Questions on draft horse teams pulling waggons over long distance for a fantasy

Bolero · Oct 8, 2015

My characters in my broadly 17th century technology world are a bunch of competent travellers on a long-ish journey (minimum several weeks, probably longer) who have some heavy goods on several waggons drawn by large teams of draft horses. It is early summer and they are having a dry spell. The roads are two wagon width and solid packed soil (mix of sandy stuff, gravel, soil - the more solid and dryer end of whatever was available near by).

I want to put in a little bit of detail about the journey, including a couple of stops along the way. I want the stops I mention to mainly be caused by the limitations of the horses - though other things may or may not then happen at the stop.

So I have come up with a series of questions, which may or may not have any sense to them. My level of horse knowledge is riding school as a kid and seeing them from ground level as an adult, plus bits of stuff I've read online and in historical books and fantasies. I've got a copy of Norbert's Medieval Traveller - but it doesn't seem to have the details of the horse handling. It is more about generalities. I've been dipping into and not spotted some of what I want to know.

I could maybe go with oxen, but I wanted the party to travel further in a day than oxen can manage. I am assuming horses not quite as big as shire horses, but they could be shires.

So here are the questions:

I'm assuming all the horses have tailor made collars on them – that it is not leather strap harnesses.

Any idea roughly of the pulling power of one solid draft horse (please give approx height/weight of draft horse)

a) on the flat
b) up a steep hill

I've assumed you can put a team into harness, and link it together as a team and bring it in to hitch it on the wagon. Is that correct? Or do you bring the harnessed horses one at a time?
Manoeuvring and loading an empty wagon. My current plan is the team is used to position the wagon beside the heavy load, then unhitched and lead away a short distance, the wheels of the wagon chocked, then the loading bipod used to lift heavy stuff onto the wagon, then the team re-hitched. This is for safety so the team doesn't move the wagon during a tricky loading exercise
Am I correct that for a steep hill you can take a team off wagon 2, add it to the front of wagon 1, then take both teams back down the hill for wagon 2?
How early were brakes put on wagons?
How long in terms of either time or distance, can a team pull a laden cart before they need to stop for a drink and a feed?
I know water in the stomach can slow down a race horse – so how long do they need to rest after a drink?
If you are giving them a feed part way through the working day, does grass cut it? Or do you need to give a nosebag of oats? (Norbert is highlighting feeding of oats.) How much oats per horse?
How often do you need to rest them for a whole day on a long distance journey?
What speed would they be at walking on the flat? I'm particularly wondering about having people walking alongside or whether the horses would walk too fast. I'm talking people used to walking who could step out briskly.
I've assumed that the teams would be driven by someone riding up on the waggon, not lead by someone on the ground - but I have seen pictures of farmers carts where the farmer is leading the horse.
In Georgette Heyer novels I've seen references to "wheelers" and "leader" on carriages, with the wheelers being a bit more chunky and probably more placid. Any mix of physique or character for wagons?
I've assumed harnessed two abreast - OK?
What is the maximum number of horses that could be controlled as a team by reins?
Why have riders controlling a team, rather than a driver? (Having seen stuff about post horse riders and their big, leg protecting boots.)

The last two questions are more "curiosity arising" ones - but might turn out to be important.

And from a different bit in the book

Long term rider plus horse pairing, good quality horse and expert rider, lots of trust - if something a bit weird happened say ten or twenty feet or so away, would the stationary horse turn its head to look back up at its rider for reassurance? (I know horses will spook and sidle away from "weird" just wondered whether some wouldn't.)

I appreciate this is rather a lot of questions. Any that can be answered would be a bonus, thank you.

MaryMumsy · Oct 8, 2015

I don't know the answers, but you can get some good information here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covered_wagon

My recollection from years ago is that many of the people in the western migration used oxen instead of horses. I think it was because oxen were less 'fragile'. If you can find any contemporaneous accounts of the Oregon Trail or the Santa Fe Trail they might be helpful.

