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glad you are intrested!
they are from croatia, where i live. they are known to have calm and loving natures. historically they were, and are, kept in flooded pasture and have learned to graze under water. they just close their nose and submerge the head! they can stay on pastures all year. in case of a storm they group heads in and hind end out. AND they can withstand dog and wolf attacks!
although they are primarilly used as a draft breed in the plains they are actually a vertisale breed, used to pack wood out of steep terrain in mountainous areas.
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….and are good at it!
i read a story a string of pack horses (not sure if it were posavians though, could have also been the tough and sure footed bosnian mountain horses) carried out such loads as seen down along an 80% steep woodland and none of the horses tripped. no need for mules here!
they sure can take a load. anyway, every trunk is every bit as heavy as it looks, i’ve lifted them back when we had wood heating.
anyway the job of packing the wood out of inaccesable areas is considered (by people who did both) to be the hardest and most dangerous after mining. we are talking about mining in bosnia, balkans, though…if you are intrested in more of the indigenous balkanian horse breeds i’ll be glad to post what i know!:D
posavian horse, definitly. they are powerful, hardy, easy to maintain, can be outside all year round, and have calm tempers.
hi!
solution#1
well there are blueprints for a neck yoke at tillers international, and if you could persuade a carpenter or someone skilled with woodworking to make one it should be fine. the frame is the easy part;the bows are a problem.
one tip though; if you are making an american bow, or neck yoke, make the bows of iron or steel. they are stronger and more durable than wooden bows, and i think easier and more foolproof to make.
the wooden bows need to be steamed and bent, you need special equipment for that, and the wood can snap in process, leaving you to try again.
also, a neck yoke, if preserved good can last a lifetime, but its wooden bows can’t, so you are looking at improvising making them every x years or so.as for steel bows, go to a blacksmith or a forge. bent steel pipes also work great.
anyway here are a few links on the subject:
http://www.iscowp.org/Ox%20Power/HOW%20TO%20MAKE%20A%20YOKE_copy(1).htm
http://www.singingfalls.com/gallery_oxen/oxen_gallery.html
these are yokes with steel pipes for bowssolution#2
you could also make an upgraded whitters yoke. works just fine.
here are some pictures.
good points are that there are no bows and thus no fuss with bending the wood, or steel pipes.
on the bad side there are no blueprints, so you’ll have to improvise.important: if you are making an american neck yoke, the neck seat( the touching surface of yoke and neck) MUST be as smooth as possible, because this yoke rocks back and forth. in dr. conroy’s book it is said it must be as smooth as glass.
good luck!
hope i could help!
