Greetings from the Far North

[Farnorthfarmer]

Hi Everyone,

Me and my wife and our 3 kids ages 5, 2 and due in 3 weeks, farm my family farm here in northern Alberta, Canada. My great grandfather use to use horses around the farm but switched to tractors when they added more land over the years. I am in the process of taking the farm back to how he use to farm after my grandparents and my parents went to conventional farming about 60 years ago (I am now forth generation).We currently raise Jersey and Highland cattle, a mixed chicken flock, turkeys, also Tamworth and Berkshire pigs which keeps us pretty busy.

I am thinking due to the amount of plowing and heavy work the horses would be doing going with shires *our soil is solid clay not even clay loam due to no organic matter being added in over 60 years, other then crop residue*. I have some horse experience but no driving experience. The other option we are looking at is training our highland bulls as oxen. There aren’t many farmers around here farming with horses or oxen anymore and our farming community has this strange not sharing old farming ways cause it is backwards thinking. I have picked up L.R. Millers Training workhorses/ Training Teamsters and the Workhorse Handbook, and was wondering if anyone had any other books they could recommend?

[near horse]

Welcome FNF. This is a great resource for learning, asking questions and finding out about opportunities to grow your draft animal knowledge. The naysayers are everywhere so don’t be discouraged. There are plenty of folks here to show that it can be done.

There should be a thread here that lists a variety of books/videos as well as resources for draft equipment.

Again, welcome. BTW – how far north are you? North of Edmonton?

[Farnorthfarmer]

we are located at Three Creeks Alberta which is north east of the town of Peace River Alberta and north of St.Isidore a small french community *5 hours north of Edmonton*. we are a zone 2b almost a 1 for planting zone. Atleast we still have some trees and not just tundra that is 5 hours drive north of us. lol

[J-L]

Welcome. I will echo what Geoff said. Stick to your guns and don’t be easily discouraged. Everything I do with my horses and mules is very rewarding and worthwhile. You will find that you never quit learning and that is one of the major draws for me.
I like Steve Bauers books on working horses.
Just curious as to how much ground you’ll have to be turning over?
I like your choice of Shires. I have a few and like them very much.
Good luck and remember the only dumb question is the unasked.
Wes

[Roscoe]

Hey, you are nearly my neighbour!
You are only one hour north of me!

[Michel Boulay]

Greetings FnF, nice to see more fellow Canadians on this site. Great place to learn and share with all the great people here. I see you are geting some snow, don’t send it this way please at least not yet, I’m all the way in the Maritimes and not quite ready for snow yet. Good luck and have fun.
Mike

[Farnorthfarmer]

lmao yeah I really wasn’t ready for the snow and we have 4 inches already. Still finishing the new pens for the chickens and the houses for the pigs.

As for plowed acres we would be doing 5-10 acres every 4-5 years here in the yard, I am not really expecting them to plow the larger fields 140-210 acres in size every 4 years I would still be doing that with tractors due to time limits, but having them haul in the round hay bale wagon we have and run the round baler with a pto cart would be nice. I would also be planning to use them for the feed grinding with a treadmill system. I could probably go with a lighter team if I can lower the amount hauled with the round bale wagon. 15 bales 1800lbs each at a time. I would also be interested in using them for some on farm tree hauling and moving wood grainarys around that we use for mobile housing. Lol not quite sure that all made sense if not I can try again.

Hey Roscoe where are you at down south of us?

[near horse]

Zone 2 😮 – I always wondered who could survive the zone 1 and 2 regions. You have my respect.

“houses for the pigs” — igloos? :rolleyes:

“15 bales 1800lbs each at a time.” – One load???? 27,000 lbs is a lot.

[Roscoe]

@Farnorthfarmer: Valleyview

[Geoff saltwater cowboy]

Hi there, I am from a little farther south . I live north of Edmonton near Thorhild . We have shires too about 4 teams so if you are looking for added power we may have a team for sale . We mostly do sleigh rides and a few wagon train trips in the summer . This past summer we did a little trip on the old peace river landing trail from Athabasca to smith. It was about 80 km or so the first wagon train on that trail in over 100 yrs . We like to disc , harrow and sometimes seed with our horses about 10 acres.

[Farnorthfarmer]

@Geoff saltwater cowboy 38033 wrote:

Hi there, I am from a little farther south . I live north of Edmonton near Thorhild . We have shires too about 4 teams so if you are looking for added power we may have a team for sale . We mostly do sleigh rides and a few wagon train trips in the summer . This past summer we did a little trip on the old peace river landing trail from Athabasca to smith. It was about 80 km or so the first wagon train on that trail in over 100 yrs . We like to disc , harrow and sometimes seed with our horses about 10 acres.

Hi Geoff,

I don’t currently farm with horses but want to switch over to them in the next 5 years and would like to go with shires. At some point when I am down Edmonton way, me and my wife would love to meet with you and see your team and talk about farming with horses.

[Author]

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