Is the team big enough??

[bendube]

Looking for some advice:
We’re in the market for a new team, and we have a very promising set of devons on our mind.
They are a bit smaller than the last team we had, and we’re weighing the pros and cons of a smaller team.

Our last team was a little over 4000 lbs between the two, the devons are about 3000.

We used a 14″ sulky plow with the bigger boys, and when plowing to a medium to deep level, we saw drafts averaging a little over 500 lbs. It was probably not excessively sized for them, but they definitely couldn’t go any bigger. Coming out of their winter vacation, it was a tough pull, and we couldn’t do more than a 2000-3000′ ft of furrow ( <1/8 of an acre) before they started really acting up.

We’re thinking about downsizing to a 12″ plow, but that’s only a 13% decrease in plow size for a 25% decrease in team size. 10″ might be even better, but we don’t want to go the walking-plow route, because we want to plow with one person (I know its possible to plow with 1 person on a walking plow, and we’ll work on that, but we can’t rely on that right now).

We also should sometimes have a team of working cows to help the boys cover more ground, but we can’t rely on that on a consistent basis (in order to work around calving and peak lactation.)

The other possibly limiting task would be loading loose hay. We get drafts in the 400+ lbs range regularly.

These possible problems have to be weighed against the benefits of a lower stocking rate, which opens up more room for other stock and the lower inital cost of the animals. Also, given the same amount of work to accomplish, a smaller team would be much easier to keep in maximum working condition, because the longer time to accomplish the job would translate into more exercise.

Anyone have thoughts about this?

Thanks!
Ben

[mitchmaine]

hi ben,
i was wondering if you had ever thought of three horses? they don’t all have to match in size and colour, but a third horse for plowing is a really great thing. i didn’t understand it till we got one and then its hard to go back. and then if the job doesn’t require the extra animal, pull one out. you always have a reserve horse it one gets abcess or something.
harrowing, spreading manure, there are a number of jobs that go easier with three. come to think of it, all jobs go easier with the three. plowing is a good example, cause youhave so much horse that yonever have to stop.
the disadvantage is caring and feeding more mouths. back before the second world war when our state was horse powered, most of the work was done with small drafts 1400-1500 lb. it was hard to find a 23 inch collare in all the piles of old harness i went through.
(this advice and 10cents willstill get you a coffee downtown) good luck there, mitch

[Andy Carson]

A 14 inch plow run at 7 inches deep moves a cross sectional area of 98 square inches (14*7). a 12 inch plow run at 6 inches deep moves a cross sectional area of 72 square inches (12*6). That’s a 27% decrease in draft (more or less) for a 25% decrease in animal weight. Moreover, I think that as animals approach very high weights, thier efficiency decreases. You definately see this is pulling competitions, weight percent pulls are usually won by the lighter classes. So, I think that if the implements are scaled by weight alone, the smaller animals will do really well. I think with the hay you could load less and make a few more trips. Witht eh hay especially, you might get more work out of the smaller animals that one might guess based on body weight alone. Smaller animals have a larger surface to volume ratio, which means they can cool themselves faster than a large animal of the same shape. Animals hauling heavy loads in haying season seem like they would benefit from this. I went through a whole cost-benefit analysis when I picked calves this last year. For me, I ended up being most interested in weights of around 1700-1900, which I expect my devon/aryshire/shorthorn calves will get to (if you are interested I will send you the contact for where I got these). That said, if I had a pair of straight devons in front of me I very likely would have bought them.

[bendube]

Hey Mitch, Thanks for sharing your experience.

Working with 3 is harder with cattle than horses, but its something for us to work with. I figure that if we get our breeding in the right synch, we could always have at least 1 of our 2 dairy cows who isn’t near calving to make a team of 3. The shorthorn cows are just a hair smaller than the Devon oxen. Having 4 is even better. Now it gets back to figuring out the right way to work cattle 3 abreast.

[Tim Harrigan]

Andy’s analysis passes my scrutiny. I think the Devons will do fine with the 12 inch plow, just take some time to condition them before you expect to use them hard at that task for a good part of the day. You might also try plowing at 3-5 inches if your soil is suitable and your primary interest is weed control and preparing a seedbed. Plow draft is generally proportional to depth and if you do not need to plow deeper there is no agronomic benefit and you are just working your team harder than necessary. Skim plowing does not have the nice look of deeper cutting, but so what? And if you are averaging 500 lbf with a 14 inch plow my guess is your soil tends to be sandy-loam and probably not too hard to plow.

400 lbf with loose hay is higher than I would guess but if you have hills, or uneven ground I could see some spikes with a full load. Do you have steel tires, or pneumatic? Steel pulls quite a bit harder.

A disk could pull hard in that ground, and a springtooth as well if you set the tines deep.

[Baystatetom]

I wish I had some way to quantify it but I can say for sure that my team is pulling much larger loads now after a few weeks of steady logging then they did on the first week. My team is around 2800 now and I wouldn’t expect them to have the least bit of trouble pulling my 12″ plow. In fact after logging on brushy side hills they might think it a welcome break.
I would think a 3000 pound team of devons should pull a plow just fine if you get them in shape.
~tom

[bendube]

Tim, come to think of it, that hayloader draft measurement was from one of the largest loads that we ever brought in (1.75 tons of hay in 1 wagon).
Also, we have pneumatic tires, but one was quite a bit under-inflated.

One of the thoughts that you bring up, Tim, is to work periodic (needed only once every couple years) deeper tillage around the lactation of the cows, so that we can bring 4800 lbs of bovine muscle to that job.

[Oxhill]

You should contact Ray Ludwig.

Few people have as much practical experience training cattle to do farm work like you expect to do.

I dare say no one has as much training Devons to do it.

Devons have been considered the very best breed for oxen due to their beauty intelligence and mainly their activity. The only quality that I have ever seen questioned in old farm journals is their size. One writer stated that to breed them larger would cause them to slow down and then they would be no better than any other ox.

It is interesting that you have the same concerns that teamsters did over 150 years ago!

[bendube]

Thanks again to everyone for their comments and suggestions.
We did speak with ray ludwig, and he felt that nothing would be a problem if we keep them fit.
Hopefully we’ll have a few student teamsters who want to pull a loaded stoneboat around in circles while we wait for the ground to get dry in March.

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