Need advice.

[Rod]

Brings up the question about line material. Is their a difference in “feeling the bit” between the leather, bio-thane, and beta line materials?

BTW this has been a very informative thread, thanks to all who have contributed. I am going to print the thread out and paste it in the back of my Steve Bower’s book, there is so much good advice here.

[Neil Dimmock]

I am a leather man but the cost of outfitting so many teams kind of pushed me it to synthetic, Once tried I liked, for line its real hard to be beta vinyl. pros, its easy to look after and when you see a student drag your beta lines thought the muck you don’t get as ruffled as you do with your new leather, just wipe it off and its as good as new, tensile strength of the beta is more than twice that of leather and it comes in 100′ roles so no splices to let go or fray even in the big hitches. they have out lasted the leather so far with very little maintenance, and the cost is half. they do feel some what different than leather in your hands but not in a bad way and the response is the same. right now I have 19 sets of work harness and all but two have the beta lines. they don’t freeze up in the cold and I know about the cold. so I cant pick holes in them at all but still if I was buying a new Fancy (go to towner) leather harness It would have leather lines
Neil

[Carl Russell]

Leather all the way…..until I felt Beta. I still keep a good set of leather lines, single and double, but working in the woods is harsh on lines, and Beta stands the abuse better. Also they don’t get as slimy as leather when they get wet, and they don’t stiffen.

Carl

[Gabe Ayers]

It has been said that the greatest reward for any beast of burden is cessation of demand – Whoa.

So when you really work them, they love to stop and when they are well worked and then are really tired they don’t mind standing still…..

If they are exhausted and you keep asking them then you will teach them to balk just like Neil says. If they start to balk, give them a supplemental signal of some kind – no more than necessary to encourage movement in response to your normal signals and then work a little bit more and quit. Quit on a positive successful exchange and note.

Watching their respiration rate when you stop and noticing how quickly they recover or take that sigh and then start to breath at a little slower rate is important. The harder you work them against a great resistance to their movement the quicker they will tire. The hotter the weather the quicker they will tire. The softer or out of shape your horses are the quicker they will tire.

Your goal is to make them think they can do anything you ask…and the measure of what they can do without injury is a measure of your horsemanship. It is a matter of making them brave and strong….and it takes time and patience multiplied by what kind of horses (character, confirmation, conditioning) you actually have. Most of them can and will work a man to death when kept in good care and conditioning.

Contact, command and release simultaneously to start, pull back slightly and voice whoa simultaneously to stop, then release, give them their head and freedom to stand, just don’t throw the lines away, stay in touch. You will have to work a long time to trust them to stand pointed back to the barn, or the trailer at a show, or the landing in the woods…

The release to start is a reward of the freedom of movement, which for any prey animal is a safer feeling than a “sitting target”, but the line tension and contact gives the confidence that you are still there and with them, behind them and the herd mentality is comforted, compounded, nurtured and comfortable, as they accept direction from the boss hoss…you, the teamster, driver, horseman.

But it all starts on the ground (preferable at birth) and then with whoa meaning something in the round pen and lead line.

On the driving line deal I have several sets of harness (particularly if I count the ones that are loaned to apprentices and former apprentices) and most have beta logger’s lines.

The one trick we do is use two different colored lines, with the left being brown and the right being black. We call them logger lines, since we often lay the lines down when hooking a log, so when we pick them up after a few thousand logs the horses know it is time to go back to the landing….so having instant knowledge of which line is in which hand by the different colors can help a horsemen standing and walking in the brush beside a log arch with about 250 board feet of hardwood coming out of a holler. This doesn’t mean that I let them go as soon as I pick the lines up, contact starts with whoa, we are still in park, but it helps to know which side you have instantly. We just buy two different colored sets and split them. We have had harness makers make them for us also.

This is a great thread and wonderful text advice…..but applying it with your animals is not as easy as reading any of these master’s words….hang out with some of the older hands when you can and keep practicing….

Whoa is the most important command… or as we say, if they don’t have a park, then none of the other gears count…..

There is great writing in this forum and should be read by every beginner horseman. It would have been cool to find this when I was starting out….

[Rod]

More questions. How do folks tie the horse team up when in bridles? Do you tie by the bit or slip a halter over the bridle? Use a combination halter bridle? Is it advisable to tie them up when out working if it’s necessary to leave them for a while?

[Neil Dimmock]

I leave the halters on when there at work and tie with them when I need to walk away, And No Its not dangerous the leave the halter on if the halter is fitted properly the only thing dangerous is not having them on when needed
Neil

[Carl Russell]

Never hook to the bit, it can be painful to the horse. Hitching to the bridle in general is not a good idea, because if the bridle is broken (often made of light leather) then it can be difficult to drive home.

I always unhitch the animals from the cart or equipment, un-bridle, put on halters, and tie them, either back in the barn, or to another appropriate structure like a tree.

If I have one of my carts that I can hitch by the back to a tree,I will park them like that sometimes. I never tie the horses by their heads while they are hitched to equipment.

Otherwise, I would rather spend the time to train them to stand.

