how many horses

[Tim Harrigan]

John: Actually, Watt overstated his estimate of horsepower by 50% so as not to over promise what his steam engines would deliver. And it looks to me like his uninflated estimate was probably pretty good. So is it actually very difficult for a horse to deliver 1 hp on any type of sustained basis. His marketing approach was the opposite of what we typically see today which seems mostly to be overpromise and underdeliver.

[jac]

Jeez all this debate coz I wanted to hitch a baler :D… only kidding .I think its wonderful that so many great minds are at work on this and the info and exchange is available to us lesser mortals. A credit to you all and great way to use the internet… I once offered my mower to the agricultural college as a project to see if the students could imagine that horses had never gone away and to design a mower with new materials and ideas… not even remotely interested. Any time I mention horses to my farmer neighbours I get the “horses coudnt feed the world” argument..” how are you going to pull a 30ft combine”? I fire back that horses dont feed the world… farmers do. And I pull out the foto of the 20ft HILLSIDER combine from 1927.. Anuther misconception I get is that yields were less years ago because farmers were “stuck ” with horses.. Crock to that I say. Horses are more than capable of handling modern crop volume…Perhaps Charlie from Germany can shed some light on the large vegetable operation I read a snippet about that switched to horses virtualy over night… I hope you guys can get this together. I would dearly like to get over when this gets presented but I rather doubt finances will be needed elsewhere.
John

[near horse]

Anuther misconception I get is that yields were less years ago because farmers were “stuck ” with horses.. Crock to that I say. Horses are more than capable of handling modern crop volume

Hey John,

Tell your modern farmer neighbors that the development of dwarf wheat varieties is what changed yields the most- before that the plants were much taller and heights were not uniform so a lot of energy of the plant went into growing the stem (straw) – they also had a lot of lodging issues. In this area of WA state, it’s held that wheat yields doubled by switching to the dwarf wheats – it made a lot of farmers here wealthy. BTW – here on the Palouse, horses often overwintered on the straw stacks left over from the stationary thresher – it might actually be considered a benefit that those threshers sent some grain out the back end with the straw, at least from the horse’s (and I would say teamster’s) perspective.

[Andy Carson]

I had heard that Watt measured pony’s pulling carts out of mines and increased that force by 50% to estimate “horsepower.” Apparently that’s only one story…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsepower
Another story was that Watt measured the power a brewery horse (whatever that is) produced by pulling 180 pounds draft at a given speed and set that equal to 1 HP. Either way, the wikipedia article also mentioned an article by R. D. Stevenson and R. J. Wassersug estimating that one “average” horse does indeed produce 1 HP. The term “average” jumped out at me. Especially because the article also mentioned an “average” human can produce 0.1 HP indefinately. This makes good sense, as many humans are about 1/10 the size of a draft horse. Interestingly, the article also mentions that a trained human athelete can produce 0.3 HP for several hours. If humans can triple thier sustained output with training, I would imagine animals have a similar capacity to double or even triple thier power output with training. If so, a conditioned team of horses could pull more than the predicted 360 pounds all day (180×2). and could actually pull a 12 inch plow with a draft of 600-800 pounds. I think this makes a lot of sense and seems to match with reality.

[Andy Carson]

I agree that, in general, these numbers do not take into account many factors (such as the overload capacity, maneuverability, low impact, etc) that make make draft animals so attractive. I do think they are important, though, as they demonstrate to both the general public and to potential users of draft animals that we (as users or draft animals) are not “backwards” and there are real, tangible, and important reasons to use draft animals.

[Andy Carson]

Banei (Japanese draft horse racing) provides another example of the horse power with a little more endurance involved. The record for the 200 meter Banei Kinen race is 3 minute 8 seconds. That’s 2.4 MPH. In the deep sand, I would think the draft of the 2200 pound sled (pulled singly) would be to be 880-1100 pounds (0.4-0.5x). Using Ben’s formula, that ends up with 5.6 to 7.0 HP for this very stout horse.

[CharlyBonifaz]

Perhaps Charlie from Germany can shed some light on the large vegetable operation I read a snippet about that switched to horses virtualy over night…

Jac, can you find that snippet, I’ll try to figure it out…..

[jac]

Hi Countymouse.. A brewery horse was one that pulled the beer in what we call a dray over here.. a version of the Budweiser team..Hi to you Charlie.. The article was in an old Heavy Horse magazine.. I will dig through them and get back to you but if I remember right there wasnt an address. And greetings to you Near horse.. More ammo thanks.. My grandfather told me a story of how his brother left Scotland between the wars and set up farming in Canada. Your mention of outwintered horses was exactly as I was told.. He did the harvest then shut up the house and got a job in town.. had to be back before the thaw as the horses would have been gone in search of grass otherwise. A hard life by all accounts.. for both man and horse..
John

[Traveling Woodsman]

@Carl Russell 15085 wrote:

I am considering a break down of the different energy centers, if you will, those points in the machine where the energy produced by the motor is reduced. Not so much a comparison of how efficiently horses or tractors utilize the intake fuel, but some comparison that can show the power apportionment.
Carl

Ok, I mistook what you said earlier. Although a fuel utilization comparison would be interesting. Power apportionment would be a lot smaller bit to chew, I think I will do some research on this.

