drinksloe

I was speaking to a dairy farmer the other day, he regulary has to chase badgers out of his sheds, area is polluted with them (fortunately no bTB) Right next to a big nature resrve and they wonder why they have no ground nesting birds??? He was saying a few farms in gloustershire which are now btb free since the cull and hedgehog numbers have increased dramatically. So it does look like the cull is working The money the cull is costing is ridiculasly high, but it also costs the country millions in paying for these btb cows to be culled. Protection should be taken of badgers country wide so if a farmer wants to cull them he can, be easily more badgers than foxes now and in some local areas could be 4 or 5 times as many broc as foxes Wot incentive is there for a farmer to improve his herd when he knows it could be wiped out at any time

Do u not find the pouch gets in the way? I've always just carried my wedges in a bag/rucksack and left it with my petrol can and threw the 2/3 wedges i use from tree butt to tree butt along with my sledge and bar. Saves them getting in the way while ur snedding the last tree out.

It should do it but it might depend on the soil conditions, but really a 2.5T is as big a digger as u can get without getting into some serious haulage charges. Some pretty good advice so far, if u can leave the stump long so u can get a bit of leverage on it later on when u've broke a few roots. Just start wide and dig a trench with a small toothed bucket or ripper tooth and just work ur way round smashing roots as u go. U might have more trouble lifting it but u could mibee save some the the stem/ramps and push it up into ur trailer/tipper or if u can push it of a banking et. I've pulled a few decent sized stumps out with 2.5 and occasionally 1.5T machines, just take utr time dig round the edges and a longer stem does make a massive difference for leverage once its looser. Got a 5T machine on the job now and it makes short work of most stumps but got a few 3-4ft stumps to pull out over the nex few days will test it

I'd probably be putting both net and barb on the field side, generally u always want to put the wire on the field side so stock can't lean on it and push steeples out and scratch on posts. If u really wanted u could run a plaim wire down the oppisate side but mibee depends how well used the path is. Folk still (should) have some responsibility for there own safety

U could always disconnect the feed under the gate esp on a rainy day (or go up with some buckets of water) and see wot happens. But seen loads of farmers fences done like that and done odd 1's myself. (would the water not be insulated inside the alky pipe?) No idea about the rcd stuff way above my pay grade

Cheers Paul for that link. I thought i was correct and hadn't just mis interrepted the law. When a birds no nesting u can usually fell/work on the tree no problem But any tree with a bat roost or a bat box that gets used becomes protected. A few times i've been asked about bat boxes i always stronglty advise u make a timber 1 rather than buying the 'concrete' type as there fairly permant. When the timber 1 rots the tree is no longer protected and ur under no obligation to put new bat box up. By rights if u suspect there could be a bat roost in a tree ur meant to get a licencensed bat worker out, who'll probably do both endoscope and dawn/dusk surveys, if u have them u then have to apply or a licence and probably put in mitigation features. Even the surveys aren't cheap Like i said too much big stick and for me actually encourages me not to encourage them, nd thats me trying to turn my wee wood into a wee nature reserve Most folk don't know so u'd usually get away with it if u keep it quiet (possibly doing work throu winter months) but it just takes 1 nosey neighbour or bunny hugger

So wot happens if ur doing routine work and ur intial bat scoping finds a bat roost being occupied?? Surely any tree with a bot roost or a bat box on becomes protected and u will need a licence to do any major works on it? So ur work would stop even destroying a summer roost in winter time can be an offence. In the past i have had to carry out ariel bat inspection with a bat worker watching for pipeline jobs and have recently had to pay a small fortune to get my roof inspected for a renovation. Even thou no bats found if the roofers find more than 4 bats all work has to stop while i get it re inspected and apply for a licence or pay for a bat worker to sit and watch the roofers incasre they find another 1.

John suggestion above is a good 1 BUt the fact it will be good for wildlife could become a problem in the future. Would imagine it could become an ideal bat roost, it bats used it it would them become protected and u'd need licensed bat workers to come out and inspect the tree (£££) anytime u wanted to do work on it. Not sure wot happens if the tree becomes dangerous if that overrides bat protection. But at moment bat laws are all wrong far too much protection and not enough encouragement, (too much big stick and not enough carrot) i made some bat boxes to put up in my small wood and was going to do other tree works to make them better for bats, but don't want the hassle if bats start to use them and i then want to do work on the tree. Nothing against bats but the way legislation is ur mad to encourage them, which is wrong

So u can't get a tractor within 50m? or even 100m or more, depending on the winch set up but the PTO winches could have well over 100m of cable on some. Sorry to keep going over the point but the tractor can be a long way away and doesn't need to be anywhere near the banking

