[Crabapple Farm]

Plow adjustments:
Different plow makes and models have some variations, of course. The general points of adjustment are the hitch point and the land wheel. Generally you can adjust both the vertical and horizontal hitching points – verticle adjusts for plowing depth, relative to angle of draft (affected by how tall your animals are), and horizontal adjusts furrow width (or if using three allows an off-center hitch point. The land wheel, if you’ve got one, ought to be adjustable as well. This also controls depth of furrow. A “well adjusted” plow ought to have the wheel and hitch setting in agreement, rather than disagreeing with eachother. Thing to check: when plowing, is a)the depth what you want, b) the land wheel rolling along, lightly pressing in, but not digging into the soil, and c) the heel of the landslide in contact with the bottom of the furrow (plow running level, not nose down or up). If all three are yes, then that’s about right. Similarly, are you having to fight the plow to keep it plowing a decent furrow width? If so, try adjusting the horizontal hitch location. A well adjusted good walking plow running in good soil, not hitting stones, behind a team who are where they ought to be, ought to run upright cutting an appropriate furrow without you holding on to it. The handles are to allow you to compensate for uneven terrain, not to hold the plow in the ground with.
I tried a new Pioneer plow several years ago at a HPD, and must say I wasn’t terribly impressed. It seemed like at anything less than eight inches deep, the plow just wanted to pop out of the soil and fall over. You could keep it in, but that’s what you were doing – holding the plow up and in the ground the whole time. I think the problem is that they are (were?) using tractor/sulky bottoms, which don’t have to be as exactly balanced as a walking plow and so aren’t. Alternatively, with three big belgians you can just plow deep and then it would run fine (and from what I’ve seen the Amish are always happy to throw another horse or two on).
The coulter, if you’ve got one, is also obviously adjustable for depth.
Rob may chime in with more; he taught me what I know.

-Tevis

[Crabapple Farm]

Ever since reading in Rural Heritage a while ago about a horse-drawn garbage/recycling collection service, I have had a vision of someone starting up a gas-free lawn service. A horse or two on a gang reel mower, a scythe for trimming the edges, etc. With the price commercial equipment costs, I think it could be very price competetive, and the idyllic nature of it would have huge appeal to some people. You might have to use a bun bag to keep from spoiling the clients idyll, but that’s not a big deal.
Unfortunately, I’m not the person to do it and I don’t live in the right sort of neighborhood to make a go of it. But in the right upscale/suburban area, it could make a great business.
-Tevis

[Crabapple Farm]

Two options with a PTO cart – Ground Drive and Engine. I&J just came out with a nice new GD one, with a chain drive from the wheel to gears to PTO with two speeds, it’s the only manufactured one currently available that I know of, but I’ve seen pictures of several different home made versions. With an engine model, there’s a gas or diesel engine sitting on the cart next to you – which most horse farmers aren’t so into. Pioneer, I&J, White Horse, and others make them. For that to make sense you would probably need to have other PTO equipment that you wanted to use to justify it, as the PTO carts cost a bit more and a GD spreader usually costs less than a PTO one.
-Tevis

[Crabapple Farm]

Spreaders come in all sizes. Most Ground Drive spreaders designed for horse teams seem to be in the 75 to 125 bushel capacity range. There are 25 and 50 bushel spreaders that a Belgian ought to be able to handle without too much difficulty. Millcreek and Pequea both make small GD spreaders available new ($) and I’ve seen them at auctions. I’m sure there are lots of makes of old ones no longer manufactured.
As to your adaptation question, a newer GD spreader not designed for horses can be used with a forecart with no further adaptation, a PTO spreader would need a PTO cart. There are enough GD spreaders that if you aren’t interested in a PTO cart then hold out for a GD spreader, as converting a PTO spreader to GD seems like a serious project. It seems like there are a lot of folks with riding horses and large lawn tractors creating a market for the 25 to 50 bushel range GD spreaders (they are small, so can be backed into the barn for easy loading, and can be pulled by an ATV or large lawn tractor)
Also, a larger capacity spreader doesn’t need to be filled to capacity, meaning you can adjust the load to fit the horse (to some extent).
-Tevis

[Crabapple Farm]

We’ve been using an herbal wormer for our sheep from Hoegger’s Goat Supply, while they don’t talk about use in horses, their dosage instructions are by body weight so easy enough to scale up. It doesn’t have any of the real powerful (toxic) stuff like tobacco or walnut hulls, but they claim it bested Ivermectin in a study of reducing worm loads in goats. Not all the same species of worms, but all the ingredients are general vermifuges.
It’s designed for regular (weekly) dosage, and creates an inhospitable environment for worms. It’s a powder that we mix with kelp and they eat it right up. We used it on a calf who we suspected was wormy and he started improving pretty quickly (totally anecdotal as we didn’t get any fecal counts).

