OT - Antique Farm Items

Brian G. NY · Jun 5, 2016

I picked up a couple of old farm items at a garage sale yesterday.
I know the item on the bottom is a hay knife.....I have an older version from our old farmstead.

The yoke has me a little baffled. When I was a kid, my wife's grandfather had a couple of homemade wooden yokes that he used for cows that got out through fences. Those had a protrusion at the top as well so the cow could not "duck under" a fence.

From the size of this one, I'm guessing it was for a smaller animal like a calf or a goat. Maybe to keep it from running?
The wooden "nut" is held on to the pin with a piece of leather passing through a slot. Quite primitive indeed!

I'm hoping one of you guys can identify it.

Thanks

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JimB2 · Jun 5, 2016

Hi Brian, bottom item is what was known in our area as a "hay knife". It was used to cut loose hay in the mow so it could be
forked out easily. In the days of loose hay dumped into a mow by a hay fork, when you went to fork it out in the winter, the
farther down in the mow you got the more compressed and entangled the hay became, so a hay knife was used to slice through the hay
to allow it to be removed in sections. It was like trying to remove hay from a square bale without cutting the strings.

JimB

Brian G. NY · Jun 5, 2016

Jim,

By the time I was old enuf to help in the haying on our little farm my Dad had begun having his hay baled.
However, my older brother and sister put in a lot of "loose hay".
My Dad was real strict about "mowing away" loose hay in the barn.
If done properly, ideally the hay could be taken out by the pitchforkful in the reverse order of how it was put in. Not saying the hay knife never got used tho! LOL

JimB2 · Jun 5, 2016

Hi Brain, I am like you as a very young child, I remember Dad putting loose hay one year. Next year he bought a NH forage
harvester with pickup and corn heads, NH blower and two false front wagons. A couple years later he bought an IH #45 square baler.
I remember Dad using a hay knife in an uncle's hay mow.

JimB

cool hand · Jun 5, 2016

Oh, I remember putting up and feeding loose hay! Although I have one now as a curiosity piece, we never had a hay knife. It was sometimes a challenge to figure out from where to pull out the next forkful when feeding.

shaun wallace · Jun 5, 2016

The first item looks like tool used for making or repairing harness. Another pic from looking at nut side would help.

dcarp · Jun 5, 2016

I seen yokes like that used on goats to keep them from walking through fences.

unc · Jun 6, 2016

Dad had a yoke like the one in your picture. We figured it was about goat or small calf size, used to prevent fence crawling. In that part of the world, a lot of fences were cedar rail. The local name was a " poke". I've also seen goose pokes. Unc

OT - Antique Farm Items

Brian G. NY

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JimB2

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Brian G. NY

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JimB2

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cool hand

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shaun wallace

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dcarp

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unc

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