[Andy Carson]

There are definately more experienced horsemen on this site, but I feel like I ought to post my opinion here as well. For me, a lever bit is something that a horse must “earn” by not repeatedly not responding to a snaffle reguardless of how I use it. I have tried a military elbow once when my horse was fresh and ambitious and it was certainly not the answer for me and this horse in this situation. I can certainly imagine situations where they would be useful but I personally have never had a use for them with the small number of horses I have driven. For me, I feel that the leverage turns subtile signals into a slow, binary “on vs off” signals that I find limiting in expressing just what I want. Alot of my opinions on this issue are strongly biased by that I only have much experience driving a single. Obviously, all the force is isolated on one horse here and I am sure that is helpful. I also expect higher degrees of manueverability and responsiveness out of a single and find the leverage slows and obscures my communication to some extent. In the absence of leverage, there are other tricks that one can use when they run thought a nest of yellowjackets. A very useful trick that I use when a horse tries to brace against the bit and pull through it is to message (or saw) the bit back and forth through the horses mouth. It’s a small movement of only an inch of so back and forth, but it really magnifies the pressure that is exerted and (in my more limited experience) is all I need for those “Oh Sh*t” moments.

[Andy Carson]

Ha! All kidding aside, the really nice thing about this is how little upper body strength you need with it. 8 bales of hay are heavy, but most of the weight is over the axle, not supported by the handlebar. Also, because the support arms are so long (8-9 feet from the handlebar to the axle) you have awesome mechanical advantage on the weight you do have to support. It’s not conceptually different than a wheelbarrow, just an “extreme” version of one. Also, when using a wheelbarrow or a wagon, you have to pull or push with your arms, which gets hard when the load is heavy. The bar on this cart lets you push with your hips and takes the upper body out of the work.

Longbo55,
I have seen plans for mormon handcart floating around on the internet. Do a google search and you can find them too. I used them as a rough guide, but did most of this “on the fly.” The bed is made of a 4×6 foot sheet of 5/16 plywood, reinforced underneath by 6 2×3 boards over two 2x6x12 foot supports tapered at one end and drilled to fit the 4 foot dowel that I use as a handle. I added a 1×6 frame around the bed. The supports for the axles are shaped from 2×12’s, with a 2×12 cross piece to prevent buckling. I cut the supports so that the bed is 34 inchs high, which makes is level when I am pulling it. If you are taller or shorter, you might want to adjust this height. The wheels are from Northern tool (Item# 145123) and are rated for 300 lbs each. According to guidelines from designs for mormon hardcarts, a 4×4 foot bed is recommended for a single person and a 4×6 foot bed is for a couple. Personally, I think a 4×6 foot bed is pretty easy for a single, but that is why I made the bar with overhangs on either side so that two people could pull it if needed. Pehaps my wife will help pull from time to time on specific chores, but she doesn’t seem excited about it… At any rate, if the load requires two, I would be willing the bet that the axle/wheels/bearings would be overloaded.

[Andy Carson]

Thanks for the thoughts Erika. I did not realize that the Cornish are not very vigorous… Are you aware of any strains/sources of Cornish that are more vigorous than any others? Even knowing which strains/sources are particularly non-vigorous would help be narrow down my choices.

[Andy Carson]

I have been looking into chicken breeds and thinking of next year… I like New Hampshires and have been thinking about if it is a good idea to keep a New Hamp rooster, or use a Cornish rooster. The whole concept of crossbreeding and hybrid vigor makes alot of sense to me, but if the difference in growth rate or meat quality is minimal, I would be tempted to keep them pure. Does anyone have any thoughts to share?

