[Jonathan Shively]

You could also shock the corn. This puts the storage in the field.

[Jonathan Shively]

Scrap price. Or cheaper than scrap if he actually wants to see it used and appreciated. Will cost you something to get it up and going. Worst case scenario, you have some yard art or can scrap it yourself.

[Jonathan Shively]

Make no apologies. You are using your critter and your noggin! Looks like a more than useable outfit to get a lot of work completed. Great job!

[Jonathan Shively]

I replied with a “yep” to that question based solely on my old team and failed to provide any background information. I should go back and add to my answer. For me and my team, a Percheron/QH and a Haflinger/QH I was actually using two different sized harness that had length sized tugs. So I did drop different numbers of links. If they were the same harness, they should be the same length regardless of body length.

[Jonathan Shively]

I ride my team back from the field if leaving equipment in the field. Generally they are tired enough to not care. After a season, I can ride them. They aren’t gymkhana eventers, but get me where I want to go without me walking myself there!

[Jonathan Shively]

If you have not personally been up to a Fjord in person, you will be surprised at their size. They are stout, wide based, heavy boned, clean limbed and willing. They are not finer boned like the haflinger (I have had and farmed with haflingers and haflinger crosses) not knocking the haflinger, just more my type of animal. The Fjord team I have is the same size as my horse whose mother was a Begian/QH cross and sire was a Percheron/Haflinger cross. So he is my true 1/4 horse, he is 1/4 Haflinger/1/4 QH/1/4 Percheron/1/4 Belgian! Seriously, they will work and work hard.

[Jonathan Shively]

My Fjord team of 4 year old mares are quite the pulling machines. Have not had them on a day long work day but they are ready and willing workers. Your soil type, your work methods, your ingenuity to accommodate them all play into your success with them also. No they are not 1800 pound belgians or percherons, but they are working fools for the person that puts them in the right scenarios. Are they only wagon pullers, nope, not by a long shot. Remember, dynamite comes in small packages.

[Jonathan Shively]

I cut cedar posts about 30″ long, angled brace from under the post to the wall (looks about like a 45 degree angle). I hang my bridles on the hames and then the collar upside down on this in front of the harness, helps everything hold its shape. Sorry no pictures at this time.

[Jonathan Shively]

Unless your area/pasture is missing/lacking specific vitamins, there is nothing wrong at all with a team only being on pasture. Now a small feeding of grain so they come up daily or when they see you is a good thing. But I also don’t do any feeding from my hand. A couple of situations to show how I have trained some horses. As a kid I rode a QH mare that was a level headed mare. This was in the day of your horse had to do it all. If I put a mechanical hackmore on her she knew we were going to be riding hard and fast/contesting. With a curb bit she knew we were going to be pleasure riding. Gave her a cue before I ever stepped aboard what was expected of her from me. My mom loved riding this mare, but she was so pokey with my mom that mom’s leg would get tired from having to “gig” her to keep up. Eventually put the hackamore on her for when my mom was riding her and she wasn’t as pokey but nowhere near as “hot” as when I would climb aboard with it on her. Second example, used to have a percheron haflinger cross stud in my barn that we bred mares with as well as used in the hitch. When I would halter him in the barn if I put his collar on him he would walk past any mare in a tie stall regardless her willingness to be bred. Don’t put the collar on him, he was all stud and knew that field work wasn’t the reason he was being haltered. Like kids, they will most times live up to our expectations.

[Jonathan Shively]

I have had a mare like that. Bottom line, you have to be the boss, not her. She can be the boss in the field when they are loose, but make yourself the alpha when they are being handled. She will learn or if she doesn’t, she isn’t worth your time.

[Jonathan Shively]

I think they are confident in their personal teamster and if they with you experience the loss of sight, they will either adjust and continue working or become beligerent for their lack of confidence/sight. As the sight is fading, come up with words for hole, step/rock/water/mud/slippery, so communication is understood. I think they enjoy getting out and being worked as it is a comfort zone for so many of them. Our one eyed pony trotted miles upon miles of roads with nary a trip. The only bad spook I had from my stud was when the neighbor set his planter down and the marker arm came down in front of my team (about four feet in front of them). Heck, I jumped as much as they did!!! I think key is, none of the ones I worked in harness or under saddle had an instinctive flight response that was uncontrollable. If that were the case, they would only be dangerous. Basically, confidently I would say any horse that is a trusting working partner, short of traumatic injuries causing the loss of sight (trailer wreck, etc), they will continue being partners in work. We just have to remember and work accordingly. In the barn with a radio on, they are more susceptable to jumping maybe squashing you against the stall wall if you don’t warn them you are coming to their head. These are the learning curves for us more than the horse. I have another situation with my old posse horse. Having shot hundreds of rounds off of her back with my 686 S&W 357 mag revolver, she is deaf. This means she is hard to catch in the pasture as she doesn’t hear you. Startled, she will run to the back. Under saddle, no problem, in the barn the only problem is pulling back if she is startled at the head. The only people that know this about her are told or know her and I. No outside displays showing this lack of hearing. Her ears do tend to point to the sides of her head giving her an unintelligent look. Me the rider if I make a whistle noise or pat/pet her neck she points her ears forward. Kind of like a dog wagging its tail when petting. I think there are tones, I have tried a dog whistle, while working an intersection at a parade an ambulance pulled straight up to us and my partner with lights and sirens on, he got dumped, we stood fast. I don’t think this was due to her lack of hearing at that point other than it probably attributed to it greatly. Just my random thoughts. Tell me to shut up any time.

