Heavy horse timber extraction
Treewoodman’s team offer a professional, efficient and versatile timber extraction.
Horses provide a means of timber extraction that minimises:
- damage to regeneration
- damage to stools and standing crop
- compaction, ruts & damage to woodland floor
- fuel pollution, noise and fossil fuel use
Using tractors and sprays to eradicate bracken is expensive and undesirable on many sites
The horse drawn bracken bruiser crushes the stem of the plant in several places and causes the sap to bleed. Crushing the plant and weakens its ability to store nutrients for the next year’s growth.
Bruising is carried out after the growing season from the end of June to August, and has many advantages such as:
weakens the plant far more than cutting
- is chemical free
- breaks up the deep litter layer, speeding decay
- is not dependent on weather conditions
- is particularly cost effective on rough, sensitive or inaccessible sites
Consideration
Horse drawn extraction systems should be considered for:
- PAWS (Plantations on Ancient Woodland sites)
- ASNW (Ancient Semi-Natural Woodland)
Working Horses
Working horses and ponies offer an “appropriate technology” for forest-friendly timber extraction.
The ultimate low impact “base machine”; they can be used on at low capital cost to work with a range of equipment in environmentally sensitive sites or on steep or difficult terrain; working alongside or replacing tractors and heavy machinery
Horse powered timber extraction
Horse logging offers a contemporary, cost effective and cost competitive approach to timber extraction at low capital cost. Working on delicate, wet or steep sites or on short, small scale contracts alongside or completely replacing tractors and heavy equipment. Horse logging is a high quality silvicultural tool and contributes to selective and forest friendly management techniques. Horse loggers use a wide range of traditional and contemporary equipment as the product and site demands, from traditional ‘long’ or ‘trace’ gears with choker chains and skidding grapple through arches and sledges to specialised forwarding trailers. Working in establishment, first and subsequent thinnings and final crop, horses can be a complete solution to timber extraction needs.
Mechanical Bracken Control
The Heavy Horses Bracken Basher offers a non chemical approach to the management of this pernicious weed. Optimum time for management is during June and July and repeat treatments are necessary for total eradication. Treatment by a horse logger is cost competitive and is not weather dependant. Treatment is possible in paddocks, woodlands and heathlands.