Green Business

[Highland Forestry]

I'd love to work on horse logging also... know of any way i could get into this?

 

Err, yeah.....

 

Buy a horse??!

[cousin jack]

Found this, but as it's from a website called Treehugger, it may have a bias,

Ask Pablo: Should We Go Back To Using Horses Instead Of Tractors? : TreeHugger

[born2trot]

I remember reading a report somewhere saying modern ploughing is too aggressive and will have negative impact on the land and it is much kinder to use lighter horse ploughs. Big machinery just doesn't do it for me , sorry

[MikeTM150]

It certainly would make you fitter, because you and your trusty steeds would have to walk 330 miles to plough a 40 acre field!

 

yeah and the consumer would have to pay alot more for their food me thinks!! which wouldn't do most of them any harm to pay a bit more and appreciate it more!!!!!!

 

One thing about horse least it comes as standard with enviromentally friendly climate control!!

[TRADITIONAL LOGGERS]

OH ER. I was thinking like a sustainable bank that invests funds into local business. I could never understand so called FSC approved charcoal which wass produced in Africa and shipped to the UK.

 

Regarding a small modern ATV machine v a large trained draught animal and taking all into account then the horse economics are more viable long term compared to the machine. I had done both for a long time and will stick to the tried and tested methods.

[doobin]

Regarding a small modern ATV machine v a large trained draught animal and taking all into account then the horse economics are more viable long term compared to the machine. I had done both for a long time and will stick to the tried and tested methods.

 

Ditch the expensive ATV and buy an old tractor. I can skid far more timber in a day using minimal diesel with a cheapo £1000 tractor than a horse could ever hope to match. Tractor rarely breaks down and it's never anything you'd have to shoot it for....

 

Sorry mate, this is the 21st century. Tractors ARE tried and tested!

 

Seriously though, good luck to you if you can make it pay on real difficult access or sensitive sites. On a commercial, price per ton basis, no way.

[doobin]

I remember reading a report somewhere saying modern ploughing is too aggressive and will have negative impact on the land and it is much kinder to use lighter horse ploughs. Big machinery just doesn't do it for me , sorry

 

Could just use a less aggressive plough on the tractor

 

An increasing number of farmers worldwide are actually ditching the plough and using minimum tilliage or direct drilling (straight into stubble) in order to keep the land in better shape and reduce the amount of horsepower and diesel needed to grow a crop.

 

This can however result in a greater need for chemical pesticides.

[born2trot]

Could just use a less aggressive plough on the tractor

 

An increasing number of farmers worldwide are actually ditching the plough and using minimum tilliage or direct drilling (straight into stubble) in order to keep the land in better shape and reduce the amount of horsepower and diesel needed to grow a crop.

 

This can however result in a greater need for chemical pesticides.

 

Could use a less aggressive tractor on the plough then i.e horses

Thats interesting what you say about minimum tillage and direct drilling , didn't know that. The thing about using horses ONLY is that there is simply no getting away from the manual handling aspect of it. But i see this as an upside because it means more manual labour especially in this current climate.

[cousin jack]

Ditch the expensive ATV and buy an old tractor. I can skid far more timber in a day using minimal diesel with a cheapo £1000 tractor than a horse could ever hope to match. Tractor rarely breaks down and it's never anything you'd have to shoot it for....

 

Sorry mate, this is the 21st century. Tractors ARE tried and tested!

 

Seriously though, good luck to you if you can make it pay on real difficult access or sensitive sites. On a commercial, price per ton basis, no way.

 

Traditional loggers mentioned ATV's, I will also say a well trained horse and operator will out perform an ATV and combination over any distance, terrain, size of wood that you care to mention.

No one in their right mind is going to argue that in conventional forestry, horses can compete with machines. However, in the right circumstances, horses working alongside machinery can be every bit as effective as any system that requires manual intervention. Short skids or skids on steep ground to ride side for conversion and secondary extraction by machine works well, ie; minimum impact, less residual damage, and given that we were actually getting to work with some good timber, production would be comparable to any tractor and winch combo, but we only usually get the jobs you machinery boys don't want to do.

[skyhuck]

A horse is solar powered.

.

 

So are tractors, in fact every thing on the planet (with the exception of a very few deep sea creatures, that take energy from thermal vents) is solar powered.

 

Tractors just use stored solar power in the form of diesel.