[Andy Carson]

Thanks for sharing this, George. It looks very nice and I need to build something like this myself. How far apart are the verticle slats? Would you change that width for big whethers or for pygmies? Do you have any problems with goats jumping over the edge and into the middle?

[Andy Carson]

Here’s a few photos with the hardware added. You’ll notice the solid steel bows. I like that there is more flexibility to shape these to match the bottom of the neck, which (at least in my cattle) is not the half circle formed by most wooden bows. I also like that the steel doesn’t change shape if you forget to put brace the bows or put them back in the yoke. It also doesn’t develop cracks along the bottom from over straining and I will be shocked if I ever break them or have to replace them for some other reason. The steel is also about 1/4 the cost, while being more than twice as strong, and this is hard to ignore. This surely wasn’t true 150+ years ago…

This photo shows the hardware I was talking about. Again, I can’t claim that I invented this, as it was inspired by andy Van Ord’s desing on the yoke he built for me earlier this year. I shifted the verticle plate back a bit on this design and added a few more holes for agustments. This gives 4 options for finding the sweet spot between rotation and sliding. It might only used a few of these holes, but I’ll have to see. There’s room for refinement in future yokes, but I think there is a lot of potential for this concept. In case anyone is curious, the most forward adjustment is at the botttom center of the yoke, for I always have the option of using this yoke without the “tilt adjustment” holes is I want. No loss, and I see it, just more options.

Here’s another view from the top. I used shaft collars to hold the bows in place. I like the idea of having a continuous adjustment without having to keep track of a bunch of spacers of various sizes. I’ll have to see it carrying a hex key gets old of if I like this system at all. I can always drill a hole in the bows and use a key if I want.

[Andy Carson]

i agree this system would be annoying to a logger. I mostly do field work, though. I imagine that when i find the “sweet spot” between sliding and rotating (but not rotating too much) it will remain constant for that implement. Personally, I am not annoyed by having to move the attachemnt point for different implements, as i don’t often use more than one implement in a day. I like the idea of having as wide of a contact surface as possible when they are pulling medium to heavy loads for long periods. So much of what I do is an experiment to some degree, and i will see how it goes.

PS. I am still going to bevel the edges on the neck seat more, as i agree mine are too angular right now. I see this discussion more as what shape the bulk of the bottom of the neck seat should have (IE small diameter semi circle, large diameter semicircle, ellipicle, mostly flat, or a combination shape). I have seen a variety of neck seat profiles, and have always wondered if the variety represent personal preferance, oversight on the part of the yoke builder, regional variations in tradition,or adaptations to specific jobs. There have to be advantages and disavantages to different profiles…

[Andy Carson]

@Tim Harrigan 36607 wrote:

I think the general goal is to have a surface contact area that does not change much as the yoke rotates.

This discussion might go in a very interesting direction…

Shaping a neck seat seems to be a process of making compromises for different tasks. A small diameter semi-circular neck seat (in cross section) always keeps the same contact surface as the yoke rotates though a wide array of angles, and in some ways might be ideal. At the same time, small diameter semi-circular neck seats distribute the load onto the smallest possible area of the neck for a given neck seat width. In the other extreme, a flat bottom distributes the load over the largest possible surface, but only at one yoke angle. A flat bottom could provide maximal comfort so long as the yoke tilt is controlled and doesn’t assume unexpected angles. If the hitch point or load fall outside of design parameters for a given flat bottom yoke (which is probably easy), the yoke will assume a steep angle, and be drawn onto an uncomfortable corner. As loads are always somewhat unpredictable, I think a perfectly flat bottom wouldn’t be the best choice in most situations. But how much angle would be ideal??? Perhaps this depends partly on what you want to do.

I am guessing here, but I would imagine that people who pull widely varied loads or very heavy loads would prefer neck seats with a very circular cross section. This keeps the seat predictable, enough though it is smaller than it could be. Does this ring true? Conversely, I would guess that people who primarily pull lighter, more predicable loads for long periods of time would be drawn to flatter bottoms as thier yokes do not assume such a wide array of angles that must be compensated for by a small diameter semicircular neck seat, and the load is spread over as wide a surface as possible. Does this ring true?

