[Donn Hewes]

Nice Job Jenn, I think “getting back on the horse” can be hard right after a farm type incident. Obviously, when it can be done safely it is by far the best thing for the teamster and the horse, or horses.

[Donn Hewes]

I would like to know who buys the stud horse. I think I might use him in the future if he lives close enough to me.

[Donn Hewes]

I guess the reason I mentioned the children is, if we found ourselves in that situation with children their behavior would be completely understood by us. We might struggle with getting them where we want them; but we would understand. Trust your instinct to understand the animal. That doesn’t tell you exactly how to handle it. Just act natural, like you know what is going on. Give them a second to relax. Then be all business.

One other thing; horses that go off to a Field Day and do well deserve a lot of credit (the teamster too). It shows the work that was done at home. If my kids had performed an Irish gig on stage at the carnival, now how would I feel and react as we were walking out. !!! But a word of warning: A mule can smell a proud man about mile away ( a horse too, just not so well). They will try very hard to make him look silly for his sins.

[Donn Hewes]

I guess the reason I mentioned the children is, if we found ourselfs in that situation with children their behavior would be completely understood by us. We might struggle with getting them where we want them; but we would understand. Trust your instinct to understand the animal. That doesn’t tell you exactly how to handle it. Just act natural, like you know what is going on. Give them a second to relax. Then be all business.

[Donn Hewes]

hi Rick, In the mail I got a listing for a Suffolk mare for sale in Ontario. Also a foal and a stud. Nice looking animals by their picture. Val and Alan Wilkinson, 613-256-4324. or wilkinson@storm.ca

[Donn Hewes]

Hi Geoff, A couple questions and thoughts about your horse event. Did you harness and work your animals? How did they do? Maybe a little more excited than home, but willing to take direction? Willing to stand almost as good as they do at home?

If you animals are working well home and away, remember to be purpose driven. You were the one that choose to go to the water trough, so go there. I will pause to see what has distracted my animal, I may correct misbehavior while I lead animals, but unless I am teaching an animal to lead that doesn’t know how, I don’t stop what I am doing to teach it now.

Right or wrong, I feel this way about several things. I will teach a horse how to put on a bridle, and I can be very patient. But after that I am just putting on a bridle. I can still be patient with a beginner, but I am not teaching all the time. Horses and mules will respond to your sense of purpose.

Many people don’t like the training analogies that compare horses to children. But here goes, say you are at the carnival and you are leading your children back to the car because it is time to go home. They keep stopping to gawk. There are lots of possible and appropriate responses. Stop and gawk with them, tease them, remind them that it is time to go, calmly tell them that time is up. Be relaxed but focused, don’t forget where you are going.

I take it back, horses are easier than children.

[Donn Hewes]

Geoff, let me start by agreeing with you, that it can be very hard to find all the info you want in one place. I could name what I think are two or three of the best all around books. I would rather make another point instead. I believe that some form of mentoring is vital. I know that is easy to say and can be very hard to do, but let me explain why I think so.

It is in the nature of the thing you want to learn. It is a subtle craft with many inter-related parts. Everything from wild animals to the proper maintenance of machinery. A good mentor will help you keep moving forward. Protect you to some degree from the worst hazards and mistakes. They will push you to continue to learn. They can help you protect your horses from yourself. Because by the very nature of this craft it will take time to learn. I am still learning and I have a few people I consider mentors to me now. People who understand horses better than I do. People who recognize the positive and negative aspects of confirmation better and more easily than I do. People who are breeding the animals to produce farm workers.

Here is the good news. The are many ways to be in touch with your mentor / mentors. Some are fortunate to have one next door. Some only see one occasionally. Some must do all the driving to spend time with the mentor while they work. Others will have the mentor dropping by to see how you are doing. I say all this because over time I have come to believe they are an essential part of the process.

I have said this before but I think it is worth repeating. When you want to know if someone is worth trying to learn something from, watch for one thing. Even if you are unsure of everything that is going on, look to see if the individual remains calm and relaxed. Look to see if the animals do. That is the best advice I can give.

