Farming with Horses

Just for discussion purposes or a education on the subject.

If we leave out fancier; more show; or vanity.

For work or farming;
What would be the (difference) reasons for choosing a Draft Horse; Mule; or a Oxen for that matter.

My Dad and Grand Dad told me that mules were popular in the south because they were more heat tolerant, mosquito tolerant, ate less than horses of the same size and had smaller feet and so they could travel better in boggy ground, especially in the log woods. Plus at the time there were very few large fields in the south, most people farmed between 40 and 100 acres total and the big draft horses and heavy hitches were not required, these are also some of the reasons that tractors were slow to catch on in the south. My Grand Dad managed a plantation on the Tensas river from 1921 until 1948 when he bought his home farm, that plantation still had over 30 mules and 3 teams of Percheron horses in 1948, I think a JD ''B'' was the only tractor on the place when he left. Grand dad and my Youngest Uncle started off farming together in 1948 with 3 mules, it was 1954 before they got a tractor. Funny you mention oxen because they always used the dairy bull to pull the manure spreader so I was told. Memphis Tennessee was the largest mule market in the country well into the 50's.

I think horse or mule would be a personal preference. Some people really like mules. Oxen have always sounded like a fun project to me but I could never get my kids interested and have not the time myself. A lot of breeds to choose from and you have to spend a lot of time training them. I don't know how many oxen it takes to pull a single bottom plow but I know when I worked at the state park we hooked up 3-4 horses to a single bottom with a seat you sat on and they pulled away. Mostly we used the teams to pull wagons full of people out to the corn maze, then pulled around to the back and pick up a load coming out of the maze then back to the parking area. Could be a long day staring at the back end of a pair of Belgians! I have always said that I thought a good smart team of any of the above, hooked to a flat rack, would be my first choice if I had to pick up small squares by myself. No tractor to climb up on. Just clear an area, tell them to move on and stop, and clear a new area.

We used mules for flu cured tobacco from 1929 till 1973. Raised 18-20 acres each year. Only knew of 2 horses on the farm. One belonged to my uncle and he was the only one that used the horse. The other horse was used by share cropper. He killed the horse by getting her to hot. My uncle knew when to stop and let the animal cool down. The mules(4) would keep going while horse was cooling. Never saw it but 2 times that a mule was getting to hot to work and they will stop. Even saw one sit down in the middle of the field until it cooled down. Those mules could go from sunup to sundown with a noon break and some water.

I asked as a child why horses weren't used like mules and was told stories of teams of horses getting spooked and run away with a wagon or cultivator hooked to them. Wagons destroyed and sometimes folks were killed if the wagons overturned. Lots of the farm roads here ran through the woods. Runaways would hang trees with the wagons and break wheels off and such.

I bought a new 140 Farmall in 1968. I could cultivate as much as three mules could in a day. By 1973 got the second Farmall and sold the mules. Biggest con was we had to learn about compaction with tractors in the field. Mules didn't compact the soil. Pro was we didn't have to continue growing feed for mules and use that land for tobacco too.

Oxen are slow but that can be good with walk behind implements. Oxen are more socially acceptable on the plate than horse or mule though old oxen would largely be hamburger. You could even yoke the milk cow if you had to.

Drafts are good if you want to cover more ground faster and you have riding implements. Look at the old pictures of farming grain where they have 16 up. That many horses covered far more acreage than an ox or mule. Shorter horses like Haflingers are ok for walk behind but don't try it with Shires unless you like to run and farm.

Mules as noted are more heat tolerant and more feed efficient. However, you cannot breed mules, generally speaking. This has its ups and downs. Also, to make a mule you need a horse and a donkey. Mules are slower than horses.

Just a few things off the top of my head.

Hi, before my time but my dad said if you are clearing and hitch a horse to a stump it will try to pull a few times and if the stump doesn't budge the horse will quit. But if you use an ox he won't quit he will even get on his knees and just pull while you go around the stump with an axe cutting stubborn roots. He said you could castrate a young bull and hitch him beside a horse and he would work well and learn the language fast. He used them in depression. Ed will

I was told that mules have a strong instinct for self preservation. A horse will work until it dies, but a mule will stop when it had enough. Mules are more sure footed too. That's why they are used for the trail ride to the bottom of the grand canyon.

Mules were NEVER used in my area for farming. I guess when the canal was operateve they used mules to pull the boats, why I do not know. And most draft horses are bread mares to keep heard up, stalions are too dangerous to use. And have friends that use horses for everything. Fact is part of my living is comming from finding implements that can be used with the horses.

Dad liked to work with mules. Mules will stop when they are tired or hot; mules will not over-eat and founder themselves like horses. He was down to 2 old mules and 4 work horses when I was 5 years old. There were not many mules being raised by then so he went with the horses. He only had one team of work horses left, although he hadn't worked them for several years, when we built the new barn in 1950. When he discovered that the hay mow floor was too low for the horses to walk under, he very reluctantly put the stock rack on the truck and took the horses to auction. That must have been kind of hard from him, as he would not let any on us kids go along with him.

Oxen just don't live as horses and mules.

My Granddad would agree with the positives said about mules. He loved his mules and kept his last team until they both died. He buried them on the farm.

