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Hi Ed,

Here is a link for figuring i beam size: I -beam size for chain hoists.

Good luck.

George

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Hi Ed:

I am interested to hear more about your operation. How many taps do you have out? Buckets vs. pipeline? Owned or rented land? How and where do you sell your syrup? Solo or joint operation?

Thanks.

George

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Hi Donn:

Great work! That was a wonderful portrayal of why many of us choose draft animal power. You were concise and articulate.

Thanks for your hard work in benefiting this community.

George

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I don’t believe stocks should be necessary to trim a horse. Horses should be willing to stand while you trim their feet. The question is how to do you get your horse to stand?

I set up a 50′ diameter round pen. I would work the horse in the round pen a bit to get him warmed up and would ask him to come into the center of the pen where I would start to trim him (no lead rope or halter). If he put his foot down or tried to walk away, I would send him on a couple of laps. After a couple of 20 minute sessions, all of my horses learned fairly quickly to stand while being trimmed. They have a choice – do laps or relax and get trimmed. Most horses will chose the latter.

If you don’t have a round pen, a long lead rope (20-25′) or lounge line will work OK. If you decide to try it, I recommend a “carrot stick” – a 4′ whip with a rope at the end. This can be used to swish or hit the ground to encourage the horse to keep going (try search round pen techniques on youtube). If you decide to try it, your tone and demeanor should be neutral throughout….Just another day at the office.

George

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Hi Stephen:

We have our herd of 60 milking goats in a 40×70 hoop barn. We bed with chopped oat straw out of Canada and have a bedded pack. We have up to 20 hogs in a smaller hoop barn and use a bedded pack with them as well (same straw).

I clean the smaller barn with a tractor and hire an excavator to clean out the large barn. The excavator loads it into a dump truck and we field stack the compost for a year, turning it periodically. I time the cleaning of the small barn when the excavator is here so that he can load and transport with the dump truck. We rotate where the manure is field stacked and spread accordingly.

We used an old 50 bushel spreader for several years and eventually purchased an 80 bushel, 2 wheel, Lancaster spreader that we hook to a forecart. This was a great purchase for us and is an outstanding piece of machinery. No more breakdowns! We load with a tractor and generally spread with two horses and sometimes 3 depending on the terrain. All compost is spread in the spring before 1st cut. Spreading compost is one of the horses’ most challenging jobs – short duration, heavy pulls. However after a winter of logging they are in good shape and up for the job. We generally spread 12-15 loads a day. Spreading manure is good spring work as it is too wet to work in the woods and too early to cut hay. I believe strongly in the continuity of work for the horses’ physical and mental agility and spreading in the spring fills a nice gap.

We also purchase poultry manure out of Chazy, NY to make up for any fertility short-falls. We normally soil test our hay land every three years or so.

George

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Peyton, I am having trouble with my camera so I attached a picture of our old parlor. This is a single 4. Five years ago, we built a new parlor with a double 4. The milker stands in the middle of the two milk stands. Each stand has a bucket milker with two milking units so that we are always milking 4 while we are prepping the other 4. Average milking time for 60 goats is about an hour and 45 minutes with set-up and clean up. Only one person milks.

George

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Hi Carl:

We started with Nubians in 1997. After 5 years or so we were not happy with their performance. We are big on rotational grazing/browsing providing a fresh paddock every 12 hours and Nubians did not work well in this system. They were also slow to mature, which made it difficult to get a kid up to breeding weight (80 lbs) at 9 months. We picked up a couple of Alpines along the way and found they outperformed Nubians in almost every way. Our experience is that they are hardier, faster maturing, better grazers, and less likely to go off feed. The bottom line is, that despite their lower solids compared to Nubians, we yield much more cheese from Alpines b/c of their higher milk production. We invested in a couple of nice Alpine bucks and a few does and transformed our herd to all Alpines within a couple of years. Now 15 years into raising goats, we have some nice bloodlines that are well adapted to our system. The beauty of goats over cows is that you can breed a goat a 9 months and they have an average of 2.2 kids/goat. As a farmer/breeder, I can transform my genetics more than twice as fast as anyone raising cows.