U could try to pollard it but i doubt it would survive, be too harsh and taking to much off in 1 go. A local estate has tried to pollard some big oaks (althou not quite as big as that 1) in a SSSI and a high % die, just too much stress. A lot of the ancient oaks badly need re-pollarding but probably been far tong since they were done and wouldn't survive it, probably a few hundred years since last pollarded Possibly if its in decent health apart from crack in good soi and has a wet summer it might live. If u try and fail u can still fell it anyway, if u fell it it doesn't have a chance Possibly u could limb the leaning limbs off it leaving the straight up leg, so taking the side pressure off but leaving middle 1. If the side legs start to grow at the pollard u could mibee take the middle 1 out a few years down the line if needed

But ur winch vehicle doesn't need to be anywhere near, as long as u have some anchor points to to attach blocks redirect the cable. Even using a ground anchor if needed to redirect will still be far easier and quickier Winching out by hand will be a lot of work and time consuming. Lifted a few strainers out with hi lift jacks and there a freat tool but still fiddly and u still need to do a far bit of digging/pinching to slacken them. If u use a hi lit jack take a flat block to usr as a base as it often will sink into the ground when u get some pressure on.

Above would be a good idea, even if u can't get the tractor that near u could redirect it off the trees u were going to pull off anyway. A proper PTO driven winch would be ripping them out in no time. Plus as a bonus it would be pulling the stumps right to ur access? so u just got to chuck them on a trailer after that so no hand balling them down the garden

To be fair ur usually right above, but he definately seemed to know his stuff to me (and my bs meter is usually not too bad) and he only comes in to do occasional courses as he has his own tree surgery business. I know some pff the other FT trainers at that colege definately fall into the above bracket I think he might of being exagerating slightly to emphisis to us the differences in deffierent timber types

A digger would be the best option althou it will leave a bigger mess to tidy up behind it and means u then have to get rid of the stumps themselves. But then again u'll have the void and stumps to deal with anyway even if hand winching and far easier to tidy site up with the digger there. If using a digger i'd still leave stumps 3-4ft high so can get bucket over them and still have some decent leverage I've pulled a couple of 3ft dia beeches out with a 3T digger and tirfor, left the tree 20 odd ft high attached tirfor to the top to give me plenty of leverage and just dug away with a small bucket breaking roots and pulling as i went. If u decide to winch them i'd get a 'Chopping pinch' welded up, i've done mine with a 4" brick bolster (also seen them done with a jack hammer chisel blade, but blade to thick for me to get a decent edge on it) welded onto a heavy bar, cut throu some fairly decent sized roots with that before, when it gets blunt just run the buffer over it. A really handy tool. Think u can buy timber shanked versions now called a mutt or something

Many years ago when done my climbing ticket, i always remember the trainer saying he very rarely climbs willow as it was so unpredicatable and never lowers of it and just gets a mwep in or turns job down. Possibly he was exagerating to drum into us newbies how brittle and unpredicatable sme trees species are. That was 15 odd years ago and mweps were unhear off in this area back then I'd definately 2nd/3rd wot was said way earlier in thread and put some 5T ratchet strap around the butt and possibly brace some of the other stems to each other too. It really can help stop the stems splitting the butt, all the old woodcutters in pre chainsaw days would tie chains round hardwood butts to stop them barbers chairing as they were working the cross cut

I imagine wot would happen is they send a flat bed low loader type thing to pick ur motor up and hitch ur trailer on the back. Years ago my old navara broke down (drive shaft to front wheel diff) so constantly spinning even when not in 4wd drive so they had to send a tilt bed? out. I'd double check wit AA/RAC. It would be against the law for them to tow a trailer attached to a towed motor and more than likely over the wieght limit

I take it u all trust those speed opening clasp's? Esp a few years down the line. U start having a look throu the websites and think a few extra quid would get me this or that. Esp when u get closer to the 200 mark. I had a quick look on the auction site, but to be honest not sur ei'd trust it, seen a few mega cheap things from china and end of the day its the only thing stopping u from decking out so would rather spend a few exta quid if i had to. Do u still get the old fashioned belt fastener harmesses, where like an old wieght lifters belt with leg loops? It looked a pretty robust harness that would last for years

The only thing i'd add is really really think how ur going to extract the timber first, which direction, where ur tracks are going to be, ditches etc long before u start a saw. Makes life a lot easier when all trees are facing the right direction (obviously depends wot lengths ur cutting to/extracting) even if u'll have to process in certain areas so machine cn use the brash for a matt

