Sustainable Logging with Draft Animals

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Among horses, popular heavy breeds are Belgian, Percheron, Clydesdale, Shire, and Suffolk. Most heavy horses stand 16 hands high or taller (one hand being 4 inches) and weigh 1,600 pounds or more. These heavy breeds are best suited for the large, relatively level parcels of the Midwest. Smaller, more agile draft breeds such as Haflinger and Norwegian Fjord are more suitable for hilly terrain. Some horse loggers prefer nondraft breeds or crossbreeds. Even a saddle horse, properly trained, can be used to skid wood.

Horses have an advantage over mules, oxen, and mechanical skidders in their ability to produce little horses, which can be trained to log or sold for additional income. Horse loggers are fond of wondering outloud whether a mechanized logger ever goes out in the morning to find that his skidder has produced little skidders.

In southern states, mules are more popular than horses because they can better withstand the South's hot, humid weather. A good logging mule measures 52 to 56 inches from ground to withers, weighs 1,000 pounds, and results from crossing a heavy-breed mare (female horse) with a large breed of donkey called "Mammoth Jack:' Because mules are hybrid, they cannot reproduce.

A mule is more agile than a horse and lighter on its feet. Its smaller hooves do less damage in hill country and don't get hung up as easily in tight spots. Compared to a horse, a mule has better peripheral vision, and won't spook as readily. It also has a stronger sense of selfpreservation. A mule won't overheat or do any other foolish or dangerous thing—a characteristic that mule lovers attribute to brains, and frustrated novice owners write off to stubbornness.

A mule requires less care than a horse and is more resistant to disease. It thrives on coarser and cheaper feed and less of it. And a mule will never eat so much it founders (goes lame). Mules live longer than horses and are more useful in their senior years—a mule can be productive to the age of 35, while a horse is considered over the hill at 20.

New Englanders have historically opted for oxen, an economical choice for the small tracts typical of the Northeast. Worldwide, most of the 400 million animals trained for draft are of the bovine persuasion, according to Richard Roosenberg, head of Kalamazoo-based Tillers International, an organization that promotes the use of ox power.

Although the productive life span of an ox is little more than 10 years, any ox drover will point out that when this animal's working years are over, it still makes good eating. Disposing of a horse or mule when it reaches the end of the line may require paying a hauler to take it to the dogfood cannery. When an ox passes its prime, it's still worth its weight in the prevailing price of beef.

That's because an ox is nothing more than a mature steer (castrated bull) of any breed, with alertness, tractability, strong bones and muscles for power, and straight, strong legs for traveling. No one breed is best suited for training. Breeds and crossbreeds vary in popularity according to local custom. New Englanders generally prefer dairy breeds such as Milking Devon, Holstein, and dairy Shorthorn. Their neighbors to the north in Nova Scotia prefer beef breeds such as Hereford, Ayrshire, and beef Shorthorn. Although beef breeds are more muscular, dairy breeds are cheaper, an excess bull being persona non grata on a dairy farm.

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