Beginner looks for help

[Anonymous]

I have one Suffolk punch horse. Has been started to draft but needs work. Due in part to trainer inexperience. This winter I would like him to drag some logs. Looking for a mentor with site visits. Have a nice grove to work us in.
Suggestions?

[Carl Russell]

Welcome ‘burbfarm. We are excited to have you here looking for guidance. I think we need to know where you are located before anyone can respond to your site visit need. Anyway throw in your two cents and we can see if we arre any help to you. Carl

[Anonymous]

I am in Norwell, MA. As the profile says.I met a number of you folks at the Common Ground Fair and the Animal Power Field Days this past year. The horse in question is in Hingham, MA. Which is about 20 minutes south of Boston. We have an educational farm there owned by the land trust I work for. We are one of the last remaining farms in Hingham. We teach kids farming and livestock care, the importance of being outside and stewardship of our environment
One of our goals is to get Coltrane (the horse) to work around the farm.
But unfortunatly, our staff time is very limited, plus none of us have ever trained a horse to draft. I have driven for a job and can control and drive a trained horse, it is the training we are falling short on.
So as far as location, I am in an island of city/suburbs. I really believe though that if those that have these skills get out to transfer those skills we all will benefit. By the way, It could be a paid gig.

[Gabe Ayers]

Brubfarm,

So are you looking for someone to come to your place and train your horse and you at the same time?

That would have to be a high paying gig, because it will not be easy to train a horse trainer and train a horse at the same time.

It could take quite a bit of time, because that is the nature of training any horse. It takes time, particularly if the horse will work in a very public setting around lots of people.

It may be possible – but I have never known anyone to do exactly that sort of thing.

If you can’t find someone to come to you place there could be some other options.

It could be easier for you to enhance your skills buy attending some courses by horse trainers and take that knowledge back to your site and train your horse, yourself.

It may be easier to just trade the horse (with some boot probably) for an already broke horse. Then you could take some courses as time goes along to upgrade your skills in training.

Good luck man, it sounds like a great mission to demonstrate what you are doing to the public, particularly a urban and suburban public. I hope you figure out how to get it all done and keep us up on how you do it. I would bet that you can do it if you want to, one way or another.

If we were closer I would try to help. I am in Virginia.

Jason Rutledge
http://healingharvestforestfoundation.org

[Plowboy]

It takes a while to train horses enough to safely be used in public. There are many variables depending on the disposition of the animal and time spent actually training. Anything you do to positively get your horse educated without freaking them out will help. Don’t take any chances as it will cause alot more time to be spent retraining. I have tried to advise a few people verbally on how to train their horses but they are afraid of actually working them. A tired horse at the end of a successful lesson is a good thing as long as long as you don’t over do it. It is a hard thing to explain verbally or in text form. I am in Central N.Y. so still far from being much help. If you remember how to properly harness it wouldn’t hurt to fit the harness and accustom him to it. Good luck finding a mentor. I have many in this area but it will be harder for you in an urban settiing to find a good teamster to help. Good luck to you and let me know if I can be of assistance somehow via email or phone.

[goodcompanion]

My two cents would be to reaffirm Jason’s suggestion, get yourself an already broke horse. The difference in purchase cost between a well-broke animal and one like yours is less than what it would cost you to train it and/or yourself, most likely by a lot.

If you already know how to drive you can accomplish a lot around the farm with a patient, willing horse and the right equipment, and your future training skills can naturally arise from that working relationship.

At our place we are “transitional animal power” and I decided early on that it was biting off too much to learn to train green horses while also attempting to learn to get work done with them. Some people can do both at once. I’m not one of them.

