Horses with Jobs: Logging Horses

 Jennifer. “A typical day would be feeding the horses in the morning. Then we trailer out to the worksite. Delbert does falling and then skidding [pulling] the logs to a landing. He needs to cut trails for the horses to skid through. The horses get an hour’s lunch for feed and water. We work a few more hours in the afternoon then head home. You can do a better job by select logging because you leave more regeneration and there is less ground disturbance than when using machinery.”

She says that a team can produce about 32 tons of timber. But it all varies with the ground conditions, length of the skid, and size of the wood. Weather conditions create common challenges such as deep snow, the ground being too wet, or the weather being too cold. The horses need well-fitted and well-maintained harness, and proper shoes for the conditions.

Delbert taught me to log with horses,” he says. “We got Tom and Toby, our Percherons, about four years ago. We bought a carriage first then got the horses for it. But they were actually too big for the carriage.”

He has had saddle horses all his life but started logging with Tom and Toby after doing some logging with his cousin.

“I wanted to get some salvage logs near my house. I put the collars on the horses and walked them down the road. They were pretty excited. But they are so gentle and fantastic in harness. I took some of the salvage logs out. I have a sawmill and I will mill them into 6x6s. I try to do value-added work if I can, selling tables, log cabins, and renovating log houses. As time goes on I’ll get another set of horses. I don’t want to push the older horses.”