What are you all hauling with ?

[TaylorJohnson]

That video from Poland they other day got me thinking about horse hauling and different kinds of rigs to do it. I think it would be nice to have an old uhaul truck or the likes and fix it up into a horse hauler. Lots of room and cheap to by. Have any of you done this ? Lets see the rigs you all use for work right now . I will get some pics up of mine in the morning. Taylor Johnson.

[Rick Alger]

Hey, Taylor,

I don’t have a digital camera, so you’ll have to trust me on this. I have a beautiful 12 foot stock trailer I bought used twelve years ago for $2,200. Since then I have sunk a couple thousand into tires, brakes, wiring, springs, paint and sheet metal and Bondo, along with reg. and ins. And I spent a lot of time tinkering.

If I was going to keep at this racket much longer, I wouldn’t invest in another trailer. I would find some local horsepuller who would transport the horses reasonably. Then I would keep them on site as I often did anyway.

[Carl Russell]

This is the way it looked in September. F250 with 16′ gooseneck stock trailer. Now I have a F350 Diesel with standard tranny.

I used to have my horse hauled, then keep them on the job. With the family and ongoing farm activities, I just can’t have the animals away from home anymore. I really find having the trailer to be a huge benefit. I can keep all the equipment I’m using right in there, and just load the horses and go. 16′ lets me load log cart and horses with harnesses on. Somewhat costly, but certainly ads functionality.

I used to haul them on a 1938 3 tom GMC with flatbed and side boards, during 1980-90’s. That was a blast, ad worked great, but the old girl just didn’t last. I dream about getting something like that again. Hauling hay, logs, lumber, saw dust, fuelwood, and animals can be of great value.

Carl

[TaylorJohnson]

This is my rig . It is a one ton dodge van with a 360 motor. I bought the trailer for $900.00 some years ago . I have put lots of tires and a couple of new floors in it. . The Van i got from a buddy of mine in a series of trades and swaps along with some cash. It is a cheap rig and the van has less that 90,000 miles on it. Before this I was using a Dodge Dakota 4×4 with a v 6 .
In that set up below I got some funny looks going though town .. it must have looked like quit a train lol. In this pic I just got home from log a load for kids .

[Big Horses]

We use a ’94 Dodge dually with a Cummins, and a ’89 Trailette trailer. I haven’t got the back door area totally finished yet, as it’s going to be wider, so we can roll a wagon inside, but the way we’re configured now, we can haul 5 horses very easily, with the back stall being extra big if we want a mare and foal in there. The front carries our harness and all equipment very nicely, so we’re not having to reload all the time. The trailer used to have feeders at each stall, so I took them out to make more room (thus the skin patches on the left lower side of the trailer).
New paint is on the way as soon as a few hundred other projects get finished here…..
John

[mitchmaine]

hey big horses, how big are your horses? thats some trailer you got there. nice work.
never had a trailer of my own. borrowed before and don’t like that too much. i used to hire trucking and move my horses on a woodlot and hovel them there for the job, or til i took a break and came home for a bit. it meant driving 20 – 25 miles back and forth twice on days you weren’t cutting and that got old, but rick’s numbers seem right enough, so it costs no matter what you do. part of the cost of doing business. never liked leaving horses in the woods three or four towns away.

[Scott G]

’88 Chevy 3/4 ton flatbed with a ’89 16′ stock trailer. The wife & daughters have the ’05 Duramax and ’04 Exiss GN with living quarters. Guess that tells you where I rate in the big picture…;)

I resurrected the stock trailer a few years back when I got serious about logging with a horse again. Rewired it & boarded up the front ahead of the slam gate to have a secure place to keep harness, rigging gear, saw stuff, etc… works well to have a secure place out of the weather.

Not much to look at but it works well. Didn’t know we were going to have a beauty contest or I could’ve taken some pics yesterday when I was hooked up. Now the truck is at the top of the mountain and the trailer is sitting at the bottom (road iced out).

I like the versatility of flatbed truck/trailer vs. straight chassis haul truck. I can put a pretty decent load of post & poles on my small flatbed. If I want to haul more/sawlogs I have a 20′ GN flatbed trailer I can load down.

I’m on tail end of the 2nd engine, 3rd front end, 2nd rear end, etc.. on the truck. It’s gettin’ very tired (well over 300k very hard miles)although it still does the job. Chained up to pull the pass just yesterday…

Saving my pennies to get a Dodge 1 ton flat bed like John’s and a 20′ GN Stock combo that I can rig specific to my needs for stayin out in the woods for an extended period of time. Wall tents are OK but the weather proofness of a trailer and time saved of not having to set up/tear down camp are nice.

