[dominiquer60]

Hey Chip, it is great to see you here. We are looking forward to seeing you again at the Brooklyn Fair.

http://www.pressherald.com/2015/05/13/horse-drawn-garbage-wagan-picking-up-customers-in-vermont/

Pat Palmer does trash pick up in Middlebury, VT, and there are an increasing number of similar operations in Europe, specifically in France with Percherons.

What are you planning on delivering? If it is something heavy, drafts may be good for a few miles, but if farther, a pair of sturdy light horses may be more efficient. Long miles on pavement is not ideal for heavy horses, especially at the trot, they can develop a variety of leg and joint issues from the repetitive concussion of the feet on a hard surface.

We are in the processes of identifying a better way to us the search option, hopefully it will be easier in the future to find information easier.

Erika

[dominiquer60]

Welcome mcm,

There are a few of us that were in your shoes not too long ago, the change is very possible for you. Read and ask away!

Old-style Morgans are also known as Lippitt Morgans, http://www.lippittmorganbreedersassociation.com/component/adsmanager/?page=show_category&catid=1&order=0&expand=-1

Erika

[dominiquer60]

Helene,
The 2 websites above with bring you to lists of farms looking for apprentices (temporary jobs where learning skills and culture is emphasized). Daniel’s link is to apprenticeships on draft animal powered farms, my link is to farms in the state of Maine that belong to the largest organic farming organization in the states. There are many different farms to choose from if you know where to look. In Maine some have forest or fishery elements to the businesses.

What is your interest in? Raising animals, large scale agriculture, vegetables, grain crops, fiber animals, small scale agriculture, dairy, or a little of everything? Eco-agriculture is a large topic. Narrowing it down will help us help you.

Erika

[dominiquer60]

This is my reading for tonight, and Iowa study on Short Duration Cover Crops for Vegetable Production Systems. I have no idea what the depth of it is, and I never thought of Iowa as a vegetable state, but the title certainly has my attention.

http://store.extension.iastate.edu/Product/Short-Duration-Cover-Crops-for-Vegetable-Production-Systems.

Erika

[dominiquer60]

http://www.mofga.org/Programs/FarmApprenticeships/tabid/502/Default.aspx

If I had a place for you to stay, I would be interested in having you at my farm.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 4 months ago by dominiquer60.

[dominiquer60]

To seed I hand spin both out at the same time and cultimulch lightly. I try to time it with a rain. It seems to come in just fine. I think that your method would be fine too. I will separate oats and red clover, the size difference is greater, using the cultimulcher for the oats and only cultipacking the clover.

It is terribly tough to kill being so drought tolerant. I am going to seed a 1/4 acre this May and mow it a couple times, then lightly disc it and plant some crimson and tillage radish in July. I don’t think I am going to kill it and might be lucky if the discs just stir up a little soil. The plow and frost are the easiest ways to kill it that I know of.

[dominiquer60]

I have used the crimson/sudex a few times now. I seed them together at the same time, if you are heavy with the sudex, the crimson struggles to thrive, rabbits add to that struggle. Not enough sudex, you produce less biomass. With enough seed you can’t loose because the ground is covered, but if you want it biomass heavy, or Nitrogen heavy, you need to be more particular about seeding rates. Sudex mows well with a sickle bar and frost kills with ease. If left to frost, it knocks down over night a couple of days after the first hard frost. I have been seeding it in July without needing to mow it at all. Last year we did a few acres for silage bales in front of a spelt seeding. We planted that later than we should have, mid June, but still managed to get 2 cuttings off before we turned it down.

A couple years ago I also had a crimson/sudex/tillage radish mix that. It resulted in a good amount of biomass and the soil tilth was greatly improved, unfortunately that year the rabbits ate all the crimson clover under the canopy of radish and sudex.

It is fairly ease to manage if frost killed, I don’t have any experience trying to kill it before frost.

I hope that helps.
Erika

[dominiquer60]

February 12, 2016 at 4:18 pm

ethalernull
Participant

hey erika,

can you tell me a bit more about your sudex/crimson clover experience. looking into that this year seems like a really nice aggressive long-term summer cover. are you seeding at the same time? what time of year? do you need to be careful of sudex not getting to big/shady for crimson to pull through after mow-down?

thanks,
evan

[dominiquer60]

That is a valid point Bill. Everyone has their way of doing things. Shaft loops, tugs, with hold backs last is the way that I was formally taught myself, if the horse moves forward without tugs, other bad things can happen. I think that this woman has the key to both problems, a horse that doesn’t move while hitching. This woman is going to represent our country at the International level this summer so she probably has just as valid a reason to do it the way she does it, as the rest of us have reason to do thing our own ways. Regardless of the order that she uses to hitch, I really like that she has a calm methodical way of going and the horse is a mirror of her actions.

Independent shafts are rather poplar in Europe right now. I imagine more farming an forest vehicles like the Sv5 forest wagon will be making use of them. It will be an interesting trend to watch.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 4 months ago by dominiquer60.

[dominiquer60]

I am familiar with this system, but only thru reading the book. So what you are really asking about is a 48″ bed (center to center of wheel tracks) with a 30″ raised portion. This is going to change your evener and neck yoke set up to 48″ to keep the animals in the middle of the row tracks. In this case you will not have much animal interference with the edge of you raised bed, but the 3′ cultimulcher could still be tipsy and potentially level the beds, or drift off the sides.

