using fjord with percheron

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  • #81987
    bird
    Participant

    I’m looking for a little advice and, hopefully, experience. I have a team of percherons (19 hands) and I’m hoping to begin running an I&J cart with baler this year. I may have access to a team of fjords to round out the power supply. Would the short fjords be able to keep up with the percherons?

    #81998
    Does’ Leap
    Participant

    I have no experience working 4, but I have worked plenty with horses of different sizes. Certainly those tall horses will have a longer stride than the Fjords. It will be your job to set the pace and have all follow it. That might mean slowing down the larger horses or asking the little ones to step up a bit. A driving whip or long twitch might come in handy to start.

    George

    #81999
    Donn Hewes
    Keymaster

    Question: which I & J cart are you planning to use? Motorized or ground drive? I have baled with two big horses and two Haflingers. That was with a motorized cart powering the PTO. This included pulling a baler and hay wagon. I just kept the Haflingers on one side and shifted the evener over a few inches. Maybe a 60/40 split. This worked OK, but I do believe I was more careful about how full I made the wagons than I am now. If you are planning to use a ground drive cart I will be very interested to hear how it works. With the ground drive cart you will not be pulling a wagon, most likely.

    Like George I have worked big and small animals together many times. The walking speed is up to us and I don’t think you will have much trouble making them all go the same speed.

    #82002
    bird
    Participant

    Oh, this is so helpful. But I have a few questions, and I will certainly let you know how it goes.

    So forgive me if this sounds dumb, but I’ve spent 20 years teaching so I figure I get a few dumb questions at this point. 😉 What does it mean to shift the evener? I’m not seeing it, probably because my limited experience is working a team only.

    And tell me how you approach holding a horse back. I am spoiled by a very well matched team (shout out to Brad Messersmith) and I hate hauling on the lines to keep my “hot” horse in check. (I do it, though.) So, what are some ways to keep the big guys a little slower that wouldn’t simultaneously have me hauling on the fjords? Is this my ignorance of a four-horse hitch?

    I do have some folks around here who can help me with some of this, and I’ll be investigating that, too.

    Working on purchasing gear right now, for anyone who wants to share stories.

    #82003
    Does’ Leap
    Participant

    The large gelding, Don, in the picture above, is usually paired with his half brother. Don is a very forward, high-energy horse and his brother is more laid back. Getting them to pull evenly, seamlessly has been one of the many things I work on.

    It is all about pressure and release for me and less about holding a horse back. As Don wants to pull ahead, I pressure his bit until he backs off and then I immediately release the pressure (reward). The horse who is ahead feels more of the pressure from the bit compared to the one behind. However, the horse who is behind does feel some pressure. I also use levered bits, generally with very little leverage. However, if Don persists and my other horse seems annoyed or affected by the pressure on his bit, I will add more leverage to Don’s bit. However, this is rarely necessary but these bits have been a good tool in helping my horses to pull evenly. Occasionally, Jim (his brother) is slow in which case I call his name and he will step up. Initially, I used a twitch to tap the slow horse on his croup while calling his name in a neutral tone.

    The key for me has been anticipating when he wants to move ahead through his body language and applying some pressure before he speeds up. This is a subtle, gentle reminder that I am there calling the shots and is more effective than checking his speed once he takes the initiative. Anticipation, pressure, release, reward…….

    In terms of the evener (correct me if I’m wrong, Donn), as you shift horse(s) toward the center of the evener (say 18″), they will pull more of the load compared with the horse(s) that are further away (say 22″). This will, of course, necessitate some drilling or welding if your evener has only one location to attach the single tree.

    George

    #82008
    Donn Hewes
    Keymaster

    Yes, drilling wood or welding steel is usually necessary, but the physics that make it work are very simple. If you have a ratio between two sides of an evener that is not 50/50; what ever the ratio is equate to the inverse of how much work each side will do. For example:

    Take a 36 ” evener and place a hole 2″ left or right of center, now one side is 16″ long and the other is 20″ long. That is a big offset. Your smaller horse gets the longer lever and is doing about (math in my head) 45% of the work, your bigger horse gets the “short end of the stick” and is doing about 55% of the work. Useing this evener with a tongue you need to make sure that moving them has not crowded the big horse too much.

    With the four horses I would make a custom evener that accommodated the ponies on one side and the horses on the other. I would make a wide evener with extra space in the middle. I would use two 36″ eveners and set the pony side about 46″ from the center. I would then place the hole for the other evener about 38″ from the center.

    Bird you still didn’t tell use which type of PTO Cart you were planning to use?

    I have found that driving four horses hooked to something that takes a good bit of effort is a special skill. When two horses are working hard the teamster learns to “see” this and fine tunes the line pressure and signals to keep them at it. With four horses baling there is a fair bit of swinging the horses left and right (imagine how you steer a tractor back and forth to follow a ‘straight’ windrow) For a beginning teamster it can be difficult to give all these steering signals with out killing the forward momentum. It just takes time and practice.

    #82140
    bird
    Participant

    I understand the bit about the evener, just didn’t get how you were adjusting. But drilling, etc. explains it.

    I plan to use a ground-driven PTO cart. Though I have recently learned that another cart may be available in coming months, so I’ll hold off on the I&J for a bit.

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