Wanting to Learn

[mcm]

Hello all,
I have small farm in west ga where I raise sheep, chickens, vegetables. I’ve been wanting to convert to horse from tractor for a while and hopefully this is the year. I grew up ridling but have never done any wagon or implement work with a horse. I don’t have a horse yet and my heart wants an old style traditional Morgan, but everything I’ve seen seems like an expensive show horse with a flighty temperament. Anyway, mostly I came here to learn.

[dominiquer60]

Welcome mcm,

There are a few of us that were in your shoes not too long ago, the change is very possible for you. Read and ask away!

Old-style Morgans are also known as Lippitt Morgans, http://www.lippittmorganbreedersassociation.com/component/adsmanager/?page=show_category&catid=1&order=0&expand=-1

Erika

[JaredWoodcock]

I have a soft spot for old style morgans as well but you might have better luck finding canadian horses or draft cross breeds if you are looking for a lighter horse.
Welcome.

[carl ny]

Also if you want a smaller horses you might want to look at draft ponies. They can do an awful lot of work for their size and some of them aren’t that small. Don’t get me wrong ,I love the old style Morgans, just different possibilities.

Carl

[Donn Hewes]

While the good Morgans sound great to me, I all ways encourage beginning teamsters to be open to as many breeds and sizes as they can. Finding healthy, trained animals of good temperament, that you can afford is a tell order to start. Nothing is more important to me than a safe beginning as a teamster. The experience and attitude of your first animals will play a huge part in that.

[Will Stephens]

I looked for some time for the right team of morgans and it is tough. http://www.cornerstonemorganclub.com/ is a great foundation morgan breed club. What I found is if I was going to get a good Morgan team I was going to pay too much money (way more than is feasible for a farm team) or I would be training them. I am pretty new to driving/working horses with a background in driving so I really needed a trained, experienced team to learn from. I ended up with a phenomenal team of canadians after years of looking for morgans. Not being in the North East USA or Western Canada it might be tough for you to find this breed. For Morgans, Lippitt Morgans are the more direct line to Figure, and everyone has strong opinions here but… they call it line breeding when it works and inbreeding when it doesn’t so if you are looking for horses to train really vet out the breeder. Good solid western working lines are a safe place to start looking. Neil Perry has a young team right now but he has breed and trained his own; still he might be a good place to look. But I agree with Donn. Be open about the breed and you will end up with the right horse which is how things luckily worked out for me. Since you are down south, try looking into Mountain Horses too. Size was a real issue for me, I’m not sure if it is for you but I wanted horses I could work, could really cover ground with a carriage and I could ride. I have to teach my new team how to ride but I also have a single canadian that can do both until I get the new team under saddle. Here is a link to video from the DAPNet facebook page of Mountain horses at work.https://www.facebook.com/RMH.sentinel.oak.farm/posts/937762386308694?fref=nf

Keep us posted and good luck!!! Best thing that ever happened to me was finding DAPNet and getting the support that lead to me getting my first team just this summer so we are all here to help.

[mcm]

Wow! So many responses! I went from this post to reading all of the other threads and didn’t see these until now. Thank you all that responded.

After reading many pages of threads, I guess I can say that I’m still not scared away (but some of it is pretty scary).

I’ve been thinking a lot about size and I’m pretty convinced that I want a small horse, mostly because I am small, 58, and female, and realistically, I don’t have the strength or stamina to really work a large horse. I still work full time and can work all day on the farm Saturday and Sunday, but during the week I really only have 1 – 2 hours a day that I can devote to the farm. My goal is to be full time farming in 3 years.

I’ve been doing everything by hand and really like the idea of having a horse pull a plow that makes a trench for my sweet potatoes rather than me digging the whole thing with a shovel. Not to mention cultivating. Right now I do hand weeding and mulch heavily with wheat straw (which also helps the soil). And hilling! And spreading compost! And hauling water to sheep (right now I carry in buckets by hand).

I’m realizing that I’m sounding really lazy and just wanting a horse to do all this work for me, but I really want the horse to do the work WITH me. Every time I’m doing something hard or tedious I’m watching my dogs sleep and my sheep chew and the chickens trot and peck … none of them are very helpful.

And, I also really love horses and have since I was old enough to know what they are. And, I want to stop using fossil fuels, and improve my pastures (manure). My pastures are still not in the “good” category, but they are no longer straight blackberries and broom sedge. And, I think I glimpsed a few grains of topsoil in my vegetable plot. And, my heart breaks a little every time I crank the tractor.

My farm is very hilly. I’m at the very tail end of the Appalachians and there is very little flat land here. The only flat land on my farm is where I raise vegetables. I’m worried about a horse being able to pull up and down these hills.

I’ve looked at the draft ponies a bit, but I do want the option of riding. (I have this fantasy that I will have some free time.)

I hear what y’all are saying about being open to many breeds and that makes sense to me. It seems that the perfect match for me is a very mature horse that is very calm and experienced and who will be patient with me, because I’m afraid I’m destined to make a lot of mistakes.

I honestly can’t make heads or tails of the discussions about harnesses, but I’ve been able to figure out a lot of things on my own so I’ll probably get passable with a harness at some point.

Unfortunately I don’t know of anyone in my area that farms with horses and the clinics and workshops are so far away and so expensive.

Sorry to touch on so many things in one thread, but this isn’t the half of it – there are so many things to think about and question. I’ve been wanting to do this for years and I think this is the year.

Thanks all.

[JaredWoodcock]

Don’t let the stories scare you too much. I have been working with horses on and off my whole life and I didn’t start to get fear and anxiety until I found this site. I know it sounds funny but hearing some the of nasty and scary stories has got me wondering if I am just lucky and I am counting my days until my stories get nasty? Donn is right, the breed doesn’t matter, all horses are individuals and from my experience the bigger horses take less energy to work with then the smaller more “spirited” horses.

[Mike Rock]

Find a Haflinger, draft, ride…… friendship. Old between the rows cultivators are still around down south… Tommy Flowers has nice small plows.

[carl ny]

I was just going to say what Mike did. Haflingers and other Draft ponies are excellent riding horses, actually so are the big drafts.

carl ny

[Mike Rock]

mcm,
Where about in West Georgia are you? Near Benning?
I have some equipment down there I have to pick up and might also have some to help you get going, like small cultivators and a disk and drag.

Mike

[Donn Hewes]

Hi Jared, I hope we aren’t spreading fear or anxiety! I like to think we are helping folks get a good, safe start to working with drafts.

[JaredWoodcock]

Donn, you are helping people make a good start, and all of the scary stories are very important tools! I think twice about things now and I have some pre-flight checklists because of reading about mishaps.

I was just raised around horses from before I could walk so I went through most of my life without thinking about it. As I became an adult and started to meet different folks I realized that I might just be getting lucky and I need to consider some of the safety issues more deeply. Having interns around working horses helped me understand the magnitude of the working horse.

I didnt write what I meant. It is a lot easier to hear the scary stories and the depth of commitment that is needed and think that horses arent for you, but in the end the large majority of the time it is simple, relaxing, and “easy” to have horses as working partners.

This is me knocking on wood 😉

[Donn Hewes]

I hear you. I was just giving you a hard time: it is a good point though. It is a easy to point out what “difficulties” a person might face, but they also have relax, and enjoy being with the animals. As with so many things, there is a balance out there. Wish I were home today, too nice to be at work! D

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