[Carl Russell]

This is in part becoming a discussion that I have been trying to have with the “Alternative Energy” crowd for several years. Our culture has become so dependent on the internal combustion motor that we just take for granted the advantages that they provide, without really looking at the efficiency of the conversion of fuel into power.

If the HP efficiency is really as low as has been described here, then it must also apply to the fuel efficiency per unit of work. The dependency on motors has motivated initiatives to use Bio-fuels, but the discussion about conservation and energy efficiency when directed toward animal power is still a non-starter.

I wonder if we can get together some detailed info that shows how much more HP animals have in comparison to machines combined with fuel efficiency per unit of force, to show how viable animal power truly is in comparison to machines using bio-fuels.

I would love to have this presented at 2010 NEAPFD. Tim, Ben, anybody else? Would you, could you present some of this at our event in Tunbridge, VT 10/15-17/10?

Carl

[Carl Russell]

I have always just used hemlock lumber for stall floors. With caulked shoes they get torn up, but making a false floor is the best solution. Oak, elm, or even sugar maple are better than hemlock. My ice caulks will carve ip a hemlock board in two years.

I use shavings, sawdust, manger and loft chaff, or what ever I can for bedding. Horse manure composts pretty well without bedding added, but I have found that it is even better with some coarse or woody material.

But, all this and I don’t keep my horses in box stalls, so I may not have pertinent feed-back. If I did use box-stalls I can see where rubber mats would be attractive, but I still think I would use wood… and shaving/sawdust/straw.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Thanks Ben. This is a great explanation. It also leads into my comments which take into consideration the mental conditioning of the animals to respond to the required power. It is a factor left out of many discussions, but that momentary overload capacity that you mentioned is driven by an understanding and a desire that can never be engineered into a machine. And measuring drag, or pulling power required, may take into consideration the weight of an animal, it can never account for the heart, nor the skill and subtly of the teamster in getting the desired performance. This goes for pulling heavy logs, as well as dragging pastures.

Never-the-less, it is good to know how these numbers stack up, because it has become such a cultural assumption that even small machines are so much powerful than animals.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Well I was wondering about this thread. It says it’s about value adding, and I know that there is a formula that as the material moves through each step of the process another profit center is absorbed, and by this way alone some of the value of the product is regained by the owner of the raw material.

However in my mind that alone is not sufficient to “add” value. I think it has to come down to the other discussion that popped up that is more concerned with the “way” in which the raw material is cultivated and harvested.

Green beans in a can are not the same as “organic” green beans in a can. Farmstead cheeses are not the same a Kraft. Timber harvested with animal power from a sustainably managed forest is not the same as lumber from logs from a mechanized operation put on back haul trucks to Canada, processed and shipped back. In every one of these cases the “product” appears the same, and in some ways if there is a difference it is not measurable. But there is a process at the foundation that speaks to a higher value, not just a cost, but a value. Some level of craft that is brought to the processing.

As far as Tim’s post I read it completely different.

Quote:

The land owner pays me so much a ft or by the hour to log. I help him market the logs to offset his costs. if he wants to improve his forest and take worst first it will not cash flow. If he wants it to break even we cut accordingly. It does not matter what I cut I get payed the same. this creates a grater trust between me and the landowner because I am working for him not the mill.

I work very similar to this. However I generally tell the landowner how we are going to cut the stand, otherwise I don’t know why they have me there. But I have done several jobs that did not cash flow… at least for the landowner. I got paid, and they made an investment in the future of their woodlot. It doesn’t matter to me either what I cut, except that I only cut to improve the lot. If I have to pull a bunch of crap, I still get paid…well, and it will cost the LO. If I pull awesome timber it makes little difference to me because I am still getting paid well… but it makes more difference to LO because they are making out even better. Truthfully most jobs that I work on can easily make money, or certainly break even, without coming close to compromising my standards.

Anyway, I think this helps to highlight what I’m talking about. If we are just cutting logs with no insight into the improvement of the resource, including multiple bottom lines like ecology, community, and aesthetics, etc., then we are not “adding value”. However if we sell our products into the abyss of the conventional market then that value is diluted by the average acceptable denominator in forestry and harvesting.

So if we are going to “add value” to the raw material by the process that we adhere to, then we HAVE to find ways to follow that product out into the market, ie portable mills, small scale secondary wood manufacturers, etc. Tim’s example is one that has a lot of merit. Working directly with LO, either providing them with a product that they cannot get any other way, or by procuring for himself material for his markets that are available in no other way. Keeping inventory on the stump is an excellent way to adhere to strong standards of sustainable management. Not cutting a good tree until there is a good reason is part of maintaining a high value woodlot, and we all know that once you cut ’em you can’t put ’em back up, and while we can sometimes get good money in the conventional market, it doesn’t measure up to the market that truly wants the “Added Value”.

This doesn’t mean we’re going to be able to use these methods on every property, and like Joel suggests many LO just don’t want to be bothered… This is another reason why animal power is so logical. I’m busy, I can wait for someone who cares.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

We have a forum called “Web-link” under “Community of Interest” on the front page of this site. Maybe I’ll edit the title to reflect more info about the posts there.

Thanks, Carl

[Carl Russell]

I like this idea…..

