Having timber cut

I've not heard of a residential cut, either. Oldcountyboy is right..loggers will leave behind a huge mess. There will be stumps and tops, and probably skidder ruts and the loader area to contend with. Also, when a tree is cut, it does a LOT of damage to surrounding trees when it comes down. My second worst surprise after having timber cut was paying taxes on the sale of the timber. My worst surprise was how ugly the area was after having timber "thinned". It has grown up in pine brush & briers!!! I'm leaving the rest of it alone!!!!

Contact Jason Rutledge of the Healing Harvest Forest Foundation about doing it with horses. They are much easier on the land. He is in Va. but has a lot of contacts thru out this part of the country.

I don't know what a residential cut is from experience but did have an experience with tree thinning. In my state, state fire and the county offers a program to help residents thin their trees for fire control and to help control bark beetles. The fire guys come out to the house and let you know what they think is safe to help save your property for when a fire sweeps through, and a fire will come through here and has. It's unavoidable so you just do the best you can to minimize it's impact when it does head your way. They offer to cut the wood in firewood sized pieces you can use, cut in larger lengths if you request, or they chipper it and haul away. We wanted firewood and the wood scraps were put in piles to dry out and they came back and burned the piles the next year. We had 5 acres done for $1200. We had trees as thick as 3 or 4 feet apart in some spots. The whole place was thinned to about 10 feet between trees. On 2 sides of the property, we kept the trees a little thicker for privacy and the other two sides thinned at the recommended 10' since that's against national forest so I wont need thick trees for privacy fencing from neighbors. The state fire boss came out and used one color tape to mark every tree he was recommending to cut and another color for uncut. We made sure to save all old growth trees. The tree cutting team was a bunch of students that received college credit for helping us manage our overgrown trees. They didn't mess around..all business. It took 2 weeks for a 6 or 8 person team that were very skilled with their chainsaws. When it was all done I was a little startled when I saw all the missing trees. It had to be done though because bark beetles had infested us so it was a race to save trees before those little bugs swarmed out of the sick trees. Also, the trees were a crown fire risk. I'm so glad I did it now and the place is beautiful. Also, I can see more wildlife since I can see further. I saw a bear and a mountain lion earlier this year. More wildlife has moved in around the place too, especially birds of all kinds. Certain kinds of critters are a sign that the forest is healthy around your home here like nuthatches. We have nuthatches coming out our ears now. One thing I didn't know was that the dead trees standing would not be cut because they are habitat trees. I have one large dead tree out front that looks Halloween-ish at night with the moon behind it. A woodpecker made a hole and 3 lovely children were raised. The kids left the nest last month and there is tapping all through the forest. I also don't have squirrels running around on my roof early in the morning anymore since their tree ladder is gone. That's a relief. They wake me up playing up there thumping around!

As a forester for a major wood fiber consumer for 35 years, I was asked to do several "residential cuts" for real estate companies who had purchased land for development. In those cuts, the developer or homesite owner just took a good hard look at the homesites and marked the timber they wanted to have left standing. These real estate cuts usually left the best looking pine and hardwood trees intact for asthetic purposes. Like Texican stated above, the resulting cut looks a lot like a "seed tree" cut where only the best trees are left to spread their seeds. The only difference was that by and large there were a bit fewer trees left as the owners weren't concerned with regenerating the timber stand.

There were more complaints for poor cutting operations in this thread alone than I ever had over the length of my service as a forester. I think these are the major factors that you should consider when having your timber cut.

1. Never have an agreement with a logger to go in and cut your timber. Loggers are the production side of an equation whose primary focus is on production and money. Always have a signed contract with a reputable company who has a registered forester as your personal contact person.

2. Always have every concern that you have about the timber cutting spelled out in the contract with the company you choose. It's your land and timber, so take charge of it and the best place to do that is before the loggers move in and that's in the contract language. Put penalties in place for non-compliance. Negotiate problems before they occur and you'd be surprised at how the demeanor of a logging operation can be controlled once they're on your property.

3. A. Show the forester your property and timber and tell him what you want cut and your ideas about how it should be done. THEN, when he makes you an offer, go back out there and verify your list of concerns and how he plans to achieve them. THE DAY BEFORE the loggers move in, schedule a meeting with the forester and the logging job foreman and make sure he has a written copy of the logging plan you and the forester came up with. Go over every concern you have with him as well.

4. The forester should pay a visit to the logging site at least once per week and do a walk around inspection. Make your own visits as well but always check in with the logging foreman and let him know you're there as logging operations are dangerous places.

Good luck, be informed and keep those working on your land informed and enjoy the results.

PS - If you're in the deep south, cutting pine timber in the summer months can lead to pine beetle infestation. For non-commercial landowners in this area I'd recommend waiting until the fall of the year or winter months. That way, the attraction of fresh pine pitch is gone by the time the beetles get going again the next year.

Thanks everyone. Foxfiredidit, you seem to be close to my neck of the woods. You pointed out some good thoughts. I had no idea we should wait until cooler weather, but it makes sense. DH has read all the posts and I forward this link to our son who lives out of state for his. It's a big decision, and takes a long time to grow most trees back.