logging

[Baystatetom]

Started my first paying logging job with my steers today. Good quality smallish hardwood mostly flat skid. I was pretty excited to get started however I am now realizing if I don’t get a whole lot faster there is no way I’ll make a living at it.
I suppose I am taking small loads because my steers are young. I am cutting tens and twelves and pulling them one at a time. If I could take two or three at a time production would go way up. Gum in the cherry didn’t do much for my moral either. Wondering if I should have freighted them down more but they are only 2 years old I would hate to break their will to work. About 4 hours seems to be the limit of their day, I expect that will improve too.
~Tom

[Anonymous]

I don’t know any thing about working steers but young horses are hard to make a living with in the woods. I’m sure you are doing the right thing slow and steady. Production will come with well earned expierence and time. Would realy like to see some pictures.

Tristan

[Dennis]

Tom, I’m kind of in the same boat as you. I don’t have a large team (mules), so I try not to overload them and push them too hard. I have a full time job so as long as I’m not losing money I’m happy with it. Even though it seems to move slow for me my team is able to pay for themselves (feed, vet, and farrier) and they also cover all the fuel to run to the jobs with a little left. I think its better to ease into things. Congrats on the start.

[Tim Harrigan]

I think working in the woods with animals is not so much about how much they can pull as it is about energy conservation. I always thought about how to make the work easy for Will and Abe, and I am even more attentive to it now that I am working single with Will. The ground surface and how you are skidding has a big difference on the effort your team needs to bring to move the loads. If you are ground skidding with a choker chain you can increase the size of the log by about 1/3 and move it with the same effort by skidding it on a stone boat. A boat or scoot can make an even bigger difference if you are skidding on snow and unfrozen ground because you might be both digging in with the log and plowing snow with the butt. If you are on frozen ground with hard packed snow there might not be much difference between ground skidding and skidding out on a boat or a scoot, but the footing might not be very good and that will make it tough on the team. It might be that you can skid out two on a stone boat where only one might be possible with ground skidding.

If you are working alone and cleaning up slash there is only so much you can do in a day. It is not a race. Your team will find more than one way to remind you of that over time.

[mitchmaine]

Hi tom,
The nature of the work is slow and deliberate. Quiet too. And gives you lots of time to think about different methods of moving wood. Tim laid it out fairly well. Try them all and other ways you can think of. In the end, the way that suits you and your team will solve itself. Try and resist the cable skidder. Best of luck and glad you’r in the woods. Four hours seems like a good day for a young team. You might try doing your chopping in the afternoon, and cleaning it up the next morning when they are fresh. Might work. mitch

[Carl Russell]

Tom, not to beat a dead horse (ox), you are a forester, and if you can envision how this work is allowing you to provide a specific forestry product (residual stand) then charge for it.

There is no doubt that the strength of your young steers combined with your learning curve puts you at a competitive disadvantage from a purely production-based standpoint. Everything that has been written above is pertinent, patience, efficiency, and appraisal of the multiple bottom line (profit from enjoyment :cool:), but you can add value to the work you are performing with your forestry skills, and you should not be shy of that, otherwise you are close to buying into the premise that this work is hobby.

I know from personal experience that the first few years can seem like an economic black-hole, so find ways to mitigate that for yourself.

As you think about increasing production, think about cadence. If you have the cattle in the woods while you’re cutting they should be pretty well rested by the time you go to hitch them. Make them work a little harder. Don’t push them ridiculously, but if you work them hard, then rest them, you will get more work out of them, than if you just skid for 4 hours with them. They will quickly learn that the long continual type of energy needed to skid logs for 4 hours is exhausting, and they will develop a slow lethargic approach to work. When they are worked hard for short periods, then allowed to rest, they will be much more enthusiastic workers, because they LOVE to stand around, and this will lead to more efficient production. This will be true regardless of the equipment you employ.

Carl

[Kevin Cunningham]

@Carl Russell 32527 wrote:

you can add value to the work you are performing with your forestry skills, and you should not be shy of that, otherwise you are close to buying into the premise that this work is hobby.l

I think what Carl said here is really important. I really take my farming seriously and I know of plenty of farmers that don’t, for many of them it is their full time job but they still are okay not making it. You have to charge what it cost you to produce and make a profit. Right after I started the farm I ran into a former boss and mentor (well he is still my mentor) of mine. I joked with him how I wasn’t yet making a profit. I thought it would be funny because I know he has struggled with several woodworking businesses. He got dead serious, looked me in the eye, and said “you have to make it profit. It took my twenty years to learn that, don’t make the same mistake.” Scared the crap out of me, but I may not have made it work if he hadn’t said that. The mind shift to being okay losing money to being smart about keeping track of the expenses and making it work. We are in control over how our businesses make money. Tom I think your on the right track by noticing how efficiency can be improved and realizing where to tighten things up. Good luck out there I am jealous, someday I’ll have my steers in the woods too.

