Logging with Horses

• If you have a woodlot of 10-acres or less, bulldozing your way through it to take out a few trees can do more harm than good. Using horses to haul logs out of the timber allows you to be selective with the harvest, and avoid damage to the environment caused by large machinery.
• Joe Mischka owns a website and publication called "Rural Heritage", which is geared to small farmers and loggers who use horse, mule, and ox power. He says horse loggers typically use the powerful draft breeds such as Belgians. The right horse for the job also needs to be calm, well-broke, and trusting.

"That horse really needs to know that it can trust its driver," says Mischka. "Likewise, if there is not an accident per-se, but if there's a log that shifts or a piece of brush comes up that catches on a horse's harness that puts that horse in danger, that horse needs to be able to be stopped and to be commanded to stand perfectly still while it's untangled."

Mischka says if you give hayrides or use the horses for work on the farm, you may already have some of the basic equipment needed to pull logs out of the woods.

"You can do it with as little as a close inspection of your harness and maybe a little bit of beefing up on some of the stress points of your harness, and then buying a heavy-duty logging evener and a good logging chain that has one end with a grab hook, and another end with a slip chain allowing you a lot of flexibility in being able to tie onto a log," says Mischka.

If you'd rather hire someone else to do the logging, Mischka says horse loggers are a close-knit group around the country and can recommend someone in your area. The cost to hire a horse logger varies depending on what the job requires.