Forwarder Added to Horse Operation

[Baystatetom]

I think Traveling Woodsman made the right choice with the forwarder over a tractor wagon combo. You need the right tool for the job. Those forwarders are built specifically to carry wood over rough ground. I have a good friend with a small Valmet I am just waiting for the right time to team up with him for a job or two. I hear what you are saying about the value being the increase in jobs your capable of doing. It can be tricky finding land owners who have both a positive attitude about draft logging and land suitable for it.
~Tom

[Ronnie Tucker]

on forwarders does anyone know about the wallenstein brand,

[Baystatetom]

Ben I am curious how are you handling those 500 bdft oak logs now. I see them occasionally and always wonder if my oxen would be able to get them to the header. Down hill on snow I suppose but for some reason uphill in the mud seams to the more common situation.
~Tom

[Traveling Woodsman]

@Baystatetom 40266 wrote:

Ben I am curious how are you handling those 500 bdft oak logs now. I see them occasionally and always wonder if my oxen would be able to get them to the header. Down hill on snow I suppose but for some reason uphill in the mud seams to the more common situation.
~Tom

I skid them out with my team and 2 wheel arch with either a cradle hitch with grabs or a large set of tongs. I have started using tongs a lot more recently and they work really good on hard skids, because the harder the horses pull the better they set. If I’m in an adverse skidding situation such as uphill, which is not uncommon, I will hook my second team in front and the log will go. You can pull a 500 BF log out of an incredibly tough spot with 4 conditioned horses, in fact I move quite a bit of wood in different situations and have yet to find one I can’t move with my 4. Of course I am talking about log length. I have had jobs where I did a 4-up hitch for many days, even a few weeks at a time because of the size of timber and the hills it had to come up. On most of my jobs I have started using 4 horses every day now. I usually use one team at a time, and make one or two skids without much rest, then switch out and use the other team while the first team rests. This allows me to spend more time skidding and less time resting horses. Or if I have the manpower, I will just run two teams and skid all day with both, or do 4-up hitches all day, depending on the timber. I just adapt however I have to/can, to be the most efficient for the specific site I’m on.

And of course if I’m in a situation where I have to pull longer than log length on really big timber, I just call my buddies and we have a big ol’ logging party with 6 or 8 horses. Although that doesn’t happen very often.

I currently have a New Holland LS190 skid steer with OTT tracks for stacking on the landing and loading my truck. It is the biggest machine that New Holland makes, and I have overall been quite impressed with how well it handles the big logs. It will lift a 350-375 BF oak log to full height (11.5′), a 450-475 BF it will lift 5-6′ high, which is high enough to load when I take out my removable standards, and anything over 500 (I think my biggest to date is 590 BF of oak) it will load by picking up one end at a time. I have loaded close to a million feet with it now.

The forwarder will allow me to have loaders in two places, such as a job and a sort yard, and it will give me a knuckleboom where I can load full height log standards. My skid steer is just a little to short to load a lot of full height trucks. I can load a flatbed with stakes though, which is nice. And it will also help reduce the impact on the landing. Which is the one bad thing you could say about the skid steer if you wanted to. Although proper operation and careful closure work can mitigate that problem usually. And of course it will allow me to forward logs over long distances and long uphill situations, which is the main reason I got it. All of which allows me to keep the horses on what they do best: short skids and ultimate maneuverability.

Well there’s my thoughts, sorry if that was too much information. I guess my suggestion would be to find some others to help you if you had to move larger timber. Just make sure to factor in time for a learning curve to get everyone pulling together.

[Scott G]

How’s it working out for you, Ben?

[Traveling Woodsman]

Well we’ve forwarded about 55 MBF with it now, it’s working out decent.  I had to do some unexpected work to it, specifically replace the front chunk/differential.  Wasn’t too big of a deal, but it was unexpected and as usual the parts take longer to get in than you plan.  But we’re moving wood, and I have another maybe 80 MBF lined up to move with it at this point.  It doesn’t help you get any more wood out than you could on a good job (short skid) with just horses, but it takes a job such as the one we’re on now, with maybe 2500′ uphill skids and lets you still average 4MBF per day with two teams.  It has a leveling effect on production.  As far as details, it has pretty good power, and is very good on fuel, maybe 1 gallon/hr or slightly more, which is nice.  I do have some work I need to do on it once I get to a job where I won’t be using it, but the good thing is that it’s paid for and it’s starting to make money.

[Ronnie Tucker]

how does the loader size compare to the horse drawn models.

 

[Traveling Woodsman]

I’ve never used any horse drawn size, although I have seen some in use.  I know there are several sizes available, but compared to the ones I saw, the loader on my forwarder is significantly bigger and faster.  It’s about a 20′ boom and I have handled 400 BF oak logs comfortably.

[simon lenihan]

Horse drawn forwarders vary in their lifting capacity, the sjm has a max lift of approx 1600lb, our one has a max lift of 2000lb but we have had 4000lb oak log on by putting one end on first but it is was a very slow process.

[Author]

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