MM

Bolero · Oct 8, 2015

Thank you for the link.
Oxen are less fragile, but I was hoping to avoid them as they are a lot slower.

King Neptune · Oct 8, 2015

Bolero said:
My characters in my broadly 17th century technology world are a bunch of competent travellers on a long-ish journey (minimum several weeks, probably longer) who have some heavy goods on several waggons drawn by large teams of draft horses. It is early summer and they are having a dry spell. The roads are two wagon width and solid packed soil (mix of sandy stuff, gravel, soil - the more solid and dryer end of whatever was available near by).

I want to put in a little bit of detail about the journey, including a couple of stops along the way. I want the stops I mention to mainly be caused by the limitations of the horses - though other things may or may not then happen at the stop.

So I have come up with a series of questions, which may or may not have any sense to them. My level of horse knowledge is riding school as a kid and seeing them from ground level as an adult, plus bits of stuff I've read online and in historical books and fantasies. I've got a copy of Norbert's Medieval Traveller - but it doesn't seem to have the details of the horse handling. It is more about generalities. I've been dipping into and not spotted some of what I want to know.

I could maybe go with oxen, but I wanted the party to travel further in a day than oxen can manage. I am assuming horses not quite as big as shire horses, but they could be shires.

So here are the questions:

I'm assuming all the horses have tailor made collars on them – that it is not leather strap harnesses.

Leather straps went out around the time the Roman Empire did.

Any idea roughly of the pulling power of one solid draft horse (please give approx height/weight of draft horse)

a) on the flat
b) up a steep hill

On the average a good draught horse can produce about two thirds of a horsepower. That means they can lift 22,000 pounds one foot in one minute. That is based on the observations of the man who defined the horsepower. The unit of power is fifty percent more than that. I can't understand why he didn't use the observed power, but he didn't.

I've assumed you can put a team into harness, and link it together as a team and bring it in to hitch it on the wagon. Is that correct? Or do you bring the harnessed horses one at a time?

Actually, it can be done either way. The harness can be connected to the wagon and the horses put in one by one, or the horses can be put into the harness and the whole set connected to the wagon. It also depends on how many horses are in the team with more than four things are different but not much.

Manoeuvring and loading an empty wagon. My current plan is the team is used to position the wagon beside the heavy load, then unhitched and lead away a short distance, the wheels of the wagon chocked, then the loading bipod used to lift heavy stuff onto the wagon, then the team re-hitched. This is for safety so the team doesn't move the wagon during a tricky loading exercise

Am I correct that for a steep hill you can take a team off wagon 2, add it to the front of wagon 1, then take both teams back down the hill for wagon 2?

That is true, but it is avoided.

How early were brakes put on wagons?

A very long time ago. It would take a while to find it, but the Ancient Greeks and Persians had brakes for oxcarts.

How long in terms of either time or distance, can a team pull a laden cart before they need to stop for a drink and a feed?

See the page I linked or search. The answer depends on weather, weight, condition of the animals, etc.

I know water in the stomach can slow down a race horse – so how long do they need to rest after a drink?

Draught horses wouldn't stop to digest anything, but they don't usually run, and they usually have rest stops that take a while.

If you are giving them a feed part way through the working day, does grass cut it? Or do you need to give a nosebag of oats? (Norbert is highlighting feeding of oats.) How much oats per horse?

They'd probably get some oats and be allowed to graze for a while.

How often do you need to rest them for a whole day on a long distance journey?

As often as they can fool you into letting them rest.

What speed would they be at walking on the flat? I'm particularly wondering about having people walking alongside or whether the horses would walk too fast. I'm talking people used to walking who could step out briskly.

It is traditional for some drivers to walk alongside, but horses usually walk a little too fast for that.
http://historicalnovelists.tripod.com/equineda.htm
this page has some good info, but it has crapware on it.

