[Does’ Leap]

Back to Jen’s original post and photo…

I feel like our collars fit quite well, but maybe I will post photos. Anyway, we had similar looking shoulders on both of our horses when we finished our haying stint. Wrinkles, but no heat. We used them for two days after it first appeared with no change, and after a few days rest it still looks the same. Is this normal when you move into regular 6 hour days or is it an indication that things don’t fit as they should?

thanks Kristan

[Does’ Leap]

Thanks all (again) for your various insights. I am eager to head out again armed with my previous experience and your comments. Rod, that guard did become lose my first time out. In fact I lost one of the hold down bolts. I brought it back to the shop and, lacking a lock nut, welded the bolt and nut together. I will have to grind it off later if I want to adjust but wanted to continue mowing unperturbed. Anyway, the alignment is good and I will continue to be aware of that.

Neal, very cool your baling with horses. I think my next move will be getting the hayloader up and running. I have heard loose hay is superior b/c you can put it up with slightly higher moisture and there is generally less insult to the hay. I can foresee doing some loose hay, but mostly bales.

Don, the grass board seems to be clearing me a nice path, but I will watch that as well. Can you all sharpen the knives on you haybine guard system? The easy cut knives are non-sharpening. However, they are cheap (about $1/per) and are easy to change out b/c they are held down by bolts. Are the haybine knives riveted or bolted?

George

[Does’ Leap]

In response to the questions/comments:

1. There are open guards toward the inner shoe and the appear to be straight and true.
2. I will definitely check the knives – seems like a logical explanation.
3. My tractor is 38 horse and runs the PTO driven baler – slow and steady.
4. The line attached to the harnesses goes around the back of the two horses and attaches to the same place on the far horse’s harness. It is used to prevent the horses from turning inside out and losing control of the lines while ground driving. We have since gone to a leather strap with two clips that hook them together at the britchen.

George

[Does’ Leap]

We cut about 2 acres last week and learned a lot. Here are some experiences/observations from our maiden voyage peppered with questions. Please comment on any / all (contradictions welcome).

The mower (MD#9) with the new “easy cut” system worked very well, though I have nothing to compare it with. This was our first time mowing with our team and they were calm and willing, but a little nervous to start. We cut a 2 acre field, 1 acre one day, 1 the next. First day went flawlessly. Second day I found I was plugging toward the inner shoe of the mower. The key seemed to be to stop immediately and correct the situation by backing up, clearing the guards, and starting over. Sometimes, I could also lift my bar slightly and have it keep cutting smoothly. Any ideas on how to prevent this? Mowing was great. What a rush! Watching the mower for smooth functioning, keeping the team straight and true, geeing over at the end of a swath, watching out for obstacles and kicking up the cutter bar to avoid them, etc. – all a fun challenge. This was right up there with logging in my mind in terms of demands of driver and horses.

We tedded twice a day using a Grimm tedder– once in the morning after the dew was off and once in around 2 pm when the hay seem to be dry on top. Tedding was a great time to work on perfecting driving skills. Endless circles with out much at stake if you veer off your path. We have one horse with a much longer stride than the other and my goal was to get the shorter strided horse to keep up with out jigging while on a lose line. We made lots of progress here.

Many experience hay makers told me that making early June square bales is tough b/c there is a lot of moisture in the stems. They were right! One area we raked too early and the hay wasn’t drying as well as when it was spread out. To remedy this I would run the edge of the rake (modern-style John Deere side-delivery rake) over the windrow to flip it over. I then ran over it a bunch of times with the tedder which spread it out into a 10’ swath. Raking was great fun seeing all that hay form into neat windrows.

We baled with a John Deere 336 with our small Kubota. It worked great with some adjustments. Some of the field we baled early to beat the rain. Those bales we cut open in the barn and had our kids break them apart – lots of fun on the farm. They are fine with no heating. In total we made around 150 bales of nice early 1st cut hay. Goats love it as a supplement to their pasture. Odor and color of the hay is great.

We found it took about 5 days to get a nice dry bale in these conditions. Luckily it never rained! It was a great culmination of working equipment, willing calm horses, and rookie teamsters. Not flawless, but a good experience coupled with a usable product.

Thanks to all for their advice on the mower and haying techniques in general. Happy haying.

George

[Does’ Leap]

TH:

I worked for 9 years as a high school teacher while my wife worked full time on our goat dairy where we make cheese. During that time we built up our business and infrastructure (pasteurizer, cheese plant, aging cellar, dairy, barns, fences, etc.). I quit my job 2 years ago and things are going well. Here is my advice:

