[sickle hocks]

Thanks for this thread, Andy. Could you tell us a bit more about the seeder and packer in the thumbnails at the start?

I wondered if you had to adjust the gear ratio of that ATV broadcast speeder for horse work, and how speed sensitive it is?? How many acres a day would be realistic with it? I guess it depends if you make two passes at half rate, and i might have too much seeding to do to manage that…

I also wondered what your roller was made out of or what other possibilities might be out there.

This spring I want to sow some green manure / forage mixes of cereal/legume/perhaps brassica. I would also like to get some land down to permanent pasture / hay. The land is in wheat stubble right now and i was hoping i could disc, broadcast, and then disc or harrow…

thanks…

[sickle hocks]

Clips take a lot of strain off of the nails. Usually toe clips on the fronts and side clips on the hinds. Useful on thin walls or broken up feet, you can get away with smaller nails and keep more strength in the wall. Essential for horses that pivot on their hinds a lot….cutters, reiners, etc.

If your horse is clipped keep up the shoeing interval, if the shoe gets loose and twists the horse can step on the clip and damage it’s sole….if your horse won’t stand well for shoeing and jerks its foot away during nailing it can also step on the clip..

They are easier to fit hot.

hi carl…we posted at the same time, probably in a draft horse situation they might not make that much of a difference… do you guys ever have outside calks or more traction on one side of the shoe? the twisting might make a difference then…

[sickle hocks]

Jeremy…thanks for bringing this up, i haven’t worked horses full time before and i’m also wondering about a grazing / working routine. By June I won’t have a flake of hay left and more grass than I know what to do with.

I was wondering about night pasture and grazing on a tether for some hours in the heat of the day. The rich spring grass will make me worry about founder.

My understanding is that a horse hard at work needs about the same amount of roughage or feed volume as a horse at ease (for the stomach to work properly)..but the working horse needs way more nutrient and you need to make up the difference with a more concentrated feed ie grain…

You’ve probably read of ‘tying up’ or azotrurea, but there should probably at least be a mention of it in this thread, and the warning to reduce rations on rest days..

hope someone experienced can help us out with the grazing question..

[sickle hocks]

I would also like to see what the knife cutter / windrower implement would look like on a horse scale…i googled some big industrial looking things. Is this something you’d have to make from scratch?

I’m interested in growing some of the heirloom variety dry beans on a very small but commercial scale. A lot of the varieties are quite upright but they still seem like they could be a nightmare with a sickle mower..?? Just raking them out is interesting. Are you thinking of loading and hauling to some kind of stationary thresher?

[sickle hocks]

That site has all sorts of interesting plans, thanks Geoff!

Hay looks good, Lane…did you have a guestimate for how many tons you fit into one of those stacks?? still adjusting my brain from bales…

[sickle hocks]

Great thread, thanks… I need to sow grains, grasses and legumes too…Apart from their being crazy expensive, do you think the new ATV seeding equipment could be adaptable?? These are combined tillage/seeding/cultipack or harrow machines…not really a drill, but disks, broadcasts and harrows in one pass…there is a ‘drill’ attachment that would let it also work as a row planter of sorts..

The broadcaster is electric not ground driven which is a drag…would horse speed be too variable?? Is it too much for a team to pull?

plot planter:
http://www.theplotmaster.com/400a.html

drill attachment:
http://www.theplotmaster.com/graindrill2.pdf

two other versions:
http://www.schaffert.com/other_equipment/plot_planters.html

Or I could disk with horses and use a hand broadcast seeder and harrow in.., or hand broadcast into stubble and then disc in..?? and save thousands.

[sickle hocks]

Thank you Lane…I had a look at your website too, and really enjoyed it. I’m just reading miller’s ‘haying with horses’ now.

I don’t have the horsepower or people power to make use of even a small stacking apparatus, but I worry that I’m on the edge of having too much hay to handle by pitchfork. If we are blessed by rain up here it will come right at haying time, so speed becomes an issue. More kids and community would have been the traditional solution i suppose.

Not sure if it’s ok to ask, but wondered how much hay you manage to put up with your hay wagon, four pallet stack system? Did you ever use a center pole stack like the eastern europeans, or as gene logsdon talks about?
cheers..

[sickle hocks]

Hi Al, I’m at Rosalind…sort of between Stettler and Camrose.

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