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Those articulating double shafts are amazing, cousin jack. Thank you so much for posting them!

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http://www.thehorseandcarriage.com/sched1.htm

“HORSE DRAWN VEHICLE AUCTION SALE

SATURDAY 23rd OCTOBER 2010 AT 11AM
AT YEPPOON, CENTRAL QUEENSLAND

THE LARGEST COLLECTION OF HORSE DRAWN VEHICLES IN QUEENSLAND”

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The crows and the geese here prefer the freshly-sprouted grains. They carefully pluck the emerging foliage from the soil to eat it and the attached lobes of the seed. I would not be the least bit surprised if the turkey find the sprouted grains more tender and succulent than those that are still hard kernels.

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@jac 21307 wrote:

Never had a hock strike and would alter it if I did.

What would your adjustment options be? Was that implement designed for smaller horses? I have often wondered why the British have not embraced the pivoting tree for their horses in shafts. The angle of draft could be improved substantially and I have a hard time believing that it wouldn’t make the horse’s job easier. Is it typical that there might not be room for a singletree at the horse’s hocks, when using these heavy shafts and trying to continue to make use of the large staple to carry the shafts? Did you call that large top staple a “slide”?

@jac 21307 wrote:

The doubled up straps are the quarter straps which I looped thru a ring and clipped back on so I didnt have to alter when I put him back into the wagon with the neck yoke

The doubled up straps that I was wondering at are the ones that hold the britchen up; the ones that go from the top ring (on top of the rump) and hold the britchen up like suspenders. Are there buckles on those straps (the kind with the post in the center) or are they slides?

@jac 21307 wrote:

The tail thing was for parade work.. shaved stump and the tail pleated up and put up in a bun.. great for show but looks awfull in the field…

Does the hair at the top of the appendage get left long, for braiding, and then the lower part of the appendage get shaved? Do you have any photos of the tail done up?

Tradition certainly seems to be a limiting factor in some of the driving techniques and practices that I see performed in the UK.

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One more: have you done what I think is called “corncobbing” to your horse’s tail?

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@jac 21293 wrote:

Mitch British shafts have a slide arangement that takes a ridge chain over the cart saddle on 2 wheeled carts. 2 draw chains, as they were called over here, went from the collar to staples towards the rear of the shaft. A hook on the front of the slider took the trace chain from an extra horse hooked up front. In the picture I have modified the original set up by using the staple that used to take the short chain from the collar, and used that for my quarter straps. a hook on the back of the slider took the original breeching chain..
John

Oh, I have a million questions for you!

In order to keep that heavy top staple at the horse’s girth, it looks like you have to put the horse’s hocks awfully close to the singletree. Do you find that the horse ever hits his hocks on it?

Are you able to hook close enough that the horse always uses his collar to draw the implement? Or does he sometimes draw with the back-pad and girth?

Do you find that the back pad carries the weight on the shafts adequately? The heavy shafts were designed to be used in conjunction with the cart saddle, which has a heavily-padded internal tree that helps distribute the weight of the shafts onto either side of the spine.

I would consider that britchen to be a bit narrow for most of my purposes. If you don’t have any slopes to navigate, I can see how it would be adequate, but I would expect to see that on perhaps a light buggy harness and not a work harness.

Do your harness buckles (such as those on the britchen spider) have a center post (we call them conway buckles or post buckles) or are they just slides?

I am surprised to see the straps doubled in the opposite direction as is usually done over here. Do you find that the tail of the strap catches on things or sometimes catches your lines?

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Much of the traditional coaching and farming practices that come from the UK do not make use of a pivoting tree to attach the traces to. In the case of a team on a wagon pole or tongue, a draw bar or splinter bar is the fixed bar that goes perpendicular to the wagon tongue or pole, or the shafts. It goes across the front of the vehicle and the traces attach to it, usually via roller-bolts. The draw bar/splinter bar does not pivot like our singletrees, nor does it provide any balancing functions like an evener does.

A draw bar or splinter bar would also be used on a light vehicle with a single horse in shafts.