1. Write a business plan and have as many farmers and business types read and critique it. This will help you get real numbers and information. There are plenty of models on the web. This is a great exercise and a prerequisite for any loan.
2. Remember that grains are a commodity – basically an undifferentiated product in the consumer’s eye. That usually means that they are not willing to pay a whole lot more for grain that was raised sustainably with horses. You would be competing with mega farms that can produce grain at a fraction of what you could. Think about adding value (bread, granola, hot cereal mix, etc), or even another value added product that your costumers need and will pay top dollar for.
3. Consider renting land. I love owning land but from a farming business sense, you are much better off renting, at least initially – especially if you are cropping and don’t have much fixed infrastructure. Check out Allan Nation (Stockman Grass Farmer) on this topic.
4. Don’t be too debt averse. I was initially convinced that I would never take out a loan. We did pay cash most of the way from accumulated savings, but strategic, very conservative borrowing with a sure pay back plan has served us well in getting where we want to be.
5. Start small, which might mean both of you working off farm initially (at least part time). We started milking 12 goats and demand has always exceeded our supply (we are now milking 50). This enabled us to build up a solid customer base and charge what we need to make a living.
6. Ask a million questions. Swallow your pride and seek advice from others in the know. I have learned tons not only from farmers, but electricians, plumbers, welders, seamstresses (to name a few) and let’s not forget teamsters! Most are willing to share their knowledge generously.

Good luck. It has been a long hard road for us, but has paid off a thousand fold in terms of quality of life.

George

[Does’ Leap]

Thanks for sharing that Jenn. It’s a good reminder that we can go from confident to out of control in no time at all. It has been 14 mos or so since we had our “reality check” wreck, and like you, felt so fortunate that all made it without physical harm, and like you, it probably wouldn’t have happened had a mentor been on hand. But that just can’t always be the case. It did take us (humans and horses) a long time to get over the emotional aspects of the whole thing, and of course we are probably never ‘over” it. But 14 mos later we are so pleased with all the good safe work we have under our belt, and just put down our first few acres of hay with the mower you have all helped us with -something I wouldn’t have thought possible a year ago.

This horsepower thing has been quite a journey and one of the best things we’ve done for our farm. These reminders help us all to be a little more careful.

Kristan

[Does’ Leap]

Neal:

It is hollow tubing 1/8″ thick. The receiver that the plug is welded to was made from 2x3x1/4″ channel (that is two 3″ walls with a 2″ floor). You need to cut one of the 3″ walls off and weld a piece of 2×3″ flat bar to accept the main part of your yoke and bolt it solid. Feel free to give me a call and I can explain it better over the phone if this doesn’t make sense (802.827.3046). Lastly, the tubing was cut a little longer than I mentioned before so that I could have enough room to drill and weld the eye bolts on the correct centers.

Good luck.

George

[Does’ Leap]

Neal:

The single is 1x2x42 and the doubles are 1x1x21 or whatever length matches your evener set up. Works great – high and tight and never line hang up on the pole. The pin that goes into the pole is 5/8 x 5″ grade 8 bolt welded to the inside of the bracket. Let me know if you need more details.

George

[Does’ Leap]

I welded up a bracket that would enable me to set my plug yoke at various heights to get the 31″ needed. We were able to hitch tight at the ideal height. We tested it out going up and down hills and the horses feet never touched the evener.

George

[Does’ Leap]

Yes, I figured you were loading with a tractor. I would load by hand with my lines near me, but had thought that maybe eventually, once we’d done enough that the tractor bucket is totally routine for them we could load it while they were tied. Maybe this is unrealistic…..it is really good to know what other people feel is safe and reasonable.

thanks -Kristan

[Does’ Leap]

Carl,

I’m interested in your thoughts on tying. We never leave our horses to stand without the lines in reach and have halters on to tie if we need. This seems to most often occur with the log cart. If the horses are tied securely with limited length of line how does entanglement with the cart happen? We have occasionally hitched them to a tree as well, but I felt the need to continue to check on them. It seems like if they were distressed there would be a lot of room for swinging around the tree and getting hurt or entangled. Tied at the head and hitched to the cart seems to me (an amateur) to have less potential for problems. Would you mind elaborating on that?

Also interesting that Donn loads his manure spreader with a second person there. I had thought potentially of working toward a hitching post scenario while loading the spreader, but I guess maybe not….

Kristan

[Does’ Leap]

Rod:

We have the same situation with 6 strand, high tensile fence running all over our farm. I bought some 20′ nylon (poly?) line extenders that I buckle on my lines. When I am loading wood (you have to block it ahead of time), I have the lines in hand or close by. This enables me to move around the wagon pitching wood. It is also a great exercise for the horses standing. When an infraction (stepping foward) occurs and they’re corrected when I am far away, I believe it extends my sphere of influence in their mind. In fact, I can’t think of the last time I’ve had to correct such an infraction. I think I paid $20 for the extenders.

George

[Does’ Leap]

Joel:

I like it! What did you use for a deck and how did you fasten it to the rake?

George

[Does’ Leap]

Plowboy:

Got for it. I quit my high school teaching job after 10 years to work full time with my wife on our farm. That and getting draft horses are some of the best things I’ve done for myself and my family. We had been building our goat cheese business slowly during the time I was teaching and there were definitely concerns about getting by with no outside income. Intererestingly – and not unexpectedly – our farm did so much better with both of us on full time and we are doing fine financially (but, like Kristin, without the new car, fancy house, etc.)

Good luck.

George

[Does’ Leap]

Jason:

Nice horse. He seems taller than many of the Suffolks I’ve seen. How big is he and how does he compare with your other Suffolks?

George

[Author]

Posts