[dominiquer60]

I got to thinking about this later and I really couldn’t be where I am now with my market garden if I didn’t choose to use draft animals. Even with 3 brand new pieces and a lot of old stuff, I simply could not afford to farm if I had to buy a tractor and a line of equipment comparable to what I have. I went fairly slowly at first, I found a $175 cultivator, a $60 potato hiller, a $200 single gang disc before I ever had a team to pull them. Keep your eyes open to good equipment and deals, service and keep it covered until you are ready to start the garden. George’s suggestion is great too, you can save a lot of money, fixing, making and modifying your own equipment.

[dominiquer60]

Some horse tools cannot be replaced by tractor tools easily. The first that comes to mind is a good 2 horse 1 row cultivator. Unless you invest in a cultivating tractor with belly mounts a 3 pt hitch (easily $12K) you can’t get the same precision with a small compact with 3pt implements. These cultivators are in high demand, but even if you have to buy a fancy rebuild for $800, it is only $800 and has good resale value. And just think $800 can get you years of cultivating pleasure or only 2.5 weeks of hiring a full time hand weeder at $8/hr. These pay for themselves fast. Personally I have used several models of belly mounted and offset cultivating tractors and I would rather use a old McCormick Deering 2 horse any day, you can’t get as close or precise with a tractor.

[dominiquer60]

I keep looking at our front tugs that could stand a shortening. This is one place (there are pros and cons for both) where I think leather trumps nylon. I don’t have a good way to cut our nylon harness and catch the strands with heat before they fray too much while I hack away at it. Plus there is a decorative piece of synthetic leather to cut thru as well, it won’t be very decorative once cut. We may send our good blue harness out for shortening, it may be cheaper than messing them up and needing new front tugs.

• This reply was modified 11 years, 1 month ago by dominiquer60.

[dominiquer60]

I understand better now. There was an article in the SFJ around 1999 about a man that grew horse powered vegetables in Argyle, NY (Seth Jacobs, Slack Hollow Farm). He used a 4 wheel 3pt hitch cart on beds of vegetables with multiple rows in the beds. The horses walked in the wheel tracks on what ever centers the beds were and he used a jockey stick on halters to keep them spread apart. There were pictures and descriptions of this rig in the SFJ. He has long since given up horses for a Kubota and ford 1710. I may know where the cart is now, but I would have to stop by to take pictures and I won’t be in that area for a while. I know that he used a lely tine weeder and some other cultivating devices on the cart. It may be worth looking up that old issue for some ideas.

[dominiquer60]

I posted a link to this on the Ox facebook page, I hope you don’t mind, but there is an audience of over 1,100 there.
Erika

[dominiquer60]

I&J Machinery has multirow cultivators. http://www.farmingwithhorses.com/horse-drawn-farming-cultivators. There are a few other companies that make them too, if you can get a copy of a Horse Progress Days Book you may find a couple more companies that make them.

[dominiquer60]

I couldn’t see the site or forum at all, I kept getting a 404 error. All is well now.

Erika

[dominiquer60]

I hope to go when it returns to PA. Stephen, you will do well. There are so many plain folk that are hungry for good information about natural and organic approaches. I see many products that they use/sell trying to be less chemical dependent, and some of it not backed by scientific knowledge. Let them know what works for you and remember that just because they are Plain Folk, that does not automatically make them good horse folk or gardeners, many have a lot to learn from a well spoken “Englishman” like yourself.

Erika

[dominiquer60]

Carl, modifying the pole to fit the harness is par for course around here, it may change more with the new knowledge that we have. I hear what you are saying about shortening up the front end.

The photo below might be a good example, we lengthened the pole on this sprayer to accommodate our harness. As you can see we have dropped a few links of heel chain, but the yokes and front side backer straps up front could really be taken in a bit. The side backer straps are on the tightest holes already, but there is plenty of room to make more holes and space to bring the jockey yokes back.

I like your chain neck yoke set up, I see how that is handy. The plug yoke makes sense too, EXCEPT that there are several pieces of equipment where we use both horses and oxen, and the plug yoke only allows for horse use. I assume that if we thought about it we could rig up a pole to accept both ring yoke and plug yoke, but knowing Sam’s work load that won’t happen any time soon. So for now I will work on burning holes in front side backers, I am happy that we at least see the light, it may just take a little while getting there 🙂

We will see what we can do about the plow draft angle and the front end, I will post when we figure it out better.

I am calling Abner this morning and will let him know about our conversation here, I am sure that he would thank you all for your input.

It is always a pleasure being part of these in-depth conversations.

Erika

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[dominiquer60]

I posted this on another thread, but I cannot find it to link to it.

Here is what Les Barden writes about 3 abreast set up.

