Odd Jobs

[Rod]

Old hunks I guess.

Roderick

[Michel Boulay]

Hi Rod & Rod44,
I’m not far behind you guys. Oficialy retiring end of june.Old is just and appearence. We maybe getting older but we refuse to grow up:D.
Always young at heart.

Mike

[Rod]

I agree it’s a state of mind and when you let go. I have quite a few folks that I know and admire in their late 80s and still going strong. I am really only 69 years old so have a lot of life left to live. The Bible says “occupy until He comes” and I intend to do that.

[Gabe Ayers]

This is an odd job we did with the young horse from our logging team this weekend. He still wanted to go faster back toward the barn, but he got it about about row three, which means six passes. A good operator on the three foot cultivator can do some nice work. When you rotate the ground around and put the garden on sod every 3-5 years or so, the weed control is reasonable.

[Does’ Leap]

Jason:

Nice horse. He seems taller than many of the Suffolks I’ve seen. How big is he and how does he compare with your other Suffolks?

George

[Gabe Ayers]

George,

Tong is about average for the horses we have developed or kept over the last thirty years of raising them.

You are right, we do have a little bit larger average sized Suffolk than most that I saw in NE. The bred actually has different bloodlines and one can find Suffolk horses that average 16/2-17/2 and weight 1800 pounds in shape. That is what Tong is around. He and his team mate Wedge are about 50 pounds of each other in weight. It is a mystery to me, as to why these horses vary considerably in size and color. I have bred big mares and our current sire Rudy and gotten average smaller sized horses with stars on their faces and light manes and tails with one crossing and a completely different color and sized horse from the same mating the next go around. One would think that such a pure breed would be easy to have consistency, but it is harder than one would imagine.

I like them dark red, no chrome on the face and as big as I can get them. Yet we have a gelding (his name is Chain) coming along that is almost a sorrel with a star… and he is huge, weights over a ton and is 17/3. Lots of genetic diversity within this breed and almost all of them love to work….and will pull hard.

I like them big because they can bring bigger wood out with less effort and live on about the same amount of feed. A bigger horse does eat more than a smaller horse, but that is a fair price to pay for bringing big logs out of tight places for the asking. Mostly I like that they are easy to train, live a long time and hold up to the work very well.

I think there are some bigger Suffolk’s in NE. John Hammond has a larger bloodline up there.

PS – Bill McKibben is speaking in town this morning, I am going to ask him what he thinks of modern animal power – as it relates to sustainability……
I’ll let DAP know what he says…

Thanks for the comment.

[Rod]

Thinking about this thread made me realize that one big thing keeping me from using my team for odd jobs is the insecure parking situation. I have lots of little jobs that I would love to use my horses on like the tree branch in the pasture that needs to be cut to fire wood length and carted to the wood shed (I have a few of these to do). I could take my pickup and chain saw and load it easily or use the horses and a cart and do the same. But with the horses I need to park them while I cut the wood and load it. With electric fences I usually have no convenient place to tie them while I work and don’t trust them to stand for the length of time I need to do the job.
That’s the case with a lot of odd jobs and those type of projects are numerous on the farm. Clearing trails and roads , working in the sugar bush, hauling things around etc. It seems to me if I could solve this problem a lot of opportunities would open up for the teams use. I find I keep saving those type of jobs for them but get stuck on this point.
Using them for bigger jobs is a different story. Hooking to mow or ted for an hour or more with no need to be in park mode, except for a few minuets now and then, is a very different challenge. Any ideas out there as to how others approach this problem?

[OldKat]

@Rod 9077 wrote:

Thinking about this thread made me realize that one big thing keeping me from using my team for odd jobs is the insecure parking situation. I have lots of little jobs that I would love to use my horses on like the tree branch in the pasture that needs to be cut to fire wood length and carted to the wood shed (I have a few of these to do). I could take my pickup and chain saw and load it easily or use the horses and a cart and do the same. But with the horses I need to park them while I cut the wood and load it. With electric fences I usually have no convenient place to tie them while I work and don’t trust them to stand for the length of time I need to do the job.
That’s the case with a lot of odd jobs and those type of projects are numerous on the farm. Clearing trails and roads , working in the sugar bush, hauling things around etc. It seems to me if I could solve this problem a lot of opportunities would open up for the teams use. I find I keep saving those type of jobs for them but get stuck on this point.
Using them for bigger jobs is a different story. Hooking to mow or ted for an hour or more with no need to be in park mode, except for a few minuets now and then, is a very different challenge. Any ideas out there as to how others approach this problem?

