[Andy Carson]

I had a question about my math, so I’ll go into a little more detail about how one could do the lever arm calculations. I really do appreciate the questions, because I do flub up sometimes. I think I got this one right though.

The torque on the lever arm is given by the formula Torque = Force * Distance. Assuming there is no movement around the hitch point the torque on the heavy and light side is equal, that means F1*D1=F2*D2. As the total load is 600 lbs, we also know that F1+F2 = 600. That means that F2 = 600-F1. A substitution into the first equation yields F1*D1=(600-F1)*D2. Multiplication gives F1*D1=600D2-F1*D2. Rearranging gives F1*D1+F1*D2=600*D2, then F1*(D1+D2)= 600*D2 and finally simplifies to F1=(600*D2)/(D1+D2). Now it’s easy to plug in numbers. For a 4 inch off set with one horse ahead by 4 inches, one arm is 21.38 inches long and the other is 19.81 inches. F1=(600*21.38)/(21.38+19.81)=311 for the lead horse. 600-311 = 289 for the trailing horse. I have to admit, I did this a different way and got the same answer, but I think this is the way you were supposed to do this is school…

[Andy Carson]

I have plotted the effect of different offset depths (from 0 to 12 inches) on the load carried by the leader horse at various positions from even to ahead by 16 inches.

Overall, making the offset deeper makes the evener more responsive from the point of view of distributing the load. The cost for this is that the evener cannot tolerate large differences in horse position. You will notice, for example, that I have not plotted the 16 inch displacement for the 6, 8, 10, and 12 inch offset eveners. A foward movement of 16 inches is not possible on these eveners as that degree of movement will effectively straighten it out.

So, if you have horses that run almost even all the time and want to have a strong load “distributing” effect (rather than a load “evening” effect), it might be useful to increase the offset. If your horses often run uneven at times and you need to maintain the ability to have greater than 12 inch differences in horse position, it’s better to stick with the 4 inch offset. Based on these graphs, I would have predicted that a 4 inch offset would be best. It is very interesting that this seems to be popular.

[Andy Carson]

It is very interesting the numbers came out like this, and I can think of a number of interesting implications. I had (like Geoff) expected the differences to be not as dramatic. i can see now why only small (relatively) adjustments are needed to distribute loads between stronger and weaker horses. The evener does a lot to distribute the load over which ever horse can carry it. It probably ought to be called a “distributor” rather than an “evener.” 🙂

[Andy Carson]

Carl’s doubletree is 42 inches between the two singletree attachment points and the hitchpoint is set back about 4 inches. This means the distance between the hitchpoint and the singletree attachment points is 21.38 inches (from a*a+b*b=c*c or 21*21+4*4=c*c). As this distance will not change no matter how the horses are layed out, it can be used to calculate the load that each team member is pulling when one moves ahead of another.

With the horses even, each lever arm is 21 inches long. If the team is pulling 600 lbs, it’s distributed with each horse pulling 300 lbs.

If one horse moves ahead 4 inches, this causes the lever arm on the backward horse to lengthen to a straight line between the hitch point and the singletree attachment point. The distance of the lever arm here becomes equal to the hypotenuse or 21.38 inches. The lever arm on the forward horse reduces to 19.81 inches (a*a+8*8=21.38*21.38). If the team is pulling 600 lbs, it’s now distributed with the forward horse pulling 311 lbs, and the trailing horse pulling 289.

If one horse moves ahead 8 inches, this causes the lever arm on the backward horse to reduce. The distance of the lever arm on the trailing horse here can be calculated by (a*a+4*4=21.38*21.38) or 21 inches. The lever arm on the forward horse reduces to 17.69 inches (a^2+12*12=21.38*21.38). If the team is pulling 600 lbs, it’s now distributed with the forward horse pulling 326 lbs, and the backward horse pulling 274.

If one horse moves ahead 12 inches, this causes the lever arm on the backward horse to reduce even further. The distance of the lever arm on the trailing horse here can be calculated by (a*a+8*8=21.38*21.38) or 19.83 inches. The lever arm on the forward horse reduces to 14.18 inches (a*a+16*16=21.38*21.38). If the team is pulling 600 lbs, it’s now distributed with the forward horse pulling 350 lbs, and the backward horse pulling 250.

If one horse moves ahead 16 inches (if this is even possible), both lever arms reduce in length dramatically. The distance of the lever arm on the trailing horse here can be calculated by (a*a+12*12=21.38*21.38) or 17.69 inches. The lever arm on the forward horse reduces to 7.56 inches (a*a+20*20=21.38*21.38). If the team is pulling 600 lbs, it’s now distributed with the forward horse pulling 420 lbs, and the backward horse pulling only 180.

So, with the pulling geometry set up like this, a single horse could be asked to pull anywhere from 180 pounds to 420 pounds depending on their position relative to their teammate. It’s a pretty big effect, and the forward horse is pulling substantially harder.

[Andy Carson]

Thanks for the thoughts Tim, I had my suspicions about this arrangement too. I think it would be a good idea for me to do a little reading about all these various no-till and min-till practices. Some practices I can do with animals and some things are surely going to be difficult, but think I should be more knowledgeable about the tools (including planters) and techniques. That way, I can make better choices about other tools that might be useful to me… Can you recommend any books or other reliable resources that could give me a better background?