[Donn Hewes]

Joe, Since I started this thread I will take this opportunity to add a few further thoughts. I would like to apologize to you and Dave for being somewhat cavalier in how I mixed these two media. I often think of DAP as a large community and as an ongoing conversation. I feel the printed word is part of that community as well, just not as easy to have a conversation. I kind of went from one classroom to the next to talk about the teacher. If I didn’t believe this is a community my apology would not be as important as it is. Please consider the following for publication if you so desire.

Dear Rural heritage, I appreciate the time and effort necassry to try and share with others what we have learned about starting animals to work. I believe the “old timers” are dwindling in numbers, just as many newcomers are asking for just such information in greater and greater numbers.

Having said that, I have a couple of suggestions regarding Dave Feltenberger’s article in the Winter 2010 issue. The caption that accompanies the series of photos (where the horse falls in a heap) on page 51 imply that Dave had done as he intended to and that “something unexpected happened”, and “the horse learned”. On page 53 however, Dave clearly states what he intended to do. Tie two horses up, put the lines on, and then hook up the neck yoke, then the trace chains. that is not what happened in the photo series.

I have no problem with a series of photos that show what happens when something goes wrong, but in this case it was important to make it clear to everyone that he knew what went wrong, what he had intended to do. While no damage was done, I think it goes a little to far to say the horse “learned” anything from being tossed in a heap.

In general this article has too much of a horse learning from falling down, learning from another horse biting its neck, and learning from a tractor. The net result of letting the horse do the training for you is a seven year old horse and a younger horse that say they don’t want to work together any more. Better to correct the young horse with the lines and leave the older horse alone. The best thing to look for in a breaking horse is one that will not question the “whoa” even when the beginner is unsure about stopping. I would leave everything else to the teamster.

When hooking to a wagon, the correct tension should always be taught, and always be used. I believe Dave is using a bolt-on neck yoke, but many are not. Letting a horse’s knees hit the neck yoke is also asking for the neck yoke to fall off the tongue. Trace chains with this style of harness should be adjusted by checking the britchen. Move the team back a step and the britchen is tight, move up a step and you should slip you fingers under the britchen easily, an inch of space perhaps, two hands of space and you are asking for trouble.

As a matter of small details, I know it is hard to always adjust the breaking harness fit each horse we work with but it might be worth pointing out the correct fit of a britchen. The final picture in the article makes me believe the lines are not adjusted to give a proper head spacing to the animals. I know pictures can be decieving in this regard, but I would look for ones that gave a better impression of what was wanted.

Again thanks for all your efforts to help educate the up and coming farmers of tomorrow. I know that preparing all this information is challenging, and we all have individual styles, but I think it is important that we let people know what we would have done differently. Thanks for this opportunity to voice my concerns, Sincerely, Donn Hewes, Northland Sheep Dairy, Marathon, New York

[Donn Hewes]

Hi Bekah, I think that list is really impressive. First, because I think it provides a great number of opportunities to for people to learn much need skills. I wish I knew how to put on those workshops. When I have tried to offer anything like that I haven’t found enough people signing up. I imagine you have worked up to it over many years until people know your farm is the place to look for those things. I hope you all are getting ready for a good season.

[Donn Hewes]

Well, I didn’t realize it was part of a regular column. If I had I wouldn’t have commented with out looking at them all. I think your own experience speaks to what I am saying. Regardless of the method used, seek to make an animal calm and relaxed, try to keep them that way. Thanks for letting me know.

[Donn Hewes]

Carl, I think it has a lot of potential as a fun, challenging event that would be interesting to watch. let me do a little research and I might just sign up for that. Ed, I would love to get that contact info. While I was up on the forwarder I said “wow, did I really win this?!”

[Donn Hewes]

Further thoughts on a log skidding contest. It was a lot of fun. I won a nice home made pair of tongs! Winning felt a little weird as I have competed in a lot of sports but never tried to win so much as a ribbon with a horse. The event was fairly simple in it’s lay out and not enough horses and teamsters were there (maybe six – do you think that is why I won something?!) but a good crowd (close to a hundred) enjoyed watching and talking with folks. We tried to do a modified pulling contest, by starting with one log and then adding another, and another. It didn’t work so good because the snow was still deep, and the logs were a little big, and some of the horses were a little green. That would be a good pulling contest with a bunch of hard logging horses. There were also demos for loading logs on a sled, and a team hooked to a motorized log forwarder. It was nice event by folks who had never done one before. One other funny thing; there weren’t many horses but there were no blinders! I have some horses that work with, and some that work without, but it was neat to be at an event were no one had any.