We’ve talked a little about planting ourselves a worming garden and drying and mixing our own based on their ingredients but haven’t done that yet.

One possible concern about using “the big guns” is that if there is a heavy worm infestation and they all die and let go at once, there can be some hemorraging – possibly more dangerous than the worms. So that’s one argument in favor of a) prevention and b) gentler wormers.
-Tevis

[Crabapple Farm]

I know there are others with more cow horn modification experience out there, but yes, you can get horn knobs, they are often used on oxen. Basically they are fancy lug nuts that screw onto the tips of the horns (I reckon regular lug nuts would work fine). You need to trim down the horn tips to a size and shape that they will thread onto.
They will lessen the possibility of punctures but won’t do much about bruising.
You can trim the horns back further – I think (hopefully someone will correct me) that the blood and nerves only reach about 2/3 of the way up the horn, so the outer third can be cut back without blood. Being connected to the skull, it won’t be pleasant for the girl, but not actually painful. A hacksaw works, and a hoof rasp to round it off (she won’t like it – tie her well). Even if you do nick the ends of the living tissue, there will be a lot less blood than if you take the horns all the way off.
Alternatively, can you keep her tied in the barn for the next month until you’ve got pasture? She won’t like that either, but it may be the less stressful option. I’m assuming that they are in tight winter quarters, bored and getting cabin fever, just like the rest of us (except for all you southrons who’ve been out plowing already while we’re still looking at snow – though today I was in the greenhouse all day where the weather is tropical). With age and maturity she may settle down a bit before next winter.
-Tevis

[Crabapple Farm]

We haven’t done a good job thinning them properly to put their genetic potential to the real test. They were fairly similar in size, but a very different shape. The red is longer and pointy at both ends, whereas the yellow is fatter and blunt – rounded at both ends. The yellow is smoother and so cleans up easier, whereas the red tends to have creases that hold dirt. The red has bigger, nicer tops – we harvested some when the chard was a bit tired looking.
My guess is that under ideal conditions the red would get bigger. And we have very different soil than you, so they might act differently up there.
-Tevis

[Crabapple Farm]

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds also sells Mammoth Red and Yellow Cylindrical (possibly they get it from Shumways . . . ) in reasonable quantities, both of which we’ve grown and been fairly pleased with – we haven’t really tried to store them yet, we just give them out to the CSA shareholders. We were surprised to find them tender and delicious even at impressive sizes. Someday we’ll try to grow enough to store and feed lots to the cattle and sheep over the winter (they do love them). Both are pretty high in water content – juicier than standard table beets. We’ve had a real hard time the past few years sourcing Lutz Green Leaf seed, but Lutz seems to get almost as big with higher solids. The main problem we have is meadow voles hollowing out their top halves, since they grow half above ground, particularly with the yellow (which is sweeter). Cleaner fields with less cover for the buggers would probably address that.
This year we’re going to trial and compare a sugar beet from J.L. Hudson, unfortunately not available in quantity. I don’t know where the sugar beet growers get their seed.
-Tevis

[Crabapple Farm]

I haven’t used one but was also checking out the I&J pto forecart at the field days in Tunbridge. I would second Donn – don’t expect that cart to power a baler. It looks like a nice piece of equipment, but I don’t think it would work for that. A pto rake, tedder, manure spreader, sicklebar, or such would be appropriate implements to get it for.
I was down in lancaster recently at an auction and noticed that the prefered hay mowing setup in that area, as far as I could tell from the equipment being sold, was trailed PTO driven sickle bars and a separate roller/crimper (I believe also PTO). An extra trip around the field, yes, but lighter work for the horses.
Talking with the guy who was selling the I&J pto cart at Tunbridge, we were both kicking ourselves for having recently purchased ground drive spreaders. We both have tractors too, and the idea of using a pto spreader with a team but also being able to unload it stationary with the tractor for making compost seems great.
And yes, all the lighter implements which that cart would power can be found in ground-driven versions. But depending where you are, it might be tricky to find them. The PTO option expands the places you can shop for equipment.
-Tevis

[Crabapple Farm]

We’re also going to be growing Barley to harvest for the first time this year. We grew some as a cover crop a couple years ago, for the heck of it. We planted it as early as seemed reasonable, at the same time as oats. It came up fine, and our soils are definately cool and wet. My 1920s era “Productive Farm Crops” says “Barley culture is so similar to that of oats that very little special information need be added.” but says if growing both, plant the oats first. The Canadian “Organic Field Crop Handbook” mentions that the six-row varieties tolerate late planting and hence pre-planting cultivation.
Our experience is that the barley had better cover than spring wheat for weed suppression, not quite as good as oats, but that will probably vary by variety. We’re gonna grow “Robust” this year from OGS/Fedco.
For harvest we will use a cradle, as we don’t have a binder yet. I’ve heard that attatching rubber disks onto a mill will make it an effective de-huller, but haven’t tried it.
-Tevis

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