mowing hay with 1 horse

[hobnob]

Hi. Please excuse my ignorance here.

I see a lot of movie clips / photos of pairs of horses pulling mowers (bar/sickle mowers – ground drive all in one units, not the type that are hitched to a forecart), & I see the odd clip/photo of single horses pulling what would appear to be very similar mowers. My question is this – would a single horse mower necessarily be a different model (lighter/smaller) than one meant for a pair, or would it be safe to assume that one could simply modify a 2-horse model to be pulled by a single horse, by swapping the single pole for a pair of shafts?

Thanks in advance for any advice anyone out there might be able to offer.

[dehutch]

Lynn Miller’s Horsedrawn Mower Book shows at least one McCormick/Deering two horse mower, a number 9 if I remember correctly, converted for single horse use. Single horse mowers tend to use shorter cutter bar length of 3 1/2 to maybe as long as 5′ with a heavy single draft. If you’re seriously considering such a conversion or for that matter using/maintaining a ground drive mower of any type, the book is worth the purchase price IMHO.

[Donn Hewes]

Here is my two cents. ( I know you only asked for one!) One horse mowing should work OK depending on what, where, and how much you want to mow. So I would recomend those questions along with your others. I have worked a few one horse mowers and found them vastly inferior to the standard number seven or number nine. I would much prefer to put shafts on one of these. There are a couple easy ways to put shafts on these mowers. My favorite is from the one horse mower. Two pieces of angle iron about twelve or sixteen inches apart (36 or 40″?). They are perpendicular to the tongue, one at the end where it is cut and the other behind. Both are bolted on with two bolts; 3/8?. weld a piece of angle across the ends that is drilled to bolt on the wood shafts (paired down hard wood 2 x 4’s) Gotta run. Donn

[Ethan Tapper]

Brad Johnson was telling me that when he was working at Chewonki up in Maine they modified a (team) mower to have shafts and a shorter (four-foot, I think) bar. He said it worked really good for a single horse. I think they had to do that up themselves, though.

[njfarmer]

They made one horse mowers back in the day. Usually your looking for something with a 4-5 foot bar. I am only familar with the mccormick mowers and at that by no means an expert. The #7 would be ideal with that size bar. the #9 is heavier but again it depends on your condition. A #6 wouldnt be too bad either it just has the exposed gear which gets dirty and can jam up. Other then that the only thing you have to remember when making one work for a team is the height at which it rides has to stay the same. Lynn Millers book is pretty good about explaining that.

[hobnob]

Many thanks for all your replies. The consensus definitely seems to be that it can be done – which is good, as I’ve just won the mower in question on ebay! I will look out for the Lynn Miller book.

[Jay]

What is the mower you got?

Jay

[Author]

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