Farmer going back to horse and plough

[DominicJ]

Paul
Tractors are expensive, but men even more so.

A man and a horse can plough one field a day
A man and a tractor can plough thirty fields in a day.

The tractor saves 29 man days, and costs, well, who knows, less than 29 man days anyway.

VT
I looked for data, but there was none, it seems that horses are just better than cows, except in extremely heavy soils.

UE
Just, run with me a moment here,



The left, is a conventional farm, with 25 1 acre square fields
The right, is the same farm, divided into 25 long acres.
Assume both run a 5 year crop rotation, isnt the long farm going to be far less monocroppy from a biodiversity PoV?
The centre of the square fields are up to 30m away from a different crop type, whereas the long fields are no more than 7m away from a different crop.

[UndercoverElephant]

Paul
VT
I looked for data, but there was none, it seems that horses are just better than cows, except in extremely heavy soils.

On the other hand, working cows produce milk and more cows.

UE
Just, run with me a moment here,



The left, is a conventional farm, with 25 1 acre square fields
The right, is the same farm, divided into 25 long acres.
Assume both run a 5 year crop rotation, isnt the long farm going to be far less monocroppy from a biodiversity PoV?
The centre of the square fields are up to 30m away from a different crop type, whereas the long fields are no more than 7m away from a different crop.

Neither of your plans are the most efficient in terms of cost. Most efficient would be one 25-acre field all growing the same crop. Splitting it up into 25-acre sections and doing a five-year rotation has got to be better for biodiversity, regardless what shape the sections are. Are the strips better than the squares? I'm not sure it would make an awful lot of difference.

[DominicJ]

True Enough, I suppose I was thinking along the lines of an allotment or small holding farm

[vtsnowedin]

Paul
VT
I looked for data, but there was none, it seems that horses are just better than cows, except in extremely heavy soils.

On the other hand, working cows produce milk and more cows.

Working oxen are castrated males and even though they have teats they give no milk.!! The herd that produced them will produce replacements for them however as the ratio of heifers to bullocks is about fifty fifty and the average cow lasts about six lactation's which will produce three bull calves which might go to veal or to steer/oxen and three heifer calves, one of which will replace the Dam and one which will be sold to pay a grain bill and one that might not breed on time and end up in the freezer. Such is farm life.

[UndercoverElephant]

Paul
VT
I looked for data, but there was none, it seems that horses are just better than cows, except in extremely heavy soils.

On the other hand, working cows produce milk and more cows.

Working oxen are castrated males and even though they have teats they give no milk.!!

This is true today, when working oxen are just for show, but for the vast majority of farming history, working oxen were females who produced both milk and calves. Why use a male? It's a waste of resources.

If you can only afford to keep two cattle, are you going to keep two castrated males or two fertile females? Why keep males which are only capable of physical work when you can keep females which are capable of physical work and milk/calf production?

[vtsnowedin]

On the other hand, working cows produce milk and more cows.

Working oxen are castrated males and even though they have teats they give no milk.!!

This is true today, when working oxen are just for show, but for the vast majority of farming history, working oxen were females who produced both milk and calves. Why use a male? It's a waste of resources.

If you can only afford to keep two cattle, are you going to keep two castrated males or two fertile females? Why keep males which are only capable of physical work when you can keep females which are capable of physical work and milk/calf production?

The depth of your misunderstanding amazes me. Have you actually ever touched a cow much less milked one?

[vtsnowedin]

On the other hand, working cows produce milk and more cows.

Working oxen are castrated males and even though they have teats they give no milk.!!

This is true today, when working oxen are just for show, but for the vast majority of farming history, working oxen were females who produced both milk and calves. Why use a male? It's a waste of resources.

If you can only afford to keep two cattle, are you going to keep two castrated males or two fertile females? Why keep males which are only capable of physical work when you can keep females which are capable of physical work and milk/calf production?

