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Hope to be plowing next weekend!

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@Marshall 15572 wrote:

Grey, I hve one that likes to chew on the neck yoke also. I bought a bottle of chew stop spray from tractor supply. It must taste horibble because it worked right away. I have to reapply every once in a while, but it gets the job done.

I’ve used three different kinds of commercial preparations (McNasty, Quittit, and Chew Stop) on my neck yoke to try to keep my thumbsucker off it, but all it does is cause her to look very sorry for herself while she mouths it. The only thing I’ve found that keeps her off it is straight iodine spray (caution: poisonous) … which unfortunately causes people to think that I have caused my horse to bleed on her end of the neck yoke!

Maybe I should coat the whole neck yoke and doubletree in iodine and say that it’s my new, fancy, “oxblood” colored wood stain.

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So the travois-looking part behind the bobs is called the “drey”? Or is it the whole apparatus?

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The points on my tongs face each other, so I guess they are skid tongs. What do load tongs look like? Do they point inward/backward toward the ring?

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What’s the difference, Joel? Are they different designs or different gauge or both or what?

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Oh, also, it may or may not have any suspension to speak of. They weren’t built for speed or comfort, and – as LStone said – mostly stayed within the confines of the city.

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I’ve never seen “dray” spelled “drey” but I’d believe it. A dray is a flatbed wagon built for heavy cargo. The wagon bed sat higher up so the front wheels could turn entirely underneath the bed for tighter manouvering in close quarters. This allowed the wheel base to be a normal (narrow) width. Warehouses built freight docks with higher platforms so cargo could be easily rolled on and off the higher wagons… and are still used today to load and unload semi trailers. A dray often has steel wheels or very heavily built wood wheels. We’d love to see any photos you can get of the thing, whatever it turns out to be!

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@highway 15487 wrote:

I think the lines are adjusted correctly now? They worked very well together. The black horse has a tendancy to lip and mouth the other horse and lines and whatever else he can reach. He doesn’t bite, but it is irritating to the other horse.

Would a jockey stick prevent that when they are just being ground driven?

I also used the breeching rope on the rear to help keep them together when turning and backing.

Ed

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, my friend. Although it is difficult to tell what’s going on from the photos, your assessment of their performance really tells you what need to know. If it’s working, then you probably have it right! Looks right to me, from what I can see.

I have a horse that mouths stuff… particularly in harness and moreso when she is anxious. She did it constantly when I first started hitching her, but it has never really gone away. She’s not a very confident horse and mouthing things like that is her security blanket, like sucking her thumb. When she’s very upset, she’ll bite the neck yoke. It’s maddening, but if I get on her case about it, it only gets worse. I’m hoping she’ll give it gup one day. It’s been three years now and she does it about half as often as she used to. An 11-year-old thumbsucker. :rolleyes:

It can be a safety concern, I think, for the following reasons:

1.) The horse is putting some of its attention span toward mouthing things and not putting as much on the driver.

2.) Craning the neck around to reach things to mouth upsets the line tension on both horses.

3.) Fussing around like that increases the risk of getting a blinder snagged on a line or in some other way fouling the rigging. A great way of getting fouled up is to be using a shanked bit and have the fussy horse snag the shank on the other horse’s cross-check.

4.) The team-mate can get fed up and be inclined to grumble and squabble, which takes even more attention off the teamster and makes you have to work harder to keep them in line.

5.) If the horse takes hold of the line and doesn’t let go… well, I’m sure you can see the problem there.

You could certainly try the jockey stick (other horse’s hame to the fussy horse’s halter), but you might find that it interferes with your cues while ground driving. It works better while hitched to something with a tongue, I think. Also, depending on what the psychological basis is for the mouthing, it might squelch the mouthing but you might see a new behavior arise that is even less desireable.

I think that if you (and the other horse) can hang in there and put up with it for a while, try to ride it out. I’m guessing it only happens while they are standing? Hopefully it will disappear or dimimish after a few more hitches. Hope you don’t get stuck with a chronic “thumbsucker” like I did. It isn’t a huge issue with her any more, just a little embarassing. She mostly confines her mouthing to holding onto her own bit shank or mouthing the neck yoke, neither of which is a real safety hazard.

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I’ve alway heard them called logging tugs. The ones I’ve used had the hooks at an inconvenient spot and were always catching my horse on the leg. Maybe I was doing something wrong.

I bought a heap of random stuff at an auction and there were several logging tugs in the mix whose hooks that had been crudely cut out of 3/8 inch steel plate with a cutting torch. 😮 I addd them to my collection of horse-related oddities.

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That’s really slick! I sure like the portability of it.

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I use belly-backer western box breeching harness (same as just about everyone over on this half of the country) and I use a crupper. Don’t see any real reason not to use one, and it does help stabilize the harness, particularly if you aren’t working hitched to something with a pole or shafts. I do use a sidecheck about half the time, but only to keep the horses from dropping their heads and eating or rubbing their bridles on the neck yoke when my hands aren’t on the lines. So I do find the crupper helpful in that regard as well.

It’s not ideal, but my crupper forks are attached to the britchen spider ring with a snap – so it’s removeable – but I never find myself removing it. The snap isn’t sewn on, it’s just held on with a conway. Eliminating the snap would require me to split the fork further and punch some more holes… pain in the butt. So the snap remains. Face-down for safety’s sake.

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Just read the one comment posted after the video. The poster is confused about what’s actually hanging down there. The belly band looks okay. Snugging it up one more hole would be okay, but I think it’s fine as it is. It’s the quarter straps that are the hazard in this equation; specifically, the foot over the quarter strap, as the commenter mentioned.

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Haven’t read the comments on the video, but if I were him I’d unhook the quarter straps from the pole strap and get them up out of the way. A good way to end up with a do-it-yourself rodeo is to have a horse kick at a fly on his belly and get his foot caught over a sagging quarter strap.

When you aren’t hitched to a pole in such a way as to have the braking or hold-back portions of the harness nice and taut (the breast strap, pole strap, quarter straps and breeching), I like it up and out of the way. I’d say this is yet another advantage of the sidebacker harness versus the bellybacker.

I’d raise the breeching a few notches too before I made that mule hold back a load.

As far as his rate of travel, it’s all up to the teamster. If he wants to walk that fast, no big deal. Maybe he’s got a hot date after the garden is harrowed! 😀

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I’ve seen some calm pulling teams that quietly knuckle down and reel in the blue ribbons, and then go easily to the plowing competition with their old and creaky owners at the lines at both venues.

I have also seen hot, unruly teams that bring home the blue ribbons that have a whole squad of men to harness, drive, hold, and hitch at the weight pull competition and that can be used for nothing else.

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Spring links used in the manner you’ve shown here (at the rear of the horse, hitched to a vehicle rather than doing work on foot) don’t usually cause wrecks. However, they can take a small or medium-sized “uh-oh” and quickly turn it into a king-sized “OH %*@$!” that just doesn’t quit.

The good, well-made spring links do have quite a high weight rating, but, as I said, that rating is only when the load is straight-on. The smallest bit of torque or twist on the pull and the spring latch on the link gets twisted off its seat and then there’s really nothing to keep the link from stretching from a “C” into an “L”.

I’ve seen three wrecks that involved spring links. One involved spring links on the neck yoke (dumb), one involved spring links on the lines (dumb) and one involved spring links on the heel chains.

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