I think I've heard most of the reasons that accompany this question. It's cheaper than a tractor, its green, its reproducing, its fertilizer, its carbon free, its self sustaining, ect. While all of this in some aspect may be true, none of these reasons are why I want to use horses. I want to because I like to. Pure, selfish, wanton desire. I don't understand why the working horse community has to justify their actions to the world on a piece of paper. I want to because it makes me feel good. It fits me. I like it. Just that simple. Life is better with the jangle of harness and a big pair of brown eyes.

I fill the same l don't farm but you can't tell it when l am driving my team my 92 year old mother saw me out of my kitchen window she told my wife look at him he thinks he a farmer but he don't know a hill of beans about farming but in my mind I'm a big farmer driving my two ponnies to the for cart in my yard.

I share the reasons why you like to work with horses, Jeremy, but it also makes sense to understand that there is more to it than mere personal preferences or predilections.

If we say we work harder and longer to do it with a team just because we enjoy it with out an economic justification mainstream America thinks we are crazy. But I am with you Jeremy. The main reason I use my mules is because I enjoy it and it gives me more of an appreciation of the way Grampa farmed.

AMEN! And etc. (et cetera, latin for "and so forth," contracted to etc.)

It makes me feel like I'm getting away with something too.

Jeremy, just keep doing what you're doing. We don't need reasons or excuses for what we do. God bless.

If it isn't done with a horse, is it worth doing?

When they ask me, why horses ?
I tell them the truth, the horses are my , beer drinking, golf, football, baseball, basketball, bowling, ice fishing, hockey, soccer, jogging and wild woman chasing. Can't get in much trouble with a good pair horses keeping me busy.

I grew up on an appaloosa ranch so have been around horse all my life. My grandfather and dad threshed and hayed with horses until late 1970s. I remember that. I have raised foals, shown in all events in 4-H, open and appaloosa shows. There seemed to be something missing in my horse career. So that's when I decided to get my haflinger team. I enjoy driving and helping out with events in our harness club. I have joined the Fort Ransom Sodbusters group and did some farming for the first time this year. Discing and raked the whole field. It felt good to be connected to nature like that. I don't have farming equipment at my parents ranch but dream about getting something for my team to do just because. And it also gives them a job and makes them a better team.

I use the horses & mules because I want to, because I feel like doing the work that way. And That is a good enough reason for me. I have several people that come out here for a wagon ride or to ride a horse every summer some just come to see it being done the old way like there dad & grandad done it. If I don't have the time to do the work this way the work isn't going to get done.

I've been working around here since 1978, and it's just such a treat to accomplish something without having to listen to an engine blat.

It does make fitting the ground with a tractor seem like cheating.
I like my horses as much as the rest of you but what I really like is working a full day and never starting an engine or buying much of anything. Feeding them hay that they cut and brought in with old equipment that has been paid for some time. Better yet I love that we will do it again next year and many after that for the same price. For me it is about having some control over my destiny.

I gave up trying to justify why I do anything some years back. It's no ones business why I do anything as long as it's legal and I;m not abusing my stock. I can't for the life of me understand why people live in cities or drink themselves stupid every night, but no one has to justify that!

I catch a lot of crap for the way I do things but I don't care.

I like using horses and mules.

I hate fixing tractors.

Most folks ridicule what they don't understand.

Right on!

In the poulty world there are some people who bemoan the fact that a lot of our breeds have lost much of their production capabilities, and they dream about these grandiose ideals of getting them back. No purebred Leghorn, Plymouth Pock or Cornish ever outproduced the modern layer or broiler strains, so what is the point? They're embarrassed to admit that we can breed and exhibit these birds simply for their beauty, and not have them do what they are originally intended.

I have worked cattle for 60 years. It is just very interesting, fun and free.

Billy Foster- that's about the best way I've ever heard it put.

Intro into my latest book effort in which I attempt to explain some of this stuff---mostly looking at equipment for raising produce this time round---does me good hearing all of you.....Dale Wagner somehow always says it best with the fewest words....