I've assumed that the teams would be driven by someone riding up on the waggon, not lead by someone on the ground - but I have seen pictures of farmers carts where the farmer is leading the horse.

Both are done. It depends on how far and how fast the cart is going.

In Georgette Heyer novels I've seen references to "wheelers" and "leader" on carriages, with the wheelers being a bit more chunky and probably more placid. Any mix of physique or character for wagons?

I don't know if they used them on freight wagons, but they were common on carriages.

I've assumed harnessed two abreast - OK?

In most of the world yes, but the Russians commonly used troikas.

What is the maximum number of horses that could be controlled as a team by reins?

Many, twenty was not unheard. Six and eight were common.

Why have riders controlling a team, rather than a driver? (Having seen stuff about post horse riders and their big, leg protecting boots.)

That would be a matter of convenience, and soemtimes here was a rider on one of the front horses and a driver also; that would have been for large teams.

The last two questions are more "curiosity arising" ones - but might turn out to be important.
And from a different bit in the book

Long term rider plus horse pairing, good quality horse and expert rider, lots of trust - if something a bit weird happened say ten or twenty feet or so away, would the stationary horse turn its head to look back up at its rider for reassurance? (I know horses will spook and sidle away from "weird" just wondered whether some wouldn't.)

Maybe, but a horse would be more likely to shy away from whatever, if it didn't spook.

Bolero · Oct 9, 2015

Thank you for those extensive answers.

Just checking - crapware - not heard it before so googled - it is just a slow web page and lots of ads and stuff, not malicious software?

And especially thank you for the bit about horses fooling you. Given me a couple more ideas about the journey and a couple more questions.

Pairs of horses in teams - do you normally keep the same pair together for their working life, because they are friends? Or at least tolerate each other?

Training up youngsters - assuming a youngster or two that has been trained in harness, but not done an extensive team journey before, would you pair that youngster with an experienced horse?
If yes, might the experienced horse be hacked off at being separated from its usual partner?

If you have two youngsters that are friends, would you put the pair in the middle of a larger steady team, to give them the right idea?

A horse that was the only one that didn't shy away from weird would that be worth comment?
Either as
"He's remarkably well trained."

Or someone else remarking that it is so placid its asleep on its feet?

Or further - thinking of a period when a calm long distance road horse would be valuable, that it just might be a very calm horse?

(Or I give up on that altogether...

)

King Neptune · Oct 9, 2015

Bolero said:
Thank you for those extensive answers.

Just checking - crapware - not heard it before so googled - it is just a slow web page and lots of ads and stuff, not malicious software?

That's what it looked like. It's hard to tell if anything is really bad until it does something bad.

And especially thank you for the bit about horses fooling you. Given me a couple more ideas about the journey and a couple more questions.

Pairs of horses in teams - do you normally keep the same pair together for their working life, because they are friends? Or at least tolerate each other?

Normally pairs are kept together, and the reasons for putting a particular pair together varies.

Training up youngsters - assuming a youngster or two that has been trained in harness, but not done an extensive team journey before, would you pair that youngster with an experienced horse?
If yes, might the experienced horse be hacked off at being separated from its usual partner?

I'm not sure. There are reasons for putting two horses of the same level of experience together, but putting an experienced and a new one together would also make sense. Horses are infividuals, so that would be another consideration.

If you have two youngsters that are friends, would you put the pair in the middle of a larger steady team, to give them the right idea?

yes

A horse that was the only one that didn't shy away from weird would that be worth comment?
Either as
"He's remarkably well trained."

Or someone else remarking that it is so placid its asleep on its feet?

Or further - thinking of a period when a calm long distance road horse would be valuable, that it just might be a very calm horse?

Yes, calm horses are desirable. Horses that are so stupid that they don't notice something that might hurt them can be a pain to work with.

Bolero · Oct 9, 2015

Thank you.

