Hybridized Timber Harvest – Horses and Fowarder

[Andy Carson]

I think a picture and flowchart helps to explain what I’m talking about here. The horse and wagon can leave at the top and bottom of the slope. There is no hitching or unhitching needed except for attaching and detaching the counterweight line.

There will always be somewhat of an inbalance in this system, which will require power input from the horses and braking from the wagon. If one is clever about the counterweight, though, all the power from the horses would be exerted pulling downhill where they are super strong, and all the braking would be applied going uphill to feather to descent of the counterweight. The horses just have to walk themselves up the hill and stear. As horses can walk themselves (and only themselves) up some very steep slopes this kind of system might open up some very steep slopes (and what is beyond them) to horse logging.

[Carl Russell]

@Scott G 28864 wrote:

…….
Using forwarders with horses/mules has been gaining ground steadily over the past few years. What I’d really like to see from a forest operations standpoint are real numbers – time/motion, utilization, and costs. There was a study done by FERIC of Art Shannon in Ontario comparing his horse/mechanical forwarder operation to that of a cable skidder show. Art won hands down. I’m trying hard to get my hands on that paper but FERIC keeps a tight grip on its work. We need current & real numbers. Carl… that is a MAJOR hint!

We have numerous tools/techniques available to the horse logger of the 21st century that enables him/her to enhance the quality of product they already deliver while possibly even make money doing it… Let’s use them.

Carl, are you headed to MOFGA-LIF this year?

So, although these are not HARD numbers, and they certainly aren’t part of a time and motion study, these are some of the result of our latest go around…. And Scott, while I am not personally going to LIF this year, Brad Johnson will be, and he will be making a presentation about these figures.

During this harvest we yarded 45.518 mbf of red spruce, white pine, and mixed hardwoods, plus 12 cords of fuelwood (51.518mbf assuming 2cd/mbf).
We charged $25-$30/ hour for saw labor, performing extra duties such as girdling and crop tree release during production felling.
We charged $30/hr for teams skidding logs, and $75/hr for the forwarder. Forestry administration and supervision was charged at $50/hr.

The break-down was as follows; Labor = 120 hrs (37%), Team = 160 hrs (49%), Forwarder = 40 hrs ( 12%), and Forestry = 6.5 hrs (2%)

Our total cost was $11,198.43, or $217.37/mbf. The average value of the logs and fuelwood on the landing was $240.66/mbf. So the average stumpage value for timber is $23.29/mbf.

These numbers exclude the additional time we put into noncommercial work cutting two 2-acre patch cuts. That is money we will divide with the landowner based on costs that are separate from harvesting.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

The conventional stumpage rates around here are usually higher…. about $40 for RES and $60-100 for WHP, and obviously HWD is higher still. Stumpage truly reflects the difference between the market value of timber and the cost of harvest.

IF timber harvest is the chosen method of delivering forest improvement, then the residual stand reflects the cost of harvest. If stumpage value is set as a regional average, then forest improvement is a standardized product, related to the income available from the market.

My objective has always been to deliver the improvement work that is important and necessary given current conditions in the existing woodlot. In this case we were harvesting a lot of small RES, and releasing well-established patches of RES and WHP regen, so some of our work was non-commercial, and much of the job required extra time and care, which decreased stumpage, but increased the value of the residual stand.

Although our stumpage payment is lower than the regional average, the “Forestry” delivered is far above the regional average.

I am so GD sick of what people accept as “forestry”, based on regional conventional stumpage rates. Ruts, damaged residuals, mashed down regen, and low stocking are not legitimate aspects of acceptable forest management in my mind!!!!

If we dig a bit deeper into the numbers we find something more. The numbers I posted above show the income from logs and fuelwood. If we take away the fuelwood, our landing log value goes up to $259/mbf, putting stumpage value at $42/mfb, vs. the aforementioned $23/mbf.

I have maintained for years that fuelwood and other low-grade product harvests are basically non-commercial work supported by the higher grade logs and higher volume harvests. On this job we left a lot of fuelwood, and softwood pulp laying on the forest floor. Part of the cost of harvesting is attributed to chainsaw time spent directionally felling and chopping to manage this residual material.

If we were to harvest all of this material you can quickly see how that will drive down the value of the higher quality material, and put pressure on the rest of the harvesting operation to cut cost corners, to harvest more crop trees, and/or to increase the density of harvest in certain areas.

Carl

[near horse]

Sorry if I’m asking the questions of a simpleton but I’d like to know how one calculates “cost” of said job. Is it only expendables (fuel, oil, chain etc) plus time? Or do you factor in stuff like depreciation/wear & tear/replacement of equipment (pick up, horses etc)? Just wondering because I struggle to figure out what it really costs me to perform a job – ag or in the woods.

I’d be interested to hear what you all do. It always seems like I undervalue what I’m doing.

