Horse powered gear

Pretty slick contraptions.
Log splitter.

Sawmill

Grain separator

That's neat stuff. (And I lived 25 miles up the road from that third video at the time it was taken.)

There was a time when everything was horse powered or powered by something other than electricity.

I love seeing folks using methods from the past.

A horse-powered hay loader led me down the rabbit hole of animal-powered contraptions recently.

I guess it's kinda neat to see but it doesn't look too me like the horse enjoys it. (in the last one, I didn't watch the others.)

Looks like a few of those dudes could stand to be doing it instead and still get great results.

I'm glad this stuff is mostly gone. To me, it's kinda icky.

Yes, it is neat. When I think of all the underemployed horses living in my region who pretty much spend their days looking over fences, I'd expect that within reason, they would enjoy the exercise of tasks like these.

J Katrak wrote:I guess it's kinda neat to see but it doesn't look too me like the horse enjoys it. (in the last one, I didn't watch the others.)

Yes, J, the horse in the last video didn't look nearly as comfortable with the task as the ones in the first two videos. I don't speak horse nearly as well as I speak chicken and duck, but it is possible that since that video appeared to be more of a "demo at a fair" sort of event, that the horse in question had never done the task before, and I would have liked to have seen someone calming and reassuring that horse.

I've been told that many of the pet horses in our area, are drop-outs of the horse racing industry, rather than "farm horses" bred in the past to do a multitude of tasks like plowing and pulling wagons. Self replicating, providing a valuable output from the back-end as well as "horse-power", and mostly able to grow and contribute by turning grass into energy (yes, they likely need supplements - on this Island, I am told there are a couple of minerals needed to keep them healthy, as our soil is low in some.)

As with all of permaculture, there are subtleties!

Jay Angler wrote:

J Katrak wrote:I guess it's kinda neat to see but it doesn't look too me like the horse enjoys it. (in the last one, I didn't watch the others.)

Yes, J, the horse in the last video didn't look nearly as comfortable with the task as the ones in the first two videos. I don't speak horse nearly as well as I speak chicken and duck, but it is possible that since that video appeared to be more of a "demo at a fair" sort of event, that the horse in question had never done the task before, and I would have liked to have seen someone calming and reassuring that horse.

I've been told that many of the pet horses in our area, are drop-outs of the horse racing industry, rather than "farm horses" bred in the past to do a multitude of tasks like plowing and pulling wagons. Self replicating, providing a valuable output from the back-end as well as "horse-power", and mostly able to grow and contribute by turning grass into energy (yes, they likely need supplements - on this Island, I am told there are a couple of minerals needed to keep them healthy, as our soil is low in some.)

As with all of permaculture, there are subtleties!

Jay, I clearly watched the worst one first. I've watched the others now. The logsplitter horse looks perfectly happy to help out. I don't think it's even tied up. The sawmill horses are hardly even exercising. They're in the shade even! And the hay loader, I imagine horses like pulling stuff within reason.

It's nice that some race horses have a place to retire and hopefully enjoy the rest of their lives.

I'd like to think it's more the history that is the icky factor. We know much more nowadays and there's no good reason for the abuses of the past, probably mostly from ignorance vs bad intent. For example they would not have know about lacking nutrition and the like and sometimes the work needed to be done if the horse is up to it or not.

I imagine a happy, healthy horse probably wants to help out and please it's family as much as a happy healthy dog or whoever.

As with all of permaculture life, there are subtleties!