As I read through Jenifer Morrissey’s the Partnered Pony book, I have had my eyes opened to yet another horse business opportunity. Horses and logging! One particular statement caught my eye:
And of course I have used my Fjord and my Shetland-Welsh cross for forest work in our logging business.
Although I have read a few novels on Kindle lately that reference the logging industry, I hadn’t really considered this as a horse domain. And yet a quick search online shows that horses are still a favourite for carrying out logging work.
In a world where we want to do things efficiently, horses are appealing. When there is a focus on sustainability and doing things green, horses too are appealing.
Many reasons are put forward for the benefits of utilising horses over machines to carry out logging:
- They make less of a negative impact on the area
- They utilise environmentally friendly ‘fuel’ in the form of hay and grain and release a lot less gasses to be concerned about
- They can be cheaper to run
- Horses are easier to navigate around such an environment
Check out an interesting fact sheet put together by the University of Kentucky about the benefits of using horses for logging. Note that it seems to be detailing information collected from 1996, however.
There are also a heap of logging resources found on the Rural Heritage website. Details are provided of teams for sale. And there are even apprenticeships that knowledgeable draft people can undertake in the area of farming.
Perhaps you have a love for draft breeds and so the idea of horses and logging appeals to you. Maybe your fascination lies in pine and how logging is carried out. Or maybe you’d love to breed horses that can be utilised in the logging industry. Whatever your focus, it seems to me that there are plenty of opportunities for horse fans to consider the logging industry as a possible area to work.
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