[Andy Carson]

Do you have a dog to run around on the outside of these pens/tractors? In my case, raccoons were a problem before I had a guard dog because they could and would hang out outside the coop and tinker with ways to get at the birds inside. If a dog is around to chase the raccoons away before they have time to find a way at those birds, the defenses don’t have to be so strong. This saves substantial amounts of money and time on fencing. I have lost perhaps one young pullet to a flying predator (Maybe a great horned owl??), despite free ranging during the day for a couple years now. I don’t worry about flying predators with full-sized adult birds. Knock on wood…

[Andy Carson]

I have used the hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and soap mix with great success before. It makes great chemical sense. Skunk spray is a mix of thiol (sulfur) containing high molecular weight hydrophobic organic molecules (like oil/grease). The thiols is what makes them stink. Burning tires release sulfurous compounds too (which is why you are not supposed to burn them) and have similar smell (at least to me). Anyone who has washed oil based compounds out before knows that some soaps work well for some types of oil/grease/tar and others would better for other types. Either way, it takes alot of soap and a lot of scubbing to remove ALL the oil or grease, esp from hair. The same goes with the skunk oil. Because it takes only tiny amounts of skunk oil to make big stink, the soap only system never worked that well for me. It worked especially poorly for my wife, who is much more sensitive to skunk smell. The genious of the hydrogen peroxide system is that it chemically modifies (oxidation, if you are curious) the thoils in the organic compounds. This means they don’t stink anymore, so it is not as critical to physically remove them. The baking soda keeps the pH favorable for this reaction, and the small amount of soap is really just a wetting agent so that the active ingrediant (H2O2) can penetrate though the hair. I have used several skunk washes and this is by far the best in my hands.

[Andy Carson]

Agreed. You probably have to pick what to focus on. I do think that choosing to focus on low stress handling techniques was the best first choice of lessons. I suppose it is best to let this “soak in” before you teach something else that might get overwhelming or culturally challenging… Did the group you were working with seem ready and excited to learn more? Did they feel culturally challenged already? Did you get a feel for that at all?

[Andy Carson]

@Tim Harrigan 40523 wrote:

fetching water is women’s work

I suppose a point could be made that if men/oxen hauled large quantities of water less often, this could free the women up to do other chores/things that the men would appreciate. Not sure what that is, but I bet there is something. I bet the women would come up with an idea of what to do if that meant they didn’t have to haul water anymore… Not trying to remake the culture, but it seems like heavy work should be done by heavy people/critters.

[Andy Carson]

I have used a disc that is virtually identical to this one. They do a decent job if you are wanting a light harrowing action, but if you put much weight on them, they break down fast. The discs themselves go first. The soil presses them into washers and eventually the metal “bearings” (which are really just welded steel tubes). The soil grinds away at this steel/steel surface and eventually wears the hole in the disc larger and larger until it twists, the disc comes off, and is useless. This was the first thing I replaced. I am not even sure the origional discs were hardened steel… The replacement discs were just as expensive as the disc itself (I found one used for $75-100) and if you set up some washers to take the wear (and replace them in time) you can get good use out of this kind of setup with better discs. The next thing that breaks down is the bearings. They are really just welded metal tubes with a greasable steel insert that is not corected to the shaft directly. It’s all mild steel and developed some slop pretty early. The slop let dirt in and once the dirt was in, it mixed with the grease and created a grinding mix that created more slop, more dirt, more slop, more dirt. Eventually the steel insert wore down to uselessness. With medium work, you might be able to squeeze a couple years out of the bearings (I did), but once they are gone the tool is basically trash. I recycled the discs themselves into a tool with hardened tractor style bearings and substantially more weight. I have been much happier with this tool. Overall, I think if you can find one used a cheap it might be a good training tool for young oxen, but dont put alot of weight on it or it will break down fast. Adjust expectations accordingly.

[Andy Carson]

@Tim Harrigan 40512 wrote:

Not used for transport, not sure why, it would make sense. I had the same response to their lack of use.

What’s the water supply in this area like? I have no doubt that there is lots of stuff to move, but water is a heavy, regular chore that everyone can relate to. It might make a good example project.

[Andy Carson]

These videos bring up so many questions.

You mentioned the oxen free range most of the time. Are they tended to keep them out of gardens and fields? Are they fenced in at night to keep predators away? Africa seems to have some scared predators…

I am curious about penning the oxen at night. This would provide a way to deposit a substantial amount of organic matter onto the soil in a short time, but would also lead to some compaction. If followed by a nitrogen stockpilling thick rooted crop that could break up compaction (radish?), the plot might be useful for food right away and even most useful in a couple seasons as it just recieved a heavy manure addition followed by a reduction in compaction. Just a thought.

I am curious what these oxen are used for traditionally in Uganda. Is meat a substantial portion of thier value?

Is there an appreciation for the other jobs that oxen can do in the off season when not tilling fields? I would think this not only benefits the farmer, but also keeps the oxen in shape physically and mentally.

Lastly, if it does require 4+ oxen to do the tillage demonstrated, does caring for this many oxen impose a financial hardship on the average farmer? Are they cheap enough to care for that this is not a big concern? If so, why not just add another team in front so you have a total of 6 oxen to do this heavy work?

[Andy Carson]

This is great, Tim. I have many questions. How did the locals take to the improved yoke design? Did they have a tradition of working two teams of oxen?

About the farming implements themselves (the ripper, for example)… Is there (or has there been) follow-up with how productivity using these improved tools compares to tradition tools? Can the typical farmer afford these tools or learn to modify existing tools? Is this discussion part of the class?

