[Gulo]

We made the hames of our collar system heavier than the ones i’ve seen in pictures – deeper front to back. We don’t use 3 pads, we use doubled-up horse collars over the necks and the collars clamped over the middle of these. We have had them dragging several hundred pounds for maybe a total of a kilometer, with rests. I would say that with the hames tight, it definately does not press the shoulders together.

I have yet to see a picture of a team of oxen in a collar system pulling anything other than a wagon, which seems to me pretty light work. On the other hand, neither do i think it would be a fair evaluation to pit collars vs yokes in a pulling competition. Maybe they can pull more in yoke, but if they only have to pull a few feet it doesn’t tell you much. Maybe in a real work situation, even if the collar system allows for less power (contrary to what i’ve read, but let’s assume this for argument), they might still be more comfortable and less likely to produce sores, calluses, whatever. Don’t know yet – just some thoughts.

[Gulo]

As i said in another thread, i just made a set of collars for our water buffalo team. They were trained in a yoke, and it was time to carve another, but I had read the arguments and they made sense to me. The buffalo seem very comfortable in the collars, we’ll see how they do on some real weight when they get old enough in a year.

I would not hesitate to go back to a well made New England style yoke and compare at that point, in fact, we’ll probably use both and compare. IThe yoke is certainly a much simpler system. I guess it makes sense to say if your yoke is causing soreness, calluses, or other issues, you need to experiment with collars, or at the very least a more carefully made yoke. If not, no problem, perhaps.

“Dr. Ox” – Drew Conroy – also points out that one of the reasons the collars aren’t much tried here is traditional prejudice. I hope those examining the merits of both systems will be able to recognize their own prejudices, and put them aside.

[Gulo]

As i understand it Jennifer the “American Belgian” evolved on this continent from original Brabant-like stock. I was looking through Grant MacEwan’s book on the history of the heavy horse in Canada, and some of the pictures of the foundation belgian stallions in the early years of the past century included squat, roan horses with black-feathered legs and feet – Brabants!

Another bit of heavy horse history many may not know is that the Shire and the Clydesdale were interbred at will, when traits were desired on either side, up until the 1970’s when the books were separated.

[Gulo]

Hi J-L…

Thanks, yes she’s quite something. Well over a ton and likes to pit her strength against things. She’s smart and even quite emotional – very easy to read her moods, including how proud she feels when she knows she’s done a good job. She can get pushy occasionally, but show any level of dominance and she backs right down instantly, it’s almost humorous – a big sweetheart’s what she is. She’s our only cross (sire was an enormous black Clydesdale, dam an equally big Percheron), and there’s a story in that. She was sold to me as a “registerable pure Clydesdale.” The fellow said he had the papers but just hadn’t done so yet. So i enquired after them, not cos i cared much, but because i thought potential buyers of her offspring might. He kept stalling on producing them. As time went on – months – and she kept filling out and filling out i realized the only Cydes i could find that really resembled her were in pictures from way back, like 1920’s. Finally, the seller told me he couldn’t find the papers but gave me the registration numbers of her sire and dam which he claimed to have written down. I inquired after these numbers and found they were actually the numbers of Belgian horses! He must’ve just pulled them out of a book and figured i’d go away. Well, i eventually tracked down her breeder, and he remembered her right away and told me the true story – she was an accidental breeding on his farm.

I don’t know why a fellow would go to those lengths. I’d have bought her anyway, she’s amazing. A bit big, if truth be told, and i prefer the pure Clyde conformation, but she’s a great horse anyway. Horse traders!

[Gulo]

We run a mixed herd. The horses are dominant over everything but our Yak bull, who now seems to pretty much call the shots. I’m debating sawing his horns down a little to blunt them off.

[Gulo]

I really like Clydesdales, though i will not argue that you can find a better breed for most things, probably. They were meant to be “all rounders” as i understand it, not specialists. I admit my preference has much to do with aesthetics, and there are guys that don’t give a hoot for aesthetics, or have a different aesthetic sense. I hate the fact that there are those show-breeders out there who’d like to make ’em all look like the damned Budweiser horses – all the same bay with four whites (not to high, mind-you!) and too bloody tall. If anyone has ever seen a mixed farm herd of Clydes with all the colours and patterns represented, it is a “bonnie sight indeed” as they say. Why anyone would want to do away with this is as beyond me. Uniformity is not where it’s at, for me. I’d love to see a twelve-clyde hitch all different colours!

