Serious questions...
My gf has 45 acres near Tar Hollow st park just east of Chillicothe, OH. We are lookng into selling some of the valuable timber off the property but we know nothing about the real logging industry. We can rent equipment like trailers and skidsteers. I have saws. Getting the timber out and loaded on the trailer will be tricky in some cases but no big deal. How do we know what types of wood are even worth cutting? How big they need to be before we cut them? How do we know what the value is? What length do we cut the logs to before we load on the trailer or how short can we cut them?
I have seen alot of white oak, sugar maple and cherry down there. Unfortunatly the elusive highly valuable black walnut is thin where she actually has ownership, but biggins arent far....I just need some advice on a direction to go in selling timber.
Great topic. I’d almost suggest you make this a dedicated thread.
I’ve looked at doing a select cut of my family’s 35 acre tree farm and ultimately chose not to do it myself. I don’t want to discourage you but here’s why I decided not to:
-needed to build an approach from the highway which required permits, a contractor or rent equipment, a culvert, and several loads of fill
-need to build a skid road across low ground to reach the main section of land; again more gravel and equipment costs.
-need to dedicate several weeks of my time to cut and skid timber
-need to rent equipment to skid
-need to hire someone to haul logs to a mill
-I’ve heard that most mills give absolutely terrible prices to small sellers. Probably a combination of the fact that buying from an amateur is more risky plus they know you need to sell and probably won’t shop every mill around.
In the end, if we hired someone to do our select cut, we’ll get a check for about 8-12k. For me to do all the work, make $ for my time and still come out with that kind of $ to split with family members wasn’t probably.
In full disclaimer if you have high grade hardwoods you may be looking at a lot more $ so it may be worthwhile.
Your best bet is to see if your state forester will do a timber management plan for you and see what they recommend. Our local forester did a great job for my former property.