose neck and fab up some bunks but I’d only be able to gross 26K with out a CDL and my truck weights 8200 and the trailer would weigh in about 7K so thats 7 ton there leaving only room for 19K for logs, don’t know that it would be worth my while to pull that much wood, Maybe if it would be a real small stand and there wasn’t much for a semi driver I would but It would be just more expenses I would have to under go because I would want insurance on that too unless I bought the logs for what the mill paid for them.

[PeytonM]

I first want to tank everyone on here for the reply’s, This is how it stands, I talked with an insurance company and the guy said he figured it would be about $550 per year for 1 million dollar liability coverage. So if its the way I understand it, its only If I caused damage to the land owners property or someone else would it cover it. I would also be working solo, wouldn’t have any workers comp. I need to hand in that form to get a for sure figure though.

I have a mare that would be able to handle the work and one of my geldings I think would be able to work week days 8 hours. The one things I have a hard time with is learning how to get my horses mental state positive on some loads. A few weeks ago I had an Oak about 15″ trunk, had a broken top, dropped the tree, cut all the limbs off so it was a straight stick, after it was down, also found out it was hallow. I’d say it was maybe 24 feet and the top end was maybe 6 inches it was a weird tree, well anyways my to-be Brother-in-law dropped to tree facing up hill and so I hooked on the trunk and they pulled it all the way straight going across and then got bout another ten yards and I stopped to stand on the other side of the log, and go to take off and they couldn’t move it, I know they could. I’ve seen them pull bigger trees than this one. I tried having them roll it, I changed their heal chains I pulled them way back and let them hit it hard and nothing, It was also on snow, bucked it and half and they were pulling like there wasn’t anything behind them. I also was ground skidding. I didn’t really know what I could do to get them to pull it. I’ve snub them out plenty of times. I love on them a lot when ever they pull a heavy load, or snub out and then get un hung I love on them. I know there are times when they get grumpy when I’m out working for what ever reason and all it takes is a few rubs on the head and they calm down, maybe I’m cause them to get cranky If I’m up set.

I want to use my horses for doing other jobs other than just logging because I know not every stand is going to be a great pay day. I want to use the horses to also plow food plots for deer hunters, dig gardens for people. Say a small sqr bale cost 6 dollars and you feed a dollars worth of grain to a horse, don’t know if thats a true figure but thats 7 dollars per horse, If I’d dig gardens or food plots all I’d need to take home is at least that much per horse and I’d like to get paid at lest 10 dollars and my fuel if I had to go real far. so If I used my one bottom plow, and my horse drawn disk I can use a team, and say everything went sanny and it took me 8 hours to dig and disk a small garden It would cost them 96 dollars, I went and checked to see what it would cost to rent a rototiller, I found a place that you can rent one for $50 a day. So say I just charged $100 for a garden of a set size would that be fair? All they would have to do is plant it then. If it were a food plot depending on what they were planting I would also be able to help with that.

I’ve been looking for someone that I could work with but I only know of one guy in the state of WI that logs with horses full time.

Any one out side the state of WI want an apprentice I’d be willing to take one up.

[PeytonM]

What in the world do you do with all that milk? You must sell it somehwere

[PeytonM]

I was gonna use that on a cow if I got one, When I looks looking at farms there was a guy up north that had a goat parlor and milked 3 at a time, think he had 12 or so. I don’t know what all consisted of the set up but he told me he milked in to a tank farmers use for treated cows to it wouldn’t go in to the bulk tank, If you dont know what I’m talking about here’s a pic http://dairycarrie.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/wpid-20130203_185135.jpg%3Fw%3D500%26h%3D375

[PeytonM]

Never thought about feeding it to the pigs, I got 3 feeders last year and by the end of the year I had things down at the start I was spending way too much money on feed, at the end I had scrap food ( no meat) from family members and I also had bunch of apples that were from a feller that lived a few miles down the road. I also had 2 bags of milk replacer from when I was in H.S. I was going to buy 2 bull calves for meat and the parents put a halt to that, shortly later I got my first team of horses, ma didn’t want it but she had to deal with it.

This spring I would like to find a cow and milk her, I also would like to have some chickens for eggs and buy a few more pigs.

http://wptschedule.org/episodes/44728750/A-Farm-Winter-With-Jerry-Apps/

If you have a few hours to kill go visit the link above. I’m going to go a little bit off topic but I just was so joyful when I watched that. It made me have respect for thins. I feel he is right, everything that we do all year round is to prep for winter.

I personally feel the feds have their fingers in too many things and I’m getting to the point where I don’t trust half the things you buy in the store theses because there are so many things to preserve the foods and make them last for months and months and even years. After I had those 3 pigs last summer it really made me feel proud to have them and I really did it because a friend of mine has an autistic son and he was so in love with the movie “Babe” and everything was Babe the pig, he was tickled to death when he would see the pigs, he never wanted to leave them. Made me think of how I was raised and how we interacted with live stock and raised food.

