[Ron]

Sounds like you have a good plan.
I try and plow about four inches no more if possible.
In the 1930 there was a lot of experiments in NA with furrow sealing. That is an implement is
towed with the plow using multiple hitches or with a second hitch right after the plow and seal the furrow as soon as possible. We do similar things by plowing one day and sealing the furrow the best we can with a disc or cultivator the next day and plant the third day.
I see on the internet that the European organic people are resurrecting the idea with
some innovative ideas.

[Ron]

That is a great article thank you for posting it.
I have been in Europe and spoke to people whose families have bred the same lines of livestock and been the steward on the same farm for over 700 years. The land that they kept in trust from their fathers got better with each succeeding generation. To them this article would be of no surprise. However today these farm families are almost all gone and their lands sold. While it is illegal in England to hunt foxes it is OK to us force to suppress BSE and Foot and Mouth and the resulting rural extinction.
Maybe those of us who are stewards of land have something in come with indigenous people after all.
Ron McCoy

[Ron]

That sounds like a great unit to have on the farm. Thanks for the information. I will
pass it on to anyone looking for a good all purpose cart.
Cheers
Ron McCoy

[Ron]

Does the hydraulic arms work well for you? What kind of work can you do with the three point
hitch? What would you say are its limits in terms of handling work? Can you for example pick up a 6-800 pound round and feed roll it out to feed? In the past I have seen lots of talk about the PTO but nothing much said about the hydraulics?
Cheers
Ron McCoy

[Ron]

talked to a number of horse people now that you have brought the subject up and they tell
me they have had good success with feeding silage to horses with heaves and no other health problems. I know it is frowned on by many but it is maybe the lesser of two evils.
Cheers
Ron

[Ron]

You said your mare was over weight did you take her to Horse Progress Days. I went and I put on seven pounds in five days away from home. Now when I clean the barn I feel Like I have the heaves. Weight is a problem drafts, like myself, are build to be easy keepers and that can really work against them if they have respiratory problems.
I have seen horses with heaves go on and work long and productive lives and I have seen some go down hill real fast. There is no easy answer. My feeling on heaves in horses is that it is similar to asthma in humans in that there are triggers and if you can find them and avoid them it is much easier to manage. Usually the trigger involves dust excitement, stress or certain feeds. Green grass works great, wet hay down to keep dust away, mold free hay obviously, floor feed rather then manger feed to keep dust from concentrating. I have seen horses years ago who lived on almost nothing but cleaned oats and a bite of grass and did quite well.
Again find what triggers the heaves and try and avoid and control the attacks if possible. There are medicine that help keep the undamaged parts of the lungs open and working better and you have already looked at those I am sure.
God speed with your problem
Ron McCoy

[Ron]

My horses ate their way through my daughters favourite Lilac bushes. I won’t count on lilac keeping them in.
Cheers
Ron

[Ron]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I went the same route of the metal pole although not aluminum. I used steel pipe with heavy wall fitting a smaller pipe into a larger pipe. I can’t remember the sizes it was just pipe out of the scrap pile. It has worked well for years. This was great because it allowed me to build off set poles for three horses and shafts for one all that fit in the receiver and all from indestructible metal.
The one thing I did was to use a three quarter inch threaded rod for a bolt to secure the various poles. I used threaded rod because I could not find a long enough bolt. Here is the important part sorry to be so long winded. The rod was what we called airplane grade rod…
I suspect that meant grade eight but I don’t know. That rod has been out side in the rain and snow and use for fifteen years and it is still straight and unrusted. I would not try any of this without that airplane threaded rod.
Ron

[Ron]

It does sound like Scratches, sulfur and mineral oil mixed as a paste usually works pretty well rubbed into the effected parts as aggressively as possible. Scratches are stubborn and it will take several applications over time. Old horseman used to call it “the Clyde itch” because the more feather a horse has the more likely they would have it. That was a little unfair because all horses have scratches not just Clyde’s.
cheers
Ron

[Ron]

your purchase looks good. I helped a fellow rebuild an Allis horse mower one time the only
one I ever saw or heard of and it worked like a sowing machine. The sweetest mower I ever worked with. I have use the company rake and their mover and I can honestly say they made good equipment.
cheers
Ron

[Ron]

Hi Mike
Most of the animosity associated with any college setting is pretty normal kinds of Jealousy and funding stealing. What I think set the draft horse course attacks apart are the out of proportion to the perceived threat side of things. The conventional side of any college has little to worry about concerning the draft horse side taking over the college yet they feel very threatened by the fact that horses are on “their campus”. The idea that there was something to be learned from small farming, logging or that anything from the past was still relevant to the present or the future was absurd to them.
You asked what the reason was for this behaviour. I suspect that most of the teaching staff at most colleges realize we as a society have made a wrong turn down a slippery slope economically, environmentally and technically. Like all people every where, myself included, no one likes to admit this or have that exposed. I think the fear of draft horses, sustainable forestry and small scale farming on a campus will give rise to embarrassing questions…
That would be my guess on that.
Cheers
Ron

[Ron]

Hi Brad
You are not alone in your frustration. It is not just horse logging or forestry that is so outcast by the conventional commercial industry. I look at the UN figures for Farming and see that there is approximately 570 million farmers in the world today. Of that number just over 50 million have tractors the rest use some form of animal power to produce 75% of the worlds food. That is a pretty amazing figure considering there is virtually no money spent on research and development to improve the work done by this form of agriculture. The prejudice and misconceptions towards draft animals runs deep and is difficult to manage.
For many years I taught the draft horse course at a local agri college and the animosity from the conventional staff towards that course boarded on paranoia. Even though these courses and support groups are relatively self funding and well received by the participants they will be torpedoed at every opportunity.
Good luck.
cheers
Ron

[Ron]

Hi all
as I mentioned in the past I’m not very computer literite so I got a neighbor to come over on the excuse of a cup of tea and then roped them into taking the pictures and post them for me.Hopefully you’ll find attached pictures of our hay loader.
The hay loader is in the shed which makes it a little harder to understand how it works it’s folded up in the transport position at this time. When it’s working in the field the tongue swings 90° to be drawn sideways the pickup then picks up the hay sends it up the elevator and into the wagon. It’s a pretty simple system really but it works very well. I hope to use it more this summer. If you have more questions on how it works I’ll be glad to try and answer them for you.
In the background you should barely make out one of my horses.

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[Ron]

The other loose hay idea I always wanted to try with the horses is the hay sweep.
There is a You tube video of a farm out west using hay sweeps and they have build
a Jayhawk loader to build stakes.

Worth the fun to watch it.
Ron

[Ron]

Hi Jim
we build a new high capacity Hay loader two years ago but it was for the tractor with hydro-static aprons. Ours unloads to the side so the wagon drives along side the loader until the wagon is full and then the next wagon pulls in beside.
It works quite well but we just get to busy in the summer to do the work with it we should and help is getting harder to find with my children all grown up. To build it we bought a used hay inverted for the pick up and build the elevator to take the hay up with. No reason it could not be build to ground drive and rear unloading.
Easier then building your own is to go to the one of the Mennonite communities who still use horses. Many of them have a collection of hay loaders they are rebuilding for their own use and to sell.
Cheers
Ron

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