[Rivendell Farm]

The spinning grass board sounds intriguing. Does it work like one wheel of a wheel rake? Bob

[Rivendell Farm]

Weaning that young must be interesting. We used to wean at two months when we winter lambed, but kept the lambs on grain. Now that we pasture lamb we wait until three months, and are toying with the idea of not actually weaning at all, letting it just happen naturally. They look good for one month old. Bob

[Rivendell Farm]

Hi,
It might not be too far off the height you need, but I doubt it would be sturdy enough to last very long. Usually there is a spring involved, because it can really bounce the front of the mower up if you hit a rock or it falls in a hole. Bob

[Rivendell Farm]

The doubletree, or team evener I’m using is actually 34 and 1/2 inches from one singletree attaching point to the other, and the singletrees are 28 inches overall length. The tripletree (three horse evener) length is actually 4 ft. 1 inch between connecting points and about 4 ft. 4 inches overall. Anyway there’s a few inches of gap between the single horse singletree and that of the center horse on one side of the doubletree. A diagram would help here instead of these confusing words. I hope this is somewhat useful. Bob

[Rivendell Farm]

Not that Donn’s answer needs any clarification, but the evener on my tripletree is 4 feet long. From the center hole, which isn’t actually in the center, it’s 16″ to the doubletree end, and 32″ to the singletree end. The doubletree is about 36″. I don’t notice any problems offsetting the tongue, except that it’s a nuisance to have to do it. Bob

[Rivendell Farm]

I’ve got my lines adjusted so they work great. I’ve been plowing and spreading manure with three horses. Thanks again for the measurements. Bob

[Rivendell Farm]

Hi,
The evener on my No. 9 mower is 36 inches. I don’t think it makes a big difference if the neckyoke is a couple inches longer than the evener. I have enough trouble keeping the horses out of the uncut hay while taking a full cut with the bar as it is. I wouldn’t want a wider evener. Bob

[Rivendell Farm]

Donn-I started wondering how I’d missed those line measurements in the Work Horse Handbook, so I looked up the page numbers you cited. My copy ends at page 224. You must have a newer edition. At the risk of criticism for being less than cautious, and adding more to this already long discussion, there is one more line setup I have used with three, four and five abreast. In terms of simplicity it can’t be beat. You use regular team lines on the outside horses on say a 4 horse hitch. Then connect all the horses together with short bit to bit cross checks. You still have one line on each horse. It’s the way I learned by observing the local Amish with their 8 abreast hitches. With well broke horses I used this setup a lot with no problems. It doesn’t take as many cross checks. You don’t have as much control for stopping, but the steering works great. I’m just mentioning this, not recommending it. Bob

[Rivendell Farm]

Thanks everybody for the quick responses with valuable information. I do prefer this line setup to the one with two horses checked back to their neighbors’ hame rings, once it’s adjusted right. It gives you much more precise control and I think it must be easier on the horses’ mouths. It turned out my short and long cross checks are about the right length (determined some time ago using a full scale drawing on a concrete floor). But I can see where I need some adjustment of their positions on the long line. Bob

[Rivendell Farm]

I use the brown stuff, which is sometimes green, but it’s sisal, not plastic. Yes, if left out on the ground, it does rot on the bottom. It still holds together enough to move it around. Bob

[Rivendell Farm]

My Krone baler is model KR130. It makes a 4ft. by 4ft. bale. The trouble with net wrap is the cost. Not only was the wrapping mechanism an expensive option, the net wrap itself was many times more expensive than twine. If I made a lot of hay to sell the net wrap would make sense, because it makes a nice, neat product. For my own use twine is just fine, and I don’t have all that net wrap plastic to get rid of. Bob

[Rivendell Farm]

I like my Krone baler. I don’t have the net wrap option, but net wrap won’t keep out rain. Bob

[Rivendell Farm]

Hi Stephen,
That’s a lot of questions. I may be able to answer a few from my own experience. I disc mostly with a tractor now since I only have three horses, but on a small tandem disc I used four or five horses abreast, depending on what I had at the time. It was an old seven foot,John Deere disc that had a tongue truck at one time, but when I got it it only had a tongue, the sort used with tractors. Of course I couldn’t pull it down hills on solid ground with horses because it would run up on their heels. I generally used a tractor to pull it to the field. I put a seat from a Pioneer cart on the disc to replace the board the previous owner used to stand on. It gave kind of a wild ride the first discing after plowing. When the horses were pulling, the draft angle lifted the tongue up enough to clear the ground. It needed an extra long set of lines to reach the center of the disc. For a small field probably 3 horses could pull it OK. I was usually working as much as 12 acres at a time. I have also pulled it with the cart on occasion. I haven’t used it for primary tillage, because it isn’t heavy enough. Good luck with your writing project. Bob

[Rivendell Farm]

On my cart I need a longer tongue when switching from a team to three or more abreast. Otherwise the the cart runs up on the horses, causing the loose tug chains to flop around when there is no load to hold back the cart. It doesn’t need to be much longer, maybe 6 or 8 inches. I could go out and measure. At different times I’ve had an adjustable tongue and a setup where I changed to a different tongue with a hitch change. This is less trouble than it sounds, because I had to move the tongue from the center of the cart to the side position for three abreast anyway. Bob

[Rivendell Farm]

We found an Amish farm family that made ropes from baler twine that were whatever diameter and length we wanted. It seems like it was an inch or slightly larger. It takes a lot of rope, and you don’t want to get one a little too short. You could fabricate your own slings as long as you had something to copy. The release mechanism is critical, and is something you’d have to find at an auction, in an old barn, or on the internet. Bob

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