[Tim Harrigan]

@Donn Hewes 21483 wrote:

… I will take some pictures. I should start with the old harness on the animal and finish with the new harness on the animal.

That will be good, and if you can both with the animals under some load that would be great.

[Tim Harrigan]

I could see before I went how much work and planning had gone into the event so although I was certainly impressed I was not surprised to see how nicely everything came together, including plan B on Friday. I was very pleased to see how excellent the presentations/workshops were and I really had underestimated how extensive and involved the community of interest was up in that part of the country. It was most gratifying to see such a large number of young folks with such passion and sense of purpose striving to place meaningful work with draft animals at their center. What a nice trip.

[Tim Harrigan]

John, that would be interesting to try. It seems like it would take a fair amount of down pressure to break up a hard pan. So a trailing slitter would have to be quite heavy, and you fix it to your plow it might throw off the balance of the plow. Good luck with that.

[Tim Harrigan]

@jac 21364 wrote:

Can someone explain to me please what mechanics are at play to create a plow pan ? I have assumed that this was a problem for tractor farms only… turns out horse farms have a pan.. and tractor farms have compaction as an additional problem. Does min till create a pan ? or is it only a plow that does this ?
John

A plow pan is a specific form of soil compaction caused by the action of a moldboard plow, typically over the course of time and usually after plowing at the same depth every year. Soil compaction is a loss of pore space in the soil. Pore space provides pathways for water infiltration and storage, oxygen movement and space for root penetration. Compaction is most often a problem caused by external forces, mostly from vehicles and animal traffic. Vehicles and animals compact the soil, mostly shallow and in the normal tillage zone, but it can go deeper with heavier vehicles, particularly if the soil is too wet for traffic or the soils have a distribution of coarse and fine soil particle sizes that cause the soil to set up tight. Grazing animals can cause severe shallow compaction and that becomes clear real quick to anyone pulling soil cores from pasture ground for a soil test.

Tillage is an external force that loosens the soil, but also, by the application of force, causes localized compaction. As a moldboard plow moves through the soil it pushes the soil apart. The soil at the cutting edge mostly is lifted, but some is pushed down and compressed under the point and share as the plow moves over it. This localized compaction can be aggravated by spring plowing because the soil is likely wetter at plow depth than near the surface. Plowing at the same depth each year contributes to a plow pan as will using worn points and shares with a blunt edge. A blunt edge pushes more soil before either lifting it or compressing it below the edge. These plow pans are often just an inch or two thick but can be quite dense and restrict water infiltration, drainage and root growth.

If by min-till you mean chisel plowing rather than moldboard plowing, generally, yes, it would be less likely to cause a plow pan because you are not compressing the soil uniformly across the bottom of the tillage layer, and you are moving less soil. But if you replace the moldboard with a disk, maybe not. The disk carries all its weight on the edge of the cutting disks and while it is good at loosening the soil above it tends to compact the soil below. So a disk could create a disk pan that would be much like a plow pan. As long as the soil is right for tillage one or two disking, just like plowing, is probably not going to be be a problem. But over time it can become a grey area in various shades of grey depending upon the level of compaction. So the solution is not in the name, it is in what you do.

[Tim Harrigan]

I have used scarecrows before and they work well but you have to move them around every couple of days. If you don’t they catch on pretty quick.

[Tim Harrigan]

Nice calves, I like roans and that red and white will step flashy with those white socks.

[Tim Harrigan]

Countymouse;21235 wrote:

Erik,
This is a fascinating project and I’m excited to hear how it goes. Are you thinking about starting calves or getting an older pair? I see ads from time to time (on this site and others) for more mature teams with some training being sold at very reasonable prices. I have noticed that most of the oxen people on this site start their own. I don’t know much about oxen, really, but it seems like such a long time to wait until they get big… I have never had the patience to wait for a horse to mature, at least. Perhaps there is a practical reason that so many oxen people start with calves?

Erik,
The working draft of a 1600 lb horse and a 2000 lb ox are more related to training and conditioning than just ox versus horse. Cattle carry a lot of extra weight in rumen fluid so is probably not fair to compare oxen and horses lb for lb.

This comment about starting a team versus buying an older team is interesting. One aspect of this is that some folks seem to think that if they do not start the team they have not really trained it. As if bonding will only occur with calves. I do not agree with that. There are many reasons to consider a started team. Perhaps the most important is not everyone has the time to devote to a team of calves at that important age. Some of the best potential teams will need a consistent hand and considerable time in the first few months. They could be lost to teamsters that do not have the time to put in.

A good team will test a new teamster within the first few minutes, if only in subtle ways. If the teamster demonstrates worthiness to lead, the team will bond. I do not think it matters if they are one month old or a started team 8 months old. A good, started team (by good I mean spirited) is very capable of making a green teamster look silly if the leadership and experience are lacking. Even a well-trained, 8-month old team has a lot more to learn. It is not an issue of who started them, the issue is who is leading them.

This made me think of an excellent article that was written by Katy Huppe and published as “The Making of a Museum Team” in the Summer 2006 RH. She pointed out several reasons why museums in particular, but I think all teamsters, should consider 4-H trained teams. I will briefly summarize some of her key points here, check out the full article if you have access to it:

1. Oxen that will be in contact with the public need to be trustworthy and versatile with a good disposition. 4H steers typically get started when they are days old. The teamsters put in the time and reinforce good behavior and discourage bad habits.

2. The young teamsters soon find out if the team is suited for public display. If not, the animal is replaced. This avoids potential problems for less attentive teamsters.

