How To Mow Hay With Horses

good evening everybody it's saturday night and we could try something we've never done before um brenda is gonna oh hey so she has cannon and bach now this is the first time she's ever mowed hay um she's actually used the horses a lot um before our kids are old enough she did an awful lot with horses but now but as the kids got older they actually took over did a lot of the work so she did less but now the kids are gone um she's starting to do a little bit more but for some reason i've never taught her out of mohair so that's what we're going to do tonight as we progress we'll stop periodically and i'll um explain to her a few things explain to everybody else a few things and uh we'll just see where this takes us so you're all ready to go i'm ready okay so i'm gonna just go over a few things that you already know and and probably everybody know but just to make sure people do know so this lever right here puts it in and that gear so chris grab your with your heel of your toe and heel with your heel and pull it into gear that's out of gear now so grab your heel up here oh up there oh like that pull back yep now it's in here now take it do it two three times and that's very important that you know how to do that because there'll be times where you when you plug up you've got to unplug it shut it off before you unplug it so that's how you do that so run it back in gearing right now it's it's ready to go right now it's ready to mount so so this is in gear this way yes okay so the next thing is you know you'll drive the horses like you would drive anytime right buck you want him to walk right on that swath path where the where the swath board has cleared a path and this shoe right here also will follow him right in that swap path now that's important because if it goes into the standing hay it will knock it down and if it goes too far to the left it'll get into the hay that's already cut and it'll plug it up more so the next thing you have to be concerned about is you want this cutter bar in the air until you get right to that swath path from the other side and then you want to drop it down now to drop it down all you do is grab this hand like that so to pick it up you want to put your foot here plus there and do it together and it'll it'll snap right up as much as your foot as your and it snaps right place it's a just a practice thing so so go ahead and do that tooth cuff guys it drops it down perfect perfect oops now sometimes if you look right here and push that down push your foot down but you see this this dog right here that has to be all the way down so you're not you're gonna push down just a little bit further on this handle push down a little further and that will tends to drop into place it doesn't look like it is but um should i let go yeah no it's not maybe it's because you're holding that see how that dropped in place yeah um do it and left out like if you just watch this part that has to be dropped all the way down for it to hold it now that's worn out a little bit too so that will if you're going along like this across the field it would actually it won't hold it'll fall off it'll drop so when i'm going empty i always put my phone right here and help it so in case it does drop i've got it but anyways that's another situation okay so i think you should just start going uh it's actually mowing very good tonight last night i mowed the centerpiece of this and it was mowing terrible i was plugging up a lot um the grass was very wet and it's still wet tonight um i mean i can almost bring water out of this grass um but anyways the hay will get caught on these i hope it's on gear and um it just plugs up right there it doesn't stop it anyway but it just plugs it up so as you're mowing watch the cutter bar very carefully you got to keep buck where he belongs but you also go watch the cutter bar and i'll follow behind and i'll tell you i'll i'll point to it so you know what's plugging okay and then i'll tell you to stop so when i'm ready to go i just put this down and then i ask him to go make sure it's in gear and it is and usually i actually ask them go it's all one movement i just um but as long as you're in the right spot you're okay so go ahead for this time just drop it down and then ask them good to go that's all the way down that's in gear this is mostly just grass hay out here we have some pockets of clover that's pretty heavy but mostly grass hay so okay did you see that how's it building up um okay pick up your bar all the way take it out of gear okay i'm going to do this for you this time what i do and with it out of gear it was plugging up right in this area here but i generally just take my hand and just kind of even though i know it's out of gear i never stick my fingers down in there obviously so i just kind of go along the top of the guards and clean this off i come right to here this is what was happening oh yeah so balls right up right there and you'd think that would fall right off with first cutting that basically never happens but in second coloring this happens all the time some days it's just you're off all the time to fix this but it's actually going pretty good tonight so you have to take that physically grab it and pull it off so what i do now is i back up about six inches of foot back and then then i put it in gear no put it in gear and then i asked him to go and just at the right moment and it's very important you do this right i know but it's very important you ask and go and then you're going to pop that and you don't have to worry about going all the way down you just got to pop it out it just takes just a tiny little bit yeah it's really easy