And I went looking for a (basic) understanding of how horses are hitched onto a waggon. Came across this

http://www.vet.ed.ac.uk/ctvm/Resear...ng Donkeys/Harness Hitching donkeys Oct06.pdf

Which is a simple explanation of how to harness and use animals, with what not to do and the problems that can cause. Thought someone coming to the thread might find it useful.

jclarkdawe · Oct 9, 2015

Bolero said:
My characters in my broadly 17th century technology world are a bunch of competent travellers on a long-ish journey (minimum several weeks, probably longer) who have some heavy goods on several waggons drawn by large teams of draft horses. It is early summer and they are having a dry spell. The roads are two wagon width and solid packed soil (mix of sandy stuff, gravel, swowoil - the more solid and dryer end of whatever was available near by). This is likely to be more open territory then wooded if it is two wagon widths. Dry and packed is good for traveling, but means the vegetation will also be dry. It will probably be very rutted if it is well used. My mother would tell about how you used to be able to drive the car to town without turning the wheel. Just put it in the ruts and go.

I want to put in a little bit of detail about the journey, including a couple of stops along the way. I want the stops I mention to mainly be caused by the limitations of the horses - though other things may or may not then happen at the stop.

Many wagon trains took Sunday off. It depends. Major cause for a stop would be a broken wheel or axle. Spare wheels were carried, axles usually were not. That's because an axle is easily made. Other delays were flooded rivers and mud.

So I have come up with a series of questions, which may or may not have any sense to them. My level of horse knowledge is riding school as a kid and seeing them from ground level as an adult, plus bits of stuff I've read online and in historical books and fantasies. I've got a copy of Norbert's Medieval Traveller - but it doesn't seem to have the details of the horse handling. It is more about generalities. I've been dipping into and not spotted some of what I want to know.

I'd find some horse pullers to talk to . I'm assuming it's a competitive sport in the UK. There are also carriage competitions in England. Some of these people will be able to give you more information than you'll believe possible.

I could maybe go with oxen, but I wanted the party to travel further in a day than oxen can manage. I am assuming horses not quite as big as shire horses, but they could be shires.

Horses for wagons varied, depending upon terrain and weight being pulled. Smaller horses require less food but can pull less. Weight range is between 800 pounds to 2,000 pounds plus. Horses and mules are roughly equal, with mules slightly ahead on pulling ability. Oxen are slightly slower, but can survive on less food. Grain would probably be needed for horses and mules. That adds to your load.

So here are the questions:

I'm assuming all the horses have tailor made collars on them – that it is not leather strap harnesses.

There are standard sizes for the collars. It has to be close, but not exact. Each horse will have its own set of harness.

Any idea roughly of the pulling power of one solid draft horse (please give approx height/weight of draft horse)

a) on the flat
b) up a steep hill

This is why horse pulls are so fun. Even week to week, this will change with a team. But I'd figure half a ton to one ton per horse, depending upon terrain and distance. You might want to look at Twenty-mule team - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Very rarely will you go up a steep hill. It's faster to go around.

I've assumed you can put a team into harness, and link it together as a team and bring it in to hitch it on the wagon. Is that correct? Or do you bring the harnessed horses one at a time? You can do it either way. Personally I find it easier to do each horse separately and then hook them up.

Manoeuvring and loading an empty wagon. My current plan is the team is used to position the wagon beside the heavy load, then unhitched and lead away a short distance, the wheels of the wagon chocked, then the loading bipod used to lift heavy stuff onto the wagon, then the team re-hitched. This is for safety so the team doesn't move the wagon during a tricky loading exercise Depends upon the team. A well trained team would stand while being loaded.

Am I correct that for a steep hill you can take a team off wagon 2, add it to the front of wagon 1, then take both teams back down the hill for wagon 2? You can, but this is so very slow. Bigger problem is going to be going downhill. You might end up with the team behind the wagon, serving as an anchor.

