[Andy Carson]

I don’t know if you have the interest or how much money might be in it, but have you thought about making/restoring carts and wagons as a side buisness? Your work is really impressive…

[Andy Carson]

Great work!!! Clever idea to bend the ash to fit and you are right that no one will know… Well, expect the people here 🙂 I like the wheat relief too. Nice touch. You might want to keep a close eye on her feet, they wear down really fast on pavement. If you decide to shoe, you’ll definately want some borium (or equivalent) to keep from sliding.

[Andy Carson]

I checked into the laws about this and they seem to be much more lax than I thought they would be. It seems that I can shoot them if they are causing damage or are about to cause damage. I think thier presence in a field of crops adequately demonstrates that they are about to cause damage. I am supposed to leave the carcass though… Seems like a waste, but whatever… I might even bait them into a “kill zone” with some corn so I can set up a blind and don’t have to worry about stray bullets. Even if I don’t kill them all, I would image the corn will keep them out of the crops, let me know when they come back, and also where to find them… Sporting, huh?

[Andy Carson]

Jennifer,
Thanks for the advice. I have to say I laughed at the contrast between the advice and your sign off phrase. One might say that this is a case where “leaving a mark is NOT highly over-rated” 🙂 By the way, is it mostly the urine smell that is repelant or does there have to be an intimidating doggy presence as well? I have a couple pugs, and I would laugh if a deer (or anything for that matter) ran away from them, but maybe deer wouldnt know that the urine came from a silly little dog…

I’ll also check into the permit business as well. I do not relish the idea of killing lots of deer, mostly because of legal issues. I am doubtful, however, that bagging my legal limit is going to have any effect… By the way, what’s with this emphasis on hunting bucks??? Don’t deer qualify as a pest by now and doesn’t that mean most hunters are killing the wrong sex???

[Andy Carson]

I, for one, actually like your chart and it seems to make sense to me in general. You might want to be careful about what lessons you and the animal might learn when it is not trained and/or not working. The food will be different, for example, as will probably the foot care. It’s hard to imagine how one would even provide exercise for an animal without some degree of training and work. Likewise, maintaining a leader position would be difficult without some training and work helps alot here as well. Of course, to do any training you have to have an idea of what pleases and displeases the animal. Trust is an important thing also, but for an animal to trust that you won’t attack it in the field is easy… Them trusting you to handle them in close quarter doing things that are unusual to them is much more of an accomplishment, but that requires training as well. Trusting that strange objects won’t hurt them is the same way. You won’t get much desensitisation done without leaving the pasture… The point is that even though it is interesting to understand these aspects of animal care, all these aspects are all so integrated into working animal care that I do not believe there is much value in working on some aspects at the expense of others. To use a dog example, I really doubt there would be much learned by a dog owner who decided to lock a border collie up in an apartment (giving it no training and no job) and simply spending time in the apartment to learn what a dog is like. My brother had a border collie with no job and he mostly learned mostly how to cope with the neurotic and erratic behavior that comes from having a working animal with no job. Is this a fair assessment of these working animals??? At minimum, I think everyone would agree the dog needs a walk (and preferably some sheep to herd), but even a simple walk takes training if your animal weighs 5-10 times as much as you! I know some of the absolute worst horses that I have dealt with were ones that had no job. Mine gets alot of attention but still gets little hot if she’s off work for more than 2 days in a row. I know it’s not exactly the same case, but I really believe working animals need to be worked to display thier true charactor.

[Andy Carson]

I really don’t know much about oxen, but one of their impressive aspects (to me) is that if they don’t work out for some reason, they are good to eat. I hope that doesn’t sound too cold heartedl to the oxen people here, but for me it’s true. If you are raising steers for beef anyway, I don’t see much harm in trying out a pair. Are there any oxen people in your area that could help you get started?