Perhaps the Tillers elliptical neck seat cross section draws a compromise between these two extremes for the sake of maximal versatility. Perhaps if you know the nature of your work, you would lean one way or the other.

An alternative way to control yoke tilt and keep tilt in an acceptable range for a given yoke (allowing a flatter bottom than would otherwise be possible), is to provide a mechanism to adjust the chain attachment point on the yoke. It is non-tradiational, but with this, you can simply move the chain attachment point to the rear of the yoke for heavier loads, and towards the center for lighter loads, or loads with a heavy tongue. I didn’t invent this, I truly borrowed it from Andy Van Ords design, but I am going to make mine with few more intermediate adjustments. In a perfect world, this system provides the large surface area of a mostly flat neck seat design and provides a mechanism that gives as much (maybe more) “tilt accommidation” as a circular neck seat design.

[Andy Carson]

I made the center of the neck seat 1/4 inch higher than the edges. The total width of the neck seat is ~4.5 inches, though, so it looks pretty flat. Do you think 1/4 inch is too little of an arch?

Perhaps you were refering more to the immediate edge of the neck seat, Tim. That does look pretty sharp now that you point it out. I think I’ll round it off more either way. Thanks for the review!

[Andy Carson]

Here a couple more photos…
I like wide neck seats. OK, so this is just a 5 inch yoke, but I thought I would just build it how I plan to build bigger yokes in the future. I figure it’s good practice.

Here’s a side shot. You might be thinking that there isn’t alot of belly to this yoke. It’s true, but I plan on using a hardware design that provides the bulk of the depth.

Here’s my quarter split cherry “boneyard” for future yokes. I screwed up a couple splits, but my neighbor was very generous, so I should have enough to make a full set of yokes to 10 inches!

[Andy Carson]

This thought gives me an idea… I wonder how hard you have to graze rye in the spring to kill it. If this is possible with cattle at the right stocking rate, it might allow me to use my favorite cover crop (rye) and not have to worry about it getting away from me. If I use the cattle to graze it off in early spring, which might give me a way to control the rye reguardless of weather. In a perfect world, I could then disc up the hard grazed ground and plant warm weather crops in late spring. Perhaps if I time it right, the rye would be giving up when the corn/sunflowers/pumpkins/etc get going. Has anyone tried something like this? Thoughts? Speculation?

[Andy Carson]

@Mark Cowdrey 36580 wrote:

For those who use sleds or weighted boats and a routine for physical conditioning, what might a conditioning schedule look like? I think I recall that human weight lifters do better if they don’t lift every day (see Townie by Andre’ Dubus III, great memoir). Do you switch up days of aerobic and anaerobic exercise, do both on the same day, how often, or what? Just trying to get an idea of what to shoot for if I had nothing else to do.
Any thoughts on how feed (what, how much, when) works into the equation would also be helpful. I realise that is a whole other can of worms.
Thanks,
Mark

I like a sled because it is so easy to increase the weight slightly as the animals(s) gain condition gradually. This is hard to do unless you have a graduated set of logs differing from each other by, say, 100 lbs. That’s alot of logs…

When I was doing this, a heavy day consisted of maybe a dozen of so shorter pulls in the range of ~100 yards. I liked to wait until the heavy breathing was over before asking to pull again. The whole workout didn’t take very long, and the weight has to be substantial to challenge them over this short amount of time. Concrete blocks or some other type of weight is nice for this work, because (at least in my experience) they move up in the weight they can pull this way very fast. Especially at the beginning, you might be adding 100 lbs more every time you head out. The goal was to make it hard enough that my horse would not be able to do another full pull if I asked for it, but to never ask for that last pull. The horse is truly tired the next day, so the next day was either a long pull or a rest day.

On long pull days, I rode on the sled with a few blocks and we headed out cross country on some wide trails. I did this partly because I think it is nice to get the horse a chance of scenery and partly because I get bored going in circles with light weight. The goal was to pull for a couple hours or more at a walk with few while taking as few of breaks as possible. I did break at the top of hills, though. Obviously, this job required a much lighter weight. Weight gains for this type of work were also quite slow and gradual. It might take weeks of consistant work to add 100 lbs to this type of workout. The horse is also not nearly as tired the next day, so you can do a heavy day or another long pull day.