How early were brakes put on wagons? Very early. You've got to be able to control the wagon on downhills.

How long in terms of either time or distance, can a team pull a laden cart before they need to stop for a drink and a feed? Water whenever you cross water. If the horses are thirsty, they'll drink. Otherwise, you aim for your noon stop to have water, and the evening. Feed can be either grain or graze. Grazing probably won't be done until the evening. It's hard for horses to graze when set up for a team, and it takes too much effort to break down a team.

I know water in the stomach can slow down a race horse – so how long do they need to rest after a drink? You're not putting that much stress on the horses so this usually isn't a problem.

If you are giving them a feed part way through the working day, does grass cut it? Or do you need to give a nosebag of oats? (Norbert is highlighting feeding of oats.) How much oats per horse? I'd think grain for the lunch stop.

How often do you need to rest them for a whole day on a long distance journey? Probably three hours in the morning, break, and three to four in the afternoon for working. Rest would be break.

What speed would they be at walking on the flat? I'm particularly wondering about having people walking alongside or whether the horses would walk too fast. I'm talking people used to walking who could step out briskly. Three to four miles an hour. Walking or riding depended upon the society. Walking gives more room on the wagon, but it's a bit harder to control the horses. Horses have a wide variety of walking paces.

I've assumed that the teams would be driven by someone riding up on the waggon, not lead by someone on the ground - but I have seen pictures of farmers carts where the farmer is leading the horse. Teamster could ride on the wagon, the wheeler, the leader, or walk. There are advantages and disadvantages to each method.

In Georgette Heyer novels I've seen references to "wheelers" and "leader" on carriages, with the wheelers being a bit more chunky and probably more placid. Any mix of physique or character for wagons? Wheelers are heavier and are the ones that start the wagon. Wheelers can be pretty dumb. Leaders are the ones that control the wagon. You want experience and brains in your leaders. You also want spook-proof leaders.

I've assumed harnessed two abreast - OK? This is the norm, as it matches the width of a wagon. Heavy loads could have four abreast. (Three is an awkward setup.)

What is the maximum number of horses that could be controlled as a team by reins? Combines would have thirty plus horses pulling them.

Why have riders controlling a team, rather than a driver? (Having seen stuff about post horse riders and their big, leg protecting boots.) Rider controlling the team is much closer and less slop in the reins.

The last two questions are more "curiosity arising" ones - but might turn out to be important.

And from a different bit in the book

Long term rider plus horse pairing, good quality horse and expert rider, lots of trust - if something a bit weird happened say ten or twenty feet or so away, would the stationary horse turn its head to look back up at its rider for reassurance? (I know horses will spook and sidle away from "weird" just wondered whether some wouldn't.) Horses in a herd rely a lot on the herd leader. Ideally, you want the human to lead the herd.

I appreciate this is rather a lot of questions. Any that can be answered would be a bonus, thank you.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

Filigree · Oct 9, 2015

This is why I love AW. Bookmarking this thread for personal use. I've got a secondary world fantasy where the major draft and riding animals are various deer-analogs. A main character accidentally inherits a pair of enormous draft-does and a wagon, and goes into training to become a teamster while on a long journey.

Thanks for the links! I've been hanging out with some of the ox-drawn wagon crowd, who are loads of fun. But all info is good, and the more background research I do, the better.

Bolero · Oct 10, 2015

@jclarkdaw
The combine harvester photo - didn't even know they existed as horse drawn. That is a very large number of horses. Will at some point divert to go and read more about it - wondering if the inner workings that do all the harvesting are driven by one or more wheels that are in contact with the ground, so that is how the horse power is transmitted. (Must concentrate on the book today, not follow a fascinating by-way.

) Also wondering if they were ever used in UK with our smaller fields (though traction engines were coming... wrenches mind away from by-way.)

Thank you for all the information. Also thank you for mentioning road widths, hadn't consciously thought about landscape vs road width and funnily enough by seat of pants have so far got it right.

