[Tim Harrigan]

Thanks, Anne, Elke and Wolfgang. Good points and great discussion.

[Tim Harrigan]

Thanks, Anne, Elke and Wolfgang. Good points and great discussion.

[Tim Harrigan]

@mitchmaine 27971 wrote:

the headyokes are always more successful. and it makes me wonder, if as a rule its easier (?) for the cattle to pull with a neckyoke…

I can see where the head yoked oxen might have a higher hitch point which would provide some advantage, and the cattle might have more ability to make some minor adjustments by moving their head up and down which could be an advantage. And cattle have a lot of power in their necks. I am just wondering about the force generated and how the cattle absorb the stress. I know cattle fight and push with their head, maybe I underestimate their ability to withstand the beating.

No head yoke cattle around here so not much opportunity of make any measurements.

[Tim Harrigan]

@mitchmaine 27971 wrote:

the headyokes are always more successful. and it makes me wonder, if as a rule its easier (?) for the cattle to pull with a neckyoke…

I can see where the head yoked oxen might have a higher hitch point which would provide some advantage, and the cattle might have more ability to make some minor adjustments in hitch angle by moving their head up and down which could be an advantage. And cattle have a lot of power in their necks. I am just wondering about the force generated and how the cattle absorb the stress. I know cattle fight and push with their head, maybe I underestimate their ability to withstand the beating.

No head yoke cattle around here so not much opportunity of make any measurements.

[Tim Harrigan]

Wolfgang,
Will and Abe are doing fine, I just did not take them down this year because I was really busy at that time and I decided it would be a good time to work a little with some 2 year old steers that a friend of mine has that have not yet been worked and never in the yoke. They have some promise but they need a lot of work, and soon.

In the next few days I want to get down to Tillers and do some work and draft measurements with their new ground-drive forecart and hay mowers. Andy Carson will soon be sending me his nice draft buffers for performance testing and evaluation, and I also want to get in the woods in the next few days to drop and skid some big, dying Ash trees that were destroyed by the Emerald Ash Borer. Will and Abe will get a good workout with that.

I know the head yoke is still used a lot in some parts of Canada. I would like to do some testing but I do not know anyone in this area using a head yoke. It would be interesting to see if there are measurable differences in the two methods. There is interest in the German 3-pad collar but there is some concern that they will not hold up under some of the heavy loads that we sometimes pull such as pulling competitions, logging or plowing. What do you think?

[Tim Harrigan]

Wolfgang,
Will and Abe are doing fine, I just did not take them down this year because I was really busy at that time and I decided it would be a good time to work a little with some 2 year old steers that a friend of mine has that have not yet been worked and never in the yoke. They have some promise but they need a lot of work, and soon.

In the next few days I want to get down to Tillers and do some work and draft measurements with their new ground-drive forecart and hay mowers. Andy Carson will soon be sending me his nice draft buffers for performance testing and evaluation, and I also want to get in the woods in the next few days to drop and skid some big, dying Ash trees that were destroyed by the Emerald Ash Borer. Will and Abe will get a good workout with that.

I know the head yoke is still used a lot in some parts of Canada. I would like to do some testing but I do not know anyone in this area using a head yoke. It would be interesting to see if there are measurable differences in the two methods. There is interest in the German 3-pad collar but there is some concern that they will not hold up under some of the heavy loads that we sometimes pull such as pulling competitions, logging or plowing. What do you think?

[Tim Harrigan]

Anne, nice pics and beautiful cattle. I wish I could have been there. I know the head yoke has a long tradition in France, and I know that it is common for those from one tradition, neck yokes for instance, to look at other methods, head yokes for instance, and see shortcomings. Generally, my sense is that if the equipment fits properly and the cattle are conditioned to the work there are not big differences between yoking systems. But we had a fairly in-depth discussion a while ago about methods of buffering draft forces on this board in the Working with Draft Animals section and I have been thinking about head yokes in that context.

I did some work at Tillers a few years ago carefully measuring draft forces for a wagon loaded to about 6000 lbs and comparing pulling forces for neck yoke oxen and horses with a standard harness system. I think the most interesting result of this work was the effect that the type of hitch had on the wagon draft. Hitch in this case refers to the team (horses or oxen) and the harnessing method (collar, standard tugs and evener for horses; neck yoke and steel chain for oxen). Compared to the horse hitch and rubber-tired wagon (average draft of 260 lbf), draft increased about 19% (to 309 lbf) when using an ox hitch. When using steel-tired wagons the ox draft increased about 17% from 490 lbf with the horse hitch to 574 lbf with the ox hitch. There no reason to think that the wagons pull harder with the oxen. The difference is in the transmission of pulling forces to the team. The horse hitch reduced the high-end drafts compared to the ox hitch. The horse hitch redistributed the load through four traces and the two-horse evener and shared the load between two collars. The ox yoke transferred all the pulling force through a single towing chain. There was little redistribution or sharing of high-end drafts, and every surge and shock was transferred directly to the yoke beam and bows, and into the neck and shoulders of the team. The multi-component horse harness was an effective draft buffer for absorbing the high draft forces compared to the ox yoke.

