Is mixing horse and machine cheating?

[Matthew]

This question pertains to horse loggers and horse farmers but more towards the loggers does mixing the use of machines in your operation constitute cheating? Does it contaminate the purity of the act of being a horse powered opperation? In my opionion in todays world there realy is not many ways to avoid using modern machines in any opperation. Just the truck used to transport yourself and horses is a start then you use a chain saw and the logs get trucked to the mill by diesel power. I personaly see using machines as a necesity but to what extent is a personal decision adapted to each individual opperation. For horse farming the use of a front end loader vs shoveling to fill a manure spreader can be very tempting. In the woods long skids and rough terrain can eat up profits and some lots you can’t even get off the road and into a landing with out some dozer work first. Does claming to be a (horse powerd) opperation and showing up with a tractor or loader to deck logs contaminate the opperation, or is it a must to opperate in todays world?

[perchhauler]

Havent been on here in a long time, read your post, seems to be mainly a matter of opinion or better yet need.. If a machine is used on a landing to load logs, deck on a small landing, or work so a log truck can get into the landing I dont think its contaminating the operation.. As long as you’re still doing all your skidding and forwarding with horses you’re saving alot of young growth rather than having to put roads through a woodlot for skidders in a select cut or thinning operation, and thats what horselogging is about saving young growth when harvesting timber, looking at the future of the woodlot.. I have recently battled with the thought of possibly having to buy a machine for the landing myself but am trying to avoid it simply something else to keep up, break downs, ect.. I lived in Pa. all my life never needed a machine to load logs with due to all the tri-axle log trucks in Pa. having loaders, butbrecently I moved to Va. and not as many self-loaders here due to weight laws.. But think I’ll get by without having to buy a machine to load with, have found enough haulers with loaders, however it is handy to have something to load, deck, and clear a truck a path in.. Its all time vs. money, the need, and in my case if it can be avioded a mavhine for me is more of a pain to deal with, when its not needed all the time… Steve

[Scott G]

@Matthew 18132 wrote:

but more towards the loggers does mixing the use of machines in your operation constitute cheating?QUOTE]

No…

My personal goal is to use draft animals for what they excel at which is skidding and/or pre-bunching. Driving your pickup/trailer to the job site, using a hydraulic loader, and possibly a forwarder are all realities in this day & age unless you are just logging your or your neighbors ground on a limited basis or cutting only high value material.

If you want both the low-impact benefits of horse logging coupled with productivity to be able to profitably work in the material most of us do; appropriate machine support is a disired situation, not evil…

[Scott G]

…not to mention a chainsaw.

[J-L]

It’s not a bad thing to mix them in my book. I bale hay with tractors. Haul roundbales to the stackyard with teams. Feed the hay with teams. I put the teams in where ever I can make them work. Raking hay, hauling hay, etc. I think it is just practical to mix machinery and horses/mules/oxen.

[near horse]

I agree that “mixing” is not cheating and, in fact, is a necessity if using draft animals is to have a chance. Plus, where do we decide what constitutes a “machine” – most would agree that something that requires petrol or other fuel would qualify but even GD equipment is “machinery”.

Isn’t this an issue that the Amish have struggled with and continue to? Maintaining a way of life requires adaptation and compromise – kind of give a little or lose it all.

[Iron Rose]

We have always been a mixed power operation. Works the best for us Tractors used for heavy tillage and harvesting ,teams used for planting, cultivating,most haying operations, feeding and manure hauling . Both have there place, without tractors we would have to try and hire labor and keep more horses around. Comes down to the bottom line

[lancek]

I think it is a necessary evil as loading logs with a horse can be done but it is dangerous for the horse and teamster! And if anybody says anything tell them that your horses and your safety is more in portent than being a purist

[blue80]

A teacher of mine once told me ” a real man knows his limitations, and when to quit” I would agree with him, sometimes in regards to this topic, that will in my opinion require the use of combustion type equipment.

It was interesting in S. Indiana, the group of Amish I lived “with” allowed tractors under 40 hp I think, they could use them to move equipment/hay up and down the narrow back roads. When the temperature was over 90 degrees, they were permitted to use the tractor to bale in the field as well, they would call me or another english to operate it for them while they stacked and/or unloaded. Some other local Amish groups hayed all summer, and the odd horse death would occur from heat related issues….

I haven’t been able to find it, but there was a neat article I read awhile back I think on the RH website dealing with knowing when to use a tractor for the benefit of all. Will try again to find it.