Wheel ruts - TIme Team - TV archaeological programme - one programme they excavated Roman wheel ruts in a gateway - so lifted off a foot of top soil and there was the soil of the ruts, still compressed.

Few more questions.....

Wheelers - you say that they can be dumb - but do they have to be dumb? As in it is a boring job being a wheeler and a big bright horse would get difficult because it is bored?

1. A waggon has a tongue, the pairs of horses are hitched to the tongue via the swingletrees and evener (I've been learning..

) So... in general the tongue is designed to be the length to have the right number of horses for the weight of the waggon and its load - yes? If you wanted to put extra pairs on the front, because of heavy going, how would you extend the tongue? Extra piece of wood? Linking on a chain?

2. In the event of an emergency (wheel smashed, bandits/soldiers coming) I'd assume you'd do your best to unhitch the team and get the heck out of it, trying to save the team. So you could leap down, unpin the evener from the tongue for each pair, mount a lead horse and try to ride off with the whole team linked on? Probably have to knot up the reins to stop them trailing on the ground and jerking the bits? Obviously not ideal treatment.

3. Mares and stallions. Have read that you can run a mare and a stallion in a pair. Also that you can teach mares to work when they are feeling grumpy from being on heat, but you won't have their full attention. That you can train stallions to work and not try to mount a mare while they are working. Does this mean you could go so far as to have a mare on heat and a stallion working as a pair?

4. Arising from 3 - how closely matched do a pair need to be in terms of size? (Just spotted - they don't have to be perfectly matched, you adjust the pull via the evener. Cool.)

5. If you were travelling with a spare team (due to smashed waggon for example) and don't have enough people to ride them, would you hitch them in pairs? Tie lead ropes to the cart in front? Find that they follow if you put them in the middle of the convoy? (Apart from grabbing mouthfuls of succulent grass or hedges as they go past.)

6. If a mare had a foal say a month back, could you then have her in the team, the foal trotting along behind and popping in for meals at break times?

Filigree - could you perhaps put up a couple of links to Ox waggon things? My horses will be passing some on the road.......

jclarkdawe · Oct 10, 2015

Bolero said:
@jclarkdaw
The combine harvester photo - didn't even know they existed as horse drawn. That is a very large number of horses. Will at some point divert to go and read more about it - wondering if the inner workings that do all the harvesting are driven by one or more wheels that are in contact with the ground, so that is how the horse power is transmitted. (Must concentrate on the book today, not follow a fascinating by-way. ) Also wondering if they were ever used in UK with our smaller fields (though traction engines were coming... wrenches mind away from by-way.)

I don't know how big the equipment used in the UK was. I don't think they used as large equipment. One thing to notice is that in a field, you let the team spread out, while on the road, you do them in pairs.

Thank you for all the information. Also thank you for mentioning road widths, hadn't consciously thought about landscape vs road width and funnily enough by seat of pants have so far got it right.

This occurred a lot in the westward migration in the US. You can see where the wagon trains spread out because there was no obstructions and then go down to single width where the trail had to be narrow.

Wheel ruts - TIme Team - TV archaeological programme - one programme they excavated Roman wheel ruts in a gateway - so lifted off a foot of top soil and there was the soil of the ruts, still compressed.

You can see them out west in the United States.

Few more questions.....

Wheelers - you say that they can be dumb - but do they have to be dumb? As in it is a boring job being a wheeler and a big bright horse would get difficult because it is bored?

A wheeler doesn't have a lot of choice in life. They have problems bolting because of the horses in front of them. They don't have any choice in the trail, as they have to follow the horse in front of them. You can put smart horses there, but they're wasted. A wheeler needs to have raw power. They are the horses that start the wagon moving.