I’m very interested in the Ardennes, as well. They sound like amazing horses work-wise, and suit my aesthetic sense, too – not too big and lots of hair! I envy the Europeans – there seems to be so much more quality choice in drafts over there. I wonder if there is a single breeding Ardennes horse on this continent (N.A.) If it weren’t Clydes for me, i’d look into Aredennes, or Brabants. The heavy blue roan brabants, for instance, with those hairy black feet seem like quite a horse.

[Gulo]

J-L – i agree with you about “what’s on hand”. I sometimes wonder if i can provide without oil input for two teams of clydes, is all. But as my old neighbor said, “you can still work ’em just feeding em pasture/grass. They don’t have to have grain if you can’t get it. Just don’t work ’em as hard or as long. You do what you can with what you’ve got.” Your other point I hear, too – i lived mostly rural. Whenever i see a big city, or especially an aerial view or photo – my immediate gut response is “that’s impossible – won’t be sustained.” And i don’t think it will be. I find the sight of a huge modern metropolis shocking to my core.

You know Carl, i think some of the old teamsters have done draft power a disservice on two counts. One, they insist on portraying it in the context of quaint “yesteryear” settings, perpetuating the idea that it is passe. Second, they spend a lot of time (in my experience) dwelling on and glorifying the wrecks and the dissasters that have occured. Listen to these people for long and you come away with the impression that relying on draft animals is about the most dangerous thing a person could possibly do on this earth.

[Gulo]

Hi Jennifer…

My personal feeling is that it is unnecessary and perhaps dangerous if done too early in the process (better have a real big field!) Later on it’s maybe just unnecessary. They are smart, but also such creatures of habit. Keep them in the habit of walking or trotting and eventually that’s all they’ll think of doing. Get them cantering and they’ll want to canter (at least my horses seem to be like this). I’d rather devote my time to more sacking out with all kinds of different scary things. Also, i like to take them out in the field and hobble train them in a situation where they want to go home or get startled.

I’ve seen teams working around the big steam tractor when the release valve goes (deafening!) get panicked, but even then they’re not full runaways, maybe just a fast trot or controlled canter.

This is only my opinion, but i think the bottom line is this – get them cantering in harness and yes, you will perhaps get them and you used to dealing with it, but the down side is you may also train them to want to do it.

[Gulo]

Thanks, Jennifer – will get some pics of those buffs when the weather warms a little here!

[Gulo]

Our first horses were green-broke to blinders. I then became convinced through reading they were unnecessary. I didn’t take them off our existing horses, but the new ones i trained without. One was a blue-roan who’d never been anything but a semi-feral brood mare when we got her at six. She trained up really fast. Then, over time she became less and less workable, even when i went back to ground-work with her. Finally, she was really getting virtually unworkable, and with visions of dog-food cans flashing through my head, I decided to put her on a blinded bridle. I took her right back out into the field. It was like i’d bought a new horse. I’ve never had the same issues with her since. So my attitude now is, some horses need ’em and some don’t! I have a bay that has never had them and doesn’t seem ever likely to need them.

[Gulo]

I’ve had my horses (clydesdales) at a canter on wagon and sleigh, but then find that when i’ve allowed this, they want to resort more often to this gait and i end up having to do more holding back for a spell. So, given that i never need anything more than a trot out of them, i now keep them from cantering. One of our horses came green-broke (the rest i broke myself), and for a long time she was forever trying to go faster. The guy who trained her was a “hitch-guy” and i suspect this is why. It was a pain in the ass.

My neighbor and at times mentor who’s been driving and farming with horses since the age of about seven, and is also a saddle-bronc rider in the rodeo (no fear of “adrenaline situations”) told me that he always heard, “Walk ’em out (to the field), trot em back.” But he says in his experience, “Walk em out, walk em back” is the best approach.

[Gulo]

Shires and clydes are not common in North America, but that doesn’t make them impractical. There’s plenty of folks doing plenty with them elsewhere – the UK, Australia for instance. I have Clydes out of personal preference and they seem to do the work just fine. I’ve heard talk about how their feather is hard to keep clean, but in my experience it’s mostly self-cleaning. I haven’t spent a single minute tending their feather yet. As far as not being as strong as some of the others, they seem plenty strong enough. Everyday life is not a pulling-contest. And the clydes at least are quicker on the road, so perhaps a better “all-rounder.” Their hooves need lots of work, granted. But to me they’re worth it – no heavy horse can match a Clyde for grace, style and beauty in my mind, and all things being workable, these are attributes I appreciate in my life.

