[dominiquer60]

I grow several hundred plants out. I don’t know anyone sowing strawberries, most berries are bare root transplants. I get mine from Nourse Farms in MA. I use a dibbler to mark out my rows, plants 18″ spacing, rows 4′ apart. A metal rod digs the dibble hole deeper for the long roots. Agrigel gives the roots consistent moisture. We use a McCormick Deering straddle row cultivator and hoe between plants while in their establishment year, and again to renovate after mowing the crop at the end of berry season. After the establishment year, the only equipment I use besides a weeding tool and straw fork is the once a year mowing (fail mower) and renovation.

[dominiquer60]

Milking Devons and Jersey are quick but smart, sometimes too smart, never let them get away with something they shouldn’t just once. Sam had a pair of roan Milking Shorthorns that would out walk his father’s Percherons on the way home from the woodlot with a load. It all depends on the pair and teamster. They biggest problem with commuting with oxen are keeping their feet healthy, they can wear down fast in the right conditions and some animals are more prone to stone bruising than others. Gravel roads can be torture for some without shoes. Mine Shorthorns avoided gravel lanes as much as possible but would go at a good clip in soil or sod.
Erika

[dominiquer60]

It takes a good pair to work a hay loader and wagon at the same time, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPwlUTK0Ybg

What size tandem disc? We have and 8′ and need 6 horses to use it.

Erika

[dominiquer60]

With the current vinyl quality, Donn is correct, it won’t stand up to the abuse that leather can take year after year. The pads will eventually check and crack as they get old, which is sooner than a collar is ready to be replaced.

[dominiquer60]

Great insight on collar quality Ron, especially those of us not fortunate enough to know those golden era collars.

We use only marine grade vinyl pads. They don’t adsorb sweat and as a result the sweat flushes all the dirt and crap out from under the collar, it is generally the cleanest part of our horses when we unharness on a sweaty day, particularly shows well on the greys. Without the moisture and grime sticking to and building up like on the old canvas pads, the vinyl offers a surface with less friction, and it is because of this cleaner smoother surface you can work animals with skin injuries. We had a mare with a good bite wound in the worst possible place under the collar, with a little salve and a good pad, she healed up good and fast. The base of the vinyl pads are foam and it doesn’t settle or shift so the padding is always where you need it most. Just my 2 cents from my observations.

Erika

[dominiquer60]

Great insight on collar quality Ron, especially those of us not fortunate enough to know those golden era collars.

We use only marine grade vinyl pads. They don’t adsorb sweat and as a result the sweat flushes all the dirt and crap out from under the collar, it is generally the cleanest part of our horses when we unharness on a sweaty day, particularly shows well on the greys. Without the moisture and grime sticking to and building up like on the old canvas pads, the vinyl offers a surface with less friction, and it is because of this cleaner smoother surface you can work animals with skin injuries. We had a mare with a good bite wound in the worst possible place under the collar, with a little salve and a good pad, she healed up good and fast. The base of the vinyl pads are foam and it doesn’t settle or shift so the padding is always where you need it most. Just my 2 cents from my observations.

Erika

[dominiquer60]

I don’t have pics and my oxen are in the freezer so no chance anytime soon. An idea that I did have was to make a triangular bar that attached to the 2 hitch points where the single trees connect. The obtuse triangle would act as a reverse evener and you can attach your chain to the center as a hitch point. It could be simple to make if you can picture it and weld.

[dominiquer60]

We talked about this privately, but for the sake of others listening in..

We have a pair harness and a single harness from Bowman’s and we really like their quality. Joe Bowman Jr. is a pleasure to work with and pays great attention to the details, he will work with you to get your harness just the way that you want it. His leather harness is beautiful and he works his high quality bio harness so that they appear as similar to his leather quality as possible (bio has some limitations compared to leather as far as cutting tapers and small details similar details).

[dominiquer60]

Nick, How much has it been used? I used a 10′ on a IH 544, so the 856 should handle 12′

[dominiquer60]

Yes the wildlife certainly know where the good stuff grows. Hundreds of acres around us and they flock to our 3 acres of OP.

[dominiquer60]

So much depends on your topography, herd size, breeding or not, goals. We have the barn that we have until someone decides he really wants to change it. 4 box stalls, 2 connect together and lead out to a small paddock. It is nice to let them run in and out as they want to. However we can open the big gate to let then out to a large pasture or close them into the stall. On the west side of the barn is a small attached shed that is great in the summer for the breeze, but not so nice during harsh weather. Currently our harness is in a separate shed, we have to pull a wagon out to access the harness and horses are outside on a hitching rail. It is not too bad unless you get caught in bad weather and everyone gets soaked including the supplies stored on the wagon.

Ideally with more foals in the future it would be nice to double the size of our barn with 4 straight, 4 box stalls (2 with removable divider for foaling, we use the isle for that now), with a feed and harness room, and a larger attached shed with less chance of horses bottlenecking, more hay storage would be possible above if we did this.

[dominiquer60]

We grow Wapsie Valley (85-90 day) right next to fields of 105 day silage corn. The silage is generally planted in June, so we make sure to get ours in mid May, so that time is our buffer instead of distance. It helps that ours dries down fast too because the blackbirds like to go for the ears with the softest kernels, and that is generally not our field when they arrive to feed up before migration.

[dominiquer60]

The Asian market in general is consuming massive amounts of domestic and wild resources, draft horses in North America are threatened by the legal purchasing of large quantities of young draft horses for the purpose of raising for meat. Horses are sent to Western Canadian feed lots/pastures, flown to Japan, finished out, sold for $20k each with retail prices of ~$100/lb. It is likely to put a hurting on our work horse Population.

[dominiquer60]

The Asian market in general is consuming massive amounts of domestic and wild resources, draft horses in North America are threatened by the legal purchasing of large quantities of young draft horses for the purpose of raising for meat. Horses are sent to Western Canadian feed lots/pastures, flown to Japan, finished out, sold for $20k each with retail prices of ~$100/lb. It is likely to put a hurting on our work horse Population.

[dominiquer60]

My guess is that it no longer works. I think that we would be happy to have someone look into creating a new interactive map for the group.

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