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[dominiquer60]

I have been working with two 7 year old half sisters that have been with each other their entire lives. They could be worked single, but used to be very distracted being away from the other and it was not fun. I started working them on the ground this winter, prepping them for saddle training this spring. Just a lot of easy lunging, working with tarps or other obstacles, giving feet, etc, nothing that they couldn’t do already, but all of these things were a bit of challenge when separated. All of this work was done with the mate shut up in her stall and away from the barn. After 2 months they are mostly weaned from each other, much more focused on working when single and doing better single work, if they become distracted by separation a little reminder gets them back to the task at hand. They have come a long way and I have not been terribly consistent with training in regards to regular work due to ice and mud at times. Sometimes only 5 minutes with a halter an lead.

I suspect that one of the mares is somewhat cystic (constantly in heat) we never let this be and excuse for her to not behave well.

[dominiquer60]

I use an old HD disc, no tongue wheel, it is a single gang 6′ with levers for adjusting the angle of attack. It came with a set of shafts, but the previous owned just had a logging horse and a small garden, so it was effort for a single but not bad over for a small area. I use it with a pair of horses or steers to work in cover crops or to work a freshly plowed land. Once the plowed ground is worked up enough I switch to a cultimulcher as long as there is not too much trash to get caught in the tines, this leaves the ground much more level than the dics. We have an 8′ JD KBA tandem tractor disc that we can use behind a cart with hydraulics, it takes all 6 horses to use it.

[dominiquer60]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I figured the hardware variations and length would come up, I just asked the question like Abner wanted me too, his hardware is standard to him.

It looks like an general front trace length of 21″ (with hardware) from hame bolt to ring can be recommended. Abner can mention his new standard length in the next printing of his catalog and recommend that smaller horses/ponies order a shorter size.

Wild Millers, I brought my lap top down just in case Abner was open to watching a bit of it. We brought our repairs down the first day and seeded the idea of how the harness should work. We went back the next day and after more good conversation about the front lazy/jack straps I offer to get my laptop out of the truck if they wanted to watch it. They were very receptive and the sight of all 4 of us leaning over his counter to watch Les on a little screen still gives me a chuckle 🙂 It is great that you have a similar harness to ours because this past weekend we harnessed up for the first time after watching the video and have some things to think about as well.

Sam immediately went to work with his square and adjusted the harness as best we could with what we have. D-rings were brought up a hole or a half hole, britchen brought up a hole or two, back straps out a hole (those mares have grown a bit since the last adjusting). One thing Sam had to have made a while back were longer straps between the D and britchen the standard length was too short, if we shorten front traces, we fear that we will also need all new straps here again as many are on the last hole already. Shortening the front trace should just take the billow out of it, but if the D with new front trace takes out the tiny bit of wiggle room in the rear backing strap, we may need to go bigger.

Also now that we brought our britchen up in a more proper location, the trace holders on the last/longest hole are threatening to disturb the draft angle of the trace. We figure we can probably just take them of for now as they don’t serve much purpose.

The harness girth seems a bit long, most of our horses need the girths all the way to the shortest hole on both sides in order to not have the girths hanging loose.

If we shorten the front trace I don’t think that we have to worry about lengthening the long trace. Does anyone have any experience with this?

Finally back to the lazy/jack straps. Those of you using properly adjusted D-Ring harness, how long are your lazy/jack straps? are they adjustable? is there ever a time that you need to shorten them up to keep the pole up high? Now that we have a common front trace length Abner would like to know what would make a good lazy/jack strap. We like the looks of Les’s conway buckle and snap, the conway gives you some adjust-ability and the snap is handy. I think that a single ply leather/beta strap or a double ply nylon should work. What length do you use and also if you use a snap, what kind do you use for the least risk of getting something caught in it?

Sam wants a lazy/jack strap that can be adjusted short (with buckle or snap). His reasoning is that when plowing (especially with a 2 way plow) one should hitch long for the correct angle of draft. When hitched long, we loose the ability of the D-ring dynamics to keep weight on the back and off of the lazy/jack straps and the pole drops to a level that is not safe or preferred. We did hear in the video that Les compensates for the tight traces and 2 way plow by backing in order to get the rolling hitch point to shift, but Sam doesn’t like this idea. Any thoughts on the adjustable lazy/jack strap or the physics involved with the functionality of the D-ring interfering with the angle of draft for plowing?

Thanks for all of the feedback!

Here are pictures after the recent adjusting frenzy, not the best angles but, I think we are heading in a better direction.

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[dominiquer60]

We’ve had a surprising run the last few days in the rain without freezing nights. With vacuum we know it is not water contamination. Sunday we woke up to the horse pond culvert plugged and the ponds had become one and were 4-5 over the bank. The zero tank had been pumped empty the night before, the water came up while the tank was still able to float. It moved off its blocks and snapped the dry vacuum line as it filled and settled. We plan on doing something different next year. However knowing that this happens the sap was spared because of the snorkel pipe that we pump out of, it is above the high water mark.
There are never 2 good years in a row and this year lived up to our gut feeling back in January, no rush to tap its going to be a short and sweet season.

Erika

[dominiquer60]

Bill, you might try our facebook page, we have some different followers there that might be interested.

Erika

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