[Crabapple Farm]

My sense is that the reason these two breeds are recommended for beginners is that they tend to be slow moving and slow witted. On the odd occasion when they do have a thought that you didn’t tell them to have, you can usually react more quickly than they act. I’m exagerating, but you get the idea. Other breeds are harder to keep up with (mentally and physically).
We’ve got a swiss steer right now (for beef, not work), and while he might get sullen I can’t see him getting “tempermental.” He is usually one of the first ones to get to me when I bring out hay or treats, but otherwise does seem slow to move.
I don’t have as much experience with holsteins, they seem a little quicker than the swiss.
-Tevis

[Crabapple Farm]

Depends a bit on what size horse and what sort of work. But it looks like you’ve got good sized horses and want to do serious work, so would be better off not trying to get away with skimping.
I’m more comfortable working with wood than metal, myself. Last winter I pulled a few Ash logs out of the wood and had a guy with a bandsaw saw them up. I had a few 4x4s sawn out of the best, clearest, straightest bit, one of which is now a tongue for my dump cart (mainly made out of the rest of the same tree). I resawed it with a circular saw to a taper, down to just under 3×3 at the tip, to reduce neck weight a bit.
For wood, Ash and Hickory would be my first choices. For weight and strength, they are great. Clear and straight grained adds greatly to the strength, which generally means sawn out of a larger log. A small straight tree of the right diameter can work fine, but per inch and pound, a sawn pole will be stronger than an entire trunk of the same size.
For metal, I think I’ve seen from 2″ to 3″. I don’t know what wall thickness you’d want.
-Tevis

[Crabapple Farm]

I’ve got a #7 One Horse mower, the main differences I see between it and a mower made for a team: 4′ bar, shafts, narrower frame & chassis.
The bar can be cut down easily by someone with the tools and knowledge. But with a well tuned mower and horse, and rests, you might not need to cut a 5′ down.
You can make (or have made) a set of shafts easily enough. Cut the tongue (assuming it wasn’t cut already) or better yet make a stub tongue based on the original, so that you can switch it back later if you want to use it with a team.
The frame/chassis you can’t modify. A One Horse mower built as such is narrower, with the cutter bar starting just over a half a horse width from the tongue, whereas a team mower is designed to fit a whole horse between the tongue and standing grass. Plus, the narrower frame weighs less. So you’ll have to teach her to walk the right distance away from the edge, and there will be a little more weight than if it was a “real” One Horse Mower. (remember: at the turn of the century, most folks were using horses more in the 1400 lb range than 1800)
Get it as well tuned as you can, because a smooth running mower pulls much easier than one that doesn’t run smooth.

[Crabapple Farm]

@Julie Clemons 3272 wrote:

Crabapple Farm, do you cook the squash before you feed it? Do you feed seeds and all?

We don’t cook the squash, and feed them seeds and all (the seeds are actually the most nutritious bit, and possibly a wormer too). We find that it’s best if they’ve frozen a couple times, as that softens them enough for the animals to be able to bite into them if we feed them whole. Otherwise, we have to chop them up into bite-sized bits for the cattle. The sheep, like deer, can bite into pumpkins and most varieties of winter squash, especially if we get the pumkins started by lobbing them high in the air so they crack open when they hit the ground. Some varieties are too tough for them to eat easily, but those tend to be the varieties that our CSA shareholders and/or we prefer to eat ourselves anyway. Extra field pumpkins that we haven’t sold by halloween go into the stock fodder catagory.
-Tevis

[Crabapple Farm]

@ivy 3267 wrote:

Well, perhaps driving from behind could be a goal some day. For right now it’s mostly enforcing the idea of “okay, we’re stopped now and I’m going to go pick up something 10 feet away and you’re going to stay stopped – not come with me or wander over there and eat some grass or take off back to the barn.” I don’t expect my animal to be perfectly trained at 2 months old but I am wondering how I teach him an idea like “stay still while i move.” Thanks for responding.
-ivy