Thanks for asking the question! Great information in replies. I wanted to add what an old neighbor told me years ago. He said "What happened to horses? When I was young we farmed with horses, they got the worst hay. We sold cows for money and ate pigs, the cows got the best hay. Now we can't sell anything but premium hay for horses. What happened to horses?" Anybody else share this experience? My grand dad only cultivated corn with horses, and they ran in the pasture the rest of the year. My dad told me it was always a big deal to catch them when it was time to start cultivating. Don't know if they saw the corn was high enough or what, but they would not come near the barn a few days before they thought about catching them. Guess the horses were smarter than the farmers.

I've farmed and logged with horses a bit and worked around oxen. Mules take a certain kind of person, horses and cattle tend to be more flexible. As was noted mules have good attributes, but they can't breed. I don't know how they do in the cold. Horses tend to be fast, smart, good workers, require decent feed to really produce. Cattle are slower, a bit harder to get the message across to sometimes and good workers on worse roughage than horses or mules. Horses do better in the cold the from what I've seen. Horses do better in deep snow. A smart horse is better than a dumb ox. A dumb or mean horse isn't worth as much as a smart ox. SOME oxen will get down and just pull and pull, others won't. OTOH, a horse can produce up to 150% of it's weight in pull for short periods, or so the experts claim. Some horses can be trained to work without a driver, but so can some oxen. 2 large oxen will handle the about same implement as 2 large horses usually, but they will do it slower. Horse harness is more complex than ox yoke type rigging. But you can alter a team harness to a single easily. A single ox yoke or collar set up is rare and some oxen won't work single unless trained that way from a calf. It's much, much easier to find someone with experience with horses than oxen. It's even easier to find a harness maker than someone to properly make and fit a yoke or head yoke. Oxen can be male or female, usually the makes are steered, but I've heard of people working bulls. A cow can work while in milk. So can a mare. There are lots of stallions used in harness. In fact some of the breeders I know use their stud horses daily to keep them in shape and work off the hormonal energy. Mares in heat, or just being mares, can be a handful at times.

Long legs make tall, "hitchy" horses but they don't necessarily make better draft animals. I prefer a more compact, stouter horse rather than the modern "hitch" type horse. An extremely tall horse in the woods is a giant pain. Hitch type overgrown hoofs are useless in the woods and almost as bad in the field. a GOOD draft horse can farm barefoot (no shoes). They can usually work in the woods barefoot until you get into big wood, ice or mud. A horse that has to be shod, or an ox that has to be, to do field work because of poor feet is not an animal to breed. No foot, no horse/ox.

As far as breed, these days it's getting harder to find Belgian, Shires, Clydes or Percherons that haven't been "improved" by the hitch and show breeders. It's not as bad as trying to find an Irish Setter or Cocker Spaniel that actually hunts, but todays show horses are not yesterdays farm horses. Suffolk Punch, American Cream (if you ever find one), Haflinger and Fjord draft ponies (darn big "ponies") haven't been hit so hard by "hitch-itis" yet.

When I lived in southern MN the Amish all used draft horses and I believe that was all that was used in that area before tractors. I bet there were very few mules if any. Now I live in east texas. Everybody has told me that mules were the only thing used. I've talked to lots of old farmers about the subject, they all say that their family had mules and then were replaced with farmall cubs. Everyone in the area switched to Farmall Cubs, nothing else! I mentioned draft horses a couple times during these conversations and every time I got "what's a draft horse?"

Interesting topic.

In this area everyone used mules. Grandfathers on both sides farmed with mules.

Apparently the early settlers used oxen to pull their wagons west because the cattle could eat whatever they found and apparently not so much with horses.
In the old pictures I've seen and in pictures from around the world where they still use water buffalo for labor, it seems like you lead or walk along side rather than drive from behind like horses or mules.

I'm interested in oxen but don't have the time to do anything about it. My last bull would have been good for it; a solid wall of muscle and about the most laid back bull you could hope for.

I still work mules and draft horses when time permits. Just something satisfying about it. Grandpa always told me the reason some people didnt work mules was you had to be smarter than the mule to work them. lol

Great discussion. I've long wondered about the differences.
A tangent. As a teenager I was often told that an advantage of dating in the horse era was that the horse knew it's way home.
When my daughters were teenagers, I began to wonder, if a guy comes to pick up my daughter, do I lend him my horse?
I don' t really care if he gets home. By then, there were no old guys left to ask.

Our ranch is quite steep. My grandfather farmed with horses. Most of the hill was plowed with a Knapp Sidehill (reversable) plow. He used a team of horses not much bigger than a saddle horse. He said the draft breeds were too big for our sidehills. He did use a 3 horse hitch on the seeder once but just for training the middle horse. He let them run, he said my grandmother hollared out "Henry you are going to kill yourself".

My grandfather bought fire deptment horses. They were "retired" at a young age. When great grandpa had dropsey spells the teams would stop and stand because of the slack reins.This saved him because he would fall off the seat. A team scared them once, on the way to help at a barn fire the team broke into a run. Grandpa thought the team wouldn't make the driveway. They made the driveway and ran to the fire and stopped.