but you got to make sure you do it when this cutter bar is beyond this cut hay okay because if you drop it too soon it'll immediately plug up so also with ken sometimes he's a slacker and well we won't worry about that he'll he'll be fine okay so you're in gear so just ask him to go okay and and then drop it at the right spot give it a shot step he did good sometimes when i just get a little bit of grass on the end of the guard i'll just stop and leave my cutter bar on the ground and back up a couple feet and then after to go and it will sometimes free up all right i just want to explain something to you and to people this is a rounded corner so buck cannot stay in the swath path and be able to cut all this hay so on these rounded corners you actually have to walk buck has to kind of walk by and then turn to get all that hay okay the problem with with these ends is a lot of times i have square corners and i will here after i go around a couple of times but on your square corners they they know that the corner is coming the end is coming so they actually will automatically want to stop sometimes even before you get your mo your hay cut so you got to kind of keep after your horses to make sure that they don't do that ken is a bad one for that you got to really watch him another trick to where ken is and the way the situation is as you're driving and ken is slowing down if you take hold your lines to both ends if you take your left line like this toss it up over here it puts more pressure on bach and it allows ken feels the line coming over there so it kind of gives him a little bit of a slap in the box but not enough even very little but it helps him speed up a little bit and it puts more pressure on buck's left bit so he actually slows him down a little bit so i do that quite often the problem with that is he will quite often throw his tail over the line and then the tails under the line the line is under the tail and you don't really have such good control but sometimes i use that to my advantage um hey it's sometimes a help but anyways go ahead um it gets really thin through here so you won't have any problem but go ahead keep it right over there keep right there oh they used my voice so i can pretty well stop him when i whatever someone else is driving but um it's very thin right here so i just wanted to explain one more time in this corner so we're coming to another rounded corner so just kind of watch more this than buck okay so if you're gonna put farther into the cut grass to do it that's fine you have been too far in anyways i know it's hard to see where the grass is because there's not much right here right yeah right here but you need that butt really close to that staining hay you're saying i was you mean i was too you were too far to the left yes okay so i mean it's thin so it doesn't matter but if you have thick hay which we'll have in many places here you're more up to plug up right here the places that plug up the most of the right here and on the outside so so i need to go like a little further around the corner then yes if you just watch this shoe and keep the shoe where it belongs okay all right then just steer them accordingly okay i will try that all right go ahead oh okay that was fairly good but the problem is you had that you were still too far to the left if there was any amount of hay here you would have plugged right up that shoe has to hang right tight tight to the standing head and on a on where there's a lot of hay you would have really been in trouble and plugged up one other thing when you start them especially when you don't have to worry about the cutter bar when you ask to go if you swing that line over the same time and ask to go so that you're hitting him in the butt at the same time they'll start faster and better if if if you don't do that after a while they won't listen to you and they won't go when you want them to go go ahead step step oh okay you saw or heard how i was kissing them noise to keep him going he would have slowed right down and potentially plugged up on that corner yeah and that's a very sharp sharp turn that'll be the last time we do that the next time we'll come right out and make a square corner this next corner will be a square corner i've already gone around the first time and so it's square so as you get down by the end as soon as you go through the last bit of cut of staining hay i'll keep them you don't want to stop them there you go a few feet beyond so that they're not they don't stop too soon but in the process you have to pick the cutter bar up so while they're still moving you push your foot down and grab one handed here so you hold the hands with one hand and everything goes down go ahead and give it a try step okay see what happened here is she had her she was stuck in the grass to start with and had no head start type of thing oh so you should have backed up first and i should have told you that but that's okay good learning experience so back up a little more now you have a lot of hay still in there back up a little more okay now ask oh oh okay you're free already so now be ready to drop that in just at the right moment step it's actually quite hard to teach somebody something that you've done for so long you almost forget how you do it just comes natural to you and you just do it all the time um when you tie toe brenda a little bit wrong because when i usually get to the end of my to the corner i will actually just use my foot and lift it up and most the time actually snaps in place with the foot if you have adjusted right oh okay remember foot what's more important than here because you can always lift it up enough to clear it with