I had a few more thoughts about George’s questions about starting;
Because of the way I handle the lines, my horses become alert as soon as I pick up the lines. But before I suck my lip for them to start, I ready them by saying “ready”. This way they are ready but not moving when I gather my lines,and they remain relaxed because they learn that there is one more command before I will call on them.

When I do call on them and either, or both, are balky, I cut a marshmallow stick, 2-3 points, 3-4′ long, easy to hold with the lines, and as I give the command to start, I tickle them right at the tail head. No jabbing, no slapping, just an irritation, an easy movement that doesn’t interrupt the even tension on the lines. I tickle just as I make my sound, not after, so that they make the association to move when I make the sucking/kissing sound. Carl

[Does’ Leap]

I have wondered about the tying to a tree while hitched. We haven’t done it but it has seemed convenient when in the woods with the arch. I have also wondered if spreading manure could become more of a one person job. We have piles of compost scattered around the farm and it would be nice to have a hitching post so we wouldn’t need a separate person to load spreader with tractor. Is this a dangerous thing to do once the horses are totally comfortable with the routine?

Thanks for the help with the starting up. Lots of frequent short rests with the harrowing yesterday and they were very willing whole time.

Kristan

[Neil Dimmock]

Tie them up! we tie at the threshing machine, manure spreaders, pulling logs with a long wait, bathroom breaks, teaching teams to stand, etc, and after 40 years of going to wagon trains and trail rides , threshing, driving comps horse shows, you name it I have never seen a tied up team runaway, Lots And Lots of ( Train to stand teams) but never seen a team hooked up and tied up hurt or hurting any one else
Neil

[ngcmcn]

Neil,

was reading through earlier posts on this thread and came accross yours and if i understand correctly you advocate never setting down the reins for any reason, and always tie your horses up if they’re parked. Tying at a park I can understand but what if you are working alone, say with a baler in the middle of a large field………..no help, no assistants, and your baler starts acting up, not in a big way but enough to need both hands to fix at the tail end of the baler? Or lets say your on a tight woods trail, no help, no body around and there’s a tree down accross your path that you can’t get over and you have to run your saw to clear it. As far as i’m concerned theres no way i could run a chain saw with the reins in my hand and yes i could tie them to a tree.

I work alone primarily so its important that i work safely and i believe thats your point. I set down the reins all the time, but only for a very limited (short) amount of time,and monitor them constantly and stay close, i don’t leave them to go get lunch.

By the way either every one on this site is out doing hay?(not around New England with all the rain we’ve had) or, who knows what.

Best
neal Mcnaughten
unity, me.

[Neil Dimmock]

Every once in a while all of us take chances by setting our lines down and hope they stay and a buck or grouse don’t jump up and startle your team!! Just remember your taking a chance and treat it as such, some tie up to a line peg and drop a tug, only works until your down hill a little, some tie to the wheel around the axle but it can unwind if they back first. the only safe place is in your hands, so know your teams limits and take darn few chances and let your lines down as a last resort and not as a regular practise and never when your life depends on it
Neil

[Carl Russell]

Greetings Neil & Neal,
There are people out there! This is a CRAZY time of year around here.

Anyway, there is no way to work horses practically without training them to stand so that the reins can be put down, albeit for short time-frames.

I agree with Neil that you can not have any influence on them if something jumps out of the bushes, and as sound advice to beginners about safety, nothing should be left to chance.

However, horses that stand while the reins are being held will be stimulated by any action on the reins, even if it is just to switch hands, which defeats the purpose of having a standing stop. Animals that are taught to stand with slack, dead, or dropped lines will never know any stimulation until the teamster moves the lines for driving.

I use this method all the time for every aspect of the work I do. I never have any help, and hitch up, unhitch, attach draw bars, hook logs, cut fallen trees in front of them (with the chainsaw), and do field repairs on bridles or what ever comes up, without holding onto my lines.

I can not argue the ultimate fact of Neil’s point that you have nothing if you haven’t got the reins when you need them. I also know that you haven’t got anything if you don’t have a team that will stand so that you can get work done.

It is a personal challenge to balance these things. Unfortunately, in the long run balancing safety and practicality often comes down to the degree of risk you are willing to take.

There is a difference between fear and risk. 20 times more kids die in car accidents with their parents driving, than from being attacked by a stranger, but parents would rather drive their kids to school than let them walk, because of the fear that they will be attacked.

That’s why it is referred to as the teamster’s art. Through practice, each one of use finds the method that we feel works best for us personally.

Be safe out there.

Carl

[Gabe Ayers]

Once when being photographed by a nationally known horseman and photographer, (maybe photographer first horseman second in notoriety) he commented that he could not show or sell a video we had produced because it showed the unsafe practice of laying the lines down. Then he actually came to the woods and saw us working our horses and made the comment that “your horses are oblivious to everything”. And the video went on to be acclaimed as one of the best horselogging videos every produced. It was called “An Introduction to Modern Horselogging, Appalachian Style”, first released in 94.

Well believe me those horses weren’t born that way, they were trained to be that way over a considerable period of time, say six months at least in the woods.