If you’re looking for instruction with a focus on farming, fair winds farm outside brattleboro, vt offers that to teamsters. I got my start from them and feel that the time and money was well spent.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for all of the suggestions everybody. I don’t really have the option of getting rid of the horse. (not my decision.) He was at a farm working all of last summer but paired with good broke horse. We got him back and the trainer had this to say, “if he was my son, I wouldn’t invest too much in his college fund”, With that said I just want him to scoot logs out of the grove. Are all Suffolks resistant when young? I have heard they are late to mature. And is it worth it to get a pair for him? If you had to budget time spent with him per day to get a routine, how much?
Also, I need a used forecart to start with, anybody have one they want to sell?

[Gabe Ayers]

Suffolk horses are the most willing of all the breeds from any age in my thirty years experience with all breeds. However a horse is a horse and if this horse was not started well he may not have a good foundation of ground manners, respect for the handler and courage about working in various situations. Maybe you can start with some basic handling on the ground and then have someone lead him while you drive him on a sled so he is comforted and encouraged to follow the leader person. After he gains some confidence that he can work alone with good contact with the lines and consistent signals to start, stop and stand you just keep working him until he is relaxed when ask to stop and stand and you will be making progress. Remember the greatest reward for any beast of burden is cessation of demand. Whoa needs to be a reward, but you have to be working them to get to that point. Whoa starts being a reward on the ground when they stand quietly in hand and you stop contacting or giving them any signals on the head and scratch them on the withers for standing quietly.

From there just keep working him single until he relaxes after pulling a while and keep up consistent signals and reward him with rest. You may increase the load after he gains confidence and strength, maybe pick some rocks out of the cultivated ground and put them in a mud hole somewhere.

It is a good thing you are doing….keep working.

Jason Rutledge

[Rod]

[QUOTE=. Whoa starts being a reward on the ground when they stand quietly in hand and you stop contacting or giving them any signals on the head and scratch them on the withers for standing quietly.

Hi Jason

I want to be sure I understand what you wrote above. Do you mean its not good to give them the contact, scraching etc when they stop, or that it is good to do that?

[Gabe Ayers]

You may notice that the best handlers only have tight contact with their horses when they are giving them a signal with the lead line. The idea is that when they don’t stand still give them some multiple signals or tugs on the lead line, while saying whoa and when the stand still release all pressure or contact with the lead line and then reward with a friendly scratch on the whithers.

Some horses for what ever reason are nervous and insecure about standing quietly. It is the job of the horseman to give them confidence to relax and stand quietly accepting their being a part of the herd of you (the handler) and them the horse. They can only think as horses and a horse is a herd animal that is always looking for a leader, so it is your role to be that leader and give them confidence that everything is alright and they are secure in the herd of two, you and the horse. I hope this makes sense.

It is funny that sometimes the most powerful things we do are the things we don’t do. The idea is to get what you want from the horse with the least amount of exchange and that includes recognizing that the horse is reading body language all the time and by being relaxed yourself you will impart comfort and confidence to the horse. This is speaking of the relationship on the ground of course. That exchange will transfer into harness and work.

Speaking of the female perspective, the role is to be the dominant mare in every relationship with your horses. That is who they learn how to be a horse from mostly. I think this is why sometimes women make really good horsemen, because they are better at subtle signals and not being heavy handed.

This all starts for us with imprint training or cradling a newborn foal under the chin and behind the butt and when they relax, whisper – whoa, whoa and you relax you grip or cradle on them. That single first act of training lasts a lifetime and it is where we want to be with them to be throughout their working life.

If I could think what I wanted a horse to do and they do it I would. Since I haven’t figured out how to get that response yet, I chose to keep my signals to a minimum throughout the experience of being a horseman.

It is a matter of being able to think like a horse, because the horse can’t think like a person. That is the essence of being a horseman because a horse can’t be a human or manhorse.

I am not trying to be cryptic or secretive about this and it is hard to explain in text. It is as hard as telling someone to load a horse on a trailer without looking them in the eye. They are prey animals and it is hard to convince them that we are not predators….but the boss mare they can trust and respect.

Jason Rutledge

[Carl Russell]

I second all that Jason explains above.