Anything over 20-22′ is too tough to get around on the small two-track woods roads around here. A rig the size of John’s or my wife’s (24′) is just to big to clear and make the corners without getting banged up. Same goes for the metal. Anything other than steel trailers on the back roads and you end up with some expensive recycled metal. Aluminum & aluminum/steel just doesn’t hold together. Aluminum frames are notorious for bending when the going gets rough…

[TaylorJohnson]

I have a lot of ideas on what I would like . One would be a box truck or a big flat bed truck and run the horses up in . Have a small living quarters on the truck . The tents are nice but I do like the quick set up time of a hard house of some kind. The less you have to pull , load , unload …. the better. Also one trip is nice. A man does not need a lot to stay in wile he is working . Warm and dry is important … some were to dry boots and clothes are also very important in the winter, spring , and fall . I have looked at some old uhaul trucks , some of them would make a dandy . Taylor Johnson

[TaylorJohnson]

I told my Nephews that we were the Hill-Billy A Team wile we were in that van of mine 🙂 . Taylor Johnson

[Big Horses]

Mitchmaine, our Clydes average 1800# to a ton and stand about 17.2 – 18hh. Our big Perch gelding is 19hh barefoot and about 2200-2400#. The trailer is 7’6″ high, so the only one that has to duck is Butch, the percheron, but they don’t have to “live” in there, so not a problem. We’ve thought about raising the roof a foot, but we’ll see…lots of other projects to get done around here first!
We went with the older Dodge for the 12 valve Cummins engine (they switched to the 24valve in 98.5). It’s fully mechanical, so there’s no computer stuff to go wrong. They are really simple and get great mileage! Last summer I found a 6 speed from a ’04 Dodge and threw that in, and it made a huge difference! We found the trailer and the pickup for less than 5grand each, and fixed them up from there, to suit our needs. I’ve always wanted a dually flatbed, and after having this one, don’t see any way I could go back to a regular pickup bed! That Bradforbuilt bed has sides that fold down, and a 30,000# gooseneck hitch built in, along with the tool boxes… I couldn’t be happier with it! One nice thing about a trailer/truck combo is that when you get to where you’re going, it only takes a minute to drop the trailer and have the pickup to do any running around that you need to, while still having the trailer to “base” out of.
John

[blue80]

After 3 yrs in town, we finally made time to camp in the bighorns for a couple nights. Took two horses in the back of the 18ft trailer, and gear in the front 8 ft. compartment. I spent most of the time rewiring the trailer to run combo, so now we can put another trailer in tow behind the horse trailer…..Trailer has 7ft ceiling.

Things I like about the truck are
5 speed manual, cummins, w/
exhaust brake-we have 14 miles of 10 percent grade off the mountains, and the exhaust brake keeps us from having to touch the brakes in third gear- flatbed is priceless,
and there was already a dent in every panel when I bought it so I don’t have to freak out when accidents happen……
Oh, and I love http://www.dieseltruckresource.com a forum of cummins motorheads that basically solve all my mechanical troubleshooting!

Kevin

[blue80]

If I was to do logging full time, I’d think about this truck we used to have for versatility.

2004 International Harvester 7300 crew cab with a 235 hp DT466. Underpowered for heavy towing, but a great workhorse motor. We pulled a 14ft. enclosed trailer with it, though the heavy rear end suspension was hard on the 2 inch trailer hitches…
6 guys could sit in the cab with elbows not touching.
This truck was spec’d heavier, but titled for a pound under CDL. If I kept it, I would have taken off the front under tool boxes and installed an air lift axle; we stressed/bent the frame loading too heavy, too far forward, going too fast;)
It is 4wd drive, we were know to have mud halfway up the rims on muddy jobsites in Indiana. The guys called it “the tree climber”
Many an evening was spent camping in the back seat. Just thought I’d pass a pic on, not many around like this one…

Kevin

[Barw]

We have a 97′ GMC 6500 Top Kick and a 26′ Norberts tri-axle stock trailer.
Used to have Dodge 1 ton but now no load is too heavy and lot easier on pulling truck.
barw

[Anonymous]

1984 Int. with a 7.3 liter

[Scott G]

@bob h. 22862 wrote:

1984 Int. with a 7.3 liter

Damn, you sure like your juniper Mr. Platt!;)

[Author]

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