[Andy Carson]

I am interested in this concept of watering horses periodically. I have always kept a water tank (heated in winter) so the horses can drink at will, but I can definately see the practical benefits of periodic watering at some times (especially in winter). For those of you that do this, how do you determine how much water is enough? Is it much they can drink in x minutes? Or possibly x gallons per horse? It’s a little scary to break my 4H rule of “always make sure your animals have water”…

[Andy Carson]

Having moved into a place with no horse facilities, I had to build everything this year. I had initially thought I would build a small barn with box stalls, but having used a simple run-in in all year, I decided to keep this system. I built a three sided run-in with a feed manger and room to keep a few bales of hay and rodent proof containers for grain. There is also room for tack storage in this building and a place to tie the horses inside. The bulk of my hay is stored in a separate building, which I like because if the hay ever catches fire, not all is lost. The run-in is open to a small sacrifice area where the horses can trot around a little and crap all they want. They have actually picked out a couple areas in here to deposit manure, which makes it easy to pick up and (predictably) there is no ammonia smell as in barns. One important factor that makes this works for me is that my draft horse (who needs much more food) is very dominant over my riding horse (who is also a very easy keeper). Because of the pecking order and the food requirements of the animals, I can dump the grain in two piles (for example) in the feed manger. The draft will choose the bigger pile every time and the riding horse gets pushed onto the smaller pile. Same with hay. Easy sleezy. Also, because the manure is distrubuted over a relatively large area, there is no need to pick it up every day (or even every week). The horses chose to not soil thier run-in and the need for bedding is extremely minimal. When there is pasture, the horses are turned out at night in one of three small rotated pastures, where they spend about 2 weeks for each pasture. The concept of rotating pastures is extremely nice for many many reasons, and the grass really seems to come back strong when not overgrazed and given a month to recover before being grazed again. Also, because I am always leading the horses to a place they want to go (either to grain in the AM or to pasture in the PM) they are extremely easy to catch. Overall, I really like the system that I have kinda fallen into. I can think of a few downsides though. 1. It is more difficult to control what horses eat than with individual stalls (I rely on my horses to do this for me -this won’t work for everyone) 2. It requires space for sacrifice areas and pastures 3. The horses can get a little buddy sour when together all the time and 4. When picking manure out of the sacrifice area, one much walk around a little from pile to pile (rather than having a big mound of manure right in front of you). At any rate, it’s something to think about for small numbers of horses…

[Andy Carson]

Rod,
I have a loosely related story that might help. I used to use a razor scooter as part of my ride to work (insert joke if you must…). The brakes on these things are a simple hinged metal pedal that you press down on with your foot pushing it onto the plastic rear wheel, creating resistance and some braking effect. Kinda sounds like what you are proposing, with a different mechanism and scale. The metal/plastic interface didn’t create a very strong braking action for moderate hills unless I put nearly all my weight on top of the flap. If metal on plastic isn’t that great for braking, I could believe that metal on rubber isn’t that great either… The biggest problem with these brakes was that if it was raining or if the wheels got dirty, the water/dirt acted as a lube between the wheels and the pedal and the brakes stopped working completely (as opposed to just poorly). The other problem was (as Matt mentions) the peddle gets really hot. It burnt the bottom of one pair of shoes and pretty quickly wore a hole through the metal pedal. This actually turned out to be a good thing, more or less, because with a big wear hole in the pedal, the plastic wheel actually started to rub on the sole of my shoe, with the result being improved braking, especially when it was wet or if the wheels were dirty. So, I think that your rubber on rubber idea might be great in the short term. Over the long term (as on a longer hill), the rubber on the soles of my shoes has melted though (and ruined a couple pairs of shoes), which could also happen to your wheel/rubber combo and could be bad bad… Interestingly, the friction coefficient of brake materials on cast iron is only 0.4 (compared to coefficients of 0.8 or so for tires on concrete). I bet from a brake design point of view, the friction coefficient is not actually very important (as this can be overcome with leverage) but the ability of the materials to resist heat is the primary design consideration. Just so you know, even with the hole in the pedal on the scooter, I still had to put alot of weight on the rear wheel and keep the speed down in order to maintain a controlled decent on a hill. Rim mounted brakes on a bicycle have at least 4 times more braking power (with less effort due to the machnical advantage) with the same weight, even though they use a rubber/metal interface. I bet you will get the most bang for your buck by using the winch to gain some mechanical advantage, but I bet you are still going to have to crank pretty hard. I know these aren’t really the same situation, but I hope this helps a little…