I have been thinking about how those high draft forces are buffered with a head yoke. I think the muscle and soft tissue of the neck and shoulder would absorb the shock loads with a neck yoke, but if seems like those forces would be transmitted directly into the neck and vertebrae with a head yoke with little buffering effect. I know a pad is used on the forehead with some systems which would help, but some are fastened directly to the horns. This would not generally be a problem pulling a cart or other light loads, but it seems like it could be with some of the bigger loads our teams pull, large logs for instance.

What do you think about head yokes for heavy draft work?

Best regards, Tim

[Tim Harrigan]

@Carl Russell 27945 wrote:

“you have to make hay in the field, not in the barn”.

That is good advice.

Some heating is not a bad thing because it forces moisture out of the bale. I have never used salt, it seems like it would take a lot to make much of a difference. Maybe it inhibits mold as well.

[Tim Harrigan]

@karl t pfister 27935 wrote:

Hay Tim, As you brought up moisture content in the thinking of the field as solar collector post, 80% to 18% ,I know you didn’t say you baled at !8% but the hay preserve companies say you can ? I like to get square bales down to 12%-14% and round bales into the 10% for dust “free” hay, although at that point the leaf shatter is producing its own dust…

Karl, 18% is pretty safe for square bales, I like to get down to 15 to 16% for large round bales. You can pick up some damp spots in swales, along the tree line etc that are higher though so it is reasonable to get down below 18% if weather allows. You can get up into the lower 20’s with preservatives, it seems like I have seen preservative companies saying or strongly implying that you can bale into the upper 20’s but I think they are over-selling.

[Tim Harrigan]

@near horse 27914 wrote:

Hi Tim,

Is the increase in fiber actually more fiber being synthesized or is it more likely a matter of the loss/consumption of other components resulting in the fiber content being a larger proportion of the remaining DM?

Another question – since there is some heating as the grass dries down early on, and you do have carbs & proteins etc still available, is there much if any Maillard rxn going on? Or is the temp too low?

Yes, the increase in fiber is from the loss of sugars, starch etc so a proportional change.

Maillard reaction in the field unlikely, temp too low, more likely in storage if heating occurs.

[Tim Harrigan]

I was thinking about the cut hay field as a solar collector today when hoeing my sweet corn so I had to rush in and calculate how much water has to be removed from the crop from cutting to baling to make good hay. If we keep it simple and assume the cut hay is 80% moisture and it needs to dry down to 18% moisture for stable storage we need to evaporate or remove 5,900 pounds of water for each ton of hay gathered up at 18% moisture. That is more than 700 gallons per ton of hay. A decent first cutting hay crop is about 2.5 tons per acre of hay, so that is about 1750 gallons of water per acre that needs to evaporate. That is why it is so important to have air moving around the crop to carry that moisture away.

In terms of the solar collector and energy use, it takes about 1000 BTU to evaporate 1 pound of water. We have to evaporate about 14750 lbs of water per acre for that 2.5 ton hay crop. So we need to collect about 14.75 million BTU’s per acre to dry the hay crop from 80% to 18%. Rock on, sun!

And, this does not account for the drying of the re-wetting from dew that usually happens overnight which could easily double or triple that number! Of course the drying process is more complicated than just evaporation but it is interesting to think about what is really happening out there in a few days time.

[Tim Harrigan]

Geoff, I do not have a good suggestion for that. I would probably just do the best I could without plugging and then come back after the hay was off and clean those corners up with the mower.

[Tim Harrigan]

@near horse 27800 wrote:

Maybe Tim can wade in here, but as I recall, the thinking is that right after cutting the plant down, it continues to undergo respiration (using up energy that’s in the cells) until the moisture conditions in the plant are low enough that the plant ceases respiration. How long that takes can, theoretically, impact the nutritional value of the hay. Is that anywhere close, Tim?

Yes, the plant continues to respire after it is cut until it gets down to around 40% moisture but it respires at a decreasing rate as it wilts. That means it loses moisture fairly quickly right after it is cut but the rate of moisture loss continues to drop until it finally stops. So there is not a big difference between conditioned and non-conditioned hay over the first few hours and if the crop will be ensiled there is usually little benefit to conditioning. Conditioning does make a big difference in the later part of the drying process.

Plant respiration after cutting is a source of dry matter loss that we have some control over. When it is cut the crop sort of starts to consume itself by converting carbohydrates, sugars and starch (good stuff) to carbon dioxide, heat and water. From a quality point Losses are pretty typically 1-7% of the crop, 4% loss is normal. Respiration causes moisture loss but increases fiber and reduces energy in the hay. The moisture loss is through stomates, pores that open in the sunlight for moisture loss to cool the plant and carbon dioxide uptake. They close at night and when the crop is under moisture stress.