Rod,

Are you saying there are NO places to tie your team while you do your other work, OR are you saying that the team will not stand quitely tied up while you do your other work?

Just curious.

[Rod]

Both I guess. I can tie them but usually not very close to the work for loading etc. and they are impatient, pawing the ground, and head tossing and rubbing.

[OldKat]

@Rod 9087 wrote:

Both I guess. I can tie them but usually not very close to the work for loading etc. and they are impatient, pawing the ground, and head tossing and rubbing.

Do you tie them up much when they are not in harness?

Mine use to do that same thing, but when an Amish guy that I know in South Texas farmed with them for about 3 or 4 months last year he tied them up virtually around the clock for the whole time he had them. When I got them back they had stopped doing this. Not saying it would work with your horses, but it sure did with mine. I have no idea how long they would have to stay tied up each day, or even if this would help, but it was amazing to me how well mine responded to it.

Mine will paw if I am measuring out feed and they are tied up where they can see or hear what I am doing. All I do is say “AHHH, STOP THAT!” and they do.

Don’t have any thoughts on how to tie up when you have nothing to tie to. Plant trees I guess!

Good luck with your horses. I am interested to see what other ideas that the others may have.

[Rod]

I have an idea to help with my own problem stated above. Since I have a have a light sled why not use it to pull around to those odd jobs. It can carry the tools and the brush/wood or rocks etc. With a single horse and a chain to drag it, it’s an easy hook and unhook meaning that at the work site I can unhook the chain, turn the horse around and tie him to the sled. When I am ready to go it’s an easy movement to untie him , turn around and drop the chain on the sled and off we go. A seat on the sled or hay bale to sit on would complete the setup.
See what you can think of when you are too tired out to do anything else.

[Rod44]

My haflingers lived at an amish friends place for a few years before I retired and took them home. It took him most of that time to get to stand untied. Takes a lot of sweat under the collar and a good “speaking to” for them to get the idea. I trust them pretty good but if I am going quite a ways away for a while I tie them back to the load and unhook the tugs or pull the pin on the double tree. That way they can’t take off with the whole load. It seems they stand better that way than tied up to something.

[Donn Hewes]

Hi Rod, I think it is great to figure out ways to get our horses involved in these little tasks as they can learn from the waiting and the noises of loading and unloading, and turning, etc. I was thinking that It just means an extra trip with the saw and without the horses to make the piles.

Then I read your post. Be careful about tieing to something they can move. You might be surprised what they can move with their head if they want to. Especially to leave them tied for more than a few minutes or while you are running a chain saw. Not saying it won’t work, but the potential for a problem is there if the situation is just right. If it is the right sled and the right horse it might be fine, just something to consider. Donn

[Rod]

Hi Don

Good thought and I will be careful to heed what you suggest. I do have 600 lb. sled (empty) which I can use and would be surprised if my horse would try to move it with his halter. It will even be a chore for him to move it in the tugs. The horse I would use is pretty good and very sensitive to the restraint of being tied. It’s his brother that is the impatient one and he can stay home for these jobs.
I have a place where I tie them to a fence rail near the barn for grooming etc. its a fence rail which I could pull apart myself with a few good yanks. They don’t fight the tie at all but do get inpatient with lots of hoof action to let me know they want to get going.
I am going to add a period of being tied in the barn each day to their routine to get them used to the idea. That should help a little also.
I really want to do this because I find myself leaving these jobs undone as I want to do them with the horses but haven’t at least up to this point figured out a practical way to arrange it.

[Rod44]

How about putting a hobble on them?

[Author]

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