Horse logging

In March 2009 Redwood Tree Services Ltd were contracted in by G.B.C to clear  scrub,over-hanging branches and fallen trees from along side the River Wey so that the fields along side the river could be brought back into use for cattle grazing, we were to extract all the waste with our Valtra forestry tractor subject to the ground conditions improving enough in June/July as these fields are designed to flood if the river was to burst its bank.

Unfortunately with the amount of snow and rain that had fallen the ground was still very soft in critical areas where access was vital for us to complete this project with our equipment,having sunk twice on the site it was time to come up with an alternative solution so liasing with the Councils Tree Officer it was decided that we were to turn to our four-legged friends the horse.

Having searched the web for Horse Logging companies Nick found a lady  called Frankie Woodgate who unfortunately was already booked up and unavailable to help us with this project but was kind enough to refer us to a fellow horse logger Daniel Brown of Westcott, Dorking. A site meeting was aranged back in June and we were given the  go ahead to start the extraction in July, it was decided that two teams would be used to extract the timber and brush so Dan contacted another horse logger David Botting who agreed to help with the project.

Dans horses Titan, Ti for short and for the last 2 days Prince and Daves horse Blossom are all Suffolk Punch which are a rare breed. The work was tough and differcult but once we had found a system it worked very well indeed averaging between them 14/16 loads a day.