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thanks for the thoughts! …darn, i don’t think this is going to work…

My grazing is a bit more extensive than intensive. I like to rotate every seven days or so. I was hoping to do mixed herd rather than follow-the-leader just to make watering easier and cut down on the time commitment. I use single wire electric for cross fencingl…the calves cross back and forth all the time, but i really don’t care as they don’t stray far from the herd…i think electronet would cost a fortune on the scale i’m dealing with, and would be a nuisance in the rougher parts..

Mostly the cattle just follow my calling when it’s time for a move…but i always have my dog along and i’d like him to be able to help or just walk along without being harassed or it all turning into a circus, so i’m not sure about guard llama’s and donkeys….bringing stuff in at night would be logistically tough, and i can’t be home every night anyway.

I would like to keep only ewes and rams fall to winter, lamb on grass in early spring, butcher and direct market lamb in the early fall. I was hoping someone would say, ‘sure, the sheep will stick tight with the cattle and everything will be fine’ as I had read something to that effect… but it seems like that might not be the case..grew up around cattle but i don’t know sheep at all..

this pdf talks a bit about flerds and establishing bonding, but really doesn’t get into enough detail
http://www.grassfedlivestock.org/10-09%20presentations/Mixed-Species%20Stocking.pdf

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If he’s moving like the horse in the video you probably want to involve a vet. I’m just guessing at stringhalt because of the way you describe him but I haven’t seen the horse and I’m sure not a vet, so let’s not be too sure that’s what it is.
When I say stringhalt is a nervous condition, I don’t mean the horse is nervous, just that it’s a condition of his nervous system…I don’t think it’s very well understood yet…inherited / or mineral deficiency and some say it is a learned habit, or a result of eating poisonous plants. You won’t do any harm to work on getting him a balanced diet with an appropriate mineral supplement, and make sure he’s not getting into any poisonous plants you might have in your area…but if it were me I would be looking for a good horse vet to make a proper diagnosis and give me some advice, it might make all the difference.
I am not sure how serious it gets, or how often it goes away on it’s own…They sometimes cut one of the tendons to control it but it may not always work so well. And we might be barking up the wrong tree entirely, if it’s really something else.
Maybe someone else here has some experience with it.
Good luck, let us know what happens..

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@ menageriehill…
Hard to say online, and this is in vet territory… One possibility to consider is stringhalt or springhalt…can be an inherited nervous condition, but possibly also due to a nutrient deficiency (are you feeding any mineral?)
I’m not saying this is what it is, just one possibility to consider..and perhaps unlikely if it has just started…but otherwise it sounded kind of like it
here is a video that shows the characteristic gait..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVaQqQp7OhQ

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Wow, you guys are working Hard. Nice blog. Starting from scratch with raw land is a huge undertaking but you’ve really made strides…good luck!

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Nice looking horses Billy. I just thought I would say hi as we seem to have lots in common..my girlfriend and I are both biologists as well, and starting to farm as sustainably as we can.
About the spreader..I was able to find a ground drive pretty easily, it might be an easier option than building a pto cart..? We are trying to graze or bale graze and rotate a lot so the manure mostly spreads itself, but I do want to spread the stable manure on cover crops in the market garden (someday, someday..)
I don’t have much draft experience, but if they are a bit edgy I would really work on that before I asked too much…(mine are green and that way too…i habitually ask for a fair bit less than i think they are ready for and i wish i’d started out with that attitude, it is helping with their confidence..)

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Thanks so much for posting video, it’s really helpful.

I noticed Hopewell Farm’s trace carriers are very long…is that standard for log skidding work? Mine are set more at gaskin height now. I am doing a lot of ground driving and have a nagging concern that my traces are too short and I will have a heel strike the evener. Perhaps dropping the trace carrier would improve the geometry???? I can imagine my horses stepping a foot through it though, at this stage…

(right now we are dragging a post off the hames, dragging both traces on the ground, or dragging the evener just hooked at one end to one of the traces….we have driven two times with the evener hooked to both traces and a friend pulling back on a rope attached to the evener…when my friend allowed the evener to drop down to the ground it seemed way too close to the heels…)

thanks..

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Sanity prevails. Don’t get me wrong, I love horses..I think they’ll be better off.

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welome! i’m green and a newbie too, but there are other folks here with tons of experience…

yukon is hardcore…i’ve been complaining a bit about our cold snap, but it’s got nothing on your winters…

how hard is it to get feed in Whitehorse??

good luck!

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@tim….nicely put regarding negative results…
There is a big list of references at the end of that chapter and it’s not entirely clear which one dealt with hoof strength vs. color…but i seem to remember him saying he had done that work, and the JAS one was the only one he was primary author on…it looks like their main focus was on a gelatin supplement but they were doing strength and modulus of elasticity measurements…if you’re keen i could scan you the whole list of references sometime…i can’t access that kind of library easily right now…
I was surprised that they couldn’t detect strength changes with different diets and hoof mineral contents…he does note that hoof size is strongly related to nutrition, and that the foot can continue to increase in size to age 6

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Fun! Hooray for science! Do the experiment!
Butler measured compression strength and modulus of elasticity for hoofs with varying diet / mineral assay / color and growth rate and found no significant differences…He did find significant differences with moisture content, with hooves less than 19% or more than 30% getting weaker…
With black and white feet on the same horse he found no differences in strength or moisture content….but obviously there are differences between horses, with some breeds tending towards certain colors…

(This paraphrased from his textbook, I haven’t read the original papers…there was a phd thesis and J. Animal Sci. 44:257.)