This little experience made me think about the event I would produce. I would call it a draft animal powered obstacle course. The time starts when the teamster and team enter. Have some pylons to skid a log through. Next have three logs to choose from; small, medium and large; to see which one they want to pull. Have a station were they can drive past a motor or motorized equipment. Hook onto a harrow and harrow between a row of flags or cones. I would give points for each area, that included, how the animal or team stood for hooking, how well they negotiated each obstacle, which log they choose to pull and how well they did. All the time and skill for hooking and unhooking counts!

I would try to make the points important enough (20 seconds a point or something), that time would be less of a factor and your first goal would be a clean run. If a young person or beginning teamster want to have an assistant no problem, just a couple points. A person could skip an obstacle and just loose those points.

I think I could think of more obstacles too. You could have a log on a rope through a pulley so the animal could pull it toward them selves. Add lines on the ground to stay inside of.

If any one has any more ideas let me know as I might try this this year.

[Donn Hewes]

Just a couple more thoughts on your questions. It is important to distinguish when your are talking about a team where one horse is stepping in front of the other; and a team that is drifting apart side to side. Usually the heads come together and the butts drift apart or vice versa, and often it will appear that only one horse is drifting in or out.

The reason it is important is the causes and our responses are totally different. The horse that is stepping in front of the other, is a case were the driver must correct this with the lines and voice. It can be hard to tell whether the offender is the one in front or the one lagging behind. It depends on whether they have the speed you asked for, and how much bit pressure you are receiving from them. Assume for a moment that the horse in front is being rude and needs to be put back in alinement with his (or her) partner.

[Donn Hewes]

When choosing a breed of sheep it is important to consider what you want from the sheep. For example, is the fleece most important or not at all; would colors be an assest? Most, but not all, producers consider the lambs’ meat carcass important. As we milk our sheep for cheese production, milk yields are very important to us.

On top of this it is important to consider (and maybe even more important) the sheep management you hope to employ. We feed no grain whatsoever. It is a challenge, but I would not keep a sheep any other way. As my wife is always saying, “no animal was more perfectly designed to eat grass than a sheep”. Years ago our flock was wormed with the typical chemicals and the standard times of year. Today, we might have to worm one lamb (no ewes, no whole flock) for clinical signs of specific worms, barber pole and meningeal worm being the main ones.

There are many management practices that go into acomplishing each of these management goals, but breed selection and breeding is one of them. Management and how different breeds will respond to it is also very local. You will have to talk to your neighbors to find out what has worked for them.

As a result our flock (45 milking ewes) is mixed breed. We have varying amounts of East Friesian, Dorset, Texel, and a lttle Black Welsh Mountain. After twenty five years of our management and breeding it is safe to say that this small flock is somewhat of its own breed.

My point is this, You may have to search high and low to find local farmers that share SOME of your management goals, and buying sheep from them could be a big leg up. You may also search long and hard for the fibers and other qualities you want in your sheep. In the end you may need to create the sheep that does just what you want. Good luck, farming with sheep is about the funnest thing my wife and I have ever done.

[Donn Hewes]

The fact that you are looking at animals and NOT buying them is incredibly useful information. Just imagine if you could drive fifty horses before you buy some. You know I like mules!, but what is wrong with the teams you have looked at so far isn’t that they are not mules. Most likely they aren’t worked enough by a teamster that knows what they want them to do.

When anyone ( but especially a farmer) goes shopping because they need something right away; they will almost always pay more for lower quality. If you can take the time to look, the perfect team will show up. Remember you will (hopefully) have them for a long time.

I especially admire the effort you have put into working with your neighbor and his mules. If you keep on as a teamster there will be animals and teams in the future that will challenge you, and things will not always go as smooth as they did today, but hopefully the experience you gain will keep you safe and allow you to overcome those challenges in the future. Good luck in finding a team.

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