[Andy Carson]

I have a line on a used Buffalo slot seeder that is local and the price seems nice. It doesn’t have row cleaner so I have to rig some up, but most of the planters I have been looking into don’t have row cleaners on them. My main issue with this is the planter doesn’t have disc openers. It is, however, set up to do no-till and has been used for this quite a bit. I would have thought that no-till planters would prefer using disc openers because of residue. Is there some way that this type of planter shoe deals with residue that is not obvious? I kinda looks like it it set up to simply plow through it or push it to the side. I don’t think this is my favorite mechanism… I have included a picture of this style of slot planter shoe.

[Andy Carson]

Jen, I am sure your method works too. I have to say “Nice Butt” (on the horse).

[Andy Carson]

There are many ways to skin a cat, but I like the sled alot and as it is so easy to monitor weight and exertion and large gains in condition can be obtained pretty fast. I have included a photo of my horse when I got her, one two months after conditioning with almost exclusively a sled, and one two months later with conditioning both with sled and real work. I know alot these gains are due to nutrition as well, but sleds work pretty well.

[Andy Carson]

Yeah, I’m definately using a different seeder than the hrose drawn one in the photo. Definately one with disc openers and probably a single unit of a type designed for a tractor. I will be making sure it has row cleaners too. I’ll keep you posted.

[Andy Carson]

Mark, aerobic versus anaerobic is exercise/training lingo for whether the activity in question can be performed using oxygen taken in during respiration while the activity is going on (aerobic) or whether the activity involves too great of an exertion to maintained with the oxygen brought in and the body must make energy without oxygen (anaerobic). Think of a power-lifter or a weight pulling horse (anaerobic athlete) versus a marathon runner or an endurance horse (aerobic athlete). I think most animal related activities (and many human sports) fall somewhere in between these two extremes. Serious human athletes often have circuit training regimes where they focus on strength one day and endurance on another. I read a book once about athletic training for horses (this was really designed for eventing horses) that recommended similar regimes where aerobic and anaerobic workouts were alternated on specific days of the week. It made a lot of sense to me so I stuck with it for a while. I even got a stethoscope to monitor her heart rate and breathing because it seemed that the more weight I put on the sled the more she wanted to pull and I didn’t want her to hurt herself. It definitely got my horse is shape, and man did the food fly through her then! The point I was making was that because the sled can be loaded with different weight easily, one can design a challenging workout that will last only 15 minutes, or an equally challenging workout that will last 3 hours. This is how I kept myself busy before I had a farm 🙂

[Andy Carson]

Tim, I looked at a few more pictures of the floating types and you are right, they don’t have springs. I saw something that looked like a spring in one photo. It will definately take some experimenting, I just wanted to make sure this is at least mathematically in the realm of something one man and one horse can do. It sounds like it is.

[Andy Carson]

As far as conditioning, I have always used a weighted sled. I like that the pull is predictable and can easily be made aerobic or anaerobic by simply adding or subtracting weight, the weights also make it easy to track progress. I am a very inexperienced logger, so twitching logs for me involves alot of ground driving, several minutes of fussing with rigging, a couple minutes of walking around and thinking about the path I will take, a relatively short period of heavy pulling, followed by more fussing with rigging and ground driving. I am sure the periods of pulling are good workouts, but to a novice (and maybe even to an expert) there is alot of standing around too. A sled can be pulled for hours with the right load, and I was always more interested in long slow workouts in prep for farm-type work.

PS. Congratulations on your new horse!

[Andy Carson]

Mac,
I did enjoy the Covington planter video i found on youtube, it does look like a nice machine and I like seed metering system and the audible click. Ever since we have been discussing the residue issue, I had been thinking about modifying a fairly heavy duty planting unit. Watching the video reminded me of the simple fact that I am going to have to lift this planter into a transport position somehow. I am not a weakling, but I am still not excited about lifting and manuvering a no-till style planter in the field even with levers and wheels to help me… I think I am now most interested in a “medium” weight planter with disc openers and a set of row cleaners as Tim suggested. I think the choice of the planter is largly dependant upon what I come across. Maybe something like a John Deere model 71 flex planter? These seem pretty common, light enough I can move them with a wheelbarrow type setup, and I think heavy enough to not break. Adding weight is easier than subtracting it…

Any idea how much weight (or downforce) these row cleaners need on them to work well? I saw that even though some row cleaners float with a unknown downward force from a spring, but there is still a market for wheel weights with the floating cleaners. The wheel weights are pretty light though, so I am guessing they don’t need more than 50-100 lbs on them??? That is do-able from a design standpoint.

[Andy Carson]

I just love to juxtaposition of pulling a high tech planter with carefully engineered and scientifically tested features designed to very modern performance standards with my single horse. I haven’t figured out whether this is an “f-you” or a “thank-you” to big ag, but it makes me smile either way… 🙂

[Andy Carson]

My grandpa worked with his dad to build fire lookouts in the wilderness of central Idaho many years ago. They hauled everything back and forth on mules too. I imagine it looked alot like this, although they only had four mules in thier train. I always thought that sounded like a fun project. I imagine it really gives you an opportunity to be resourceful when the trip to town is so long. 🙂

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