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Hey Mark, please keep us posted on your progress. I am very interested.

George

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Hi Mark:

Here is a link for the halter/bridle: http://www.draftanimalpower.com/showthread.php?4670-Bridle-Halter-Combo&highlight=halter+bridle

George

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Hey Mitch:

I used to do that has well but have since stopped using halters under bridles as I had a Zimmerman’s harness make a conversion piece to make a halter/bridle combo for me. When I wrote I had a few “close calls”, it was the same scene as you – a bridle coming off one ear. I think that even if a bridle came clean off, I would expect the horse to just hang out and wait until I can put it back on. Then I read that article about steady horses taking off under the direction of experienced teamsters.

I think that more than various safety mechanisms, safe work is about how I approach the work itself and my expectations of myself and my animals. For example, asking animals to stand quietly and not rub is probably more effective than any safety bridle. That said, there are times when I (and my animals) get tired and careless. Combine that with some other unfortunate, random factors, and accidents can happen.

I called the harness maker in the SJF article to see what the double crown bridle conversion piece costs – $45 + shipping. That is a little more than what I want to pay so I am checking with Zimmerman’s harness. I will post the price here in case anyone is interested. The only other things I do to tighten up my work with horses (safety-wise) is tie the horses together just below their britchen (most do this anyway). I also have welden on grab hooks on the back of my forecarts so that I can wrap a chain around a tree to the grab on the forecart. I did this mainly for convenience as I can pull their bridles off and secure them without having to tie their heads. But I think that my horses can get in less trouble being secured this way for extended periods compared with being tied to their heads.

George

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The space between the studs is 5.75 inches. I don’t know how big your wethers are, but you maybe could widen it some. You just don’t want it so wide that goats can crawl inside, especially the pygmies. If you are feeding the two groups together, you could go 6″ (or more perhaps) and put some vertical strapping at the same spacing. The pygmies would be less likely to crawl through a square. I haven’t had goats jump inside. Total height is 4′.

George

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Like Bob, we have 5-6 strand high tensile perimeter fence. My horses have never had a problem, although I am very careful when introducing a new horse. We subdivide with standard polywire and step-in posts.

George

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Andy:

Nice work. I really like your router jig – ingenious! Hope the yoke works well for you.

George

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Geoff:

That hay I just cut was not lodged. I have cut lodged hay and I agree it is a challenge.

George

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Interesting discussion and ideas. I believe my outside shoe it set up well – new ledger level with the guards, shoe straight and securely fashioned, sharp knife sections etc. I mowed 20 acres with this new set up (have previously used the easy cut) without plugging at all on the outside shoe. It was when I ran into these challenging conditions (heavy, wet grass on a previously clipped field) that I ran into problems. A few years back I faced similarly challenging conditions after spreading several tons of composted poultry manure/acre. It was a wet year and I could not get the hay off when I wanted to. When I finally did get to cut, I had a ton of wet, lush grass with this semi-rotten undergrowth (orchard grass) and I couldn’t go 15 feet without plugging:mad:.

I think Donn is right that I shouldn’t set up my mower for these unusual conditions, but I would like a strategy when I do face them (we are scheduled to have another load of poultry manure delivered by the end of this week). Seems like stub guards on the outer shoe and possibly removing the grassboard are worth a try, although I think mowing without a grassboard would be a challenge.

Donn, I noticed what you described on Jay’s video right away. It could have been me carrying along those bunches of grass saying a prayer to the mower god that they would fall off so I could keep mowing. This discussion brings to mind that mowing hay really sharpens the skill of team and teamster. There is a lot going on and all at one time – great thing to do with horses.

Cheers.

George

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Thanks for the great videos. We are busy with Farmer’s Market during the weekend and I am sorry to have missed the event. Did anyone get any details (and more pictures) on the ground-drive forecart?

George

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Hey Donn:

Interesting. I am done haying for the year, but I am going to try it next year if I run into similarly challenging conditions. Other than good ledgers (do you use serrated?), and sufficiently tight hold-downs, is there anything you do to tune up the outside shoe? Do you think that grass is more likely to get caught up and bunched on that outer shoe? I found that I could carry a load of grass on the outer shoe and sometimes it would drop off and I could keep mowing, other times no (time to stop and clear).

George

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Mitch, I think I already have what you are describing. It is a double knife section with one standard knife and one skinny knife with 3 rivet/bolt holes. Same thing?

Mike, I have called Brubakers and they call back. At some point we connect. If I were to set up another mower, I would order through Donn Hewes (see above) – a wealth of knowledge and easily reachable.

Donn, I never expressed how much I like my dolly wheel. Thanks for the tip. D-ring or no, those horses are carrying the weight of the mower on their backs without the dolly. I know a person on the mower helps with the weight, but it is still heavy. I also like not having to dead-lift 80 lbs every time I hook onto the mower.

George

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Hi Donn:

Thanks for the response. Whenever I work on a mower (only 3 to date), I replace the inner an outer ledger plates. I bought serrated ledger plates from Brubakers a while back. Is that what you use? When I was plugging at the outer shoe the other day, I did tighten down my hold-down, but to no avail.

I usually don’t mow fields for hay that I have previously clipped, but we have been in a drought here so our yields have been lower than average. I had to venture out into new territory. Goats are generally good (or bad depending on your perspective) about picking our the more palatable portions of hay – the rest we throw on the pack as bedding. Why not clip multiple times on ground you are using for pasture? I will clip my pasture ground 2-3 times per year.

I think I will keep a couple of stub guards on the mower in case I face similar conditions in the future. It won’t take long to switch out the regular guards and give it a try.

George

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I think there is a difference between what horses “should” pull and what they are physically and psychologically capable of pulling given their condition and experience. If your horses don’t have a lot of experience logging, I would start with small loads and move up from there. Here is a link to estimate log weight based on species: http://www.woodweb.com/cgi-bin/calculators/calc.pl?calculator=log_weight.

Good luck.

George

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Donn:

I have a friend with Scottish Highlanders. He claims that they do a decent job on brush, but nothing like goats :). I attended a workshop with Kathy Voth who has done extensive research on training cows (all breeds) to a eat a variety of target weeds http://www.livestockforlandscapes.com/. She has a pretty simple training system and I saw some pretty impressive results of jersey heifers learning to eat Canada thistle, milkweed, and spotted knapweed.

Good luck.

George

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The other thing we have played around with on our thin soled horse are hoof casts. They work really well for comfort and are nice and tight fitting…but we would wear through them quite quickly on our gravel roads and they became expensive. However I recently found a very cheap source of casting on Amazon which works out to about $5 for a set, and they last 10 days to 2 weeks. You can look at the equicast website for information on how to apply the cast etc, but the materials are quite expensive there.

Kristan

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