Here’s one thing to try. After driving them around and coming to a stop (whoa), and standing with them for a few seconds (to reinforce the “not moving” part of whoa), start scritching them, under the chin and behind the ear of the nigh ox at first, but slowly working towards giving them a good rubbing all over, moving around them while you’re doing it. It would be good to have them tied the first few times, so they don’t turn around to compete for your attention. But I find that they tend to stand still for grooming.
This is a way to introduce the concept of you “moving out of position” while they are standing still in the yoke, with positive reinforcement for them. Once they stop trying to follow your every move, walk back to behind them, giving them a little scratch at the base of the tail if they don’t try to turn around. Once you can walk in circles around them with them standing still untied, then you can start trying to move away from them. But once you are ten feet away, there’s really nothing you can do about it if they start to move, so it’s better from a training point of view to work on it from a position in which you can do something to stop them.
-Tevis

[Crabapple Farm]

We haven’t feed beets to the horse yet, but the dairy cow and sheep get some. Mangels have a pretty high moisture content, sugar beets a little bit less so, but still mostly water. So nutritionally, it would take a HUGE heap of ’em to meet the nutritional needs of a horse. Plus, as Neal points out, it would probably kill the horse.
We look at them as a succulent supplement. While horses, cattle, and sheep don’t need or do well with simple sugars (which, nutritionally, is pretty much all that mangels and sugar beets are), we feel that succulent feeds are a healthy addition to the dry hay regime, as long as they aren’t overdone. I know one book I have basically says that the benefits in the health of the animal seem greater than a nutritional analysis can account for. Something is lost when fresh grass is turned into hay, so adding a little fresh food into the diet in the winter seems like a good thing. We don’t feed any grain, but sometimes use roots and winter squash as energy supplements.
-Tevis

[Crabapple Farm]

Cattle respond more to your movements than what you say. And of your movements, they pay attention to your whole body, not just your whip hand. It’s generally easier to drive them without saying anything than it is to drive them with voice alone.
They can be trained to respond to verbal cues alone, but that is a very high level of training.
When, specifically, do you want them to do something without you having to lead them in it? Are you trying to teach them to drive from behind? Or are they getting ahead of you, making it hard to stop them (since hurrying to get caught up just gets them going faster)?
My one comment is that while rope-free driving is the ideal, it is better to use the halter than have them ignore your commands. You can use rope and stick to provide physical clues as to what your voice command means, reducing the need for acrobatics on your part.
-Tevis

[Crabapple Farm]

I’ve never worked with a team of jersey steers, but my experience with the cows and young ones we’ve raised up for beef is that jerseys are the least tractable of the breeds I’ve worked around (except angus). They can be very friendly, but more cat-like than dog-like – more interested in what they can get from you than what they can do for you.
I’m on my second team of Shorthorns, and I do like them.
While there are breed tendancies in terms of personality, I think more has to do with the individuals involved and the relationship.

[Crabapple Farm]

Myself, I’ve been wondering about the comparative efficiencies of a one horse 4 foot mower and a two horse six footer. Another instance of the “not a straight line” phenomenon. Not having tried out our new one horse mower yet, and so not knowing how hard of a load it is, I don’t know if a four foot mower makes the one work harder than a standard team mower. One theory I have is that no manufacturers expected anyone to put up serious hay with one horse, and so it was designed for small jobs, not all day mowing.

It’s possible with oxen that the team yoke, being a more solid point to push against than a single yoke, encourages the oxen to lean into it more strongly. With a single neck yoke, I’ve seen a little bit of a see-saw effect that could diminish effective power. Horse harness doesn’t change, however, depending on the number of animals, so that shouldn’t be an issue.