We basically have some principles that we apply to using the horses that may help anyone.

First, is expressed by the euphemism of: “If they don’t have a park, then none of the other gears count”. Standing still or doing nothing is the most important command and dependable behavior or response for any horse or team when asked to whoa and stand still.

When we teach our courses we take lead lines and write out the letters P.,A., R., K., on the ground and ask the students what it spells. They say “Park” and we say that is what the lead lines are for, if you want them to stay where you put them then tie them up and you can’t do that unless you have a halter on during working times. Now an interesting aside is that the same photographer mentioned above refused to photograph our horses (even when working) with a halter on.

So yes we tie them up frequently in the woods, usually as high as the eye and to trees that are apart and we can get them to not get tangled lines or get untied while waiting for our next need for them to work.

But the important thing here is to explain how we get them to the point of standing in a normal working situation. Normal meaning we are alone in the woods and have to depend on their standing while we hook logs, open gates, load trucks, roll logs around, fall timber, clear skid trails and such.

How we get them to that point is a matter of positive reinforcement of their behavior of stopping and standing still. It has been said that “the greatest reward for any beast of burden is cessation of demand”. The important ingredient in that statement is that you have to be working them first. Really working them, not pulling an empty wagon around a ring or down a road, but asking them to move against a reasonable resistance or load. I’m not taking anything away from the hitch work Neil does, and I’ll bet you he has many miles on those black horses before taking them into the public and moving over many miles is resistance to movement by distance alone. When you are working them hard enough whoa can be a reward, which is positive reinforcement of the behavior or standing still. The compounding of this training is to double the positive reinforcement by stopping them when they are doing everything exactly right. This means perfect contact and tension on the lines and bits, evenly pulling, relaxed and comfortable and everything is going just right…..that is when you stop and rest them. That is a very hard thing for beginners to get. When every thing is going just right it is a natural tendency to want to go on and on. So try to master that awareness of positive reinforcement by using whoa as a reward with the reward being cessation of demand or rest.

Then gradually introduce them to more events, stimulus and actions that occur around them daily in the work situations and let them learn that it means nothing to their prey animal mind and that they have no reason to fear anything or anything you are doing.

As I have said in a previous post this should or could all start on the ground when they are foals. Imprint training of cradling a foal restraining it’s movement or actually guiding it to the tit if it is standing for the first time and then when it gets to where you want it or relaxes into accepting your restraint, whisper whoa whoa whoa in their ear and they remember it for a lifetime….Then just keep that mindset of whoa being a matter of stand still on the lead line or I will fuss with you until you do and when they do, relax the contact and stand quietly with them. You are convincing them that as long as you are relaxed they can be relaxed. They can only see you as another horse and you want to be the boss horse or dominant mare in a herd setting and they will take their cues from you, particularly when your signals are clear.

We are all busy right now, it is second cutting hay time here. We actually are shooting film in the woods for the series on RFD-TV and Rural Heritage show on that channel. We happen to be working on a site that has lots of Advanced Timber Stand Improvement that the landowner is willing and able to pay for so we actually have a situation of being paid fairly to improve a forest for the landowner’s aesthetic values first and timber harvesting as an incidental aspect, not the primary objective.

I hope this helps and is clear. It all takes lots of time in harness – working. We do have halters and lead lines on our horses at all times, because no matter how broke or trained they are, horses will wander off if left to stand to long…. they will browse in the woods and look for something to eat in a field, even if it means going to the edge where they can reach leaves when they are checked up to not be able to put their heads to the ground. And as everyone that has worked them for any time knows, they can find a bugger in the bushes when we don’t even see one… they are prey animals and fear equals flight and that instinctual behavior has served to keep them alive during their evolution and it is not going away totally regardless of training and centuries of domestication or attempted domestication. So accept it, embrace it actually and tie them up if there is any question about knowing they will stay where you put them.

Keep working, ere on the side of caution and remember the best color on any
working horse is sweat…..

Regards,

[Jim Ostergard]

I can’t speak to haying equipment and letting the lines go but I, like Carl and Jason have to do it all the time in the woods. I agree its a matter to time to get the horse used to it and one has to ALWAYS be on the alert! I usually have a tree in the wood lot that I stop at coming back from the yard when I need to go cut some more. I keep a line on that and clip it to the bridle. Funny though I go back to get him and sometimes see that I forgot to tie him up. When I use the arch I use real long lines that drop where I can reach them quickly.
Again, I think the point of time with the horse is important and the idea that rest (whoa) is a reward works well.
Yes, lots of dampness here in the NE but we are cutting most days.
peace….Jim O

[Does’ Leap]

@Jim Ostergard 2442 wrote:

When I use the arch I use real long lines that drop where I can reach them quickly.

Jim:

When you mention long lines I assume you mean driving lines and not a lead line. How long are your lines? What tasks do you take on as they are in reach? I imagine these long lines reach the back of your arch to aid in safely hitching logs? Any elaboration would be helpful as I bought an arch last winter and am still getting used to it.

Hope this still fits the interests of this thread.

George

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