His text (principles of horseshoeing III) also has this fun old saying:

“One white foot, buy him;
two white feet, try him;
three white feet, deny him;
Four white feet and a white nose___
Take off his hide and feed him to the crows.”

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Hey, thanks for the moral support, I guess I needed that… Today feels better as I have got the decision over with. Sacrificed what I had sown, had a neighbour ‘nuke’ it today, will hit it again late in the fall. It’s pretty hard, maybe impossible, to control yellow toad flax with smother crops or just tillage or good grazing management, and I don’t want an uphill battle for the next twenty years. One more season of chemical might just give me a fighting chance to make this work more organically in the long term.

I’ve been waiting to make my First Big Mistake and this was it…not recognizing it when it first popped up and stopping seeding right away. Should have walked the field with an old hand and talked it over.

It was staggering how fast it was for him to swoosh through twenty acres, a matter of minutes after a good month of getting it all seeded!

On the Plus side:

I at least got to see how my seeding worked for different stuff, and it looked like things had germinated and were doing pretty well.

I saved three acres of a pasture mix…separate field and not too badly infested, i hand pulled T.F. and will stay vigilant.

I’ve got a good strategy sorted out for keeping it from invading my native grassland.

I’ll have extra time this summer to do some training work with the horses, and get some shoeing in.

cheers, I would add a smiley but they don’t make one just right for this kind of day…
m.

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We could start a club, Andy…what a learning curve + weather wild cards + trying to keep too many balls juggling in the air…there isn’t enough of me.

My rye has just been poking through over the past few days…a bit spotty with the broadcasting but maybe it will thicken up. Zero germination of the clover I seeded with it.

Oats not up yet. Throwing grass seed out into a bunch of dust just hoping we get some rain this year. Discing it in super lightly and rolling, their is some moisture under the soil mulch but the top is so dry. Tried some test plots of quinoa and amaranth and orca beans to see if i could grow them dryland without irrigation and i think they will be a complete bust. (the quinoa and amaranth so tiny that i didn’t place them very deep but the top dried right out on me.

I’m actually jealous of your two acres of chest high rye….Could you order a good scythe online and make a simple one horse drag rake of some kind and then make some loose rye hay stacks for your horse?? guess maybe it’s too wet for that down there, and you’re probaby crazy busy too…wish i could loan you some cows they are a nuisance…

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I was making progress with the green ‘team’ I picked up, but they were still too nuts for safe farm work. Springs work had to get done…wound up with a 1955 Harry Ferguson.

Don’t have the 6V charging system working yet, so I’m starting with the hand crank (first I pulled an intercostal muscle, then changed technique and pulled a latissimus dorsi)…hands are greasy and stink of jerry can gasoline splashes.

It’s noisy and awful, but I could learn to like this tractor…simple, strong, understandable, utilitarian…and it’s got that stylish 50’s thing happening.

I still plan on using the team for pretty much everything but I have a feeling I’ll keep the tractor as a back up to get me out of trouble (like a sore shoulder or abscessed foot or something right in the middle of haying..) The trick will be discerning when and when not to start it up…a slippery slope.

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Well, I have stuck with them a bit more. Heavier stone boat, thanks. Had some rings sewn in the cross checks so they can’t get hung up in the hame. Put a buck back strap on the four year old.

After some work in the pen we have been out in the wide world three times now. They are still nervous and spooky and hot but settle down to where it isn’t scary.

Haven’t found ‘walk’ yet…have got somewhere close to a relaxed jog. No bolts though. I think I loose a bit of contact with them on a turn and they tend to get racey.

It’s like they are pulling hard enough now that they don’t know they can walk with the load? (they will walk ground driving)

The nervous five year old is always counterbent with his head twisted away from the team and shoulder thrown into his team mate…it really throws him off balance when we are turning toward his team mate. I tied them together at their halters which seems to help a bit not sure if that’s a good idea?? He’s worn a bit of hair off on his shoulder on the team inside, not sure if this is a result of that bend or the cause of it?

Any thoughts on this?

If it weren’t for that shoulder I would tire the hot out of them over a few days…there isn’t any heat or swelling just a rub..he has a vinyl pad, he’s fat and has fat folds on his neck which don’t help, i think the collar is right, it’s just on one side, above the tug…i don’t think the tug is pulling from too high…

took off the buck back strap today, they went ok

thanks again,

murray

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Nice job Ed, it looks like they turned out well. I have half my disc put back together. Was about to take some photos for you, but yours turned out as well or better.

I like the way you did it. I turned mine round on the outside…drilling the inside hole was a pain afterwards, if I had had access to a good lathe and a set of forstner bits i think that would have been the way to go for the inside. Anyway i think they will work, they are a bit tight but will hopefully work in.

When I was a sailor I would have soaked something like this in raw linseed oil for a couple of weeks but it’s not going to happen this spring.

The tubes coming down from my grease nipples were absolutely clogged with gunk, it’s worth checking…you probably already have.

Ed, is your caster wheel just going to pivot freely or is it going to be linked to the draw bar like some of the tongue trucks were? I was just going to let mine pivot freely. Not sure how Andy has his set up..

murray

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