[Andy Carson]

A 14 inch plow run at 7 inches deep moves a cross sectional area of 98 square inches (14*7). a 12 inch plow run at 6 inches deep moves a cross sectional area of 72 square inches (12*6). That’s a 27% decrease in draft (more or less) for a 25% decrease in animal weight. Moreover, I think that as animals approach very high weights, thier efficiency decreases. You definately see this is pulling competitions, weight percent pulls are usually won by the lighter classes. So, I think that if the implements are scaled by weight alone, the smaller animals will do really well. I think with the hay you could load less and make a few more trips. Witht eh hay especially, you might get more work out of the smaller animals that one might guess based on body weight alone. Smaller animals have a larger surface to volume ratio, which means they can cool themselves faster than a large animal of the same shape. Animals hauling heavy loads in haying season seem like they would benefit from this. I went through a whole cost-benefit analysis when I picked calves this last year. For me, I ended up being most interested in weights of around 1700-1900, which I expect my devon/aryshire/shorthorn calves will get to (if you are interested I will send you the contact for where I got these). That said, if I had a pair of straight devons in front of me I very likely would have bought them.

[Andy Carson]

Here’s a photo of a work sled to show you how simple they can be. I used mine with my single horse a lot and use it now with my oxen now too. Qreat multitaskers. They are good for conditioning too, as they can be loaded down with heavy things so your mule can get in shape.
[IMG]https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTKBm1DR1rH2QeAYQG3xBQrxZuIctExQ-QaRRBhnuj4E1ORxLMz[/IMG]

A lot of people love thier forecarts, and I bought one because it seemed like everyone else had one so I ought to too. After I had it, but I rarely used it for anything other than cart rides for the family. Here’s why. A forecart with you on it weighs maybe 500 lbs (this will vary), and requires a force of about 50 pounds to pull in the field. Pulling the cart alone is a super easy job for almost any size horse, as a good rule of thumb is to ask them to pull about 15% of thier body weight (Although this can go up or down a lot depending on the nature of the job). So, a 1500 horse or mule can exert a pull of about 225 lbs all day. Subtract 50 pounds for the cart and you have 175 pounds for the implement. It’s a loss of about 20% in power to the implement. For me, I found that it was very easy to overload a single horse and you always have to be aware of what you are asking and be on the lookout for ways to increase efficiency. I hated losing 20% of the already limited power, so I walked or rode on the implements if they needed extra weight. It is noteworthly that for teams of horses, the percent lost to a forecart is less and less as the animals get bigger and the number of animals increases. A pair loses only 10% to a forecart, which may well be made up for in efficency gains from working at a more natural speed or by having the driver be less distracted. Larger teams lose even less, and for these the power loss is not worth thinking about.

I have disced with a single a lot. I found a good size to be a single gang about 3.5 feet wide. A second gang doubles the force. I have had to make or adapt all of my discs because I was not able to find equipment sized right for a single.

I truly believe the single horse/mule concept is an interesting one for the right applications. It sounds like you have a significant about of heavier work you want to do, and living on a working farm, you will undoubtable find more when you get get more experience with your animal(s). Have you thought about getting another mule to pair up with your guy? It sure makes finding equipment easier and makes a big difference with the amount of work you can do. You might want to think on this a bit before investing in much “single sized” equipment. If you eventually move to a team, all that stuff is going to be too small and you will have to buy or make other tools. Been there, done that…

[Andy Carson]

That’s great, Gary. I used to work a single horse for a few years doing a variety of tasks. If I was looking at your list, the first thing I would get is a harrow. It is a good pull, real work, but not too hard. It will teach you and him a great number of basic skills and it will forever be a useful tool in the field, pasture, and garden. If you are going to log, and you are building something anyway, you might consider building a logging arch. There’s plans for these floating around on this site, although all that I’ve seen require some welding skill. Also, you might consider building a work sled rather than buying a sleigh. They are very basic and cheap to build out of wood and can multi-task around the farm hauling things like manure, hay, firewood, rocks, etc as well as people. If you want to sit, just put down a bale of hay. There’s a bunch of unsolicited advice for you!

[Andy Carson]

Great job everyone!

[Andy Carson]

That’s a good looking mule, Gary. Looks like he can do some work. What jobs would you like him to help with?

[Andy Carson]

Hi Gary,
Some people have been able to simply drag photos into the post, but that never worked for me. Here’s what I do.

1. Post your photos on facebook or photobucket or a similar website. This allows you to reference your photos by thier URL address (you are allowed a certain number of photos on this site, but it fills up fast and there is no limit on these other sites)

2. Find the URL address of the picture you want to add. Right click on the photo, go to properties, then you will see “address:URL.” Copy this address.

3. Write your message on DAP.com and when it’s time to enter your photos type [IMG]add the URL address, then type[/IMG] again. In the end, you should have just the URL address flanked by [IMG]and[/IMG].

The image should show up when you enter the message. Like I said, some people seem to be able to just click and drag photos over. If that doesn’t work for you, you are probably in the same camp as me.

[Andy Carson]

I wonder what one would do with a pond that needs renovated. I read that they like to make wallows… I wonder how deep they’d go…

PS. He’s got a neck collar on, I bet he leads…

[Andy Carson]

It deserves mentioning that barley is not usually fed to poultry in high levels due to it causing sticky droppings from the presence of beta-glycans. Sprouting the grain activates beta gluconase enzymes, which reduce beta-glycans in the sprouted grain dramatically. The result is that one can feed sprouted barley to poultry without having to worry about the sticky droppings issue. Of course, you could just feed a different grain and not have to worry about it, but the point is that there are examples of how sprouted grains can be nutritionally different in important ways. I doubt I will ever go to the trouble, but i like that it’s in my “bag of tricks” if I ever need it.