Using a machine or not also may come down to ‘whatever floats yer boat,’ persay.

Kevin

[Carl Russell]

Using draft power involves so much personal creative expression, that any operation involving draft animals will be by default significantly personal, so how can there be “cheating” in a situation like that?

There are many reasons why using machinery makes sense. I split wood by hand, including selling or custom production of sometimes as many as 20 cords/year, for years, but now that I have a wood splitter, I don’t feel like I’m cheating. We live in a mechanized age, and machines do provide us with proficiencies that give us advantages.

For me, it really comes down to expenses. The beauty of using animals is the low overhead, low purchase price, low input costs, increased value from personal investment (ie. training/working), and the opportunity to add value to work by personal ingenuity.

When we bring machinery into an operation we bring in large up-front costs, possible finance charges, increased fixed and variable production costs, purchased outside engineering and design costs, and constant depreciation.

Another detail is that in terms of sustainable land-use enterprises, machinery consumes fuel that requires the acceptance of possible environmental degradation. Fuel that is destroyed in the process of using the machine. The internal combustion motor is a destructive device. This does not diminish the value of the work that can be performed, but seen in comparison to animal power, the results of the two systems are quite different.

So my personal choice has been to bring as few machines into my operation as possible. This definitely requires a vision of scale that is different than many examples that most people are trying to work within. In order to keep costs low, I need to keep my operation extremely diversified, spreading cost over as many cost centers as possible. Making up for lack of logging production by providing food, building materials, and heating for my family from the farm, etc..

So I have to do without some of the things that machines could do for me. Avoiding systems that require the use of machinery, pasturing to reduce amount of manure that must be handled, controlling the scale of production, and finding other forms of income, are some of the choices I make instead of buying machinery.

I don’t see using machines as “cheating”, but for me they offer distraction from my own personal objective of developing a livelihood that uses or destroys as few resources as possible, and supports the development of a land-based enterprise that can sustain several families into the future with needs being met by what is present on the property.

Carl

[mitchmaine]

i think everyone knows when they are cheating, cause it’s yourself and your own ideas that you will be cheating. if you model your farm, based on someone else’s expectations, you are farming for someone else, it will never work and you will always be cheating someway. screw everybody else. figure out how you want to farm, do it that way, and life will be good. signed “old curmudgeon mitch”

[OldKat]

@mitchmaine 18162 wrote:

i think everyone knows when they are cheating, cause it’s yourself and your own ideas that you will be cheating. if you model your farm, based on someone else’s expectations, you are farming for someone else, it will never work and you will always be cheating someway. screw everybody else. figure out how you want to farm, do it that way, and life will be good. signed “old curmudgeon mitch”

TOUCHDOWN! for the gentleman from Maine. Well said, sir! 🙂

[Matthew]

I started this thread because I wanted to see peoples point of view on the topic. It seems everyone is pretty mutch on the same page. This is 2010 not 1810 things change if people want to see things done the way they were 200 years ago go to Old Sturbrige Village (a historic tourist atraction whare I live) we live in modern times and must adapt and use what makes our lives easer. If people see horse farming or horse logging mixed with modern equipment as not pure or 100% horse farming they are on the outside looking in. A horse logger doing his best to save the enviorment is not controdicting himself by using a chain saw, he would be out of buisness fast cuting with a crosscut saw and limbing with a ax. A organic farmer who uses a tractor on the farm is still producing the same product. We have not even began to take into consideration the computer or modern medicine.

[Carl Russell]

Matthew;18164 wrote:

….. A organic farmer who uses a tractor on the farm is still producing the same product. …..

I don’t want to open a can of worms, but I just couldn’t let that go by.

I would not agree with this sentiment. I think it is a personal choice to decide what equipment to use, but products from animal powered operations have value added that have to do with all of the environmental impacts that are tempered by the choice not to use petroleum, not to mention all of the direct physical and intellectual investments that make these products artisanal in nature.

It is not cheating to use a tractor, but don’t try to pretend that it is the same thing as using animal power. Markets may not value the difference, but the two approaches are very different.

Carl

[jac]

Over here there was a debate whether organic farmers that used tractors could or should still have the “organic” title because of the extra fossilised fuel used for cultivations and weed control compared to the draft animal powered farm. I had a glimmer of hope that draft animals might be brought to the fore… but as usual it got swept aside…
John

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