On a heavier vehicle, heavy shafts are used. These heavy shafts usually have a large rectangular staple driven through the top of the shaft. Think of this staple as the D-ring on a D-ring harness. It is the meeting point for the four main functions of the harness: the traces attach to it from the collar, the breeching attaches to it from the rear, a ridge chain goes up and over the horse’s back to carry the weight of the shafts, and a strap goes under the horse’s belly to anchor the shafts down.

There is a myth that is somehow still going strong among some of the UK-style coaching types that the use of a pivoting tree with a neck collar causes sore shoulders due to “intermittant pressure” against the shoulder. I can’t imagine what they are doing wrong to cause this. There must be something about the way they connect their horses to their vehicle, or fit the collar to their horse. It might have something to do with their method of holding back the vehicle – the pole strap around the collar seems to be popular. In some circles, a pivoting tree is only used with a breastcollar harness, and a splinter bar is used with neck-collar harnesses.

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@jac 21198 wrote:

:D.. funny guys… even Napoleon cocked up;)….
John

Yeah, but nobody forgot THAT one, either! :p

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You definitely want to have the horses pivot it into position and just stand it up your own self, rather than wrestle it around. I don’t own a Pioneer but I’ve plowed with one a few times, as well as helped load it into the back of a pickup… it’s a beast. Plowed well, but a beast.

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@Donn Hewes 21086 wrote:

There is nothing that feels worse than asking such an honest worker to “step up” to keep up with the others.

Ack. That tugs at the heartstrings.

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A good article, and very timely. I am doing a plowing demo next Saturday at a “sustainable living fair” in town. I will print it up, laminate it, and post it on a board for people to read while they watch the plowing.

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Forgot to mention – I have a covered composting area, so the runoff is minimal (without the addition of rain to feed it) – but the runoff that I do get has fed a very energetic stand of clover at the foot of the composting area. The goats love it. The horses won’t touch it. Each specie doesn’t mind the other’s manure, but are repelled by their own.

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I compost all the manure/straw/hay that I can because I have very little pasture. Spreading composted manure on the pasture results in edible pasture sooner than if I had spread it green. Green manure has to break down for at LEAST a month here (in my climate and location) before my horses will eat the grass that grows through it. Also, the composted manure has fewer parasites and viable weed seeds than the green manure.

I compost my manure in a covered bay system. I don’t have a tractor, so it is a rather lengthy process. I start filling a new bay at the start of each winter. I spread the finished product by the 2nd or 3rd year.

I can’t speak to the nutrient losses in green vs cooked manure. For me, any nutrients recovered by the pasture via the application of the composted manure is a bonus. I can’t afford the loss of grazing time that comes with spreading green manure on my small pastures.

When one pasture is done being grazed, I move the horses to a fresh one and drag the spent one. The horses are quite tidy and use one or two areas for their manure almost exclusively. I harrow these “latrines” many times from all directions. By the time that pasture is ready to graze again, the manure that has been dragged out of the latrine by the mat harrow has broken down sufficiently as to not be a grazing deterrant. However, they still won’t graze the latrine itself.

If I apply green manure to the spent pasture in a single batch and then harrow it in as I do the latrines, it is also sufficiently broken down by the time that pasture is ready to graze again. However, I found that if I am going to the trouble of saving up my manure in a heap in order to spread it when a pasture is spent and ready to be harrowed… I might as well just leave it in the heap and let it compost properly. The compost can be used anywhere without worry – root vegetables, pasture, orchard.

I spread some composted manure on the finished pasture after I have dragged the latrines.

The manure that goes in the composting bays is from the tie stalls and the dry lot. In the summer I end up composting only about 1/3 to 1/4 of the horses’ output. In the winter, more like 9/10ths since the horses are only on the pasture when there’s snow on the ground. The rest of the time they are in tie stalls or on the dry lot.

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The harness is for a much larger horse; they are downright swimming in their collars. Rather than buckle the belly-band shut and have a low loop sagging down for the horse to step on or through, they left it loose. Not sure why they didn’t just remove the belly band instead of working with it on. A very rough-looking outfit, that’s for sure, but a fascinating photo.

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I do not feel like I have an obligation or responsibility to perform all this interaction with traffic. But it does result in traffic behaving in manner that I feel is safer for me and my horses, so I do it.

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