Of the two, the long pull days are probably more useful, as they give you more time behind the reins and help the horse relax while working. I think the heavy days are good too, though, because I think they teach the horse what a really heavy load feels like and lets it know that it can pull something really heavy.

I hope this helps, Mark, and is what you were asking for

[Andy Carson]

If I could suggest anything, Jared, it would be to plant a small variety of different grains you might be interested in. I have noticed that, for whatever reason, crops don’t always follow “the rules” as we read them in books or online. Fall planted oats, for example, are supposed to winter kill efficiently in my location but I only get a ~50% winter kill on my place, and in mild winters (like last winter) they don’t kill at all. Maybe the slightly south facing slope of my field has a bigger effect than I would have guessed. Similarly, triticale, according to some sources, is “supposed” to be nearly as weed competative as rye and make a good cover crop. They are not close for me on my land in my hands. Some types of clover grow well for me some years, but not so well other years. I used to get tons of volunteer clover, so I thought it would grow like crazy and be a reliable source of nitrogen. I was right the first year I planted it, but the next year weeds and grasses outcompeted it. I would not have predicted such a differance in a year. My point is that I have been learning that the guidelines about how crops behave are more rules of thumb, and I have to learn for myself how these apply to my field in my situation. Planting a small group of candidate grains and possibly covers or other crops your might be interested in for a rotation allows you to learn many “lessons” all at once. If you only learn one thing each year, it may be a long time until you are an expert.

[Andy Carson]

I have obtained decent control over rhizomatous grasses by discing, cultivating, discing again, cultivating twice, harrowing a couple times, cultivating again, harrowing, then planting a weed competative crop that is tall and I can cultivate. In other words, many passes over a period of about a month (luckily the weather cooperated with this). Kinda a short fallow… Even after all that, I still have weeds, esp between the plants in the rows. Still, it was enough weed control that the sunflowers I planted got a good jump on them. The variety I picked got to 8-10 feet tall, and the weeds soon had no sunlight. Until they got tall, I could knock the weeds back between the rows by cultivating. With wheat you get neither of these advantages (not tall and not normally in rows)…

Like Kevin, I have had good luck discing some and planting oats. I have also had good luck with turnips and on my ground, and found them to be very weed competative. The best crop I have planted in weedy ground, by far, is rye. It will take over, though, and it does so very early in spring when the ground is too wet to work. It got away from me last time I planted it, went to seed, and I am still cleaning up some of the volunteers. If you can find something to do with it, that would be an awesome grain to grow. If there was a grain I could imagine growing well in a min till organic system, it would be rye. I also tried triticale too, but on my land I found it to be a much weaker competitor than rye. This is the main reason I didn’t try wheat, because if it was an even weaker competitor than triticale (which I have read it is) than it has no chance. Reguardless of what you grow, you will have to decide what your weed tolerance is or should be for the crops you are interested in. In my situation, with the crops I grow, I have decided that my weed tolerance is not zero. Like I said, I haven’t had the guts to even try wheat at this point. Instead, I have decided to grow weed competative crops, or at least crops I can cultivate, until the weed pressure on my ground is reduced (if this ever happens). I hope this helps…

[Andy Carson]

@near horse 36501 wrote:

Also – on a western fire related note – we had a local 20 yr old female fire fighter (Jenny Veseth) killed a few weeks back by falling timber on a fire line. Windy, steep terrain and a snag toppled hitting a 2nd tree that fell and hit her. Terrible. Sketchy as to wether it was even safe to be in there – the hot shot crew pulled out a few hours earlier due to unsafe conditions. Stay safe in the woods. Fire or not.

My mom works at Moscow Family Medicine along with the mother of the firefighter who was killed. The mom is completely torn up. I can think of no greater tragedy than to bury your child.

[Andy Carson]

I am getting to know the calves personalities more and more, just through leading them around and interacting with them on a daily basis. It is such a luxary to have ample time to do this while they grow! The one I like the most is Freddie, the smaller twin. He is friendly, responsive, smart, quick, and seems to want to please. He is going into the team for sure. I am still not sure which of the other two I will keep in the team.