It is important to know the difference between having the horse respond positively to your command, and having the horse do what you want them to do. Being trusted and respected by the horse, the animal will respond to your initiative. Being a horse, they can never intellectualize the task that you intend to accomplish with them.

Knowing the tendencies of horses, and oxen I might add, gives you the advantage in that you can allow them to move, or respond, in the way that they are naturally inclined to. Meanwhile you are correcting, or guiding them with the simple command-based communication that you have developed with them.

This is the point where I have to chime in with what I consider the most important part of being a working teamster, as apposed to being a training teamster. It is the work. I feel that before we attempt to do any work with animals, not only do we need to know how to work with them in the command/response way, but we need to know the work.

The concentration required to perform a working relationship with an animal requires that we are not distracted by uncertainty about the task at hand. As Jason points out, the animal is looking for a leader who they can trust and respect. No animals, including humans, will trust or respect the body language of uncertainty.

The other way that knowing the work is important is in assessing the particular task that is assigned to the animal power. The expectation needs to be reasonable, and in line with the experience/capability of the animal, or whatever trust there was will be completely undone.

I think you will get farther with your “difficult” horse with no college potential when you get a clear picture of what you want to do, and how you are going to do it with him. As long as you are looking at him and his apparent limitations as the measure of what you may not be able to do, that is exactly what you will do, or not do.

I have never had any of my horses go to college ( the old mare is 29, and I’ve had her for 20 years), yet I have been doing many successful endeavors with them for a long time. The animal will only be as capable as you expect him to be. Carl

[goodcompanion]

Carl and Jason have made some great observations. But in my experience, it is extremely difficult to develop the level of sense and communication described in a vacuum, without experienced teamsters to help you and without a horse with a considerable level of trust. Mistakes made in handling reinforce this lack of trust. I’m not entirely clear on your depth of experience, burbfarm, but it seems that you might (like me at times) have just enough to really get you into trouble, so I feel obliged to add my school-of-hard-knocks voice (literal knocks) to the above.

Add in any kind of urgency to actually accomplish anything work-related (which divides your attention between the animal and the work) and you have even greater risk. If you have a lot of patience and time you and the horse may figure it all out and eventually develop a trusting working relationship as described above. But the odds against this happening are much higher than if you could work instead with a horse that’s already attuned to basic commands and is trusting.

You say you might get a teammate for your horse? Get a well-broke, older horse and work him/her singly to develop your senses and skills. Then apply what you’ve learned to the other.

I’m reminded of a joke I learned in Australia, where an outsider comes looking for a job at a cattle station, swearing he can ride and rope. Showing up for his first day at work, he admits that he stretched the truth–never been near a horse in his life. “S’all right mate,” says the station owner. “See that stallion over there in the paddock by himself? He’s never been ridden. Two of you can learn together.”

None of which is intended to be discouraging. But getting a start in this field is not easy–there is a lot to learn and much of it is very subtle. You need as many things in your favor as you can get.

[Carl Russell]

I understand what Eric is getting at. This truly is one of the most difficult aspects to getting started with draft animals. I have to iterate though that you want to avoid trying to replace the points that Jason and I were making by getting yourself a “trusting horse”. If the horsemanship and working understanding are not a significant part of the endeavor the trust will fail to be enough.

Please understand that I got started because I met an old horse logger, a man who had dragged harnesses into the manger as an 11 year old, and had taken on his first log job at 13, who told me if I wanted to log with horses I should buy one and get logging. This is not the advice I share, but I bumped and bounced and struggled, and I know from experience what I was doing wrong.

I am not suggesting that anybody go to work with a renegade, but I never have given up on any animal, and I have been validated for my sheer tenacity, and yes the subtly that I learned. The old mare I’ve had for 20 years, I bought with a 1 month trial. By the end of that month I was so mad at her for MY lack of understanding that I bought her because I swore she’ld never leave my farm. I still use her to this day, to my advantage.

There are many paths in the journey down this slope, or up this peak.
Carl

[Gabe Ayers]

I hopes of safety.