[Andy Carson]

It’s hard to say what sort of directions he’s used to, and it will be interesting to find out what works for you. I have seen Amish use gentle ways with their horses and some can be very harsh. They are individuals, just like the rest of us. I will be looking forward to hearing about your progress with your mule. Donn is our resident “mule man,” so you are in good hands. Welcome to the group!

PS. Let me know if you continue to have trouble posting photos. I can walk you through it if you cant get it to work.

[Andy Carson]

This is great. I think the concept of doing something value added makes alot of sense and, I think, dovetails nicely with a lower volume outfit. I have some logistical questions. I suspect much of these questions could go either way, but I am curious about the choices made by other who use this type of system.
Is it envisioned that the boards will be sold directly to the end user? If so, do you find advertizing and low volume to be a challenge?
What about drying the boards?
Do you keep and inventory? If so, what do you do for storage?
Does someone set up the wood-mizer at portable sites in the woods so as to minimize haul distance, or at one site (perhaps further away) where the wood can be handed easier, and boards can stacked and sold without moving it twice?
What is the environmental impact of processing wood on site?
Do you hire a sawyer to run the wood mizer, or split time on it? If you were to pay a sawyer, how do the profits compare to selling to a mill?
Enough questions for now…

[Andy Carson]

Does anyone know what do for bearings on these designs? Weight and miles would seem to make this a critical point. I can’t tell if that is a modern bearing in the photos, but I see shiny metal.

[Andy Carson]

I suppose the $1 or more donation could be thought of as how much is the website worth to you. It is certainly worth a lot more than that to me as a single service. I think it is more accurate to this of this donation as how much do you support DAPNet’s mission. Erika is right to point out that this is only one arm of what DAPNet does. I will admit that the website forum is the part that I think about most. Still, I place a huge value on the upcoming DAP field days and know that these types of grand unifying events are fundamentally important in a mulitude of ways. Although I may not go to smaller local events in person, I believe in the concept of them and look forward to some day when some are held close to me. My donation to DAPNet represents the value I place on all these things together. I understand that not everyone prioritizes the same way I might, but I believe this is a minor point compared to the value of being unified. These forum changes attempt to solve many current and potential problems, not the least of which is that we currently have a DAP.com membership and a DAPNet membership. Currently, these two groups are very different in size, generate different amount of money, and there is only a small percentage of the DAP.com members that are DAPNet members. To make it more complex, there are also several DAPNet members who do not go on the website. This gives the appearance of being two groups, when really our values are very very similar. These forum changes bring these two seemingly separate groups together in a more fundamental way, which we expect to increase communication and cooperation towards our mutual goals. Compared to these grand strategic objectives, I think the $1 or $20 issue is pretty minor. That said, if everyone gives only $1, I think it is a sign that the concept is not working and we are not communicating effectively.

[Andy Carson]

I would be tempted to make something, but that is always my answer… Plexiglass top, insulated walls, nice paint job. People can see in and you get some advertizing space. Cold air sinks, so you don’t have to worry about sealing the top as tightly as it the stuff inside was hot and it was cold outside. Anyone who has put salt on ice (or made old fashioned ice cream) can see that adding salt lowers the freezing point of water. For meat, salt and other solutes lower the melting temperature of meat a couple degrees. If you are using pure water in a freezer pack, it is going to start melting at 32 degrees. The means your meat is going to melt before your ice melts. Of course, you can prevent some of this with packing things, using really cold ice, mixing, etc so ice and meat thaw at about the same time, but the closeness of the thawing temp of the ice and the meat is always a limitation. Contrast this with those handy-dandy little blue ice packs. They have solutes dissolved that raise the boiling temp and also lower the melting temp. The result is that your cooler is kept at 20-25 degrees F (or similar), which is well below the melting temp of meat. Well insulated, the temp will remain at 20-25 until all the blue ice thaws. Only then does the meat start to thaw. They sell those blue ice packs to people like they are special: regular old table salt does the same thing… You can get that same degree of freezing point depression by adding 1 1/2 to 1 2/3 cups salt a gallon of water. Make sure the salt is dissolved and then deep freeze. These will keep a cooler well below the freezing point of meat and have the same heat capacity as any other jug of frozen water. You are still taking advantage of the enormous heat capacity of a phase transition (solid to liquid), just adjusting the temp at which this occures by adding salt. Of course, you can use the jugs over and over again and if they spill or break, it’s just table salt. Just an idea…

PS. I didn’t bore you all with the math for this. If anyone wants to see it, let me know.

[Andy Carson]

Oh, yes, yes, yes. A $1 or more donation to register and you can post all you want!

[Andy Carson]

We were thinking of having the whole site accessable as a “read only” for free, but you can’t post or view photos unless you join. This serves at least two major purposes. One, obviously, is that it makes some money to fund this site. The other is that by requiring at least a $1 donation to post, we cuts down on the number of spammers that have to me manually screened. We have up to 1000 applications a day! Imagine screening those… Some legit people cant get through and sometimes a spammer gets through. It is a sign of success, in some ways, that we are big enough to be this attractive. It costs time and money to fight this, though, to keep quality high. I am open to lots of ideas about what an intro membership would be like, so long as no one can post without first donating.

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