Now mind-you, plenty of them are probably being ruined for work by the show people breeding for giraffe-like attributes. But the same is true of Belgians and Percherons. I’ve seen some bizzarre looking examples of both breeds. Hardly look like heavy horses some of them.

[Gulo]

I too am very “peak oil aware.” I think transitioning right now back to draft animals would be very smart in some sectors – not a “solution” but part of one, for sure. But I personally think the majority of North Americans will curl up and die before anyone besides us converted seriously entertains the idea of returning to draft animal power. We are far too arrogant right now to “turn back” to such “primitive” ways.

I have tried a little to spread the idea of animal power to the mainstream and been surprised at how alien the idea is now on this continent. Most surprisingly to me, I have contacted a number of ecovillages – a context I think would be perfect for draft animal power – inquiring as to whether or not they have considered powering their economies in part with draft animals. I’ve gone to some lengths to stimulate discussion on this. To date, I have not gotten one single response from any of these people/places. Not a good sign. I actually think there is a great deal of fear of large animals born of alienation amongst people today, a fear to get involved with anything other than some mechanical technology.

That said, i think there will be those few out there who lead the way and wholeheartedly embrace the draft animal as an option. My partner and I are moving to a BC homestead where we intend to rely on animals for much of our survival, including draft animals. We would welcome some live-in help getting the place going, joining us in this enterprise, but we are not optimistic that there will be much response. Everyone’s too steeped in the myth of independence yet.

I think if things get really tough it will be oxen over horses. I would miss my clydesdales, though, and tend to do what i can to hang on to them! Oh yeah, and I have a #9 mower, but wonder many days if it will be back to the scythe.

[Gulo]

We have been “field-testing” our new ox-hames/collar pad setup similar to the pictures posted by bivol on our 2 yr old water buffalo team. I measured and recorded the contours of the buffaloe’s necks with wire, and went from there. The pictures i saw were of oxen pulling what appeared to be fairly light wheeled vehicles with rather light, dainty looking hames. I was worried that such narrow hames would bite into necks/shoulders under heavier load, so made ours considerably more robust than the ones in pics – a little less than 3″ deep (from laminated oak) for more surface contact.

Harrow chains are attached as tugs to heavy rings on each hame. I put a flexible plastic sleeve over the chains for length of animal’s contact. Around the girth of the animal, behind the legs, i strapped a horse-cinch setup, with rings attached at midbody to hold the tugs. So far i have not used britchen, but i anticipate this in the future, and intend to simply rig something from soft cotton rope – (i notice the British and others overseas make a lot more use inexpensive rope and chain in their rigs than we do over here, and for the sake of economy, intend to do more of this myself – i used sisal rope for single driving lines, for instance, and actually liked the handling better than my biothane ones that cost a whole hell of a lot more!)

The off ox is attached by it’s halter rope to a ring on the hames of the nigh ox. Everything is attached to the doubletree. If one ox is pulling faster than the other, I chain his end of the double tree back to the implement and this helps even things out. Control is more loosey-goosey than with a yoke, but it’s coming along, and one could experiment with britchen ropes, i suppose. My animals seem more comfortable in this rig and we’ve had them out in the fields pulling a sledge loaded with rocks, tires and people.

So far so good. I look forward to doing some real work with this rig in a years when my team is old enough. I feel better about using this system after reading about the inefficiency and discomfort of the neck-yoke here, and elsewhere –

http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/resources/documents/gender/war/warall/v0600b/v0600b0j.htm

I also look forward, given the room this system gives to adjust and accomodate growth, to not having to carve a bunch more yokes!

I’ll post some pics of the new rig in action when the weather gets a little milder – minus 20 and below is too cold for working water buffalo!

[Gulo]

The other system to consider is the harness with adjustable hames over some system of pads. I made a set of the these out of laminated oak over two nested horse collar-pads (two each for each ox) for the water buffalo, and am convinced they are more comfortable than in the neck yoke. Literature reports that one ox in harness can do the work of two in yoke, with none of the discomfort associated with other systems.

Here’s a link – this site has further links:

http://www.prairieoxdrovers.com/collars.html

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