Doing your on logging?

[RandyT]

If you decide to haul the logs yourself to the mill please check on the logging laws in your state. In Illinois a person can transport one log at a time without a logging permit. Two logs on a trailer can get you some hefty fines and lose of equipment.

 

[dmccarty]

How many acres are you talking about?

A small area to log is not going to be a money earner for some loggers. The company that timbered our land had millions of dollars worth of equipment. They had to earn a good amount to pay for the loggers and the equipment.

You need to find out how much your trees are worth.

You can figure out how to measure your trees. But then how much they worth per MBF(Thousand Board Feet). Price is determined by the market. NC had/has a telephone number you could call to get the price of timber by species and region for the previous quarter. That told you "yesterdays" price but not today.

The state does now have a website with this information.

The NC Extension office also has information and classes on timber management. Selling timber has certain tax issues you need to know. The Extension office can help. They also might be able to tell you the current market prices. Hopefully your State extension office has information on how to sell your timber. If not look at other states. There are state rules and regulations that can really bite you in the fanny if not followed.

The last time I checked, pine and hardwood was about $200 MBF in my area of NC.

Getting a forester is the way to sell timber. The forester should be working for you and works off a commission. The more you make, the more the forester makes. There are horror stories, that seem to be all too common, of people selling timber and getting ripped off. A forester protects or should protect your land and timber. Our forester advertised the sale of our timber. He cruised our timber so we knew what we had to sell and what it was likely worth.

If you only have a small number of trees and you can do the logging and hauling then you might not need a forester. You still will need to know what a far price for you timber and the tax implications. Your state extension office should be able to help.

Later,
Dan

 

[MossRoad]

Hire a forester VS a logger. The forester will want to get the biggest bang for your buck while the logger will want to get your wood for the lowest price possible.

 

[Rio_Grande]

Thanks for the replies. Our oriignal intentt was to hire a forester, I guess we need to call a few more see if they will call back. We just arent having any luck getting interest in the property.

 

[Pilot]

No one is interested? That suggests they can't make any money, which should tell you something, and that is that there isn't enough value there to pay for their time and expenses and still give you a profit. Which suggests you are right to consider doing it yourself.

About loggers, since there has been so much bad mouthing about loggers in this thread. Sure, loggers might rip you off, but like everyone else, there are honest and decent loggers out there, too. Only hire a logger who works on a percentage basis and get copies of all the scale tickets. Get references and look at the work sites.

If you have so little timber or if it is of such low value that loggers aren't interested, then you might not have enough value there to pay for a forester either. But a forester might come out and take a look and you can learn a lot from the visit. Same thing with a logger, and you can learn even more by asking 2 or 3 to take a look. You don't have to hire any of them.

I would be worried about falling the trees. Judging the direction of fall with hardwoods could be tough and dangerous if you are wrong.

 

[magicheater]

White Oak around here is of less value than poplar. Red oak is a different story. I logged a lot of all of them and historically white oak was best used for firewood or have a sawyer come in and cut for personal use. The mill value was always minimal. White oak is great for sills as it does not rot like red oak.

 

[Will_C]

I'll assume you can run the saws and equipment to drop the trees and cut them raodside, and you can get them to the mill...as others have said, you need to find what the mill wants in terms of length. Grading timber is tricky, an option would be to see if the mil would have someone that could come out and buck the tree, or find a logger than would buck the trees up on the landing. Wrong bucking cuts can turn a veener tree into a low grade log.

Will

 

[Rio_Grande]

There is no intent on my part to slam or speak ill of any loggers or logging professionals. we cant even get anyone to call us back! They dont even know what we have or dont have. I guess the industry in our area may be so good that they dont have to look for places to cut. I am not gonna lie to them or otherwise but nobody save 2 people will call me back. One of them was a forester and without seeing the property told me the soil was poor in my part of the world and the trees are all junk (without coming out or even really nailing down where they actually are) and the second was gonna call me back later in the week and we would "get together and walk the property" but no luck and he dosent answer the phone now.

I realize there may not be any money to be made for them on my place but how would any of them know they wont look at it.

 

[magicheater]

They may be doing you a favor by not calling back. Maybe it would cost more than the timber is worth?......... Harvest it your self, cut it 6" longer(8' 6", 12' 6", etc) The extra 2" won't kill you on small scale. 10' logs don't scale well, try to avoid them. Take into consideration the sweep of the log if you can in addition to the blemishes. You may just have timber that no one wants. Find other options. Good Luck.

 

[Taylortractornut]

Here the mils have you by insurance. You have to have 1 million coverage for the paper mill or one other mill. THeres 2 others you can go to that take it and the other will take it at areduced price then take it to the paper mill. Something else the mills have you on is trailer set up. They have to have a drop frame trailer. When they changed over big money was made cutting out lof truck trailer frame rails. A friend of mine has a gooseneck with bolt on bolsters that meet the mills frame spacing. He can go to 2 of the local mills/ pulp brokers.

I have a freind that does a select cutting for high quality mature timber and he makes a killing. He started with a 75 Ford F600 with a side loader and a an old tractor with an arch 4 years ago and now he has a 99 KW with a self mounted loader and nice JD skidder.