[Andy Carson]

I think that standard drum brakes or standard wagon hydraulic type braking system would be your most practical bet…

If you are interested in something more inventive, I have thought in the past about using using an auto differential and some additional gearing to attach the “driveline” to a torque converter which is fixed solidly on one end to the frame of the wagon. You would have to play with the gearing a little to make it work, but in theory, you could end up with a system where the torque converter begins to lock up when the downhill speed exceeds the lockup rpm and is minimally engaged when the speed is below this the lockup rpm. You would probably still want to disengage the brakes when on the flat, but when they are engaged, you would have self feathering brakes preset to a specific downhill speed. It could be pretty cool! It never made it off the drawing board for me, but I think the concept makes sense in theory and might be very useful for someone who uses wagons more than I do.

[Andy Carson]

i wear leather work boots for most of my horse activities. Steel toes never seemed confortable to me so I avoid them. I have worn sneakers on light jobs there my horse can walk very fast, as heavy work boots feel heavy and clumsy if I am walking with speed for over about an hour or two. The sneakers wear fast though, and I think I am going to invest in a pair of hiking boots for these jobs. I will probably still wear the leather work boots for most activities. I tend to just change socks to adjust for the weather, unless it’s deep snow. Then I switch to a pair of boots with heavy insulation and rubber bottoms. They are nice and warm, but I can’t walk very fast of very far in them, and for me these factors are important.

[Andy Carson]

@Carl Russell 21501 wrote:

However, a more technical event could be worth more. The other component is that as we tried to hold the event in a way that it could accommodate more people with a bigger venue then the costs add up, and attendance income is more important.

We also feel that along with the shortcomings of farmer/presenters comes a different type of validity that can’t be gotten in more polished arenas……

I personally would be very interested in a more technical event. I definately got alot out of the event, but at several times it was because I talked one on one with the presenters either during, after, or before thier presentations. I personally like communicating like this, and feel there were tons of opportunitues to do at all the presentations I went to. If the presentation was a late getting “officially” started, that gave me a chance to ask a few questions or discuss a little. All the presenters were EXCELLENT at this and seemed to really enjoy the interest and personal interaction. I am a little afraid that if the presentations are made too formal, then some real expert might feel less comfortable. Personally, I would rather have a so-so presentation from a real expert than a really polished presentation from a peson with less knowledge. Presentations to me always stimulate questions and if they can’t answer the questions, I sometime walk away disappointed. At some of the presentations on saturday, I felt it was more appropriate to ask questions after rather than during the presentations, especially at the more popular demonstrations. Maybe it’s silly, but I kinda felt like technical questions might be a turn off to some people who wanted to know the breeds of the horses, what thier names are, what a cultivator is used for, etc. I think this speaks a little bit to the concern about the target audience… All the people who came to my draft buffer presentation were very interactive, knowledgable, and would have enjoyed a technical event. Several came to me at other times to discuss as well, so I think many other people feel pretty comfortable seeking out the people they want to talk to, introducing themselves, and learning. So, in a big way, the people that were benefitting most were pretty professional and technical in how they were approaching the meeting anyway. By the use of the words “technical” and “professional,” I don’t mean that the content must be “new technology” and “polished” or that the presenters shouldn’t be sleeping in the barn… There is definately tons or knowledge from traditional and sometimes rough (dare I say “old timey”?) users of draft animals that needs passed down to myself and others. I think there is alot of interest in this as well and these talks/demos seem to fit well to. It’s a shame that by picking a target audience, you kinda have to abandon one or the other… It is definately important to attract new animal users, and maybe I’m just being greedy by supporting content that I personally find interesting, but that’s my vote nonetheless. I really did enjoy the event as it was.