Another random thought that I don’t think has been brought up yet. Horses become more efficient the more you use them, at least up to a point, because horses eat whether you use them or not. So the more you use them the lower the ratio of feed input to work output. Machines on the other hand are stuck with a certain efficiency, whether good or bad. This can be viewed as either an advantage or disadvantage, depending on the situation.

I think this has been said before, but many of the discussions I’ve seen all over seem to have an inaccurate understanding of what efficiency is. I am not referring to this board, but to research papers, books, discussions and other such things on any subject related to what we’re talking about. The most common statement is that equipment is more efficient than animals because it can get more done. I am not sure where these people get their understanding of the word efficient, because they are supposed to be college educated experts in their respective fields. Efficiency has absolutely nothing to do with how much work is done, but it has everything to do with the proportion of input to output. In other words, efficiency is a ratio, not a value. It really irks me when people make statements with the wrong use of the word. Part of what we’re saying here is that horses are more efficient, in terms of not using up power in the transmission of it. So that is just another way of saying what has already been said……

I’m sure that none of using horses for a livelihood made the choice based strictly on the mechanics of a horses output. Nobody would make a decision to use horses based solely on this, ’cause ultimately you can do more with motorized equipment. Part of the argument of the animal-powered community is that basing decisions on purely one aspect (or maybe fewer than the total), such as mechanics, will ultimately leave you with negative side effects. We are saying that the power choice decision process should involve as many aspects of the big picture, or “whole forest”, as possible, not just simply brute force production. Aspects such as the effect on the user, pollution, environmental impact, and many others. And this is really what our argument is in other areas as well, such as forestry and agriculture. When we make management decisions based on incomplete criteria, ultimately we will find some of our choices to be actually defeating our purpose. The choice to use animal power is (or should be) really a choice to look at and consider the “big picture” of whatever operation or field is being considered.

So there’s my few thoughts for the moment……

[near horse]

So one way of presenting the use of animal power in todays “terms” = “Help reduce your carbon footprint by leaving a hoofprint”. Not well thought out but a start.

Ben – I agree about using efficiency being twisted in its usage. Folks that look at how many acres you can get done in a day or an hour are looking at efficient use of TIME not necessarily ENERGY.

[Carl Russell]

Using efficiency to mean proficiency. There is nothing wrong with proficiency being an important consideration, it’s just not necessarily the most efficient method.

Carl

[Tim Harrigan]

When I encouraged the comparison of draft animals and tractors/skidders on the basis of energy efficiency I was not thinking in terms of comparing total board feet harvested. I was encouraging the comparison of bf per unit of energy input. By my preliminary ballpark estimate a large team of drafts that eats 2-50 lb bales of bromegrass hay per day consumes about 85 Mcal per day of energy. One gallon of diesel is about 37 Mcal, and an 80 hp tractor/skidder would likely consume about 3 gal per hour or 111+ Mcal per hour. So I am still curious about the energy efficiency of draft animals compared to machines.

[Rick Alger]

My earlier post disappeared, so here is another. My guestimates – A small grapple skidder hauling from a feller buncher on a 500 ft average skid could produce between 10 and 20 mbf in a day. A team hauling already fallen wood the same distance would produce between one and two mbf a day. That puts the horses ahead on energy consumption.

One complication is labor costs. If the guy driving the skidder is making, say $20 an hour, and he skids 16 mbf, his labor cost per mbf is $10. If the guy driving the team is making $20an hour and he skids 1.6 mbf, his labor cost per mbf is $100. I’m no fan of machinery, but it’s pretty clear energy savings won’t make up the difference in labor cost.

[Rick Alger]

My earlier post disappeared, so here is another. My guestimates – A small grapple skidder hauling from a feller buncher on a 500 ft average skid could produce between 10 and 20 mbf in a day. A team hauling already fallen wood the same distance would produce between one and two mbf a day. That puts the horses ahead on energy consumption.

One complication is labor costs. If the guy driving the skidder is making, say $20 an hour, and he skids 16 mbf, his labor cost per mbf is $10. If the guy driVIng the team is making $20 an hour and he skids 1.6 mbf, his labor cost per mbf is $100.

[Tim Harrigan]

Yes, labor costs per bf would be greater with the decreased production but machinery ownership and operating would be quite a bit less with drafts. Ownership and operating costs are not particularly difficult to calculate if you have reasonable estimates for machine purchase price, expected annual hours of use, etc. I do not have good estimates for those things. It would be interesting to see how those things net out. At least one or two folks on here have said they had to swim harder to keep above water with the machine-based system than the draft-based system.

[Author]

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