I want to repeat and embellish on some of what I wrote. Get an assistant to lead the horse while you are working it on a sled. Be sure they are aware that the horse may get scared and want to run. The assistant can help you hold the horse if it wants to run. Most of the time they just turn around and look at what is behind them and in the case the assistant should continue to lead them forward. Do this in a pen or round pen of fence in area that the horse is familiar with.

It still starts with ground work of letting the horse respect you on the ground.

Unlike Carl, I have had so many horses come through my life that I have had a few that I gave up on. I know it is supposed to be animal husbandry, but I just can’t marry them all….

I only have so much time and have allot of messed up horses come through my place and some of them keep on going…some place else.

When you have allot of experience people tend to bring you some fruit cakes that already have terrible habits and great fear of everything. I have one such horse here now and he is hard to gain trust from and I simply don’t have time for him. So he is being worked with by a former apprentice and who has that time and is making some progress. Getting this horse to the point of being hooked and working will also be a journey. I will be keeping an eye on it and will tell everyone what happens to this horse and apprentice.

Meanwhile I have plenty of young horses of my own to put signals on.

I am not a horse trader, I am more of a horse breeder, but over the years have had hundreds of horses come through the farm. I have never gave up on one I bred. There are plenty that come from somewhere else that didn’t give them any time as a young horse….like imprint training.

Take your time with him.

See if you can find an experienced horseman will come and work with you and your horse or go get some training yourself. You were on the right track when you started this thread. Continued good luck.

Jason Rutledge
http://healinghavestforestfoundation.org

[Carl Russell]

I must say that my comments about tenacity have more to do with the serious commitment to the effort, then they do with evaluating the safety of an animal.

The eyes of experience will give you some advantage in this regard. I just get a little concerned that beginners often open themselves to “help” that shows them lots of tricks and skills gleaned from that experience. This can be somewhat helpful in that it sets an example of what they may shoot for. But it does little good to further the commitment, or the connection between teamster and animal. You can get a lot better example by watching or working with your experienced teamster(s) with their animals. There is very little gain, in my mind, of others working with your animal, mostly because it is a replacement for the partnership that you are supposed to be striving for.

As much as assistance can be good, I work under guidance that I’ve gotten from several mentors who grew up when working with animals was the only way. There is very little nonsense in these bits of wisdom. Many of these are sort of outside the current box of understanding, because culture has changed, but if working animals is the objective, then the guidance should come from that place in history when it was put into practice.

One of those insights was handed to me by a man who grew up driving horses for all tasks from plowing to over the road transport. “If you want to drive the horse over the bridge, then don’t get off and lead him, drive him”.
Admittedly the way you get to the point where you can drive them without leading them is somewhat vague, but his point is that there is a purpose for your enterprise which requires a clear commitment to protocol. If there is difficulty performing the task, then you will have more long term success if you adhere to the protocol, then if you look for the easier solution.

I realize that the ‘burbfarm situation has several layers of interest/involvement, but it sounds to me like there needs to be some more serious thought to the actual benefit to having working animals. Perhaps the best solution would to be take advantage of situations such as your habitat clearing to bring in experienced teamsters with working animals to set a good example of the application of animal power.

Meanwhile get someone whose only responsibility is working with the drafts, and developing enterprises for them. Then set a budget for that individual to spend the time attending apprenticeships such as at HHFF, or Fair Winds Farm, and other places where the learning curve can get the attention it deserves. Realistically, one way or the other, several years are the least that would need to be intensively invested. There is very little value in the example of animal power on an educational farm, if it doesn’t raise the bar in terms of practicality.

There are always financial limits in any operation, but as many of us have experienced, there is a lot of learning. If the ‘burbfarm is serious about the concept then they, and all beginners in my mind, need to understand the commitment, intellectually, physically, and financially, that is required. Whether you put it together in between other work, a bit at a time, or as a lump-sum tuition-like investment, it is the same amount of serious hard work.
Carl

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