[Andy Carson]

Another report on the cover crops, in case people are still interested in this thread. I think enough time has passed that I might make a few meaningful observations. I don’t mean this to be a prediction of what will happen for everyone, just what happened in my fields with the weather we had this year. Take it with a grain of salt…

Oats either mixed or by themselves grow like crazy and are great cover. They seem to be pretty robust in that they sprout when the seedbed is not prepared really well and/or not rolled after seeding. I broadcast the oats at about 33% over what was recommended for a drill and this seems about right. Also, i have had a few frosts here already and the oats seem unaffected so far.

Medium Red Clover grew a little slow and although much of it is up, I wonder if it is going to matter for next year. I feel like I was a little late getting this in (mid september) and this might be a huge factor. It’s supposed to live through the winter so maybe it’s best to judge this next spring at corn planting time. The clover did seem a little more sensitive than the oats to having a nice seedbed and areas with a poor seedbed seem a little sparse. Some areas that don’t have much clover do have weeds, which I was unhappy to see.

Turnips are freaking awesome! To be honest, I had the biggest concern about these and they seemed a little weird when i was planting them. I was concerned that the spreading might not be uniform, but I can’t tell from the field. The turnips aren’t very sensitive to seedbed generation and they are growing like crazy. They have grown the best, really, of all the covers I planted and I will definately be using them in the future. I am curious what they would have looked like if we didn’t start getting lots of rain right after I seeded them…

I have been a little disappointed with the rye. I broadcast at the drilling rates rather than increasing by 33%. I think this was a big part of it, but they just don’t seem to jump as fast as the oats did. Maybe these fields will look better as the rye continues to grow later into the fall and winter, but for now it’s not really impressive. That said, the areas where the rye is weak don’t contain many weeds either, so I suppose it’s still serving it’s purpose. I am definately going to up the rates next year to levels similar to the oats.

The hairy vetch is growing with about the same sort of vigor as the clover. I suppose this is good as the vetch hasn’t had as much time, but it’s still not knocking my socks off. Perhaps this is another one that is best to evaluate later as it isn’t really impressive right now.

Both the hairy vetch/rye and rye alone were planted about two weeks behind the oats, clover, and oat/turnip mix so it’s also possible this time is why the rye and vetch look kinda weak in comparison.

[Andy Carson]

Yes, please do keep us posted. I found myself playing with the idea of adapting my harness or buying new myself, especially after seeing John P’s single horse logging arch. Being able to set up shafts like he did seems so simple, so effective, and is very attractive to me from a design point of view. When I saw a D ring harness in pictures only, I was a little worried about how shoulders would be free to move, but having seen them in action at Tunbridge I can see this is not a weakness at all. It’s suprizing they are not more popular in general. You definately don’t see alot of them in this area of the country at least…

[Andy Carson]

Just a little note on how this is going. Turkeys seem to run away when you are there and simply come back when you leave. Scarecrows are working really well right now. We’ll see how long it lasts…

[Andy Carson]

@jac 21281 wrote:

we have exactly the same set up over here in Scotland.

Really? Wow, I have to say I’m suprised… It is such a small chain, there is no swivel from a singletree, and I would think a strong forward pull would wallow out the holes in the wooden shafts in a short time. I guess having everything light makes this work OK, but I sure wouldn’t have expected that…

[Andy Carson]

Welcome Jamie,
The chains you are refering to would definately not be suitable for pulling a sled with, you will want a singletree arrangement. Those chains were probably used as holdbacks to keep the sled from running up on the horse upon braking or on downhills. Straps are more common for this use than chains, but you will definately need some sort of holdback system. I would recommend looking up some old plans or pictures of how sleds are put together and that should answer some or your questions about locating the shafts and the singletree. Good luck, and please share how this all goes!

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