The biggest calf is George, who is also Freddies twin. He might weigh 75 lb more than the other two, and is clearly the dominant calf in the field. He is less interested in being pet than Freddie, but once he gets used to you, tolerates everything you want or need to do with him. He picks up some lessons fast and some things slowly (mostly dependant upon how much he wants to learn that particular lesson). Once he understands what is expected of him, he moves quickly, just like his twin. If the task involves food, he moves very fast indeed. 🙂

Bilbo is a very similar size to Freddie right now. He is about as friendly as Freddie is, but in a different way. He doesn’t seek me out to pet and handle him, but if I go to him he likes it. He learns everything at a moderate, predictable pace (whether he wants to learn the lesson or not). He is somewhat slower in thought and in action than Freddie or George, but is close. All three are substantially quicker than my mature team, but they are at such different ages, I am not sure if this is a fair comparison.

I hope to finish my first team yoke in thier size soon, so will being teaming them up soon to see which combos work best together. If anyone has any thoughts as to what combos I should try first, or have the highest chance of success, please share. I think I will try Freddie as in the nigh position, because we like being next to each other. Not sure if this is the best, but I will see how it goes. In the off position, I think George might be better because he is faster and I find it easier to slow the off down than speed him up. On the other hand, I like that Bilbo would likley be more predictable in that position where I will (eventually) have less ability to put my hands on him. I will probably try all sorts of combos. Again, if anyone could share thier philosophy on how to choose working positions for thier team and what makes a good “nigh ox” vs “off ox,” I would appreciate it.

PS. I do plan switch sides with my team from time to time and also to teach them to work single. Taht said, I think the vast majority of the time they will work as a team of two in a set position, as most of the time I just want to get the work done without much fuss.

[Andy Carson]

I have tried some techniques with the animals I have, but haven’t been doing it for long enough to know for sure what works best.

Tom, I have run multistrand electric fence (not net) through some previously very brushy areas. I use a walk behind string trimmer with a chainsaw blade attachment (link below). Two passes with this tool and you have a good clear fenceline.

http://www.drpower.com/twostepmodeldetail.aspx?Name=trmbeaverblade

That said, I wasn’t incredibly impressed with the areas I exposed to goats alone. They do a bang-up job at defoliating brush and small trees, but they only eat a moderate amount of weeds and grass. On all of these plants, they tend to eat only the best parts (leaves on the browse, the new growth on weeds, any seed heads on grass, any lush new growth on grass, etc). This leaves a substantial amount of ugly “stuff” behind (stripped twigs that used to be brush, the woody parts of weeds, tall mature grass, etc). I was wanting to go from brush and weeds to pasture, and I like the results of cattle and goats together a lot more. In my still evolving system, the cattle do much of the “heavy lifting” of eating the easy to get to vegetation (both young and mature grasses, many weeds, some browse), and this forces the goats onto the vegetation that is not so easy to get to or is less desireable to cattle (some types of thorny bushes, thick brush with leaves burried under and behind branches, weeds and brush unpalatable to cattle). I think this allows both animals to do what they do best. The cattle also provide some trampling action in some areas, which is nice, and they seem to do this more when the bush is reduced to twigs and/or stripped brambles. My cattle tend to have to be pushed hard to get onto some types of thorny plants with small leaves especilially those that form thick brambles. Goats are great as defoliating this stuff. Despite the moderate limitations of cattle with respect to browsing, they are definately the backbone of my grazing system. I use the goats as specialists that don’t cost much to keep around and can be brought in for specific jobs in specific situations. I think they are both useful and prehaps a “perfect” biological brush/weeds to pasture system would include mixed grazing.

More reading, which addresses the seasonality of control systems
http://www.caf.wvu.edu/~forage/control_plantings.htm

[Andy Carson]

