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Hi there–

I think you are the Decker that responded to our add for a Percheron Filly a while back?? We are trying to find your phone contact to get in touch. IF I have the right person, could you give a call–802-888-9064, or e-mail us at harrismcnaughten@gmail.com. Sorry not to private message this, but haven’t found my way around the new website yet!

Thanks,

Neal McNaughten
Wolcott, VT

[ngcmcn]

We are very new to keeping a stallion, but can tell you what we thought about when deciding to take on this project:

1) We got our stud as a colt, and out of a lifetime working stallion, from a working farm. The type was important, too, though a little hit or miss at that age (we were after a smaller guy to match our mares, 16.2 or so. Some of his brothers were big–but at 3 1/2 yrs, Baxter is still about 16 hands, like his dad, so I guess we lucked out).

2) I firmly believe that keeping a stallion with his herd is very important to good manners–reminding him that, while he can establish dominance over his horse friends, humans are separate, and in charge.

3) There is always the snip if he forgets the rules, and with a younger stallion we felt we’d have a better chance of keeping him as a gelding if we had trouble with him as a stallion.

Two years into the deal, we have a beautiful filly–Finoula–and the reward of working with her from day one is well worth it! She’s friendly and quiet, and runs along with the mares when we’re doing field work. We’ve had no trouble with BAxter being aggressive or possessive of the foal–to the contrary, they are best buddies, and for now, if we have to separate Finoula from her mom, we usually choose BAxter to tie her near for company. She will also graze with Baxter often. He was around when Reine went into labour,and we were apprehensive about putting the new baby and her mom back with the group, but it went fine!

The only issues we have seen or forseen thus far:

1) Baxter seems to have gotten a little fixated on Reine (Finoula’s mom), and only wants to breed her. That’s been fine, but now she’s bred (we think), he sometimes gets a bit feisty with her, and tries to breed her. We have not had her preg checked, but she is pretty obvious when she is in heat, and definitely not receptive when she’s not! We may have to separate him from at least part of the mare herd (we have Finoula plus 3 other mares, and no geldings for company). Any feedback on this behavior wouldbe welcome! Not too big an issue so far, except that we run them as part of our grazing system behind the cows, and more groups = more fence = more time, AND I don’t entirely trust a 1-strand electric fence to separate him from a group of mares, which means that he’d be out of the grazing rotation,too. Darn!

2) NOw he has a daughter that he will need to be separated from as she gets to breeding age–again, number of groups and fencing are my concerns.

Overall, he’s a great horse, and it’s pretty neat to work with a stallion–so different from either a mare or gelding. One note on our observations of breeding. Baxter does better if we help him out–pasture breeding in the pure sense has not resulted in a good breeding that we have seen yet. It’s more like really effective heat detection. WHen someone’s in heat, we bring them in, give them a few hours separation, then bring BAxter on a lead. Then we do the same the next day until she’s not in heat any more (very obvious!)

We’re definitely very new to this, and only have experience with this one horse… So, take it all as observations only, but we’ve had a lot of fun!

Gwyneth & Neal

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Hello Folks,i’ve just always used a wad of fresh cut hay under me rump.

neal
wolcott vt

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Our new contact number is 802-760-9106. Leave a message with a good time to reach you! Or, email, harrismcnaughten@gmail.com.

[ngcmcn]

Marshall, a bale(40lb) a day for 1600lb horse +/-, generally 2.5-3.0% of their body weight per day.

neal

[ngcmcn]

mitch, that pole height i believe is for the original pole for the 9 which i find to be short, with a D-ring my horses bang their knees on the neck yoke. I do know that there is a sweet spot for the pole height at the neck yoke end. Too low and you have no lift to clear a rock or fawn and they seem to drag quite a bit the inner and outer shoes and bar angle all seem to be less effective, i ended up constructing a closer fitting neck yoke which has helped my rigging over all.
No hay for me this year……..feels very strange but i’ll be in the woods soon.

Neal

[ngcmcn]

the pitman seal is easy and requires the removal of the flywheel with the shaft attached, usually two modern ones of the same I.D. make up for the thickness of the old single ones. the wheel axle seals aren’t hard to replace but require a pretty rugged wheel puller, two or three arm type to get them off. its the easiest way i’ve found to do it. if you get the mower off the ground so you can spin the wheels freely is there a lot of slop in the axle? if so, your journal bearings might be junk and a new seal might work for a while but not long.

good luck

neal
maine………….vt.

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George,

I used to have a 60 bushel spreader with built up sides and it was real tempting to want to put one more bucket load on with the tractor and freight the spreader but even with hard horses it was a lot for them even with breaks to reload. So i got it down to three bucket loads of wet manure, everything went a lot better, the old spreader ran better, my horses weren’t winded and i could spread all day with them we got in to a nice pace with it all.

I used to have a Karate Sensi; he never tried to bench press a million pouinds, he kept it doable, right size and pressed consistently. And like the old woodchoppers………a lighter axe mean’t they could chop all day.

Like Carl Says; Go lite and go often.

Neal

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Jean, that would make sense to me. Its not all the time, mares and geldings and only in the winter. Its not blood red what ends up on the ground but more of a rusty color. I have never been worried about it because all the health indicators of my horses were good. Just thought some one might have an idea about what it was.

Thanks

Neal

Unity Me.>>>>>>>>>Wolcott,Vt

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Rock and Roll Eric. I predict you will be an instant success and sell out everything you have on your route. All you need now is a horse weight to tie your horse up with.

GoodLuck

Neal Maine>>>>>>>VT

[ngcmcn]

I have worked with two different farriers in the past that would use auto body filler, with fiberglass hair, and not. If the hoof was prepared correctly it stayed on for months and seemed to work well as well as being cheap for large cracks. One farrier would actually pack the sole of a foundered horse with it then wrap with duct tape, for support. I suppose you could get out the gray primer and blue tarps to do a finish covering. Just joKing!

Neal

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Andy,

You might want to dig a bit deeper and find out exactly what was sprayed on those field and for how long. Some herbicides and pesticides, have long residuals that may inhibit germination of certain crops, while other crops may not be effected and do better. Check it out.

Neal

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Kirsten,working on it. Waiting to see how my 2yr.old stud turns out. He’s out of a 16.2 dam, and stud from a long line of Percheron chunks. My mares are all16.2 but not super blocky. Where are you.

Neal maine>>>>>>>vt.

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Jac, it seems unless you’ve got some good sized straight fields, that ground drive may not be the best. I suppose you could have a ruddy great flywheel turning the round baler, they don’t take a huge amount of HP to run, its the weight of the bale that starts to add up as you go along. I’d want something with brakes for sure.

N

[ngcmcn]

You must’ve been reading my mind I was thinking of posting a similer inquiry about round balers.

What I’d like to know if any one out there has adapted a 24-30 horse motor on the round baler with a hydraulic pump attached and how they did it, and how well it worked? Or are people using powered forecarts which I’d rather not invest in at this point.

Neal Maine>>>>>>>VT

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