[Crabapple Farm]

@Kristin 3039 wrote:

If we were to set our price ‘fairly,’ with everyone who works at the farm making a decent wage (and I’m not even talking about a middle class wage, just a decent working class wage), the share price would be outrageous. (When we figure out that number, I’ll post it here.) Or, at least it would seem outrageous to people used to cheap food. I think that’s one of the dirty little secrets of small scale organic agriculture. A lot of it is based on the cheap or free labor derived from interns or apprentices. It bothers me, because it perpetuates a system that is based on a false economy, and it’s not fair. Yes, we’re training farmers, but we’re training them to rely on cheap or free labor. What do you all think?

I’m definately in favor of pushing the pricing issue towards a decent wage, but I also appreciate the reality of having to make sales in order to get any wage at all. I try to avoid pricing our stuff out of the range of what folks can afford. But being able to afford something is a question of assigning value and prioritizing. If someone’s got mortgage payments and car payments and credit card payments that eat up their monthly paycheck so they don’t have anything left to spend on food, well, that’s just an indication of their priorities. Let them eat cheap crap. My only qualm is the question of who is going to foot the medical bill in twenty years.

I have often wondered how many points in history there have been in which farmers have done well without relying on what amounts to free labor (be it direct slavery or fossil fuels or apprentices or children). I haven’t really been able to think of any. Which makes me feel marginally better about being dependant on cheap labor (apprentices, in our case).

I think that we are training farmers to farm sustainably, which includes a balancing of ecological, social, and economic issues. Today, the education we can offer is as valuable as the labor they can offer us. And is maybe more valuable in today’s economy than the actual product of that labor.
As soon as everyone starts doing it, then the education won’t be so valuable. But probably the product of the labor will be more valuable then (which would be the only reason everyone would start doing it).

[Crabapple Farm]

@mstacy 2677 wrote:

… an old growth forest cannot sequester any net carbon. If vast quantities of carbon were somehow being pumped into the soil then old growth forest would be on some of the deepest and richest soils in the world. The reality is that these soils tend to be rather shallow. The rain forest is a great example. There’s a reason why swidden (slash and burn) agriculturists had to move so often. A few short years of cropping rapidly deplete the forest soils.

Ah, but take those old growth forests that are still left standing today for us to look at in context: they are still standing today. All of the forests on nice soil were cut down centuries ago, and a few times since. The base soil in the rainforests in light and prone to leaching, and the climate increases the leaching tendancy. Most old growth stands in north america are in mountainous, rocky or otherwise unfavorable terrain. Terrain that cropping would, as you say, deplete rapidly.
There is also a difference between old growth forest (in which growth has slowed due to the average age of the stand) and a managed, harvested, mature stand (with a higher percentage of young, actively growing trees).

[Crabapple Farm]

Soil organic matter is a medium term carbon sink, that becomes long term if the soil is not disturbed causing the release of that carbon back into the atmosphere.

As a farmer, not a forester, I’m reminded of the theory of managed pulsed grazing, which has been shown to significantly increase soil organic matter. By harvesting top growth, causing root die back and decomposition without soil disturbance, soil microorganisms can effectively sequester significant amounts of the carbon in the roots into humus. By managing a pasture for maximum active growth, the maximum amount of atmostpheric co2 is absorbed and put into the soil.

Similarly, it seems that actively managing a forest stand for maximum active growth of the trees without disturbing the soil would have a similar impact. The report Jason posted indicated that young forest stands give off co2, because of the disturbed soil implicit in an even-aged young stand. In an uneven aged stand, managed to minimize soil disturbance, the ability to absorb carbon ought to be significant. Up until the management changes, that soil gets disturbed, and all that soil organic matter goes up into the atmosphere.

But no, not significant enough to offset the widespread burning of fossil fuels. There is no real way to do that.
-Tevis

[Crabapple Farm]

My cattle mostly avoid the goldenrod, but eat bedstraw. The sheep eat the goldenrod down well when it is still relatively young and tender, and strip the leaves off the older stuff but don’t eat the stems.
Thanks, Jason, for bringing up Sweetclover and Trefoil. Depending on soil type they might be the best adapted legumes. Trefoil has a reputation, however, for growing happily on the side of the road but not when you plant it. Sweetclover likes roadsides as well as nice fields.