[Baystatetom]

I have been using a make shift go devil to keep the butts up but it doesn’t keep the whole log off the ground. I had thought of throwing together a stone boat but it seems like it may slow me down more wrestling it into place. I have a pretty short skid 100 yards or so now, maybe 200 yards to the farther trees. Things are starting to thaw there is a few inches of slushy snow. I was thinking I could be faster ground skidding because I wouldn’t have to goof around rolling logs onto the go devil and chaining them up, but I also thought that would wear out my snow faster.
Carl I like your point about working them harder and giving them a longer rest, you might be onto something there. They are pretty fast for steers, I am glad they are not any faster for the first two hours, its quite a work out high stepping through the snow and slash to stay beside them with a load on. Even later in the day they pull fast enough, just the rush to get back in is gone.
I am cutting 14-16″DBH cherry, hard maple and Ash. Thinning as lightly as I can get them to fall. The local mills said to try and cut 10′-12′ logs. Am I better off putting two side by side on a go devil taking more loading time ?, or putting a 20-24′ log on it and cutting it in half on the header. Seems like the longer log might drag harder but be quicker loading and unloading.
Hate to sound arrogant but I am proficient with the saw. I can cut more in 20 minutes then I can skid in two hours so that doesn’t buy them much rest time. I think I am going to start planning on short days skidding, so I can go mark timber or cruise for a Management Plan half the day. I am doing this through my boss’ company and I have to turn a profit or he will be a lot less willing to let me do it again. For some reason I can’t get pictures to upload anymore. I’ll try and figure it out when the log pile looks a bit more impressive.
Thanks for all the great input. I am so glad I found this site!
~Tom

[Gabe Ayers]

Tom-
I really like using some type of forwarding tool in the woods – sled, scoot, or the like. That way, my team gets to stand and rest while I load the logs onto my sled, and they stay fresh longer than if I was simply skidding each load from stump to landing. The go-devil is cumbersome to use for each load, and I have found that it is hard to get two logs on it side by side. I have found that tool useful with a single horse for skidding larger logs that would be bear to skid on the ground. In the summer with the arch, the equations changes significantly because I can get much larger logs or sticks with multiple logs. For example, last summer we were in red spruce and it was possible to skid 50′ or more of spruce in one load, as long as we did not damage other trees on the way out. From there, a tractor powered forwarder took the logs to the landing. In this case, I had to be careful about giving the team time to rest between loads. I guess in the end it is best to have a variety of tools and strategies at your disposal and then pick what works best for each situation. Do you have a scoot or sled you could use for that job?
-Brad

[Baystatetom]

I had other stuff to do the past two days but I will be back at it tomorrow. My scoot is so old I don’t think it would hold up, but I got a call into a friend to see if I can use his.
Like everything else I do, I’ll just keep trying till I get it right! I have a good team who gives me 110% every time out. I really think its just a matter of size and age. A 2400 pound pair just can’t pull as much as a 3200 pound pair. I have to look at this as training for both of us and keep trying to improve.
~Tom

[Baystatetom]

After doing other things for a couple of days I returned to my logging job to find that the landowner had “helped me” by hanging up two trees and leaving his little husky pinched in a third when it rested back on the stump. Just as well he would have hung that one too. After taking the power head off the bar so I could safely fell the tree sideways from his notch I put it in my trailer and brought it home to avoid any future “help”. Those hangers are a real bear to deal with. The smaller of the two, my steers were able to pull down but it took several tries and considerable effort on the teams part. It stopped them dead in their tracks a few times. I really didn’t like doing that to them so the other larger tree I pulled down with a come-along. Seemed to take forever but it eventually worked. Do you guys have any secrets for dealing with those hangers? I know everybody does it once in while how do you get them down?
I still pulled short logs one at a time today because the trees were bigger. At least with all the time spent with the come-along they were well rested between trees.
~Tom