So to minimize the dry matter loss from respiration and retain the quality of the standing crop it is best to dry the crop quickly. So in the big picture the drying rate is restricted by the plant itself, the structure of the swath (such as a high yielding crop in a narrow swath) and moisture in the soil, but most often the weather is most limiting.

I was at the MODA gathering this weekend and I found out that Tillers now has an I&J ground drive forecart so I hope I can do some work with that over the coming weeks. They still have a lot of hay standing because it has been so wet.

[Tim Harrigan]

@Does’ Leap 27761 wrote:

Everyone I talk to has a different idea of when and how to tedd… Around here, all of the folks (with vastly more knowledge than me) say that you should wait to tedd until the dew is off. Any opinions on this?…
George

George, why is it that they say you should wait until the dew is off before tedding? I am not being critical of that approach, just want to make sure I understand the logic. In some cases such as what Donn mentioned when the hay is well along in the drying process it is actually a good thing to have dew on because the moisture toughens the hay and reduces leaf shatter.

I also agree with Donn that so many things interact to influence hay drying that any set sequence of field operations will not always hold true. Yield, type of hay, humidity, temperature, cloud cover, soil moisture, wind, slope of the ground, its a little different every time. It seems like rather than trying to lay out what sequence of operations to do and when, it is better to think in terms of the conditions you are trying to create, and why.

Think of the cut hay field as a solar collector. You need the heat and energy from the sun to pump the moisture out of the mown hay so you want to capture as much sunlight as possible. That is why a wide windrow is important. Sicklebar mowers lay a wide windrow but they tend to lay the hay in a nice, orderly fashion that does not allow much air movement under and through the hay, and it prevents sunlight from penetrating and warming the windrow. Restricted air movement holds the moisture escaping from the ground and hay crop in the windrow and keeps the humidity in the windrow high, sort of a greenhouse effect. This delays drying because even if the air is dry, the humidity in the windrow is high. The fastest drying will be when there is a big difference in the moisture of the hay and the moisture of the air in the windrow. You need good air movement through the windrow to move the moisture out that has been removed from the hay and keep the humidity in the windrow as low as possible.

There is no question that in most cases tedding will be most effective in the first cutting. The crop yield is usually the heaviest, there is usually more moisture in the soil, air temperature is not as high as a second cutting in July or August, and weather patterns can be more variable in the spring so forecasts are less reliable. So tedding soon after cutting spreads the crop over the entire solar collector, including the tire tracks. It loosens and disorients the stems so air can circulate and remove the moisture that is lost from the ground and from the hay crop.

So when and how often should tedding be done? Probably soon after cutting a high-yielding first cutting to create optimal conditions right away. How about second cutting? Not as clear cut, usually a lighter yielding crop, drier soil, warmer air, longer days, extended dry periods are more common and predictable. Might not gain much other than more work and more crop loss, but you have to look at the conditions and make that call. If it saves you 1/2 day that can mean a lot of hay in the barn, but it will not often be the differenct between rain and no rain. Ted after rain? Probably has value if the hay is matted down and the windrow environment is poor for drying. I would tend to ted sooner rather than later so the hay is tough, particularly if the rain came later in the drying cycle. Ted a crop two times? Why? Will this somehow improve drying conditions? Are you sure?

The regret (cost) for tedding under conditions that provide little benefit is that it is an energy drain on you and your team at a time when you really need to conserve energy wherever you can. And, it causes leaf shatter and loss of the most palatable and nutritious part of the hay. But there are times when drying conditions are not great (cool, high humidity) and it can be hard not to do something, particularly when that tedder is sitting there…. The question is will the tedder create significantly better drying conditions that will offset the regret for tedding? The tedder itself will not dry the hay. Will the tedder warm or dry the air?

The application of energy with draft animals is a challenge. An example of that challenge is the problem Donn had with his ground driven tedder in the heavy, first cutting hay crop. If you have a tractor to power the tedder you can vary the ground speed and rotor RPM to avoid the loss of traction. A powered forcart can also help in that regard. Pure animal power has limits when it bumps up against tools designed for tractors.

Donn, I am really curious about the draft requirements for your ground-driven pto cart. I have a new pull meter working now. Are you going to bring it to NEAPFD? I think I will be there this year.

I wonder if it would be possible to set up some hay drying trials to compare a few different approaches to manipulating hay such as tedding, etc. It would involve setting aside a few different areas of the field for different operations or timing of operations and then monitoring it closely by measuring crop moisture every three hours or so from cutting to baling. It would have to be next year probably, first cutting would be best. It would take some effort but it would put some real numbers on the concepts that we have been discussing. Any interest in that?

[Tim Harrigan]

Here are some examples of post frame construction.
http://www.nfba.org/i4a/imagebank/index.cfm?imagebank_category_id=283&startrow=1

I am not sure if post frame construction and pole building homes are the same, it would be interesting to look into the design and materials details for these post frame homes.

[Author]

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