Jean-Martin’s system works for his small space and financial goals, but I find it a little too bio-intensive for a draft animal system and my goals. I prefer Anne and Eric Nordell’s bio-extensive model. It takes a larger land base (or reduced percentage of cultivated ground) because half of the ground is in production, the other half in cover crops/mulch. However their system requires less off the farm inputs (mostly cover crop seed at this point) and the soil benefits greatly from the long term cover crops in a variety of ways. The Nordell’s practices fully embrace the space and time needed to garden with horses (yet can be applied to machine farming). For me and my non-irrigated soil, there are greater advantages to a flat bed system because of the improved moisture conversation over the raised beds that dry out faster. I am also a fan of the long term cover crop vs. needing to buy in compost that I can’t apply to my ground anyway (too much P in our soil already). This is just what works for me after a few years of experience, I am sure that I will being doing things a bit differently down the road, as I find tweaks that make it custom tailored to the land and my needs.

[dominiquer60]

When using run of the mill shaft loops with shafts I agree with Jay and Bill that using fixed shafts is easier. However, after spending a bit of time down here in FL with the fancy Combined Driving crowd, I really like the ease of the independent shafts. To use these with ease, you need a way to attach the shafts at the heart girth without having to slide thru. Something similar to the Swedish military, harness or a safety shaft loop like the carriage crowd down here. Here is an example of hitching with the later, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCN3Yx9VJnA. I really like the way this woman goes about hitching her horse, she does a lovely job setting her horse up for a successful hitch and workout. Here is a link to the the modern quick release shaft loop and the modern shaft design being used with it, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5TYJZk1i1c. I don’t expect anyone to change their farm harness and shafts around for this fancy system, but for someone doing a lot of single work, especially youth, elders or ladies, set up in one of these ways, the independent shafts can be a nice low stress option to consider.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 4 months ago by dominiquer60.
• This reply was modified 9 years, 4 months ago by dominiquer60.

[dominiquer60]

Great find! “They’re all my mates, except for Jimmy – he’s not my mate. He will be my mate.”

A nice 12 minute video about a down under bullocky working his bulls in the bush.

[dominiquer60]

I don’t have any experience with draft power on raised beds, what kind of equipment do you plan on using to cultivate and to keep them raised?

I can advise, that what ever you want your row width to be, ideally you should have the same width of neck yoke and evener. However if you have large horses, less than 36″ puts them rubbing bellies and that is not good either. If you decide to go with 30″ between rows, and have big horses in a 36″ evener/yoke, I suspect that the horses will be walking on the edges of your raised beds and have a negative impact on their structural integrity.

A 3′ cultimulcher on a raised bed-

The first thing that comes to mind is stability, how level are these raised beds? With my limited experience with a 5′ and no raised beds, I would worry about trying to keep the culitmulcher balanced and centered on the beds. Any slope could cause the cultimulcher to list to the downhill side. I suspect that they will be a challenge depending on your conditions. Next, cultimulchers and mowed cover crops are not the best of friends in many cases. How are you mowing the crop? Without a good flail mower to break up the cover crop into small short pieces, you are likely to drag crop residue instead of incorporating it. I like to use a disc harrow to start incorporating crop residue, once it has broken down, then I can use my cultimulcher. Also the cultimulcher is a leveling tool. Taking it over a raised be may result in deeper penetration than on flat beds (do to potentially looser soil structure), and could easily ruin the sides of a raised bed, potentially flattening the raised formation of the bed.

I hope this helps some. I would be interested to hear from anyone with raised bed and draft power experience, as the above is just a guess based on my experiences and mistakes without raised beds.

Having transitioned from tractors to draft animals, there are now some things that just take more time, such a cover crop incorporation. With a tractor I used to be able to mow, spade (rototiller like results without the rapid beating of the soil), and plant the same day. Those days are long gone with horses. I really have to plan ahead for proper decomposition and incorporation before I can plant into recent cover crops that are not plowed down. Depending on the weather and the crop to incorporate, it can take days or weeks of break down before planting or seeding into it. I like to use winter kill crops for no-moldboard tillage areas, a pass or two with the disc, then a pass of the cultirmulcher once it has warmed enough and I am ready to seed peas and spring crops into former oats and peas, or sudex and crimson clover. This year I am experimenting with winter kill sun hemp and annual rye.

Best wishes with your new adventures in draft animal-power farming

Erika

[dominiquer60]

The lack of pictures is a problem that we are trying to address with a new tech person and funding that was approved this week. A little patience, and we will see what can be done about this glitch.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 4 months ago by dominiquer60.

[dominiquer60]

Tonight I was searching for the Lincoln Woods Video. I typed in “Lincoln Woods Video”, the thread that I wanted was down a few in the search results, but it was titled “Lincoln Woods Video.” When I click on the link to the “Lincoln Woods Video” it sends me to a page suggesting that I try doing a search for what I want. The page states: “This is somewhat embarrassing, isn’t it? It seems we can’t find what you’re looking for. Perhaps searching can help.”

I can see multiple posts from the Lincoln Woods thread in the search results, but cannot get to the thread to view the video. I can reproduce this multiple times.

[Author]

Posts