Belgian Horses are a perfect choice of breed when it comes to logging. They have the strong work ethic and the amiable disposition that is needed in this line of work. A Belgian draft horse can also go places that a skidder can't go and they will cause much less damage to the environment.
Using horses for the extraction of timber is known as horse logging. The horses are used as a base machine and have a wide range of modern and traditional implements. There are many benefits to horse logging rather than using other extraction systems. The biggest benefits are that horse logging outperforms all other systems which are small in scale and it is considered to be the ultimate in an extraction system that is low impact.
Horse logging provides a better management of our woodlands. The horses can effectively and safely extract timber through the timber which is still standing. This is done without any damage to the timber still standing. There is also not any soil that is compacted or disturbance or damage to the flora and fauna of the woodlands.
A team of Belgian horses for logging may seem like an anachronism in a world of modern and massive machines. However, they are considered to be strong, tireless and tenacious in their work. They also are able to work in areas that are not able to be entered into by the modern and powerful tractors. They are also cheaper to maintain and a team of Belgian horses are generally a lot easier on the environment. A typical team of Belgian horses can pull at least sixty logs each day. The horses will work for approximately six hours each day and will haul around three or more truckloads of trees. There are approximately twenty trees that fill a flatbed truck. The trunk of each tree is between 12 to 30 feet in length.
The Belgian horses are hitched to a neck yoke that is attached to a wagon. The horses' will step side by side, matching their wide strides. The logger will talk to his team constantly and ease them back into the timber and then coax them to wait as he attaches the chest wide tongs of iron to one tree at a time. With the help of the horses, the logger is able to remove specific trees and leave the other trees undisturbed.
The Belgian horse team can even load the logging truck, thus saving needed manpower and eliminating the use of a forklift. With a simple block and tackle pulley system, the horses are able to load the logs onto the truck. Ropes are tied on to trees approximately forty feet up, and a large hook hangs in between. The team of horses is walked to the lift and a log is attached to the hook. The horses are then led away from the supporting trees until the pulleys lift the log off of the ground. When the log is high enough in the air and able to get over the side of the truck, the horses are backed up, enabling the log to lower into the flatbed of the truck.
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