traction vs draft

[thousandhills]

I want to start a sustainable farm. I know how to farm the things I want to but I also want to use draft power. The problem is do I pay well for a team of well trained mules or do I start with traction and convert eventually over to traction? Mostly looking to garden, hay and small grains. I am worried that if I start with a tractor I will not ever take the time or money to convert to draft.

Thanks

[Joshua Kingsley]

From my perspective, (being the son of a conventional dairy man who has little use for horses). It gets harder to switch after the farm is set up for tractors. I love to use horses as much as I can and did until I sold my teams last year. I am now buying Haflingers and starting over but still am going to have to fight with dad on the value of using horses on the farm. The equipment that you get when you start with tractors will likely not transition over and you will eventually end up with many duplicates, that being said there are options such as the newer fore-carts that can work with modern tractor implements. It is ultimately a choice that you will have to make on your own. I have done both and given the choice on my own I would opt for heavy ponies or horses over the fuel consuming tractors. There are others on this site that do things both ways that may offer their own input but I would go in the path that makes you the happiest.
best of luck Josh

[Gabe Ayers]

I think if one is starting up and they have a foundation of support from someone that has the tractors, equipment and land that an integrated system would be a good starting point.

Although this is the Draft Animal Power web site, I suspect everyone on here has their share or degree of fossil fuel fired dependency. I know we do. I think of it as doing my part to run the fuel out and or use it up as it inevitably will run out and get more costly along the way. So a transition to animal power is appropriate from that perspective and a nice comfortable situation for those members of a family that have their preferences.

Beyond that statement of the obvious, that fact is that animal power is a superior technique in many settings, beyond the finite, expensive and polluting fuel issue.

Animal power is less compacting on the soil and that is more important than is commonly understood. For instance in events of heavy rainfall such as lately in the mid-Atlantic and elsewhere, the land worked on the contour in row crops with animal power is far less likely to erode than land compacted with tractor wheels. My own truck crops and garden this year are powerful evidence of that undeniable fact. We had ten (10) inches of rainfall in a 48 hour period last week. My garden and truck crops being plowed, ordered up, planted and cultivated with animal power did not erode enough to even be considered a negative. Meanwhile other neighbors that used tractors and paid less attention to the lay of the land now have much of their topsoil downstream of the cultivated site and it will never be put back…. Animal power is the superior form of mechanical weed control and cultivation of row crops. On the contrary situation in years of below average rainfall, the use of animal powered cultivation will allow the soil to absorb more water than land that has been rolled over by tractor tires and will tolerate the extremes of weather conditions, to wet or to dry. These subtle differences may be the difference between crop failure and reasonable yield.

So the point is that this work may seem extreme to some mechanized farmers, but in fact extreme is exactly what the weather is offering all of us to deal with when working the land. If you know that animal power is better in dealing with extremes, then it seems a wise choice. This choice does depend on the cultural skills to handle the horses and the appropriate application of their capacity.

Off the growing season or during the winter there is a good opportunity to work your animals in the forest, where their traction capacity is superior, again for environmental reasons. We welcome you to visit our web site (address below) to learn more about that income generation aspect of draft animals.

One clear recommendation is: get a well broke, trained mature pair of draft animals that you will have success with from the onset of their integration into your agricultural and forestry enterprises. Take your time on that first purchase and make sure that all your concerns are meet by your new animal partners. Seek the advice, guidance and support of other community members that have animal powered cultural skills.

Good luck, welcome to Draft Animal Power, let us know what you decide and how it progresses.

Sincerely,

[Author]

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