[Baystatetom]

You make a good point Carl in that if you are doing a precommercial thinning and/or improvement harvest then indeed the stumpage value to the landowner should be down around $20-$30/mbf. In fact that type of work often cost the LO money, paying anything at all is pretty good. I could say that I routinely sell stumpage white pine for $100, red oak for $350, and have been getting north of $50 for hemlock lately. But that wouldn’t be comparing apples to apples. Those jobs remove 3-5 mbf per acre. And yes no matter how good and careful the logger regen gets squished, trees get barked up and ruts get made.
I still believe I do good work and in the long term the properties I work on will be better off then when I started, but you are providing a different service to the client. The LO has to make the choice which fork in the skid road to take.
To compare things with machinery I hear logging cost from loggers ranging from $90 -$120/mbf. So for white pine paying $220/mbf loaded on a trailer, the LO gets $90-$130/mbf. BUT they are not doing the job Carl is talking about. I still am not not convinced its better or worse but defiantly different.
I look forward more and more everyday to hitting the woods with my steers but one thing I still struggle with is how to deal with all that low value wood. I bet six out of every ten trees I mark for harvest are hemlocks. They pay $160/mbf delivered to the local mills and it’ll cost $50 to get there. Can I find enough landowners to give away there timber so I can break even, or pay money out of pocket on top of the timber?
~Tom

[Carl Russell]

@near horse 29432 wrote:

Sorry if I’m asking the questions of a simpleton but I’d like to know how one calculates “cost” of said job. Is it only expendables (fuel, oil, chain etc) plus time? Or do you factor in stuff like depreciation/wear & tear/replacement of equipment (pick up, horses etc)? Just wondering because I struggle to figure out what it really costs me to perform a job – ag or in the woods.

I’d be interested to hear what you all do. It always seems like I undervalue what I’m doing.

Yes Geoff all of those factors play into the calculation. I know Scott has posted on here some work sheets to help figure operating costs, and those are a good place to start.

There is also a market reality factor that plays into the formula, and that is what ends up being the determining factor for many people. For example you may actually calculate that it costs you $X/hr but everybody else providing that service is charging $X-2/hr. That is the reality for many loggers and farmers, especially those with large financial investments tied to large production systems where the value of their product is reduced by the need to produce.

Very few loggers I know actually know what it costs them to operate, and just struggle to make ends meet based on the value of the timber and decisions they make in the woods.

In my case, as for many others, the costs associated with my operation are easier to determine on a $/day basis. Knowing that some costs are fixed, and others increase based on use (variable), helps in determining an accurate daily rate for different situations and equipment choices. I simply divide the daily rate by the number of hours I can work in a day. Then I also throw in the experience factor where I get a sense of whether this is a job that I have to have a sharp pencil and insist on $X/hr, or can I be a little squishy and accept $X-1/hr.

On a job where we are charging per MBF, then there is another example of experience factor judging what a reasonable estimate of production will be in relation to the daily expense.

However it is done, I feel that fighting for the lowest common denominator in order to be marketable is the wrong approach. I believe that when you bring quality to the enterprise, you deserve to be compensated for it. Whether farming or logging, finding a way in which I personally bring value to my products so that I value them higher than any other I can purchase is how I determine that I can market these at a higher rate than my competitors….. and to date I have no competitors.

Carl

[jac]

I hear you on this one Geoff… I think its fairly easy with the likes of tractors and trucks to get a cost per hour but horses open a new bag of monkeys.. what makes it worse is the fact we horsemen tend to put up with a lot more because the horses are part of the family usually.. going to be interesting to hear from you guys.. John

[Baystatetom]

Plumbers, electricians, etc. all charge at least $75/hour in my area. Foresters and loggers also have a highly skilled job requiring years of training, education and specialized tools. Why shouldn’t they demand those rates? I never value myself that high because I feel like I should make a honest days pay for an honest days work, no more no less.

[Carl Russell]

@Baystatetom 29433 wrote:

You make a good point Carl in that if you are doing a precommercial thinning and/or improvement harvest then indeed the stumpage value to the landowner should be down around $20-$30/mbf. In fact that type of work often cost the LO money, paying anything at all is pretty good. I could say that I routinely sell stumpage white pine for $100, red oak for $350, and have been getting north of $50 for hemlock lately. But that wouldn’t be comparing apples to apples. Those jobs remove 3-5 mbf per acre. And yes no matter how good and careful the logger regen gets squished, trees get barked up and ruts get made.
I still believe I do good work and in the long term the properties I work on will be better off then when I started, but you are providing a different service to the client. The LO has to make the choice which fork in the skid road to take.
To compare things with machinery I hear logging cost from loggers ranging from $90 -$120/mbf. So for white pine paying $220/mbf loaded on a trailer, the LO gets $90-$130/mbf. BUT they are not doing the job Carl is talking about. I still am not not convinced its better or worse but defiantly different.
I look forward more and more everyday to hitting the woods with my steers but one thing I still struggle with is how to deal with all that low value wood. I bet six out of every ten trees I mark for harvest are hemlocks. They pay $160/mbf delivered to the local mills and it’ll cost $50 to get there. Can I find enough landowners to give away there timber so I can break even, or pay money out of pocket on top of the timber?
~Tom

Tom, I have never done a timber harvest that wasn’t an improvement cut. In fact I have rarely, if ever, seen a woodlot that was that good. Even when I hire skidder operators they work for over $200/mbf, except on really big softwood. Our WHP on the landing gets about $280/mbf, so even when they pay $100/mbf they are working for $180/mbf. I would never let a logger into a woodlot of mine that was logging for anything less.