Thanks for all the help and replys.

Do you milk with hand or small milking set ups? If I would get a small vac pump I would be able to milk with units because my parents have about 20 of them at their place and they even have some of the old surge ones that used a strap and held the milk and then you had to dump them out after each cow.

[PeytonM]

How many many gallons would a Jersey produce? how many goats would take to produce the same amount of milk? I would also like to make all my own butter and try doing cheese. Whats the going rate for a good cow and Goats? Im sure milking goats are worth a bit more than regular weed burners

[PeytonM]

Well there are a few things I was thinking of the team I found is percherons really nice looking team I also thought it would be a way to make money with weddings being it was a business ordeal I can write things off for taxes and I could still use them for logging weddings and sleigh and wagon rides the horse trailer I was thinking it would be a business and personal use the skidder trailer would be atleast a 24ft goose neck I can use it to haul things for others like hay, tractors what ever.everything I would buy it would be used for more than one thing.

[PeytonM]

Ok thank you,

how hard are they to skin? I wanted to kill and clean them up so when I took them in all they would have to do is cut the meat from the animal to save on cost.

[PeytonM]

I. Dont know anyone that cuts hay with a sickle mower for horses by me. Ill look on google thanks

[PeytonM]

Don, the thing your talking about for the evener mounts on the under side of the pole and would creat a upward draft? I do not have one, on the tractor its fabbed to sit high, its hard to explain but if I had a horse with thepole 34 in from ground the way the mount ison the. Tractor is set to the same height, I don’t have. Any mount or chain you speak of, pics please

[PeytonM]

Hey Donn, don’t know what your talking about with he draft rod, pics? Also I was using it with my farmall h and it seems it only will plug on the ends? An reason? Thanks for all the help I don’t really know what pole I should use cause I have 2 and I also have 2 different style harnesses and I use one on each. I havea side backer harness that carrys the pole super high and a marten gale harness that is a little lower.

[PeytonM]

well I have a old pole i had on a bob sled and I measured that and it was 10 ft. I just dont know how far the horses should be ahead of the mower, and I assume that would make a difference on the weight that would be put in the end of the pole that would sit on their collars. I sit on the back of it and it doesn’t move one bit so I thought of have the evener mounted on the bottom if it was too heavy but I don’t need to be getting flipped off. you know where I could get the part that goes on the end of the sickle, its like a board or something that pulls the hay in I’m assuming mine doesn’t have one of those.
thanks

Peyton

[PeytonM]

Mom has no sign what so ever

[PeytonM]

When you ask her to move forward are you using vocal commands or kiss? I have a belgian named Prince thats 18H + and well over a ton, I know he can pull some weight cause I’ve used him skidding logs alone and he knows what hes doing in the woods, I tried tilling the garden with a walk behind cultivator and he wouldn’t move it one bit, he would hop and jump but wouldn’t pull it, I was green at the time, I feel it was two different reasons why he acted like this
A) He was hooked single on something he never did but at the same time very close to pulling a log, He didn’t have his team mate next too him like he normally did when I would hook them on a disk or something of that nature.
B) I was green, I was unsure, I wasnt confident in my self and that day I was having a bad day, I learned really quick horses read you off your body language and the moment they see you they know who’s gonna be boss.

Now I can take that same horse Prince and hook him with his team mate Randy and go out and be on a wagon or something and I’ll let them do their thing and not pay so much attention to the horses and I’ll be looking at the field or woods or what ever and Price knows that he will start to act up. All I have to do is stop him walk up to him straight on looking him in the eye and pull his head down from sky so hes on my level and say ” cool it, relax” he more or less gets over hyper and really wants to haul the mail and pull or go just all out and work, but I pet him on the head and just talk to him, he calms down and relaxes and away we go. He is the one horse I love to drive because after I got time behind some lines he is one horse that wants to work and enjoys working.

[PeytonM]

sorry about not replying, I’ve been really busy and have been out on the road a lot. I honestly want to just weld at my place building horse stuff, carts, eveners stuff like that.if someone came to me with a large scale project I.E. forwarder I’d be willing to build it, I’d be willing to build anything but I mainly want to focus on horse stuff. I really loved going out brushing my team and throwing my heavy leather harness on the horses and taking them out to do some logging I got a new team and the one horse I took back and I’m looking for a team mate for the mare I got from the guy. The horses I got were supposed to be good pulling team for me, I wanted to pull here and there but I don’t want to team where that’s all I can use them for is pulling I wanted a all around team and that one horse was pushing me away from it,

I talked with Taylor Johnson quite a bit and he told me “slow is smooth smooth is fast” give it time and you will slowly get where you want to be. I know what he means, I just don’t want to go real slow, I want to start this year and get the ball rolling, Hay ground would be great to run with for starters to feed my animals.

thanks for all the help and replys.

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