your foot okay you don't really have to worry so much about that you can almost do it everything with your foot if you push harder your foot it comes up go ahead push it up so and and if you have to stand up do it well it's useful it's easy that's okay okay so but the secret is to come through that is to come through the end there in one swiss swift pass and push your foot down while they're still moving and pick it up and then call it hope but it's not easy to do yeah easier said than done so also as you see you're quite a long ways from there you really wanted to stop like right here yeah now i got it back now you go back that much farther back and get yourself in place um but if you noticed as you started coming to that both of them know that it's going to be time to stop so you almost have to be ready for that and do something about it before you get there like like give them a quick uh kissing sound just to make sure they go the problem with these two horses and so many horses they react differently to that when you do that buck will go faster than ken doesn't go quite so fast but it still it pays because you don't want it to stop before you get out of the grass anyways why don't you attempt to back up and turn into place so i'm gonna back straight up and then well you back up and turn all the same time and they'll actually do it almost without you i'm going to this swath board hangs a little low and what i normally do is one i do it just one-handed and i actually push down on this to get a little bit more height but since uh since you're doing it i'm going to just uh hold this up for you so it doesn't get caught okay you're gonna be way off uh no no i would say just go for it but just as soon as you get you you just made yourself a big place there so when you get to that point you're in gear drop this down put buck straight out there and then turn you're going to miss a little bit but that's the way it is that's how you learn i guess so your head's right straight okay as soon as i think i'm gonna hit that then yes and then steer them into place at that point give it a try drop it down as i'm sure she'll say it's a lot harder than it looks so mistakes are done when you're learning and that's okay i'm so glad it's mowing good for you tonight i was afraid to have trouble and right off it went good but when you get up here you go right to the fence square corner it sure looks like we have another storm coming in brenda was telling me afterwards that was uncomfortable keeping her hand way off to the left to keep that line off the side of ken's back and i told her it doesn't have to be you can keep your hands straight and even if the line is crooked it still works fine you need to be comfortable when you're driving horses if you want your hands directly in front of you just g just stay right on it these horses have done this so much they almost can do it themselves but sometimes it's pretty hard in the corners just the same it's surprising the amish in our area don't use swap boards i can't imagine mowing hay without a swat board it's so easy to plug up right here where i'm walking if there was no place for that shoe to go let's see how she does this corner some ways this is the worst one because we're headed to the barn just forgot to hoe everything looked good you just forgot to go all right back up when you back them up don't don't put much pressure on because buck will back up really fast anyways okay can you back up that fast can i well i can but go ahead and i gotta back and turn turn off same time and buck almost does it on his own just a lot of times that's okay back him up back up okay oh okay you didn't pick it up so you're all up take it out of here thundering that's thunder i was thinking about that sorry so take it out of here oh i got a story i gotta tell ya oh brother about otto oh yeah let's get out of here we decided we better call it quits for the night we got back to barn very shortly after we did get a hard shower i do mow hay quite often just before a rain the grass is usually the driest then and we just have so much ground we have to cover we have to mow whenever we can it doesn't seem to hurt the hay if you cut just before a rain i can't believe the weather we've been having it's supposed to be like 10 chance of rain and we had a shower early today threatening rain right now probably won't rain but i wanted to tell you a story every time i'm out mowing with the blacks and threatening rain i think about it an old friend from years ago he told me that years and years ago he had a pair of black horses and he was mowing hay and it was threatening rain and he decided he could make one more time around and this is hard to believe but it was in the paper and everything lightning struck and it killed both those horses he never felt the strike somehow but uh it dropped both those horses right there and i thought about that so many times over the years so maybe maybe it's just as well we quit anyways she had a good first lesson um there's a lot to it but uh she'll practice some more another time she's not ready to go solo but she's had a good first lesson okay i hope maybe you learned some things too and have a good night you

Channel: Working Horses With Jim

Views: 119,570

Rating: 4.881238 out of 5

Keywords: Mowing hay with horses, how to mow hay with horses, horses, draft horses, draft horse, work horse, mowing hay with horses for beginners, cutting hay with horses, mowing machine, Mccormick-Deering mowing machine, farming with draft horses, farming with horses, haying, Percherons

Id: AtM5C1hJsdE

Length: 27min 13sec (1633 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 07 2020