[Jonathan Shively]

I haven’t been to an actual horse auction in years. The most recent horse auctions I have attended were the Topeka (Indiana) draft horse sale. There of course is no kill buyers as it is a specific horse auction for specific breeds and is generally a better caliber of horses. Thus the prices are generally higher but you still can find a buy on a grade farm team. The great thing is, they have wagons and forecarts, if you don’t drive them outside before the sale, it is all on you.
Breeding, I think with the past horse glut market we have gone through (may still be going through) people have become a little more selective in their breeding programs. The occassional backyard breeder has sold their horse so they are out of the picture and this really accounts for many of the young horses at local auctions. Would guess there is some truth to his predictions.

[Jonathan Shively]

As a kid we (my dad and my brother and I) raced trotting ponies. My dad’s fastest pony was missing an eye due to my uncle hitting him with a hoe handle. Rex lived many many years, raced until we quit racing, pulled a buggy dang near until he died of old age.
I had a Haflinger/Percheron cross stud pony we used for breeding and worked. Andy lost his eye mowing hay with his previous owner. I bought him as a one eyed, three legged, foundered pony. After a year he came around to his old glory (I knew of him and had seen him worked in fields for a couple of years). Eventually kept enough of his daughters that he went on down the road.
Anyway, there have been others throughout my life that were one eyed for whatever reasons. Generally bought them cheap as people were leery, used them to the point people could see past the one eye and wanted them either for riding or driving. I am a talker anyway, so I myself haven’t noticed situations with a one eyed animal. Rex obviously was raced and driven single and he functioned flawlessly. Andy’s missing eye was right and was on the outside. Andy would hook anywhere and I used him for starting young ones (usually his get), and they were on his blind side, never thought of it until now. When I say I am a talker, I don’t hold conversations per say, but always give verbal commands, speak to them on the start of a hill either direction, speeding up or slowing down verbal commands that type of thing. About the only thing I can think of, if it is a missing eye or it has shrunk to no protruding eye ball, don’t spray, but do fly wipe it more often and use a wet washrag to wipe it clean around the edges and outside. I don’t know if it needed it, grew up with my mare not having an eyelash on one eye so it got gunky daily so just do those things out of habit and I like to wash my eyes in the mornings. Hope this helps.

[Jonathan Shively]

From what I remember when I rebuilt my 1901 planter (it had automatic marker arms!!!) they (planters) were also called listers. My 1901 has the ability to check, plant, drill and something else. Don’t know what I did with the owners manual (paid more for that than I did the planter!). Let me know specifics and can do some checking for you. Feel free to pm me questions. Also, planter/seed plates will be your friend and sometimes are dirt cheap and don’t ignore the plastic ones. Sometimes it isn’t knowing the specific plate number but matching a hole in a plate with the size seed you are trying to plant. Want it to be able to select the seed, drop it in the tube without cracking/crushing or ruining the seed coat. Oh, and my IH 4 row planter, heck each planter box (fiberglass with black cover) will hold a fifty plus pound bag of seed. Never filled mine clear full. Put enough in to do a couple of acres and then during the rest, filled, greased, checked harness and went back at it. Planter will perform more evenly and what the heck, if I was trying to make a race out of it, wouldn’t have been using a team to begin with!

[Jonathan Shively]

I only used big ponies/small horses (55-60 inch range, 900-1400 pounders). When I was still planting corn, I used a team pulling a four row IH planter without fertilizer boxes. Basically the stripped planter, used remote hydraulic hand pump from HF I think to raise and lower it. They pulled it fine in my mostly black sandy loam here in NW Indiana. I preapplied granular fertilizer from a cart earlier and disced crossways. Don’t know if this is the info you are looking for or not, but they used to be plentiful and I think I gave a 100 bucks for mine. It was more accurate than my 1901 McCormick planter. If it is a plate type planter, there are dozens of plates available for hundreds of types of seed. Good luck on your winter project.

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