George

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We milk 60 goats in an elevated, double-four parlor. We have a bucket milking system with modified cow components. Carl (NY) is correct that the set-up is different for goats compared to cows – lower vacuum and higher pulsation along with different rest ratios on the pulsator, smaller inflations etc.

I agree with Carl (VT) about questioning the value of an a vacuum unit for one cow. In order to do that effectively, you need a good place to wash up, plenty of hot water and a “bucket washer” ( http://hambydairysupply.com/xcart/product.php?productid=383&page=1) to properly wash your hoses and units. With set-up and wash time, I imagine you would not save much, if any, time compared with hand milking.

George

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Believe it or not, we still have some ice especially along my main skid roads. The rest of the woods have only an inch of ice left and the horses break through it. I was out Friday for the first time in 3 weeks – probably the longest period of rest these horses have had since I bought them. They were full of it! We are expecting 4″ of snow and then cold weather. I expect conditions will be back to normal after that. 52 degrees yesterday and we are expecting 15 below on Tuesday night.

George

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Hi Ed:

Thanks for the video. I assume you have two horses now or is that your neighbor’s horse? A Canadian? He looks and moves just like my Canadian or should I say my daughter’s (another story). How are they working together? Two horses definitely have their advantages in the woods although I do like working a single for simplicity and maneuverability.

George

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Up to 3 gallons…..I want to get some of your genetics Carl! An interesting comparison between goats and cows can be found here.

George

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Hi John and Tim:

Yes, I am still happy with my purchase although I haven’t been in the woods much recently b/c of the horrendous icing up here. Tim, it is heavier than my other peaveys, but there is no way you could bend this thing and I have broken a few wooden handles. Certainly the aluminum conducts cold more than wood, but I haven’t noticed it. I like using this peavey for loading large saw logs on my bobsled. Per my first post, I welded on the grabber to my Bangor peavey and replaced the hook. I tend to use this peavey (works great) when I am handling firewood as it has a smaller wooden handle. I would recommend either option.

George

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Tim, is there a portable moisture meter that you can recommend?

George

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The large gelding, Don, in the picture above, is usually paired with his half brother. Don is a very forward, high-energy horse and his brother is more laid back. Getting them to pull evenly, seamlessly has been one of the many things I work on.

It is all about pressure and release for me and less about holding a horse back. As Don wants to pull ahead, I pressure his bit until he backs off and then I immediately release the pressure (reward). The horse who is ahead feels more of the pressure from the bit compared to the one behind. However, the horse who is behind does feel some pressure. I also use levered bits, generally with very little leverage. However, if Don persists and my other horse seems annoyed or affected by the pressure on his bit, I will add more leverage to Don’s bit. However, this is rarely necessary but these bits have been a good tool in helping my horses to pull evenly. Occasionally, Jim (his brother) is slow in which case I call his name and he will step up. Initially, I used a twitch to tap the slow horse on his croup while calling his name in a neutral tone.

The key for me has been anticipating when he wants to move ahead through his body language and applying some pressure before he speeds up. This is a subtle, gentle reminder that I am there calling the shots and is more effective than checking his speed once he takes the initiative. Anticipation, pressure, release, reward…….

In terms of the evener (correct me if I’m wrong, Donn), as you shift horse(s) toward the center of the evener (say 18″), they will pull more of the load compared with the horse(s) that are further away (say 22″). This will, of course, necessitate some drilling or welding if your evener has only one location to attach the single tree.

George

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I have no experience working 4, but I have worked plenty with horses of different sizes. Certainly those tall horses will have a longer stride than the Fjords. It will be your job to set the pace and have all follow it. That might mean slowing down the larger horses or asking the little ones to step up a bit. A driving whip or long twitch might come in handy to start.

George

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