Re: goats are easier to move than sheep.
Depends on your fencing and moving system. We raised up some alpine bucklings one summer, and won’t get goats again. The trick with goats is that they follow you. Sometimes that’s great. But if you’re trying to set up flexinet with half a dozen bucklings nipping at your heals getting tangled in it, that’s another story. I prefer the sheep, who wait patiently in their fence for me to finish and open a gate for them to go through. The goats got impatient, jumped the fence, and tried to help. Sounds like you’re getting some experience with the jumping factor. Our goats would stay in the fence as long as there weren’t any people around. But if they saw us, they’d come meet us halfway. But they were bottle babies, which certainly didn’t help.

I just want to restate that careful grazing and mowing can work wonders. There may be bigger guns that you could pull out if you wanted (tillage, herbicide), but big guns have a tendency to cause collateral damage.
If there’s not enough good stuff there to encourage, get some late-cut first cutting hay with seeds in it and feed that either in the field or spread the manure there. Just try to get the hay off of a field that has what you want in it and not even worse weeds.

-Tevis

[Crabapple Farm]

Our farm was abandoned for eight years before we bought it (no mowing, no nothing). We’ve been slowly bringing the fields back into production, some into cropland, some pasture or hay.
When we bought it, it took quite a bit of searching to find a clover plant anywhere. Now, we’re worrying about our sheep getting bloat in some areas, the clover is so solid. And we did it without spreading anything, just mowing and grazing.
Intensive managed grazing, preferably with a mix of species, can work wonders. In as little as one year of good management.

First question: what weeds do you have? Each species of grazer has some that they won’t eat, so if you’re grazing for improvement, you need animals who will eat what you want eaten.
A mower has a voracious appetite and will “eat” everything, so clipping with a mower is a great option if that makes more sense than adding herds to your life.
Clover needs light to germinate and grow, so the trick to getting clover established or reestablished is to graze it down close, so that you can see dirt between the plants, then get them off it so you don’t kill it. Haying has the same effect, but the regrowth period for hay is usually long enough that the slow-growing clovers tend to get smothered before they get established (though red clover tends to come into a well managed hay field to some extent, at least for us).
Alfalfa’s a wimp and is going to be hard to get established without plowing and seeding, plus I doubt it would persist well in a horse pasture in the northeast. It does better in hayfields, but even then runs out after a few years.

Rotationally grazing horses, moving them promptly once they’ve eaten a section down, then clipping each section as they come off it with a sickle bar mower, is a sound recipe for improving the pasture, horses, and teamster. Adding other species (sheep and beef cattle are my recommendations) would speed up the pasture improvement. Sheep are the quickest to improve a pasture, in my experience.

-Tevis

[Crabapple Farm]

Follow-up on our wheat harvesting.
While the notion of a community harvesting bee is great, the reality is that these days you need to give people more than a week’s notice of an event if you want anyone to show up, and the reason no one grows grain around here is that we can get lots of rain during harvest season.
Our first harvest day went well, about twenty people showed up. we only got about a sixth of an acre reaped, bound, and shocked, though, because I was letting other folks try out the cradle (slower, messier mowing resulting in slower binding) and I wanted to leave the rest of the field for the following week. When we got a thunderstorm. And have been getting thunderstorms most days since. It made me really wish I had a reaper-binder, so we could get it mown off and bound quickly. So I’ve changed my mind on what I said earlier, and now think a reaper-binder is worth it for even only a half acre. Of course, if we find and buy one (and more horses to pull it), I’ll probably want to go plant five acres of wheat.
But we have some wheat that we harvested, and as soon as we get a chance are going to start harvesting the barley and oats.
-Tevis

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