Alright I finally going to bite the bullet and buy a new harness, my old petz (navaho vario) is quite old now and to be fair has always been a pain to tighten properly. The clasps/fasteners are real sticky to fasten/slacken. I don;t do a lot of climbing now so looking for more a budget harness. Looked at a newer petz today but the same fastening system which i'm not too keen on. 2 fasteners at either side, dunno if all petzl's fasten same way. Are the speed fasteners ok and last or a while? I'd possibly be worried they came undone when the harness is older but i quite like the idea off them. Had a bit of a look online and sen a Kommet dragon fly, or a treehog, and still see the old willans harnesses that the boss used to supply for the employed boys are still being made. Any recommendations or some to avoid? The treehog was only £150 and seems to be a few about 200 Cheers

Brilliant clip, it would of been really scary too, esp when that tree comes down later on just in fron tof the motor. Wet ground and strong winds, possibly even rubbish soils, the wooded hills near me are terrible for windblow as often peat soil on top of clay so very shalllow rooting, acres and acres of winblown timber up there. A few christmasses ago the harvesting squad often had to cut there way in every morning and cut there way out at night that many trees were falling over the forest track. 5 miles up the valley the harvester took off on top of a 'land slide' took the brash matt and all the surrounding trees with it and travelled about 30m before it luckily stopped I've seen it odd times althou never quite as spectacular as that. Couple of times when a small strip was left by harvester i've seen u cutting some as some further down are blowing over, not nice position to be in but atleast they blew the right way Or been cutting windblow as more is coming down, not good

Must admit when i done my 32 and windblow the college/instructor provided the winch strops and stuff. A T35+rope will take a bit of lugging into the wood if u have a long walk, any training/test's i've done they just carryed 1 winch in to do the whole group

To be honest they'd probably be a pain in a belt/pouch as u don't always need them. if its just for ur ticket training i'd just use a strong plastic bag or old rucksack. U might see a good idea from the other boys and how they carry them about. I take it u generally don't use them in ur day to day work? If so not worth spending any money on something just for the test. I'e always used a sledge rather than a mallet and for the bigger trees the sledge is better When i was felling in the woods for a harvester. On a big job I usually carry an old sports bag with a load of wedges (steel, plastic and hi lift) and leave it somewhere near where i'm working and it was left there for a few days. If i was a long walk in just for a days work i just stuck a couple in my lunch rucksack and had a whole cut in the top so my sledge handle stuck out the top I'd just carry a couple of wedges loose and throw them from tree to tree, throwing it at the butt of the next tree. Usually 2 is enough for most trees and just walk back to my big bag if i need more wedges Then it saves them getting in the way as ur snedding it out or falling out ur pouch below a mountain of brash A top tip if ur buying wooden hi lifts is to put 2 rings on the shaft rather than 1, lasts a lot longer

Yes the railways will aways be there and need maintaned but it doesn't mean they'll carry on the way they are the now. All sounds completely different to when i worked on the track, we definately never had days of for rain even when working trackside de vegging. If thats the case why do so many companies subbing to railways go bust?? Round my area about 10 yrs ago every man with a saw ticket and there dog was working on railways now no one does it and 3 local companies went bust/folded. 1 of them would have close to 50 men at 1 point. In the old days it was quite normal for forestry workers to not work in the rain, think got choice to sit in tea hut til lunch and work in afternoon or brave the morning and go home at lunch. And that was fairly normal even in the private plantig gangs where all on piece work

I used to work on the rails and to be honest we worked fairly hard most of the time, mibbee different if u work for a big company on big jobs. My boss just subbed to the big boys and generally priced jobs so 'x' per m, or so many man days per job, sometimes they'd tell u if going to fast but usually things were tight and u were pushing to get them done Most nightshifts where on priced jobs so u really had to get them done in the shift/s or else it would be a real struggle/impossible to do 'green zone' Most of the night shifts i done were fairly hard going occasionally if it was job and knock u might get away a couple of hrs early but u have knocked ur pan in to do it quickier. Think i done about 4 years of rail work sometimes FT and sometimes just night shifts i only ever had 1 night shift cancelled that we got paid for (paperwork error, but considering we had had the same closure for weeks should off been no excuse) Must admt my mate drives a Road Railer and the ammount of wasted shifts he does is amazing, it will be the norm for his machine to only work 1-2hrs most night shifts, think his record was 8 night shifts without his machine ever moving. Absolutely scandalous on the big jobs no one sems to have a clue

I welded up sort of saw horse, althou its sort of back to front. I have it designed so there is only a small/narrow section in middle supporting the logs with big wide feet to keep it stable. I can pile a big load of logs on it mibbe 1/4T or more on it at once, a good few quad trailer loads, i then strap it in middle to keep it secure and just start logging from either side. I have my horse thing set up on top of a banking so any stuff needing split tends to roll down it and a roughly made race to my splitting area which is about waist hieght. I hate bending over to pick the logs up. Needs a bit of fine tuning but it does work quite well really