[Plowboy]

Personally I wouldn’t hook one horse to the neck yoke and walk away first of all. Given all the time he spent with his preperational work the horse shouldn’t have been nervous enough to throw himself anyway. We have never in 20+ years had one throw themselves or go down in harness. I have seen some down and helped get a few up and untangled though. You might expect that from one that hadn’t been worked with but not from one with all that groundwork. The takeoff was a bit rocky according to the photos and the text, also you wouldn’t expect to happen with all that groundwork. Isn’t the point of groundwork and round pen training to avoid all this?
As far as being a drawn out series devoting an entire article to putting on a collar was a bit much for something that only takes a couple minutes with a rank beginner.
As far as breaking horses not being a simple or predictable process that may be true for the first few but after the first 30 or so you can read them and simplify the process. I understand the intention was an educational article for beginner horse trainers but I’m not sure his methods came full circle given the outcome portrayed.
Given the same opportunity I’m not sure I could put everything we do into print as some things we do are just habit. To some we may appear to skip steps but go forward based on the individual horse and their progress. Our outcome has produced some really good horses. I’m sure Dave tried his best to explain everything but this last article didn’t portray the original message very well. I’m sure he does get his horses trained and no real harm was done.
I appreciate your devotion to Rural Heritage promoting and keeping our way of life alive. I in no way want to start a disagreement but this isn’t the first discussion I’ve had with serious draft animal folks about this particular article.

[Plowboy]

Donn, That article was part of a long drawn out series of round pen/ natural horsemanship techniques he goes through while training. With all the sessions and prep work you would expect the outcome to be much different than what was presented in that particular article. Several weeks ago we drove half a dozen horses that had never seen a harness before and didn’t have nearly as much commotionas he did with one that had all that prep work. None of them tried to run away or fall down. Our own horses that we raise just come up and from daily handling they just ease into the work program but on the other spectrum we have helped a few folks drive some that haven’t been messed with. Most of them come around pretty quick anyway unless they are passed 5yrs then they become set in their ways and non conforming. Again I shook my head while reading that last article. If that is how it goes after all that ground work then why bother??? I’m sure the folks that were actually following the progress found it a let down.

[Plowboy]

Looks like your ready for the big timber now Jen. You better get a paid flannel shirt and a hard hat now that your hooked. Great to hear you and Reno doing well!

[Plowboy]

It may just be the pigs in general. We have a 16yr old mare that we bought as a yearling a full sister to our oldest mare. We don’t raise pigs but do do wagon rides every year where there are some. She always snorts and cranks her head around when passing the hog pen. Nothing dangerous but in the 10 yrs she has been going there still does it. Other than that she is perfect in every way when out in public. Maybe if your horse has to deal with them daily he will get over it. Pigs have a distinct odor and horses are very sensitive to smell as well as the sounds they make which may well be unfamiliar to him at this point. At least with the chain he can’t bully you or get away. Keep going as you are and probably he will get better as time goes on. Good Luck!

[Plowboy]

My god son who is my best friends little 3yr old boy is the same way. He too has Downs Syndrome and is very functional but behind in speech and was slow to walk but is coming along well now. He is a happy little boy and hopefully my son and him will grow up the best of friends. Sadly people with downs syndrome are plagued with health problems as little Michael has had several surgeries in his short 3 yrs. They are happy people and good genuine people well deserving a place in any community. Hopefully in his short life Chris brought smiles to many of your neighbors as well. Sorry to hear of such a good person going before his time.

[Plowboy]

We have some that we have raised and our mares are all of the old type but the last stallion we used was sold this fall. Would like to find a nice blocky stallion for future use but don’t breed often so can’t justify one of our own. We are in central NY and all of the stallions I know of are hitchy or “modern” as it’s called now.

[Plowboy]

Drove 1 young brood mare, 3fillies, 1 3yr old gelding and 3yr old stallion. All went well thanks to good help 1 good old mare and a young mare that does great with colts also.

[Plowboy]

Some say geldings are better and mares are tempermental. We have 5 mares and 3 geldings. Our mares are great but the geldings seem to get in more mischief. We don’t have a preference but you don’t have to get fillies gelded. The one’s we raised we take them however they come.

[Plowboy]

I hope that wasn’t the end of his lesson? I would probably lose the lead rope and the leader unless absolutely necessary. In an enclosed area like you had you would be better off just driving him and he can only get better from there. My friend raises and trains them and those little buggers can do more then you might think! I almost bought a pair of young mini mules a couple years back but didn’t go cheap enough. They were a little rangy so probably would have been worked on a big truck tire until they settled down.

[Plowboy]

So far all I’ve seen is the Amish using them behind a powercart. The amount of power required depends on the terrain and the size of the baler. Being two wheeled I’m sure you would want a heavy cart to handle all that anyway so a powercart with brakes would probably be the best bet.

[Plowboy]

I work every Saturday. The guy that owns the horses works for the Highway Department so we are sort of on call. If it doesn’t snow and nobody has any other obligations we go give him a hand. His wife usually calls the night before. This is the first time this year so I don’t know what kind of group we have to work with until tomorrow night. I’ll let you know how it goes, wish us luck!

[Plowboy]

It’s that time of year boys and girls! Dad and I are headed over Sunday to drive some first timers again. Spring is right around the corner it’s training season!

[Plowboy]

Must be he is recovering? Did you find out what the problem was and what brought him back around so fast?

[Plowboy]

We have used barbed wire almost exclusively and sometimes in conjunction with electric fencing. Good barbed wire fences with heavier gauge wire strung tight will cause hardly more than a scratch on a horses hide. The problem with barbed wire is that not everybody keeps good fences and when allowed to droop or coil as Jason pointed out with the worthless Gaucho wire and it is able to get wrapped around a leg or something it can cause damage. High tensile wire will cut to the bone instantly crippling or severely injuring many horses that I know of, a couple of which had to be shot because of the severity. With good fences and good management a nice tight barb wire fence with electric on top is about as good as you can get unless you can afford poly boards or heavy plank fencing. Electric is good when the power is on or the ground is working well on the solar types but I like a good strong perimeter fence that keeps my animals in when I’m not home in case of failure. Before winter set in I started building new fences on my property for draft horses and beef cattle. 7ft driven Locust posts, 4 strands barbed wire with electric on top to prevent reaching.

[Plowboy]

Just heard of a team in Springfield, N.Y. Amish horses looking for a good home can’t work a 10hr day anymore. Apparently he thinks alot of them to try to find them a good home. Little or no cost if your interested I’ll try and get his contact info.

[Author]

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