I would also be curious about mounting the ripper on a wooden frame with skids to control depth and angle. Do you think those spikes in draft represent “digging in” at the tip? Rocks? The skids prevent digging in in either case… I like skids a lot and they last a long time if made of hardwood. I used some cherry left over from another project and even though it’s not that hard of a hardwood, it shows little wear despite alot of use last year. I bet they have some woods in this catagory in Africa. Just a thought.

[Andy Carson]

I used rye as a cover crop a couple years ago. It grew like crazy, and I had a wet spring which forced me try to control it at times that were not the best. It got away from me on most of my plots. I am interested in trying again sometime, but I will only try on a very small plot to make sure I can get good control using min-till methods. In my hands, on my ground, rye is just so tough.

[Andy Carson]

Here’s a stab at what might be most flexible (from someone who is just guessing)…

Why not a simple wagon with wide maximum floation tires and a mobile winch/sidejammer setup to load logs?

The wagon could be pulled by a team if you have a collaborator who has horses or wants to work with them. It could be pulled by a tractor if you hook up with a local who owns a tractor and wants a part-time side job. It seems cheap to buy and modify wagons to be suitable, which means that there is not a big expensive piece of equipment laying around if you are on a one-man job.

Having the gas-powered winch/sidejammer would be cheap, able to be used by both animal and tractor folks, and I would expect easy to repair should collaborators break something.

I think there are definately more productive choices than this is you knew the nature of the job, and had lots of jobs lined up that are nearly identical. If the jobs vary a lot, perhaps flexibility and low cost are more critical than raw productivity under ideal conditions.

[Andy Carson]

I think that despite the technical aspects of a forwarder and forwarder design (which I find fun to think about), there is an underlying more important question. Who is running this? Is this a one man operation where the one man alternates between forwarding and skidding? Is this a two man operation where one man skids and another forwards. What does the other man do while the other is catching up? Perhaps they work part-time? Perhaps they fell? Anything else that needs done? Are they perhaps people who would want to become independant horse loggers later (and would likely want to use horses)? Are they perhaps local landowners or farmers who have tractors and want to make a little money on the side in the off season? I think the answers to these strategic and logistal questions will have have huge impacts on the potential forwarder design and implementation.

Perhaps the answer is any and all of the above situations… In that case, the “best” design might just be the most flexible.

[Andy Carson]

Again thinking outside the box.
If you fixed your winch, it could be used with an A-frame setup similar to a side jammer to load logs. The sidejammer looks cheap to make and you don’t have to haul it back and forth with every trip (this seemed to be a goal). It might be cheap to fix the winch, and if the sidejammer setup is an acceptable substitute for a hydraulic loader than it might be a good way to go. Still lets you load logs with your crawler… It seems a lot would depend on just how much faster a loader is than a sidejammer-type setup and how much these two setups cost (including maintainence, etc). I can’t even intellingently guess at these numbers.

[Andy Carson]

Thinking outside the box a bit here.
What about parbuckling the logs onto a trailer/wagon with a winch? It could be an electric winch powered from either a generator or off the tow vehichle. Not as fast as a hydraulic loader, I am sure, but it is light and cheap and also capable of heavy work. Is this too slow of a process to be worthy of serious consideration?

Here’s a video (although I am pretty sure most know what I am talking about anyway)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0T9dz-lvMY

[Andy Carson]

Wheels are a fascinating subject, especially for something that seems so simple. I have done some reading about them for different applications and have some experience making different hand carts (which really let you know what is easy and hard to pull) and some animal pulled items as well (though I often use skids for animals). The rolling resistance of wide tires is substantially higher than narrow tires, and the rolling resistance of low pressure tires is substantially higher than tires with high pressure. That is, as Donn correctly points out, as long as the tires maintain floatation in the terraign (think of narrow/high pressure tires on pavement or sand vs wide low pressure tires on pavement or sand). Overall, it seems the best efficiency is would be with tires that are as narrow as is required to maintain floation on the surface. If you don’t maintain floation, all bets are off as rolling resistance increases and efficency takes a nosedive. Rolling resistance for steel or other inflexible wheels goes down dramatically as wheel diameter increases. This makes intuitive sense to me, as the contact patch grows with wheel diameter and allows one to use a narrow wheel without having to sacrifice contact area and floation. You can see this in some historical designs as well, with tall wheels being very common for things like high wheel log carriers, ox carts, and wagon wheels (esp rear wagon wheels that carry more load). Notice these are not pneumatic tires. For pneumatic tires the situation is more complex because the tire surface itself compresses to accomodate the terraign which lowers rolling resistance and increases floation. Because of this multifactorial accomidation, pneumatic wheels reach a point of diminishing returns when is comes to rolling resistance vs. wheel diameter at about 30 inches or so. Today, most pneumatic wheels that are designed to make the most of limited power are in this range (bicycles wheels, fuel efficient cars, most logging arches). If you are substantially below this wheel diameter, there are gains to be had here, but if you are already using “car or pickup sized” tires, there is little more that can be gained using larger diameters.

Although I think this conversation about wheels is fascinating, I think the biggest source of drag in this system is going to be the dragging end of the log. If I had a winch, I would probably hitch up a tilt bed trailer behind that cart, winch the log(s) up onto the trailer to transport them, and then roll them off the side when you got where you are going. Having the load completely on wheels (IE nothing dragging) is going to give you a massive increase in efficiency. It could easily double the load you can pull on the flat. I predict the effect of the tires (given the set up you already have) will be subtle.

[Andy Carson]

Nice to meet you Ellen. I forgot to say that before. 🙂 Don’t worry about being provocative, you aren’t going to make me mad. I’m actually a pretty nice guy (I think), but somehow my written voice often comes off rough. I mean nothing personal. I like debating these important issues and I think it is important we all speak our minds clearly. I value a diversity of opinions and am glad that others disagree with me. This allows for a full examination of issues and prevents “group think.”

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