[Tim Harrigan]

@dominiquer60 26034 wrote:

Thanks Tim,
I am not ready to tap my soon to be father in law on the nose yet, maybe after the wedding if he persists 🙂

Erika

Well, as long as you know you have that in your toolbox that is the important thing.

[Tim Harrigan]

It seems to me you could make the yoke a little narrower but not so narrow that the traces were in contact with the shoulder, there is a lot of movement there and that could get to be a sore point. If the traces clear the shoulder but lay along the side of the animal that would probably not be much of a problem.

You must have some really tight spots, I have twitched logs single in some pretty tight spots without any real problems.

Is there a reason why you can’t hitch two singles to an evener for pulling as a team?

[Tim Harrigan]

Erika,
I agree with you, that behavior is teaching your steers behavior that you will have to correct so they are not helping you. Cattle rough house with their horns so anytime you engage in that type of behavior I think it is going to confuse them. Doing this is not at the top of my list of things not to do, and I think they will quickly learn not to mess with you, but I think it could make them more aggressive with strangers because strangers and kids have a tendency to scratch them on the forehead like a dog. It depends on the temperament of the steer, it would be nice if whoever is doing this would respect your wishes a little more. Maybe a jab in the ribs or a whack on the nose would help?;)

As far as the horns, I say unless they are way out of whack don’t do anything with them until they are at least two. They might look like they are growing up and out, but you really do not know in many cases what the horns are going to do on their own. When I think of my Will and Abe, I would never had guessed even at two what their horns would look like at six. If I had messed with them I would have probably screwed them up.

When they get to be four and you think they need to tilt down then you can put some weights on them.

This will certainly annoy some people, but I do not believe horn scraping or filing has much effect, if any at all. I know you can cite it in the literature, and I have not made any concentrated effort to change the shape of my steers horns by doing it, but I have filed their horns differently because of damage and other things and have not seen any difference in the shape of the horns. I think this belongs in the ‘old wives tales’ category. What would it take to convince me otherwise? Take a steer and sculpt his horns by scraping. Start with a yearling that looks like he will have symmetrical horns and by scraping turn one out and one in, or one up and the other down, I don’t care, just explain what you intend to do and how, predict the results and document it with pictures.

Oh yes, to answer your question, the theory is that filing or scraping removes horn and thus encourages faster horn growth in that area. The differential horn growth is to change the shape. For instance, if you want the horns to curve in, file the outside radius, increase horn growth on the outside and they will turn in. Possibly, but it is likely they will turn in whether you file or not, and I think you will find they turn in even if you file the inside radius. I like good theories and I like them even more when they are backstopped by proof. This scraping process just does not ring true with me based on what I have seen.

[Tim Harrigan]

@Countymouse 26017 wrote:

… you have to be ready for a little teasing…:D

You came to the right place. 🙂

[Tim Harrigan]

I am just guessing, I have no knowledge of FL seeding conditions. My guess is it might already be too hot for that, what you would want is wet conditions for several days in a row. If the seed has to suffer through wide swings in temperature and moisture it will generally not germinate, at least that is what we expect with the cool season grasses and legumes in the northern states. My guess is it will not work very well, but check with your county extension staff, they might have some suggestions.

[Tim Harrigan]

Andy, I don’t have a specific comment about no-till drills. What comes to mind every time I think about what you are doing is be sure to start with a small scale area and increase your no-till acreage as your knowledge and experience increase. Have a plan B that you can manage with the labor and machinery you have if plan A tanks. How some of these planting systems respond varies from year-to-year with the weather and other factors. Some years great, some years not so great, other years terrible. If you end up with a heavy mat of rye or barley straw, but not heavy enough to suppress the weeds, you will have a weedy, heavy mat of residue to work in or deal with in some way. Or, if you roll it and only get partial die down and it pops up again after you have planted, good luck with that one.

I remember as a 10-yr old what a 10 acre field looks like from the business end of a hoe. Maybe your wife will be willing to help you with that?:D I guess just keep all your tillage options open, including MB plowing if it comes to that.

[Tim Harrigan]

I think if you are are going to till the soil to a depth near the depth of seed placement you could take an older conventional drill and cut it down to size. If you want a little better penetration you could just use stiffer down pressure springs and hang a little weight on it if necessary. If you did that I think your single could pull a 4 ft drill without any trouble.

[Tim Harrigan]

A 25 bu spreader is a small spreader so I would not anticipate it tipping the forecart. You have a lot of options in managing the load if for some reason it is a problem, which seems like would only happen with heavily soiled straw bedding that is really wet and heavy and front loaded on the spreader. You could 1) hang a tractor weight on the front of the forecart to balance the load, 2) avoid heaping the spreader to reduce the load, 3) not heap the load toward the front of the spreader.

From what I have seen, horse manure is often very light compared to a bedded pack manure for cattle. If you have a forecart, get the two-wheel spreader. If you have sawdust bedding I can not imagine any problems.

[Tim Harrigan]

Carl Russell;19986 wrote:

Frickin’ Snow.

Carl

You got that right. A little goes a long way this time of the year.:(

[Tim Harrigan]

bivol;25937 wrote:

how it started, i’ll end up in Michigan, US!:cool:

Yes, that will work, and one of these days I would like to explore Croatia.:D

[Tim Harrigan]

Bivol, we call it gallows humor, laughing at the hangman.

[Tim Harrigan]

http://www.draftanimalpower.com/showthread.php?t=3103&highlight=mower

Rod, yes, check out this thread. Based on our work the rolling resistance of a steel tired McD #7 with an operator was about 100 lbf. And based on other work with steel versus pneumatic tired work the rolling resistance of pneumatic tired vehicles is about 1/2 of that for the same vehicle with steel tires. So I would expect about a 50 lbf reduction with the rubber tires on typical hay ground. I think there are one or more threads on DAP where I discussed steel versus rubber tires in considerable detail, if you are interested and have trouble finding them let me know. T

Just to be clear, that is not the pulling force of the mower when cutting, just the part related to moving the mower over the ground. The mechanical resistance of moving parts and the cutting resistance of the cutterbar are additional. 65 lbf per foot of cutterbar length is a pretty good estimate for a well adjusted mower in a heavy crop for a steel wheel mower.

If you are wondering if your team is conditioned for mowing, you will notice at the end of the referenced thread that if you use a sled or stone boat for conditioning, equivalent pulling loads would be sled GVW’s of about 700 lbs for a 4 ft bar, 800 lbs for a 5 ft bar and 1000 lbs for a 6 ft bar. Pretty honest work.

[Tim Harrigan]

You do not say where you are and that could make a difference. If you are in the east, northeast or upper mid-west you might have some success with what you are planning, but I would probably disk then seed before the compost. The best way would be to drill the seed with a no-till drill, your conservation district may have one to rent or for hire, check with your NRCS office.

If you reseed and hope for a good stand you should plan on keeping your horse off at least through June, take the first cut off as hay if possible, they try not to graze it down throughly. Graze for a few days and then rotate off. That may not be possible in your case.

[Tim Harrigan]

OK, now we know for sure, if anyone challenges Andy to a contest of junkyard wars they don’t stand a chance.:D That will be the talk of the coffee shop this spring. Can’t wait to find out how it work. You better put an air horn on that thing.

[Tim Harrigan]

What type of soils do you have? You can google Web Soil Survey and find your place and get a pretty detailed soil report. My garden site is pretty much sand so soil moisture does not hold me up, soil temperature and chance of killing frost slows me down. In the meantime I have plenty of pasture fence to go over and a lot of logs to skid in from the back pasture. Nice day today, looks like rain tomorrow.

[Author]

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