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Unfortunately, I think you have to accept that some of these guys just wanted to show off. This was not a load that was going very far, nor over very challenging terrain. Sure they moved it…. while the camera was there, but anybody who has loaded sleds will know that if there was any outcome of critical importance, they wouldn’t have put that much time into this load. If something happened to go wrong…. holy crap, what a mess. They weren’t just showing off the horses, but the ability and cleverness of the guys who could handle logs and chains.

Never-the-less it is surely impressive to look at, Carl

[Carl Russell]

goodcompanion;14973 wrote:

Hard to get into someone’s mind for doing something like this, but I wonder if shooting the cows wasn’t as much an act of mercy as of despair, or of trying to make a statement. Without the farmer, they’d be auctioned off quick and cheap and become cogs in the machine that crushes the 50-cow dairy farms of the nation. Or maybe I’m reading too much into it.

This is what intrigues me about this event. It is hard enough to try to understand the desperation that motivates a person toward suicide, but killing 59 cows takes a lot of work. The shear commitment to keep going, reloading, and no doubt he had a few that he had to shoot twice. To maintain resolve. For what? When he was gone why would it matter if the cows were alive. He knew it was going to beyond his control. He must have had some reason beyond his own emotional well-being. Obviously his animals were a huge part of who is was, but that is just a huge undertaking.

I am sorry to say this, but from all accounts this man was well-liked. But maybe he had another side, and this was all really worth it to him BECAUSE he knew it would be hurtful to others, precisely because of the scale.

Even still I would lie to know if there is some way for folks to assist the family.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Soil compaction is not just a surface traffic issue, but is related to the mining of organic material and soil supporting microbial communities. I am just a hill farmer, and work on extremely long term solutions, accepting the current productivity and condition of the land I have to work with. I am not at a point where I feel that I need to have an opinion about the value of these processes, but I just try to see things from the standpoint of starting with animal power, not moving toward it from a mechanized operation.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Tim Harrigan;14961 wrote:

I have never measured the pulling force but I am familiar with that type of tillage tool. I would guess a horse-drawn, single shank keyline plow would pull in the range of 1000 to 1800 lbs force at 14 inches or so. So if you expect a team to work right along I would say at least three but probably 4-6 . It is really hard to say because soils can be so different and it depends on the nature of the restrictive layer that is to be disturbed. And how much lifting the plow is designed to do. Even a moldboard plow draft can vary by a factor of six to eight from sandy to clay soil, moist to dry etc. First, get a shovel and dig. Find out if deep compaction is really the problem. Deep compaction gets a lot of attention and in my estimation in a lot of cases is not the real source of the problem.

The role of such a tillage operation in building soil quality is debatable and is worthy of discussion.

I agree entirely. This is from discussion on organic dairy farms. In my estimation it is a typical discussion taken from the standpoint of a mechanized operation trying to find out how well animal power could perform.

Truly functional animal powered operations will require that the tasks are energy appropriate, and certain tools and their benefits may never be effective in animal based enterprises.

I have attached the article from the NODPA (Northeast Oragnic Dairy Producers Alliance) Newsletter that started this discussion on the O-Dairy discussion forum.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

I am confused. It works once or twice then not. Try this; http://www.draftanimalpower.com/search.php?searchid=225276

Or just go to the search tab, then to advanced, enter D-ring, and set to titles only. It should post quite a few that deal with details of the d-ring.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Here is a link with related discussion, sweetie;)

http://www.draftanimalpower.com/showthread.php?t=1673

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Geoff, I don’t think it is so much a condemnation of being educated, nor a statement against the ability of some individuals to make a living farming or logging.

It is more an acknowledgment that as a culture we have expectation about how “intelligence” is measured and expressed, and manual labor is across the board considered to require less intellect.

This is expressed in our schools in the methods of testing student’s intellectual aptitude using written tests. Those with high scores are automatically considered bright, and although many of us recognize that those who test low are not necessarily “un-bright”, they are never-the-less affected by their relative ranking.

There are certainly opportunities for students with more physically aptitude, but these are not given equal standings with academic achievement, and they are often offered as a consolation as a way to make up for their reduced aptitude.

Students who demonstrate academic aptitude can certainly use their achievements to their advantage even if they chose a manual career, but those who accept their relegation to the manual career, rarely get to take advantage of some method of validating and expanding the intellectual aptitude without just striking out on their own. This narrows the population of people who can or will become successful.

If our society was more accepting of manual dexterity, and physical aptitude, and spatial understanding as measures of intelligence, then we could have institutional assistance for these career choices, and we might even entice students who are mindlessly striving for academic accomplishment into more fulfilling, stimulating, and appropriate career choices.

The US culture values cheap food, and there are some people who end up making a lot of money providing this product, but in the scheme of things, it seems interesting that some professionals who merely provide services are easily accepted for the value of their service, while we seem to accept that food should be cheap, which in most cases is reflected in extremely low wages, and lifestyle compromises, that even teachers would never consider.

I just wonder how much of this is a result of cultural assumptions.
Carl

[Carl Russell]

Sorry this is the page I meant to post
http://www.draftanimalpower.com/search.php?searchid=224962

Carl

[Carl Russell]

JAC, your basic premise is correct. Rather than rewriting a whole bunch of info, here is a search page with lots of posts about this subject.

http://www.draftanimalpower.com/search.php?searchid=224802

Carl

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