Log carts and collars

[Ira]

I have a question but first I’ll give you some background.
I log with horses,using a log cart and Dring harness. Sore necks have never been an issue for me.
This spring I was working next to some young Amishmen and they were having problems with their horses necks. They asked me what I did for sore shoulders on my horses and I introduced them to Dring harness. Didn’t know if they took my advice.
These two were better than average in the way that they took care of their horses.
They had carts that were built in a local shop in their community. Steel wheeled of course, and rugged.
They were using pulling collars with vinyl pads and they used western style harness that was fairly new.

Now jump ahead to about a month ago and I am working next to another group of Amish. Father and 2 sons. They are from the same community as the 2 younger Amishmen. So they have the same style cart, harness is from the same shop. Their horses and the care they receive are of equal quality.
The only difference I notice is that they use logging collars with vinyl pads rather than pulling collars and they don’t have any problems with sore necks.

So my question is.. Why, with everything equal(except the collars) would the younger mens teams have sore necks and not the 2 teams the older man was using?

[Carl Russell]

The latter collars probably fit better!!! Carl

[jen judkins]

What are the differences between a pulling collar and a logging collar? Jennifer.

[Ira]

@jenjudkins 3032 wrote:

What are the differences between a pulling collar and a logging collar? Jennifer.

A pulling collar is larger overall(more padding) and the draft is quite a bit larger.

The draft is the largest part of the collar that lays on the horses shoulder. You can measure it by taping around the collar.
You want your hames to fit the collar so that the trace is centered on that point.

[Author]

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