# OX logging



## missouriboy (May 7, 2012)

What did you guy think of the ox loggers. Its a cool idea but i would think it would take to long to get the logs out and time is money


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## chucker (May 7, 2012)

cool idea! soft on natures way!! need more of this type of production!! yes!! time is money, but only if you live in a fast hectic life style! give me simple and slow to where i can fell like ive acomplished something in my day and im happy!! oh yes !!!! the smell of fresh coffee in the morning and satification at bed time..... now i need to go feed my mule....


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## sodbreaker (Jun 3, 2012)

chucker said:


> cool idea! soft on natures way!! need more of this type of production!! yes!! time is money, but only if you live in a fast hectic life style! give me simple and slow to where i can fell like ive acomplished something in my day and im happy!! oh yes !!!! the smell of fresh coffee in the morning and satification at bed time..... now i need to go feed my mule....



Agreed 

Last winter I was working in a swamp where a horse would have been ideal. The kinda of conditions where you jump and the tree 30ft over shakes. It would be fun to get my Horses "broke" into the noise of a saw and log with them.

Sod breaker


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## Dalmatian90 (Jun 4, 2012)

I <3 Oxen 



> Its a cool idea but i would think it would take to long to get the logs out and time is money



Which is why most animal logging outfits use equines. No doubt they're faster. 

Oxen are cheaper all around (feed, foot care, vets, simpler tack, sell 'em for burger v. hiring a backhoe to dig a hole) and easier to train (both the cattle and the human) to be trustworthy. 

But once you move much beyond the subsistence or hobby farm, horses outperform them even if they cost more and are higher strung.


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## KYLogger (Jun 9, 2012)

Oxen were used up to teens or early twenties around here, they were switched out for equids (that's educated hillbilly for critters of the equine persuasion) I know several sixty year old guys that logged with horses for a living well into the eighties'. Skidders were expensive and rare and horses were safer and more productive on steep ground than a farm tractor.

Tom


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## Dalmatian90 (Jun 12, 2012)

Somewhere, some grad student could write an interesting thesis on whether that switch in Kentucky hills from oxen to horses occurring circa 1920 was driven by:
a) Folks own economic situation improving;
b) Horses becoming more affordable as they started to be displaced in the cities and some leading-edge farms by internal combustion;
c) Both?

U.S. horse population peaked in 1915.

1920 19,767,161 Horses + 5,432,391 Mules
1930 13,510,839 Horses + 5,375,017 Mules
1940 10,086,971 Horses + 3,844,560 Mules
1950 5,401,646 Horses + 2,202,264 Mules
1959 2,955,256 Total, all equines

I through the 40 & 50s in there...because our total equine population today in the U.S. is over 9.5 Million now...the most since before 1950!

That's a lotta hayburners as pets!


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