Discing with the forecart

[Ed Thayer]

Plowed down the potato patch on Sunday and had a chance to disc it today with Ozzie. We are planting winter rye next and will chain harrow that in tomorrow.

[Does’ Leap]

Hey Ed:

Nice video. That is a nice sized disk for a single horse. How is your single-horse mower working? Did you cut all your hay with Ozzie? I am curious b/c I have a nice single horse mower that needs work.

George

[Ed Thayer]

George,

I sold that single horse mower to a young man in NY who was going to use it more than me. It really worked well for clipping pastures and was very maneuverable in tight quarters. But it was a lot of work for my horse. I really hesitated on selling it but was glad to see it go to a good home.

I did make all my own hay this year but did it with the tractor. I purchased a used sickle mower and cut with that. I hope to get another horse soon and use them for the mowing and raking as I have a JD 594 ground drive rake I rebuilt this Spring.

I am considering having my #7 rebuilt by Don and using that possibly.

I purchased this disc off the side of the road for $50.00. It is about 4.5′ wide and well built. Probably designed to go behind the older yard tractors in the 60’s.

Ed

[irish]

I am cross with my self as I missed a 5′ one the other day but I felt it went for too much at the time it made over 100

[Steven F]

Hi, glad to see that you are not riding on the forecart while discing. If you look at old horse drawn equipment, if it did have a seat, it was situated where if you fell off you would land behind everything. This was for a very good reason,SAFETY. I have seen post of people riding forecarts that, if they fell off (could be something startled the horses) would result in serious injury at the very least least.
They old timers knew how to be safe around horses and they would have been horrified at the though of riding in front of something dangerous.

Steven

[wally b]

I don’t think it’s a good idea to disc with you horse(s) with the lines tied up where you can’t get to them. That’s what it looks like in the video–if I am wrong then I stand corrected. I have had my ‘bomb proof’ horses spook when bit by hornets while plowing/discing–with lines in hand I was able to rapidly calm them and prevent a worse senario, possibly. Also, it’s really hard to replace a well trained horse such as that one, due to a situation like that which resulted in an injured horse. Lastly, it gives the wrong impression to those less experienced that this is the general way it is done.

Just my opinion.

Wally b

[Ed Thayer]

Good points Wally,

I almost never use my horse without lines in hand and was simply trying to demonstrate his ability to pull this small disk behind the fore cart. That said, using draft power of any kind is risky and inherently dangerous. If I was not confident in my horse to handle this demonstration, I would not have attempted it.

Ed

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