1. A waggon has a tongue, the pairs of horses are hitched to the tongue via the swingletrees and evener (I've been learning.. ) So... in general the tongue is designed to be the length to have the right number of horses for the weight of the waggon and its load - yes? If you wanted to put extra pairs on the front, because of heavy going, how would you extend the tongue? Extra piece of wood? Linking on a chain?

I believe that once you get beyond two teams (four horses), you stop adding tongues, but I'm not sure. Oxen teams don't use a tongue a lot of times. And pulling horses don't use a tongue either.

2. In the event of an emergency (wheel smashed, bandits/soldiers coming) I'd assume you'd do your best to unhitch the team and get the heck out of it, trying to save the team. So you could leap down, unpin the evener from the tongue for each pair, mount a lead horse and try to ride off with the whole team linked on? Probably have to knot up the reins to stop them trailing on the ground and jerking the bits? Obviously not ideal treatment.

You can ride a team, and this was done for many reasons. For instance, if you want to take the entire team to water, but you don't want to bring the wagon.

A smashed wheel is not a big problem. Basically the process is the same as a car for a flat tire. Unload the wagon, jack up the problem wheel, take off the nut, slide of the old wheel and slide on a new one. It's just time consuming. If you have to rebuild the wheel, it's just time consuming but can be done in a day.

3. Mares and stallions. Have read that you can run a mare and a stallion in a pair. Also that you can teach mares to work when they are feeling grumpy from being on heat, but you won't have their full attention. That you can train stallions to work and not try to mount a mare while they are working. Does this mean you could go so far as to have a mare on heat and a stallion working as a pair?

This depends more on the culture of the humans than anything else. US preference is for geldings. Spanish riders tend to like stallions. A mare and stallion can work together, but you might have some size differences.

4. Arising from 3 - how closely matched do a pair need to be in terms of size? (Just spotted - they don't have to be perfectly matched, you adjust the pull via the evener. Cool.)

The evener balances the pull. Size is not as important as amount of pull. If the pull is lop sided, your constantly fighting a tendency to turm.

5. If you were travelling with a spare team (due to smashed waggon for example) and don't have enough people to ride them, would you hitch them in pairs? Tie lead ropes to the cart in front? Find that they follow if you put them in the middle of the convoy? (Apart from grabbing mouthfuls of succulent grass or hedges as they go past.)

In the US, we'd fasten them on a lead to a wagon.

6. If a mare had a foal say a month back, could you then have her in the team, the foal trotting along behind and popping in for meals at break times?

It's been done, but the foal has to be valuable enough to make it worth the problems.

Filigree - could you perhaps put up a couple of links to Ox waggon things? My horses will be passing some on the road.......

Passing while moving wasn't commonly done. You'd have to get too far out of the trail to do so.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

Captcha · Oct 10, 2015

Bolero said:
3. Mares and stallions. Have read that you can run a mare and a stallion in a pair. Also that you can teach mares to work when they are feeling grumpy from being on heat, but you won't have their full attention. That you can train stallions to work and not try to mount a mare while they are working. Does this mean you could go so far as to have a mare on heat and a stallion working as a pair?

jcd is obviously an authority, but just one extra note on this - it doesn't just depend on the culture, but also (obviously, I guess) on the individual stallion. I used to work for a guy who bred and drove Percherons, and he had one stallion that was well-mannered enough to work with mares, but he said that was pretty rare, and most of his stallions weren't worked b/c they were too much trouble. So I guess that's still a bit cultural (he didn't want to take the trouble to train the stallions to behave, and he generally wanted way more mares on site anyway b/c of the breeding program, so it wasn't a big loss to not use the stallions) but he did make an exception when he found a stallion with the temperament for it.

jclarkdawe · Oct 10, 2015

Absolutely it depends upon individual horses. I've seen stallions that are wonderfully behaved, and I remember hearing about a gelding race horse that just loved the ponies at the race track. He'd try mounting all of them. Provided a lot of entertainment when he was running.