The fact is that the product I am selling is an improved residual stand…. that is my opinion of what forestry is. Timber sale administration is no doubt an effective way to enact silvicultural treatments, but I have seen way too many attempts to squeeze forestry between the mill and high stumpage rates, and it has significant limitations.

Obviously I champion my own approach, but I am admittedly part of a very small minority. I just wanted to share some of our numbers, and try to flesh out how we try to afford the delivery of our forestry product.

As far as charging for what you are worth, I feel that it is important to link your rates to real costs that you can account for. That way I can sleep at night knowing that I am, like Tom says, getting paid an honest wage.

Carl

[Baystatetom]

One man and a cable skidder is still $100/mbf here. Feller bunchers, chippers and multiple forwarders are defiantly more but I really don’t care for the job they do.
I agree every job is an improvement harvest. Start with the worst first, its just a matter of the taking the worst 10%, 20%, 30%….. If the LO has to keep gram-ma in the nursing home its more like 60 or 70%. I painted timber for 6 hours today and never painted a single sawlog, the parameters in which we have to work can change on every job.

[Carl Russell]

@Baystatetom 29440 wrote:

One man and a cable skidder is still $100/mbf here. Feller bunchers, chippers and multiple forwarders are defiantly more but I really don’t care for the job they do.
I agree every job is an improvement harvest. Start with the worst first, its just a matter of the taking the worst 10%, 20%, 30%….. If the LO has to keep gram-ma in the nursing home its more like 60 or 70%. I painted timber for 6 hours today and never painted a single sawlog, the parameters in which we have to work can change on every job.

Tom, I don’t think it really is about what they charge, but what they are worth…… think of the workmanship you could get if you set the stumpage so they could make $150-$200/mbf???

Carl

[Scott G]

Carl,

Even though I know you didn’t delve into time/motion on tracking numbers, do you have any rough mental figures on PH(ProductiveHours) vs SH(ScheduledHours) and/or the rough utilization% of PH (i.e. how often was someone standing waiting for someone else to finish or get out of the way)?

Also, do you feel as though you were maximizing each turn, both skidding(twitching) and running loads with the forwarder?

-S

[Baystatetom]

Carl is right about loggers not knowing their actual production cost. I have 4 jobs going right now. 2 cable skidders, a forwarder, and a forwarder fellerbuncher operation. Only one of the 4 could tell me exactly what it cost him to put a log on the landing. One of the cable skidder guys has his own log truck and couldn’t even tell me what percentage of his fuel bill went into the truck verses the skidder. It seams that loggers look at the price lists from the mill then look at the standing timber and take a guess at what the stumpage should be. In a lot of cases I (the forester) set the stumpage rate based on what I am hearing for prices from other foresters and what I have gotten on other lots recently, but this reflects my idea of timber quality not a loggers production cost. It seams to me being able to figure out those cost would make good business sense. In these hard times all loggers horse, ox or machine needs every edge they can get.

[Carl Russell]

@Baystatetom 29602 wrote:

Carl is right about loggers not knowing their actual production cost. I have 4 jobs going right now. 2 cable skidders, a forwarder, and a forwarder fellerbuncher operation. Only one of the 4 could tell me exactly what it cost him to put a log on the landing. One of the cable skidder guys has his own log truck and couldn’t even tell me what percentage of his fuel bill went into the truck verses the skidder. It seams that loggers look at the price lists from the mill then look at the standing timber and take a guess at what the stumpage should be. In a lot of cases I (the forester) set the stumpage rate based on what I am hearing for prices from other foresters and what I have gotten on other lots recently, but this reflects my idea of timber quality not a loggers production cost. It seams to me being able to figure out those cost would make good business sense. In these hard times all loggers horse, ox or machine needs every edge they can get.

That is pretty much the whole thing in a nutshell….. well said Tom

Carl

[Scott G]

The machinerate.xls calculation spreadsheet that I have put out there was developed by the Forest Engineering/Timber Sales Staff from R-6/USFS. The precise reason being what Tom just mentioned, so that the foresters could calculate out a reasonable stumpage rate. Some of the larger shows know their costs, but the vast percentage of gyppos do not. My soapbox is worn out on that one…

[Author]

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