Mighty Minis or Half Pint Power.

[fogish]

I am a little late posting an introduction and I apologize for that. I am in Eastern Washington, and suddenly in limbo regarding a rapidly approaching move to SLC Utah, where I am originally from. I am in my early 30’s and between my wife and I we own 10 miniature horses. They range from 32″-35″. I trained my stallion to drive about 6 years ago and I want to train him to do some draft work now. I hope to have 4-8 of our horses trained and use them in teams as much as possible, but for now the plan is for my stallion and I to learn this together. I hope the fact that he is already comfortable in harness and pulling a cart will make it much easier on both of us. Someday I would love to get an ass and a large draft but as things stand I have a herd of minis to work with and I will be making the most of it.

[jen judkins]

Welcome, Fogish! There is a couple over in western VT with a 10 up mini team. I don’t think they do too much hard labor, but they are cute as all get out and fun to watch. My point being, no reason you can’t team up a half dozen or so to pull a harrow or cultivator. I’ve seen some bigger minis haul some wood as well. Good Luck. Post pictures!

[bdcasto]

Fogish,
I’d like to encourage you in your mini horse endeavors. I’ve used our “mini” for various jobs around our farm. She is actually 40 inches tall and well built. She’ll pull a small sled with a few bales or bags of chicken feed. She also does well at cleaning up storm damage and tree trimmings type logging (3-8 inch diameter limbs 10 -15 feet long). I’d love to have a pair just like her to put together. Your horses are smaller, but I think they would surprise you at what they can help you do. Good luck.
BD Casto
New Carlisle, OH

[Jean]

Fogish, I have a team of minis that I use around the farm. We move hay, grain, firewood, shavings and we have a little cultivator for the raised beds. I just did a short demo on farming with minis at a big equine event in VT. It was mostly hunter/jumper people, but I had a good crowd watching us. My little gelding loves to work. My mare will work. They are good together. I have some videos of them moving hay if you would like to see them let me know.
Jean

[Robert MoonShadow]

I’m not surprised with what Jean’s minis can do…after all, weren’t the mini horses and donks originally developed for mine work? That’d be some serious hard work, in itself, in lousy conditions…I think people overlook the usefulness of smaller animals – especially on smaller homesteads and farms. As for snigging smaller firewood logs…smaller (diameter) wood – to me – means less wood to split w/ my gas woodsplitter.

[fogish]

Thank you, everyone, for the warm welcome and your support for the use of minis. I will post a couple old pictures of my stallion, from when I trained him, at the end of this reply. I won’t have access to all of my real files until I get home Thurs. night. BD Casto what type of harness do you use? Jean I would love to see the videos. Do you have pictures of the cultivator? The feeling I get is I am stuck having to make all my own implements, or take existing ones and try to make them lighter and smaller but still structurally sound. I can do light fabrication work, including welding, with the tools I own. But I can’t do projects that require a metal lathe. Robert, I have read that they were used in mines but I don’t know what size they were at that time. Part of the reason I am here is to maximize the usefulness of the horsepower that I already have. “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”

[bdcasto]

“BD Casto what type of harness do you use?”

Currently I use a well padded breast collar harness very similiar to the one you have on your stallion. This works fine for cart work but is not optimal on ground level implements due to pressure on neck strap. She has never acted sore but I would feel better if I was using a good fitting neck collar for the non-road cart work. Regarding the mine ponies, the actual video footage I’ve seen involved Shetlands (stocky British types) with a very interesting harness made for pulling carts. There is a neat youtube video somewhere out there showing this although the video is very dark but is clearly footage of actual coal mine use of ponies. Nice looking mini by the way.

BD Casto
New Carlisle, OH (but originally from West Virginia coal country)

[Robert MoonShadow]

If he can haul you & that cart, he can definitely do some work! He certainly looks good 7 stout.

[fogish]

I have been looking at collars for him and what I have found for minis are being called driving or buggy collars. I assume that they would be fine for the stress that implements would put on them because of economy of scale: the smaller an object gets the more force it can withstand relative to it’s size. The other way around is something 4 times larger can’t withstand 4 times the same force. Of course I would rather buy the proper collar the first time instead of paying for one that can’t take the stress and then buying the proper one. https://www.mydrafthorse.com and http://www.chimacumtack.com/horseharnessdrivingcollars.shtml

He can haul 2 adults in that cart without a problem. I believe the most weight was between 350-375 plus the cart. The larger wheels help a lot, easier starting and more leverage. He can even take me totally off road and off trails with it. The wide wheelbase and low seat makes it extremely stable. I am embarrassed about the fit of the harness and cart, we were still making adjustments. My friend broke her collar bone a few months ago, her mini spooked, her cart tipped and that’s all she wrote. Her cart was the normal type you see minis pulling, tiny wheels located under a seat that is high up in the air. Well I totally went off on a tangent there.

He is actually one of my finest boned horses but he really has the heart to work, he will do anything for me. I have to be mindful of that and regulate how hard I work him. He will just go until he can’t any more.

Thanks for the compliments guys.

Here is a short video of him driving: Puck Driving – Youtube

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