Roughly speaking, you should have a 50/50 population of male and female horses. Of the males, most are useless for breeding and you turn them into geldings. In a natural situation, one stallion will service several mares.

But for working animals, there are differences of opinion on the best choice. For example, some societies have felt that women should ride mares. Others feel that stallions have an extra drive that make them better performers. And others feel that allowing the horse to think about sex distracts them. An individual in a culture may go against the flow for logical reasons (like they have a breeding program) or just to be contrary. Unpopular horses can be bought a lot cheaper than popular horses.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

Filigree · Oct 10, 2015

Links for Bolero:

http://www.tillersinternational.org/oxen/resources_techguides/SelectingandTeamingOxenTechGuide.pdf

http://tillersinternational.org/oxe...dvancedTrainingTechniquesforOxenTechGuide.pdf
http://mainetoday.com/blog/who-i-met/julie-giles-oxen-teamster/
https://smallfarmersjournal.com/pulling-a-load-with-oxen/
http://oxhilldevons.com/2012/07/04/book-overview-oxen-a-teamsters-guide-2nd-edition/

Just some of the research I used, and am still going through. Long before I started writing this particular book, I had the pleasure of riding with an ox-team at a fair in Colorado. These animals are staggeringly huge, and their raw power impressive.

Bolero · Oct 11, 2015

@JCD - thank you again. Passing - thank you for that. Will re-think a little
Broken wheel - yes, in general will be fixing or putting on a spare - it was just the complete emergency scenario when if you stopped to fix you'd be dead.

@capture - thank you too

My underlying thinking is:
1. If you entirely rely on horses, you need reliable horses, so you'd concentrate on breeding that in amongst other things - so I think I can have at least one reliable stallion in a team (and I keep saying team when I really mean 6, 8, 10, when at least in the US you have multiple teams of 2 making up a whole lot more - I need to work on my terminology to unconfuse it

) (My POV characters are economically part way up the economic order. Not rolling in it, but can afford good tools so to speak.)

2. If your primary is using the horses, with breeding your own reliable replacements and maybe selling a few, then economically, you'd want all your animals working as much as possible. You'd also want to know that a stallion or mare is a reliable draft animal before breeding from them.

@filigree
Thank you for the links. I've not seen working oxen - however we live in mixed farming country and every so often you encounter a herd of beef cows being moved down a lane. Best part of a ton each, thumping and steaming along, yup, impressive. They can walk up a steep hill faster than I'd want to. (Its also mildly amusing to see the total horror of a tourist in a shiny car when they meet them coming the other way - the cows are actually well behaved about vehicles that don't beep or rev at them and the worst you'd get is a slap with a swinging shitty tail.)

jclarkdawe · Oct 11, 2015

People would go wandering around to help people fix problem horses. These were also the horses that were traded a lot. John Rarey was from Ohio and I believe helped Queen Victoria with a horse. Ben K. Green was a horse trader in Texas and gives lots of insight into the business. One of his story's is about him buying a horse that "Don't look to good." He thought that meant an ugly horse. Instead, the horse didn't look to good because the horse was blind.

There was a wide variety of breeding programs. Someone running a normal breeding program would probably not do much traveling. But one approach to breeding in the American West was to shoot the wild stallions, throw some domesticated stallions out with the wild mares, and that was the breeding program. The domesticated stallions would be draft type horses, causing larger foals more suitable to farm work.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

Bolero · Oct 13, 2015

Thank you for all of that too.

Incidentally, been looking at nomenclature and it does seem that UK usage is to refer to a 6 horse team, or an 8 horse team and within that you might refer to "pairs". US usage seems to be (as covered above) that each pair of horses is called a team.

So question to US folks - would you find it horribly confusing to have reference to "pairs" and "eight horse team" ?

And in my googling, I came across this video - it is very impressive what can be done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa-4yr5TXOU

Questions on draft horse teams pulling waggons over long distance for a fantasy

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