3. The team is exposed to a variety of other teams and teamsters. Teamsters commonly switch teams to create more adaptable animals that respond to the teamster regardless of inconsistencies in voice, body language or technique.

4. 4-H teams are exposed to many fairs and exhibitions. This helps develop a calm and reliable team. They are also exposed to horses, chickens etc., things that could make a skittish team a liability in fair or parade settings.

5. Most 4-H teams engage in a wide range of tasks such as tillage, logging, sap hauling etc. They learn to adjust to the demands of the job.

I think Katy was perceptive in her assessment. One other thing that is important is we support the continuity of the ox and draft animal community by purchasing started teams and rewarding young teamsters for their investment in training and involvement. If this keeps their interest alive it gives ox power legs for the future.

So Erik, if you decide to go in this direction I think you should consider a trained pair. If you check out the RH site you will see some nice teams at good prices that are ready to go. Good luck with it.

[Tim Harrigan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzvr5miXxZ8

Again for those interested, here is another video of cover crop establishment work at a dairy in S. Michigan. At this location cereal rye is a good choice, the soil is pretty much a sand and susceptible to blowing in the spring. My interest is comparing slurry seeding with other seeding methods. This is video is not an application of animal draft.

[Tim Harrigan]

Turkey pressure is pretty light around here, I don’t know how hard they will graze, if at all. I know Canada geese will take it right down to the ground.

[Tim Harrigan]

near horse;21135 wrote:

Tim – how about the value of slurry seeding to over seed a standing pasture or grass stand? The big concern w/ over seeding (I thought) was getting good soil/seed contact

We have done it a few times, the work we followed most closely was slurry seeding red clover and orchard grass into brome grass hay. We no-till drilled, frost seeded and slurry seeded red clover in the brome. The hay ground that had red clover seeded yielded two times more over the following two years than the hay that had no clover or manure applied. The no-till and slurry-seeded red clover yielded about the same, the frost seeded red clover yielded midway between the slurry-seeded and no clover/no manure. The seeding increased both botanical diversity and yield. The yield increase was mostly from the added N from the clover. The orchard grass seeding increased botanical diversity but did not have much effect on yield.

You need seed to soil contact when overseeding, it does not seem like you need aggressive tillage to get it.

With this type of renovation I would recommend grazing the pasture down tight or cutting the hay in mid-August to minimize competition from the existing stand and then slurry seeding at a rate to apply less than 100 lb/ac total N so there is not excessive competition from the added N. Then leave the grazing animals off for the fall, and if possible, avoid grazing in the spring and take the crop off as hay. That gives the new seedlings a chance to get established without animal traffic and extends the time between slurry application and grazing.

[Tim Harrigan]

It is certainly possible to put together a system for applying manure either by hauling or irrigation but it does not seem practical for just a few animals, particularly if those animals are on pasture for a good part of the year. You would need some sort of storage pit or lagoon and then the added mechanical components to make it work. It would be much more cost effective and easier to make arrangements with a local livestock producer to have a few loads spread on your ground.

In slurry seeding I mix cover crop seed directly in the tank spreader and use an AerWay with a drop tube application system on the tank to loosen the soil and then place the seed-laden slurry in the loosened soil. With dairy manure the bedding sometimes acts sort of like the tackifiers used with hydroseeding lawns, but really what I am trying to do is have the nutrient rich slurry carry the seed down into the fractured soil where it is protected from wide swings in temperature and moisture. This system alleviates shallow soil compaction, improves infiltration of the liquid manure and rainfall thereby reducing runoff and erosion, starts a cover crop soon after manure application to trap and cycle nutrients, brings the farm closer to having a permanent vegetative cover on the ground, and combines low-disturbance tillage, manure application and seeding of a cover crop in one operation.

[Tim Harrigan]

Countymouse;21081 wrote:

… Are you (or anyone else) familiar with animal powered systems for spreading liquid manure? I am curious if this system is practical on a small scale and how one might go about making a useable slurry using horse manure as a source…

I know there was a 500 gal liquid spreader at HPD with a gas engine on steel wheels. There is a picture of it in RH. The system that I have for seeding with liquid manure is possible with draft animals but it would be quite a challenge because it combines tillage and manure application. I think it is more practical to go with a compost system with horse and probably poultry manure, liquid might make more sense with dairy, swine and beef in some cases. I guess the bottom line is manure and cover crops are a good match in most systems. In certain systems that include heavy nitrogen feeders such as corn it is probably best the think about how you can integrate cover crops, manure and compost in the rotation.

[Tim Harrigan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3st0qZ_3vH0

For those who are interested, I updated the youtube video that I posted earlier about the work seeding cover crops with manure with field views of cover crops established with the various seeding methods. The update starts at about 3:49 of the video.

[Tim Harrigan]

Countymouse;21044 wrote:

I don’t know the infectious dose off the top of my head. It is a true infection with a hardy oganism, so is probably less than 100 CFU’s, maybe even less in the immunocompromised… The serotype and the ability to cause disease aren’t really that closely linked at a genetic level, so testing of this and other bacteria is more of a question of “what is mostly likely to cause disease” rather than “what can cause disease”…

Yes, probably like water where E. coli is mostly an indicator organism, in most cases not likely to cause a problem but but the presence of it is a red flag that other more pathogenic bugs could also be there. But back to the O157:H7, if it was present even at 1 cfu/ml and the infective dose is 100 cfu, 1 pint would give you a shot of 475 cfu. That could be a bad day.

[Tim Harrigan]

What kind of things were you saying coming down out of that tree?:D

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