[Matthew]

Both my horses have been eating hickory nuts, mostly the shells after the squrels open them up and take the nut. They sound like they are chewing rocks. It has been a few days and they seem fine. I tried to find info on line some say they have toxins like walnuts others say they wont hurt horses.

[Matthew]

looks like sasafras (probably spelled it wrong) sas-a-frass has three different leafs and a perfume smell if you break a branch.

[Matthew]

I did not put the harness on him on friday. The guy I had come and look at him on friday also went with me this winter to look at this horse and he said this was not the same horse we looked at. We were wondering If he had a little bit of ace or something like that in his system when we went to hitch him the first time. If you take your hat off and scratch your head he jumps a foot. He is going to penn to work on a amish farm in april. A friend of a friend has a son who is starting his own farm and is looking for horses for spring planting. After the spring if he is back down to earth I will bring him back If he is still flighty I will probably get rid of him. The amish can put a horse like this on a jockey stick in a big hitch whare they cant go anywhare and go plow for 8 hours. That is what he needs.

[Matthew]

Thank you for all the help. I will defanitly use these sugestions. My plan for hitching on friday is to have my friend (who knows horses better than me) drive the horse while I have a hold of a lead rope if he does run I can get his head yanked around and hopefully keep control. I will also go back to the liverpool bit and hook it low hopefully over time I can come up and go to a snaffel but time will tell. I also loaded my four foot wood sled with six six foot logs I figure it weighs about 1200 lbs. I have them chain binded down and the steel single tree is atached with a clevis so even if he upsets it some how he cant dump it and run off with a light load. If it is too heavy I can roll a few logs off to find what is going to work. Thanks again and I would love to hear more ideas or experences.

Grey- I would mostly lead him in a open halter but the last time he was in a full harness with clised bridal and lines, no evener and the trace chains were hung on the harness. My voice comands were the same as was my tone. He was in my yard a place that he has been many times. I will try using a open bridal to rule out that as a problem. Thanks for the advice.

[Matthew]

Andy thanks for the reply I am going to hook him again friday with a friend who knows draft horses well and get his opinion, he is also bringing a few difrent bits to try. I am on the same page as you with big severe bits I like a soft mouth horse that you can drive with light line pressure. I do remember when the guy I bought him from drove this horse he had a mutch difrent style than I drive with his was more of a ( hya get up thair ) to start the horse. I give a kissing sound (sounds weard but you probably know what I mean) and a quiet (step up) I cant see being quiet in sted of rough would make a horse run off. The problem I am having rapping my mind around this whole thing is the fact that it happens within less than a munite and last time within seconds of driving and with no reason no loud car ,flapping bag, dog running between his legs, it is just like he dosent want to do this and is out of here. Lanny what would you figure is a good amount of weight to put behind him. I have a sled for 4 foot wood that is all oak and steel that I figure weighs 400 pounds empty I can probably add 500 pounds or so with green wood getting it around 900-1000lb It pulls fairly easy but I cant move it by myself. The horse weighs about 1600lbs and is about 17 hands. How far could a horse go with 1000lbs behind him if he did run off? I was always a firm beleiver of not hooking a horse to anything before you could ground drive them with out any problem, but I am open to try difrent things at this point.

[Matthew]

I don’t know if it works but I have heard of oldtimers putting lard or crisco on the bottom of thair horses feet so the snow wouldn’t ball up. I know the snow pads work well for keeping snow out of thair feet but make a nasty mess out of thair sole and frog. The hammer is probably the best for the horse just more work for the teamster. If it worked 150 years ago it should work today. A lot of things that were used years ago you hardly see used today, you don’t see many people useing fly nets anymore I guess they ether use fly spray or nothing, and you don’t see the old high wheeled carts (with wheels 6 or 7 feet tall) any more to pull logs. I am shure they worked better when everything was clear cut but they could still be usefull someware.

