[dominiquer60]

Most walking plows… Looking at some old literature that I have, walking plows can be 6″ to 16″ in evens and sometimes odd widths. I have and 8″ and a 10,” my partner has a 12″ and a 14.” With that said I think that 12 and 14 are common, but they are easy to measure (from the landslide perpendicular to the wing tip of the share).

We use an old Emerson with 2 14″ bottoms, this plow was engineered for horses and if you don’t need to plow all day long 4 horses can get some work done with it. Plows made for tractors can be more blunt and create more draft and need more horses. We also have an old Oliver 2 gang trailer plow for tractors, it has 14″ raydex bottoms and we use 6 on this plow. There is an ox teamster that has an old horse drawn vineyard plow with two narrow bottoms, it is meant for 2 animals and tight row spacing, his 2 steers pull it just fine.

Width and number of bottoms can determine how many animals are needed, but engineering of the bottoms is a huge factor to consider too.

Erika

[dominiquer60]

Even if they don’t have time to teach you there is a lot that can be learned from observation. Next thing you know, you have a brush in hand, picking out feet, maybe you are straightening out the harness after the teamster put it on, after a while you are asked to hold the lines while the teamster checks on something, this progresses to you driving the wagon back to the farm. The more time that you spend around them actively observing the little details, the more things begin to make sense, and the more you learn the more comfortable you become handling horses and with the idea of farming with them your self.

[dominiquer60]

Here is a link to the Coblskill sale add. http://www.pennysaveronline.com/pdfs/ads/759910.pdf

[dominiquer60]

We made it out to 6 Mass sugar houses with restaurants yesterday. We got a ton of great ideas for our operation and met some great sugarmakers. Thursday was our best run yet, with 2,200 gallons to the boiler. Yesterday was good too, good thing father was home to watch the cows and vacuum systems.

[dominiquer60]

Erica,

In addition to Bekah’s great advice I recommend that you get a beef calf (diary or beef) while you work your way up to a team of horses. Since you already have a farm this may be a good fit. Read up on how to train oxen and train your beef animal, this will get you used to handling a larger animal and integrating it into your daily routine. Cattle and horses have some differences, but more similarities than not. You will be able to make mistakes with your trained beef animal and in the end it won’t matter so much, you will have more confidence and the animal will be easy to handle.

I think that there are a lot of basic training strategies that are universal not matter what species you are dealing with, dogs, cattle, people, horses. Much of what you take from training one kind will aid with a transition to a new kind. My partner started with oxen then changed to horses, I started with horses, dogs then oxen, someday we may have people to train too.

Just my 2 cents.

Erika

[dominiquer60]

Green Mountain Draft horse club has an May Sale and there is one in Cobleskill, NY in April. https://www.drafthorsejournal.com/index.php/events/sales-schedule

Erika

[dominiquer60]

We have an old galvanized (yes a bad word in maple these days) that has some baffling in the tank, it helps reduce the slosh factor. I keep wondering how we can make a food grade collection tank that is bucket friendly, sloshes less and is easy to clean well.

[dominiquer60]

Peyton,

The article that you posted is full of misinformation. The FDA getting involved with farming is insanity, this is a bill to worry about, here is the source, http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/FSMA/default.htm. It is a bit more of a read than the article, but is has the facts.

[dominiquer60]

Jeroen, The money situation here is similar. The large farm in the next town milks 1,000 cows and keeps borrowing money for newer bigger machines. The bank keeps lending money to him because he can’t fail or they will be out a ridiculous amount of money. He is a bad farmer and takes land from every little guy around, but the bank just keeps giving him money and he keeps polluting the land.

[dominiquer60]

You all had such great weather that day, it is great to see it finally going up. We wished we could have made it, but glad to see it caught on camera like that, Sam watched it 4 times this morning 🙂 Thanks for sharing.

[dominiquer60]

Here is a sound bite-

We have been considering a job request to plow a garden for someone the next town over. She gave no information in her request so we asked: How much land? What type of soil? Is it stoney? Big stones or little stones? What is the land’s history? Was is just cleared or recently hayed? What are your goals with the plowed ground? It is hard to agree to a job when you don’t know what you are up against.

After a couple of responses we discover that the land is a neglected hay field recently bush hogged with no small tree stumps to worry about, it has stones, we won’t know how bad until we plow, but we can get a bit of a feel for the stones with a visit once the snow melts. She would like a half acre garden plowed and a few narrow strips to establish a blueberry patch. If all goes well we will also harrow and seed down a cover crop for her.

While we cannot be 100% committed to doing this job yet, but the conditions sound reasonable so we estimate that we will bring 4 horses over 2 days. The horses are soft and out of shape so we want to give our selves plenty of time to go slow and deal with rocks, with a spare on hand just in case we want to use 4 or need a replacement. If the going is good we will likely use 3 on a 2 way JD plow with Oliver/Radex bottoms. We have many good old plows, but why risk breaking your favorite old plow when you can break a good plow with parts that are much easier to replace. The Blueberry ground is supposedly less rocky so we may use 2 on a walking plow since the strips will only require 2 or 3 passes each direction.

Overall we won’t know until we try it, but this is our plan based on what we know so far. If upon inspection the ground is too stony we may pass, if a better plow comes our way, maybe we will give it a try 🙂

[dominiquer60]

Sounds like things are nicely falling into place for the 2 of you. To many more good work days to come!

[dominiquer60]

I just realized that I never clicked send a couple days ago.

I know that you don’t have two whoas Carl, I didn’t mean to imply that. I was trying to show that we may have different expectations of how an animal responds to whoa, largely based on training level. We expect them to stop once they have learned the command, but how long they remain stopped before they take the initiative to move again can be variable, so our expectations change as a working relationship evolves. We don’t know what they are capable of unless we test them some.

I once ran beind my team after I gave them a chance to stand and wait, they ended up in that swampy patch at the bottom of the trail below Kristen’s pastures. We were all up to knees in mud and no way out but backing the cart out of that muck. It took a lot of cussing to get them out but since then we have evolved and they will wait outside while I fetch bales up in the loft. The same whoa just different expectations and results after 3 years together.

[dominiquer60]

Reading the story, I was looking forward to hearing how far they got with that log, it was a good set up for them to fail at a runway, darn bump. I am glad that the snow got the best of them without harm to anyone, though I am guessing that you broke a sweat Carl 🙂

I think that teaching a animal to stand patiently is one of the most difficult yet most rewarding things that we can ask of them. I realize that whoa means whoa, if they are in motion they should stop and if they are standing and threatening to move they should keep still. The whoa “stop motion” is one of the first behaviors that we teach our animals, but the whoa “please wait patiently” takes some time and a certain level of maturity to reach the results that we want. I am not suggesting that whoa has different meanings, but rather that what we expect over the course of an animals working life when we say “whoa” evolves. From a pause in movement during that first leading lesson, to please stand here and wait patiently while I fix/saw/grab xyz.

Thanks for sharing your experience working on fine tuning that whoa.

[dominiquer60]

Publications off the top of my head.

HOLDING PAGE

“The Pride and Joy of Working Cattle” by Ray Ludwig

https://extension.unh.edu/resources/files/Resource000964_Rep1076.pdf

“Oxen: A Teamster’s Guide” by Drew Conroy

“Training the Teamster” by Les Barden

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