[Gabe Ayers]

Tom-
I ask my team to pull trees down on a regular basis, particularly when the stand is tight. The more times we do it, the more comfortable they become. In terms of making it an appropriate task for them, I have to make sure they can move it before I hook, and only experience will tell you that. I make sure the hinge is completely cut, and I angle the edge of the stump below the face cut to make it easier to slide off. Also, in almost all cases I use a rolling hitch and pull at an angle so I can roll the top of the tree away from the hang up if it is at the top. Some times it is smart of hook the chain long to make allow the butt to travel as it comes off the stump without running up on the horses or pulling the chain too tight. In all cases, I make sure they are warmed up before I ask them to yank on a big one, but I don’ think it is a bad practice to make a habit of pulling with your team. If I can’t get one down, I move on to a small log that they can easily move to make sure their confidence remains high. In the end, to make it safe you have to know your team and recognize when they are capable of moving the hanger and when your winch might be a better, safer, choice. Of course, those of us with animals in the woods are such excellent fellers that we never get anything hung up in the first place, right?
-Brad

[Ronnie Tucker]

if it is going to be to tough i use a block and tackle.this makes it so easy.

[Tim Harrigan]

They are all different in my experience. Don’t hurry, do a lot of looking, a lot of thinking. They can be dangerous. Like Brad said, when you are cutting in tight quarters it can be tough to get the tree moving enough to push through the canopy. I have been amazed sometimes how little contact it takes to keep a tree upright, even with a pretty good lean. If it is on the stump, first I plunge through the hinge leaving the corners, then I set a couple of wedges and nip the corners to free the tree. If I can roll it off with a peavey I usually try that first if the tree is not too big. I always put the face cut wedge on the ground to catch the tree and hope the butt does not get planted if the ground is not frozen. Sometimes if you can roll it and drop it off the stump it will get some momentum and pull free, sometimes not. Like Brad said, a rolling hitch will usually get it moving if too big for the peavey. If the butt gets planted it will be hard if not impossible to pull with the team unless you dig it out and maybe rig a two part line or something to gain an advantage. If it drops and does not plant it might not be too hard to pull if it is at a good, low angle and on firm or frozen ground.

You also have to have a good assessment of how it is hung. Sometimes they will slide out easy, sometimes they seem to lock together. When I had Will and Abe they could stretch it out and sometimes the butt would lift right off the ground until the top snapped out. That probably won’t happen with Will alone. A few times, if I thought they were too dangerous or I did not think we could pull them, I just left them and came back with a tractor and long chain, whatever it took. Sometimes I have just walked them down in 6 ft pieces, not a great way to save a nice log.

One thing I was thinking that has to do with Brad’s comment about sliding it over the top of the stump. Takes special caution for sure but if you can get it moving maybe you can get it to lay out more before the butt hits the ground and has a chance to plant. I was thinking that if I have a situation where a hang-up is likely I might try making the back cut below the face rather than above so I don’t have a stump shot that the log needs to ride over. Might help, not sure, and there is a good reason to have a stump shot anyway. If the ground is frozen that can prevent the problem of planting the butt, but there has not been a single day this year where the ground froze to that depth here.

I could avoid some hang-ups if I was not so determined to minimize residual damage to the stand and just dropped them where I knew they would fall, but that’s the way it goes. One thing about them, they are always interesting.

[Scott G]

@Baystatetom 32615 wrote:

Do you guys have any secrets for dealing with those hangers?

Yes, Tom, politely decline offers from the landowner to do the felling on the job when they get that gleam in their eye. They often want to help to save money or get their “Bunyan” fix, but they can really screw up your layout in short order.

Unless it is a non-merchantable piece and you want to walk it down with the saw (very heads up!) you are going to need to pull it down with your steers or a skidder. At a minimum, I’ll hook on to the choker with the 16′ long-reach chain with grab hooks on both ends that I keep with me and pull it down with that. If the ground is frozen or hard, the butt end of the tree will have a tendency to shoot forward as you pull it down, at least with the conifers I cut out here. Even safer is to use a block and rope for a redirect. If you can set your block higher in the tree you’ll get the benefit of some lift as well.

After you sweat, cuss and spend way too much time on a couple of these that are really stuffed, the importance of directional felling becomes brutally apparent. This is one job it would be great to have your client help with, it will drive the point home for him as far as how much time and money he saved.

[Author]

Posts