Introduction
“I don’t think there is an argument for being a farmer. There are only two reasons to farm: because you have to, and because you love to. The ones who choose to farm choose for love.”---From the novel Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry
When horses, mules, and oxen are used in agriculture they become instrumental in enriching the soil, as they are a primary source of fertilizer on the farm. In the fields, they tread lightly and do not cause the soil compaction that can result from the wheels and weight of a tractor. The horses are essentially solar-powered: they run on grass, hay, and oats, which they can help us grow and harvest on the farm. By using draft animals to power our farms we help to minimize our carbon footprint, and they deliver a living, clean, sustainable, and regenerative energy.
Beyond the practical considerations of draft power, entering into partnership with work horses can also lead us to deeper insight into what it means to be a human being in relationship to the natural world. To accomplish our farm work successfully with horses we need to become “a little bit” horse and the horse needs to become “a little bit” human. Because both human and horse are willing to try---somewhere in between the vast gulf that differentiates our species is a space where horse and human can meet one another and begin to forge a relationship. In many cases, a horse can even become a part of the farm family.
To be effective with draft animals we need to leave the automated whir of machines behind and slow ourselves down to their pace and attune ourselves to their unique brand of consciousness. The quality of work done with the horses also lends itself to a heightened sensitivity to the subtle and dynamic qualities of our immediate environment. Rather than placing protective ear-muffs on our heads to shut out the roar and din of the tractor we are invited to open our senses more fully to the experience of the here and now, and in fact, staying intimately present is a prerequisite to remaining safe and effective in the tasks we accomplish with our animals. Such attunement is essential to good farming. When we share work and life with our equine partners we are simultaneously grounded and elevated. As those of us with our ears to the ground well know, animal traction technology is not a nostalgic glance backwards: now is a time of exciting new developments for live horse power. As the numbers of adherents to this way of life grows, ecologically-minded farmers in their fields are developing efficient horse-drawn systems, and equipment manufacturers in small shops all across North America and Europe are coming forth with new innovations in ground-drive technology that have us poised on the cusp of another agricultural revolution---with working horses, mules, donkeys and oxen at the heart of it.

Very well done, Stephen.

Revelling in the web of life, making peace with Earth.

I have rode since before I was 4 years old that was in 1948. I was 4 when I went on my first cattle round up . the pasture was only 14 sections of sand hills. my dad thought I was big enough to go, we ended up 12 miles from home that night that was a long ride home. I've Rode and drove horses every since then. I broke a bunch of horses to ride since then, when I was 12 I broke my first 5 year old. dad told me If he threw me 3 times he would ride him, dad never had to ride a horse I started. I would ride them about a week then dad would ride them and I would start another one. I work and ride horses & some mules because I like to.

Great, Stephen. Yet , a lot of people will not want to see the truth in what you wrote. The Washington Post carried a picture story about us, unfortunately with a text that they hadn't run by us and which compelled us to submit a correction of some of the errors and also a response to some of the comments. In the latter ones a gentleman , I think, from Canada wrote that " a tractor is just as organic as a horse". How anyone can even remotely have an idea like that is beyond me, but he said that he had worked for the organic farming movement!

Yes, Klaus, I fear that is is grand necessity that will further our cause in the not-to-distant future.

KC Fox, where is your ranch located, sir?

North central Nebraska in the sand hills. Where do you hang up your hat in the world sir? The best to you all on the front porch Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, God bless America again.

KC Fox---my farm is located in the upper Connecticut river valley of Vermont---we milk jersey cows and market garden with Fjord horses. I was not raised in this way of life but came to it through the grace of the Creator---appreciate getting to hear voices like yours through this forum. May the blessings of this season of light be with you.

I delivered in Vermont It was just outside of Middlebury them I went south of there and picked up slate shingles and took them to Chicago. sure was nice looking country back there a lot of trees. there Is not that many trees out here. I have been in 46 states with a truck.

The only thing I would say is that while some wax poetic about the "better" farming done with horses, we see people here talking about power forecarts on a weekly basis. Working with horses doesn't make you a good farmer, although some would say it does, and using a tractor or using mixed power doesn't make you a bad farmer, although some would say it does.

I just fool with horses because I like them. None are overworked and some even overfed but that's by my choice.

Horses don't get stuck in the feed lot, don't get stuck in the snow drift, don't need plugged in at night to get started in the morning, don't gel up and they can go through gates w verbal commands and don't require the hundreds of gallons of diesel. Just some reasons I love them. :)

They make much nicer sounds than tractors too, to my ears. And they replace themselves through reproduction, provide fertilizer, give you love, and get all the girls to look at you on the road.