[Andy Carson]

I wonder if you might be able to make an “S” shaped riser out of steel that would fit between the shafts and the front axle. A metal working shop could probably make one pretty quickly if you (like me) don’t have all the equipment to do this. It might be pretty cheap and strong too. You could probably paint it green and no one would know the difference… Just thoughts…

[Andy Carson]

It took alot of time and gentle treatment before the horse I have now would let me hold her feet. She had some trust issues and I am pretty sure she had been beaten for misbehaving with her feet in the past. I can pick them up and dance a jig now, but she only trusts me to hold them up for very long. When the farrier comes, I stand in such a way that she mostly sees me and not the farrier. She seems to believe it will be OK that way. If I am far away she gets pretty nasty with him. I don’t know if this will help in your case, but it might be something to try if your horse is good for you but not other people.

[Andy Carson]

Beautiful work! Truly amazing! I have one concern. Maybe it’s the angle, but the shalves look lower than I am used to. On my forecart, the shafts would swing a little at that height and be somewhat annoying to my horse. I am not sure if this is a concern on a wagon, and I suspect it would matter less… I am more concerned about the height of the shalves near the breeching. Again, it might be the angle of the photo, but it looks as though the front ends of the shafts might be pushed up if you are stopping a moderate or heavy load. This might poke your horse is the side pretty hard and/or let the cart run up from behind… It’s not exactly the same thing, but on my forecart I expend much more thought on how I’m going to stop rather than how I’m going to go forward… Again, this might all just be the angle of the pictures, but I thought I would share a little of my cart experience… Again, wonderful work and I am excited to see how this venture goes.

[Andy Carson]

Thanks Robert,
I contacted Kristi and she said that mammoths, especially very large ones, often have this slow temperment. She recommended I look for a small mammoth or a large standard for a working animal. By my rough math, I have use for about 800-1000 pounds of donkey(s). Maybe I would be better off with a team of standard donkeys rather than a single mammoth. Any thoughts?

[Andy Carson]

For whatever it’s worth, I have always kept shoes on. I have tried to keep two horses shoeless when I got them (before I started much work) but thier feet always got tore up and I have to put shoes on. The extra traction from shoes is very nice too.

[Andy Carson]

Carl,
I’m curious if you have had a chance to try out the buffer yet. Do you have any thoughts you might share? Don’t worry about hurting my feelings if you don’t see an effect. I feel like I do, but I wanted to hand it off to someone else to see if they see the same thing…

[Andy Carson]

I looked up some old (circa 1919) information about wooden and steel wheels. They were comparing heavily built wide 36 inch diameter wheels. For the same weight of wheel, the steel wheels could support about 40% more weight than the wooden wheels. Suprizingly (at least to me) both wheels were nearly equal in thier resistance to lateral loading. They didn’t test shock loads. The authors conclusion was that for loads of less than 5 tons per wheel, wooden and steel wheels were comparable in practical strength. For greater loads (not of relevance to me) steel wheels were clearly a better choice.

[Andy Carson]

Thanks Erik, Maybe I’m not giving the wooden wheels a fair shake and $150 is really not that bad at all for a nice set of wheels that will do what I want. I have somehow thought of wooden wheels as less suitable for field work, maybe not… I would still prefer ones that can fit onto modern axles and bearings, but maybe that is an unreasonable bias too… I think I’ll visit the factory, take a look and some advice. They ought to know. Part of my new policy of “getting out more”.

[Andy Carson]

Denise, I would still try to visit some farms before you get too invested in any plans. Maybe animal power is not for you, but maybe sitting on a tractor is not for you either. If you decide that animal power is for you, I would be cautious about planning on starting with tractors and then switching over to animal power later. When you hit a rough spot with the animals (we all do), it will be extremely tempting to just go get the tractor. The result of that will likely be animals that are less used, less trained, and less conditioned, and the temptation to “get the tractor” will be even greater. This is why I have shunned the tractor, but there are plenty of people on this board who mix animals and tractors without seeming to abandon thier animals. I know I don’t have that sort of discipline when the machine is just sitting there and time is ticking away… In checking out animals, you might want to check out work mules too. I have heard alot of people say thier attitudes are somewhat “doglike.” Again, you will definately want a well trained one.

PS. Another animal to think visit and think about, especially if you are not working much ground, is a donkey. I have read that they can be useful for guarding your sheep too, so he/she might not be out of a job if you don’t end up using him/her much.

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