Moving Lumber onsite using Oxen

I'm excited, I posted earlier about an Asian Style timber frame building I'm about to make.

We have started training the schools oxen to pull the 32 Eucalyptus trees onto our site. A couple of days ago we moved the first tree. We were basically training our team to handle pulling such a load.
Here are a few pics to show them at work.

very cool..!!! this makes me think of an article I saw many years ago about logging in India using elephants.. The elephants could actually pick up the logs with their tusks and place them where needed...
Oxen may be more manageagle though...

Oxen and elephants - what other animals might be worked with to help move heavy loads on Permie homesteads?

I can think of horses, mules, donkeys, goats.... what are some others?

I'm wondering about pros and cons of each - which are harder or easier to train, which can have multiple purposes, what are the costs involved, for which of them can you grow a majority of their food...?

I've heard some are better suited to certain types of terrain - for instance, aren't mules said to be generally more sure-footed?

Water buffalo are also traditional draft (and dairy) animals.

And, of course, humans (United Brotherhood of Pyramid Builders, and all).

On edit: the Native Americans of the Great Plains used dogs, both before and after the introduction of horses, to pull travois(es?) - not sure of the plural, my schoolboy French is rusty...

I think human work is the most underutilized, but admit the guy typing this has a tractor, so yes I am a hypocrite. But I think with such things as maybe a monorail and wheelbarrow, much more can be accomplished than what we first think. A guy in England moved a fully built two car garage by himself by hand to show the principals of physics and how a single human can overcome them through innovation. He merely balanced the building on two rocks, just offset from the exact center. In that, one rotation of the building advances the building forward by half the distance of the rock set off-center.

To that end, I also think goats are under-utilized as draft animals.

In another lifetime I think I would love to have a team of oxen. I am not really into horses, but oxen have always held a sweet spot in my heart.

I just wrote a whole novel about oxen for a Historical Fiction Novel I just finished a month ago. For those that care about such details, it featured a set of Devon Steers. I was even able to go to my local fair and watch some Devon's pull weights of concrete in a draft pulling contest.

For anyone interested in draft animals, building a low tech, inexpensive stone boat might be prudent. Very functional implement for use behind draft animals (and tractors too).

Besides Steve's suggestion of a stone boat (or even an old truck hood - a Nansen sledge or Siglin sled might also be worth a look), some of the logging appliances used for small tractors might also be helpful.

The original post in this thread dealt with moving timbers.  A log arch (and possibly a dolly to support the opposite end for longer stems), or a slip tongue arch would help.  There was a nice over center toggle action dolly available for the Jonsered Iron Horse small scale tracked mechanical forwarder; I know I have some cribbed photos of it, somewhere.  A slip tongue arch will keep the butts of the logs out of the dirt when there is draft on the tongue, but if the load tries to over run the team on a descent, the logs are dropped to the roadway, which helps to prevent accidents.

Historically, in the northwoods, most logging at scale was done in winter, with two-bob sleighs for the longer hauls with big loads, and sometimes a single bob or go devil to twitch stuff out to the log deck where the two bob sleigh would often be loaded by parbuckling over the side.  Sometimes mechanical log booms were used to make up large loads.  The main haul roads were iced, and the sleigh runners usually had a cast iron wear shoe on the bottom, which acted somewhat like a skate blade.  There were various profiles - half moccasin, full moccasin, etc.  Some tracked better on side hills, others better supported heavier loads, etc.  And, as usual, opinions varied.  Two bob sleighs usually had chain cross reaches, so the runners at both ends counter steered to stay in the same track.

Any of this could be adapted or recapitulated.

I have good scale working drawings of two bob sleighs in digital format (TIFF or PDF, maybe both).  I've been keeping my eyes peeled for a more-or-less complete set of sleigh hardware, even if the wooden structure is a bit punky.  These things do show up on Craigslist or FB Marketplace from time to time in my neck of the woods.

Trains of two bob sleighs were also used on Canadian ice roads, before Ice Road Truckers was a thing.  Usually, track-laying tractors (caterpillars) were the motive power.  Try Googling "King of Obsolete" for someone who is still doing this, though mostly for tourists, at this point.

I use draft horses and ponies on my homestead. I get along well with them but there is a lot to learn. Please do not tie random animals to objects until you have some good training under your belt. I use a sled a lot, but using wheels has a significant advantage--I can get more work done with a smaller animal.

The best resource I know of is the Draft Animal Power Network.  I was just at their Field Days in New York and it's a great and encouraging organization.  They have a map with teachers around the world. Mostly horses, mules, and oxen.

Here's a Vimeo video of John Erskine, who lives near me and has been a huge help.  https://vimeo.com/showcase/2692792/video/76105043

Donn Hewes in NY is another great resource.

I love draft horses and find them a pleasure to be around.  If you don't love them, it's probably not worth keeping them.  Happy to talk draft equines with anyone if you want more specifics.

Alexia Allen
Hawthorn Farm in Woodinville, WA

Alexia -

I picked up a copy of Rodale Presses "The Draft Horse Primer" for a couple of dollars at my local Goodwill store.  Why?  Well, because it was available cheap, books eat very little, and you never know what may be needed in the future.  It isn't impossible that we could all end up in an early 12th century economy if the wrong natural or man-made disaster were to strike...

I don't have any horses, and don't know anyone who actually uses horses for serious work (as opposed to pleasure riding/driving), though there are people within two to three hours drive of where I live who are logging and farming with horses.  Not all are Amish.

It's nice to know of someone who is actually using horses as working draft animals.

I tend to look at old draft schemes as proxies for light ag tractor approaches, though horses (and other things with legs) do have an advantage over wheeled and tracked vehicles in weight transfer.

Kevin