[Matthew]

Richard I put my dog down last october and it was the hardest thing I ever had to do, but I never once questioned the decision I knew it had to be done and It was the right thing to. My dog was only 8 and had cancer we had it checked to see if it was treatable and found it wasen’t, so we took him home and he lived a few more months. I would have had to start carrying him up and down the stairs to go outside so we decided to put him down. My kids were 5 and 3 and I told them he was old and I came home and found him dead. I figured at thair age they only needed to know the dog had died and not all the detals of how we did it. Mine ask too about dying and it is hard to explaine to a young child that they will someday too die but not for a long time. I have a couple of steers headed for the freezer next fall and I keep telling my kids that they are for beef and I think they understand. My son has helped me butcher deer since he was about two years old. Thair is a fine line in a childs mind between the truth and having them worry. I know sometimes mine will see something or hear something and not say a word, then ten minutes after going to bed that night call you into thair room to ask a question because they had something they didn’t quite understand sturring in thair minds. Your son will be fine I think it is harder on the adults than the kids because you are dealing with your pain and his. The older they get the more they understand.

[Matthew]

I have seen a blunt caulk you can drive in on the inside hole so the horse dosen’t cut thair leg if they step on themselvs.

[Matthew]

I have used a old steel belted tire between a truck or tractor and whatever needs to be pulled out. It takes the shock out of things when the chain runs out of slack. A few years ago things were so muddy chopping corn I had to pull a 130 horse john deere with chopper and full dump wagon and the tire held up for all the fields to be chopped.

[Matthew]

I hooked four abrest with two lines the lines went to the outside of the end horses and the insides of the two horses in the middle. The rest I used lead ropes from the hames to the bits. It worked fine for field work with broke horses each horse had a line, I don’t know if four lines would be better for more persice turns. I was outside hitching these horses with linn millers book open coppying the four horse hitch diagrams. One thing I didn’t like was I only used a neck yoke for two horses and had them hooked to a heavy wagon with no brakes, wen I was cumning down a hill the two horses with the neck yoke had to hold the load back while the others were still pulling because they did not feel the load against the britchen.

[Matthew]

About three weeks ago I was working in front of a elderly WW2 veterans house. This man was 87 years old and he told me some stories of the town and the war. I can’t remember the country he said he was in durring the war but aparently you could have more than one wife, he said this farmer would come out in the morning to plow with his mule. Before he would make a pass with the plow he would have two of his wifes walk ahead of the mule to check for land mines. I guess wifes were easier to replace than mules. That mule wasn’t bomb proof.:eek:

[Matthew]

What breed is he?

How many hands and what does he weigh?

What state are you in?

Was his lameness a one time thing or does he go lame often?

I am looking for a big belgan around 1800lbs or bigger, but want something I could work fairly hard three days a week.

Thanks Matthew from Connecticut.

[Matthew]

Highway that looked like a text book operation to me you or the horse did nothing wrong in my opinion. The horse was interested in the tractor for a moment but thair is noting wrong with that and did not seem concerned, he also stood for five minutes with out moving a inch. Tying your horse shows you are putting you and your horses safety first. Nice job.

[Matthew]

I use to sell a lot of fire wood, and took a order for four or five cords of wood for use in a cook stove. The old guy wanted 12 inch wood and for someone tring to make a buck selling wood it is hard to do with 12 inch wood. Compared to something 24 inches you make twice the cuts split twice as mutch and pick up twice as mutch. I don’t use a cook stove but if I did I would make shure it wasn’t depended on greatly for heating the house or if it was it took decent size wood. Just my opinion.

[Matthew]

I don’t know what the area looks like but maby you could burn the stubble with out getting in too mutch trouble. I was talking to a guy last summer who was taking stone walls on my neighbors property. He farmed a bit out west and he said they would burn the fields after they were cut. He said they did not get enugh rain for the stuff to break down in the soil so they burned it off. They would drive a pick up with a drip tourch hanging out the window.

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