The depth of your misunderstanding amazes me. Have you actually ever touched a cow much less milked one?

[UndercoverElephant]

Working oxen are castrated males and even though they have teats they give no milk.!!

This is true today, when working oxen are just for show, but for the vast majority of farming history, working oxen were females who produced both milk and calves. Why use a male? It's a waste of resources.

If you can only afford to keep two cattle, are you going to keep two castrated males or two fertile females? Why keep males which are only capable of physical work when you can keep females which are capable of physical work and milk/calf production?

The depth of your misunderstanding amazes me. Have you actually ever touched a cow much less milked one?

Yes I have touched plenty of cows. I'm not sure whether I've ever milked one - I vaguely recall doing so but can't remember where or when. I'm a forager. I often search for fungi in fields containing cows, bulls and bullocks, and get on very well with them. I think they are more intelligent than most people give them credit for. What exactly don't I understand?

I am in this case getting my information from a British TV series called "Victorian Farm", which involved three people trying to run a farm like Victorians for a year. They used female oxen, and gave the explanation I gave you. It also makes perfect sense. The program might have been wrong, but you haven't explained to me your reason for believing this. You've just told me that I do understand anything to do with cattle and explained what goes on on modern farms.

[DominicJ]

UE
Female cows are smaller, weaker and they cant work whilst pregnant or raising calves.

Thats not to say they are never used, but they arent used as a first choice, except perhaps on single family subsistance farms.

[paul1963]

[quote="DominicJ"]Paul
Tractors are expensive, but men even more so.

A man and a horse can plough one field a day
A man and a tractor can plough thirty fields in a day.

The tractor saves 29 man days, and costs, well, who knows, less than 29 man days anyway.

Sorry Dominic, I have to disagree, your logic is spot on, but be mindful that in the days of horse and plough the land management regime was very different and ploughing etc was carried out over a far longer season.

One if the key reasons the tractor rose in eminence, (that I did not state in my post), is that it was adopted during the war when there was an increase demand for yield coupled with a reduced workforce. The tractor was one of the key instruments in acheiving the raised yields (many tractors in wartime use in the UK were from the US and were supplied through a grant scheme).

Modern agriculture runs on a far more intensive system with multiple cropping etc than at that time, but why would a farmer want to go back to the old ways?

The amount of men working the land has reduced but not in a comparable fashion with the increased yields.

[DominicJ]

Hi Paul
Not entirely sure what youre trying to say there?

[paul1963]

Hi Paul
Not entirely sure what youre trying to say there?

That there is not a direct comparison between a man and a horse and man and a tractor irrespective of traditional measurment farming methods have changed enough to make any attemoted comparison without true meaning.

[UndercoverElephant]

UE
Female cows are smaller, weaker and they cant work whilst pregnant or raising calves.

Do you know this for a fact, or are you just posting it because it seems obvious? Why can't a pregnant cow work?

As for being smaller and weaker, this is pretty much irrelevant. A mature, healthy female cow is perfectly capable of pulling a plough.

Thats not to say they are never used, but they arent used as a first choice, except perhaps on single family subsistance farms.

Which was precisely what I was talking about.

[DominicJ]

Do you know this for a fact, or are you just posting it because it seems obvious?

Well, I havent personaly measured the two, but I did a bit of reading as to why horses replaced oxen, and the general consensus was that female oxen were unsuitable for the reasons I gave.

[JohnB]

Well, I havent personaly measured the two, but I did a bit of reading as to why horses replaced oxen, and the general consensus was that female oxen were unsuitable for the reasons I gave.

There was an interesting web site, that seems to have disappeared, that suggested that it was more that horses were seen as the future, and oxen seen as old fashioned.

A female oxen is surely multifunctional, being able to work, breed, produce milk, and be eaten, and this may be a bigger benefit than being better at one function in many situations. None of these issues are black and white. Each has their advantages and disadvantages, and which is most appropriate for a particular situation will vary.