This is an interesting conversation, and it is also intersting to see how different grazing techniques can frame one’s understanding of forage preferances. At first glance, it seems there that the feeding patterns of cattle might differ between if they are grazed under intensive vs extensive management. I was curious about this and did some reading. I put a link to a good article below, in case anyone else wants to do some reading too. I would hypothesize that diet preferances might not actually be different, but simply might apear different because of grazing styles. Let me explain… I believe that when cattle are grazed under an intensive system (like what I do), where they are moved every day and “clean thier plate” before they are moved, thier rumens are not full when they are moved. Thier first priority is then to fill thier enormous rumens, which might be why they focus on the grass first when I rotate. They are well adapted (wide mouths, thick tongue, heavy jaws) to take up large amounts of grass quickly. I am uncertain when they switch to brush and forbs in my system if they are doing so because they ran out of grass and their rumens still aren’t full or if they simply like the taste of some browse. Studies where cattle are given free choice (like the study below, and experiences of others listed here) seem to indicate that cattle do prefer to incorporate browse at a rate of about 7%, but this can range from 1% to 15% depending on season, study, region, etc. No matter what study I have looked at the vast majority of what cattle prefer to eat is grass. Thier might be potential to alter this somewhat with selective breeding, but I am skeptical how this can be altered and most of the reports I have seen are anecdotal. The paper below lists several key adaptations that browsers have that make them better browsers. Key adaptations include narrow mouth openings, flexible lips, narrow flexible tongue, sharp teeth, large salivary glands, altered distribution of rumen papilea, large liver, etc. These important features are clearly evident when you compare goats to cattle, but are there clear differences in these features when you compare different breeds of cattle? I am skeptical of this…

This is not to say that cattle are not good eaters of browse, as many people have pointed out. Even though thier natural preferance would be to eat a relatively low percentage of browse, thier overall vastly different total intake makes them competative with goats. Using the figures from the reference below, a 900 lb steer would prefer to eat about the same amount of browse as 150 lbs of goat(s) (900lbs x 2% DMI x 7% = 1.3lbs : 150lbs x 2% DMI x 43% = 1.3 lbs). The steer needs to eat 4 times as much total food, though, and this would require almost 10 times as much grass and forbs (900 x 2% DMI – 1.3lbs = 16.7lbs : 150 x 2% – 1.3lbs = 1.7 lbs).

So, all together, it seems there might be two different strategies to use cattle to eat brush, with potential advantages and disadvantages to both. One would be to supply cattle with plently of grass and let them choose to supplement thier diet at a low percentage with browse. The downside is you have to the extra grass to support their daily needs (which is a limiting factor for people like me without a lot of land). Alternatively, you can graze with limited paddock sizes so that they are forced to utilize browse, and monitor thier intake and condition carefully. The disadvantage of this is that it is management intensive and requires more observation.

For me, the choice of goats for some of this work was simply a matter of not having enough total biomass on the farm to feed enough cattle to do the brush clearing I wanted to do. I think this is where goats truly shine, clearing brush preferentially without requiring intensive management to force them onto a diet they don’t prefer and without making a big impact in the amount of grass I have to feed other animals.

I hope this it interesting food for thought for others. It was interesting reading for me.

More reading:
http://trinitywaters.org/media/4521/what_range_herbivores_eat.pdf

[Andy Carson]

Donn,
I have used my big team of oxen to clear brush to some extent. I just rotate them into an area where there is some brush and make sure the area is small enough that they have to eat the brush or go hungry. They will eat nearly everything when they don’t have the option of filling up on grass (they still won’t eat thistle). I have heard that some breeds will browse more readily, but i always wonder if they would really choose to eat leaves and weeds if there was fresh green grass available. I have also used goats on brush too and they are clearly happier at this job, you don’t have to starve them to get them onto the brush and weeds. I have been keeping my calves and goats together lately and I have been very happy with how they graze/browse the pastures they are in. The goats keep the weeds down and the cattle harvest the grass efficiently. Thier prefered diets don’t seem to overlap much and mixing allows both to have access to as much forage as they want. You could probably limit feed calves and get them to eat brush just like mature cattle without having goats in the mix, but i am hesitant to do this with younger animals as i want them to grow too. In my mind, this is easier to do with animals that aren’t growing anymore and have some fat reserves to draw from.

PS. I try to make sure the brushy areas I put the mature oxen on have some grass too. Its a balance to keep them healthy, but also hungry. Cattle tend to be perpetuly hungry and carry good sized fat reserves, so it’s not a hard balance to strike.

PPS. My mature team are Shorthorn Jersey crosses, but I am not sure breed has much to do with it if you rotate pastures and keep them hungry. I have never had Highlands, though, so can’t speak to that.

PPPS. I do also worry about if I am forcing my cattle to eat something poisonous by pushing them to eat everything in a small paddock. I do a careful scan of the area when I am fencing it in for poisonous plants. I am not sure if this is truly critical, but it made sense to me.

[Author]

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