Horse Powered Market Gardening Economics
Case Study: Cedar Mountain Farm

We house our horses in a three-sided shed. The structure they occupy is the back side of a small barn. Their allotted space measures 12 feet wide by 45 feet long. Since our horses are limited to two to five hours grazing per day, they spend a lot of time in and around this shed year round. In the summer both ends can remain open to catch the breeze. We maintain the yard daily by raking up all the droppings. The droppings are also removed from inside the shed, and an equivalent amount of wood shavings are added every day (about a wheelbarrow full). This task takes about 25 minutes. The horses are fed hay three to four times a day in winter and twice a day in summer. They are each fed two pounds total of supplemental grain twice a day. They have a water tank which is re-filled and scrubbed out regularly. Moving fence for the horses during grazing season probably adds up to about two hours of work each week. Most of the time, we are able to set up paddocks that allow the horses to go out and return without being led, but occasionally they must be taken out on leads. In sum, we probably have an average of one hour of daily horse maintenance chores.

I have plans to build two tie-stalls so that I can have a place to park the team for the lunch hour on days when they are required for a full day’s work. Right now, I end up having to harness and unharness twice on such days. I have also been advised that if they work in the woods in the winter, a tie-stall and blankets on their backs are a good way to allow them to cool down without catching a chill.

We trim our horses’ feet and have always kept them barefoot. The one exclusively barefoot trimmer we know of in our locale charges $45 per horse for a trim. With shorter intervals for barefoot maintenance, the horses are getting trimmed seven or eight times a year. Even though it takes me longer to trim than it would a professional, I’d still have to be there to assist the farrier, so I figure we are saving a small bundle by taking on the trimming.

If each horse is trimmed seven times a year, and one hour is spent on each trimming, four horses multiplied by seven trims comes to 28 hours. Twenty eight trims at $45 a trim totals $1,260 saved each year in farrier costs.

Our horses see the veterinarian regularly for updates on rabies shots and for getting teeth floated. We do all immunization shots ourselves (under supervision of our vet). They are wormed in the spring and the fall.

I tracked all my time and functions with the horses for 2010 and 2011 in the same way I did for 2006 on the calendar in the barn. My hours have increased from 2006 to 2010 — a happy result for me. My hours for 2011 were almost the same as the previous year — the only difference being that they were a little less midsummer due to a labor shortage issue on the farm, but we made up the difference by doing field work late into the fall, thanks to an especially mild season.

My recorded times don’t include grooming, harnessing, and hitching, or their reverse at the end of the session. I like to keep routines as consistent as possible with the horses, so I always brush them down and pick out their feet before doing anything else. I look at it as an important transition time for the horses to begin to put their heads into the work. I estimate that it takes me about 25 minutes to halter, pick feet, groom, harness, and hitch a team of horses — and about 15 minutes to do the reverse — for a total of 40 minutes. I would probably shave 10 minutes off this time for a single horse. I believe I could do this task more quickly but don’t for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I am getting a little pokey in my middle-age. Secondly, even when I am feeling the urgency of the task at hand, I like to try and maintain a calm, measured routine with the horses.

Once at work in harness, our horses spend very little time idle. I take a very simple approach to field work. The horses are employed for very basic tasks of tillage and cultivation, and we usually go out and complete a job and then come back and either unhitch for the day or move right on to the next implement. For the most part, the only time the horses are standing is when waiting for me to load the spreader. We harvest into crates stacked in a garden-way cart or onto a small trailer pulled by the team off the forecart. For big actions like harvesting winter squash, we use a flatbed wagon hooked to the tractor. This is an area where we could challenge ourselves to get the horses involved.

Mowing is another function in the market garden that we are still doing with a 5-foot bush hog on a 30 hp tractor. We use this mower to clip cover crops and to knock down residue of crops such as brassica or corn for easier incorporation. Actually in 2011, I brought the dairy cows in to eat the corn stover and dealt with the brassica by discing it with the horses. I have seen mowers of this type with a self-mounted motor on top that can be towed behind a forecart and have this item on our new equipment wish list. It remains to be seen how our horses would adapt to pulling a motorized implement. I have tried knocking this kind of stuff down with scythe and machete but found it too human labor intensive. This coming season I intend to use our recently restored No. 6 mowing machine with the shoes set high, but I will have to do a thorough job of rock picking this spring. It was such a labor of love to bring that mower into working condition that I still shudder at the thought of using it in the stony garden.

For a farm with multiple income streams like ours, the tracking picture can get a little murky. Most of the work the horses currently do is in the garden, but the hay-making that they are involved with also brings in forage for the cows. The flex harrow is used for seed bed preparation and for dragging pastures where cattle graze. The spreader is used in the garden and on the hay fields. In my tracking of hours I have not noted the distinctions.

I have also been recording training and exercise times for the horses. I see this as part of my work with them. I am currently training two younger horses, and I also take my settled team out driving in the off-months to help keep them in shape and in the mental mode of the work horse.

We envision offering a dignified retirement to our horses as they age. I know that in harder times people have had to make harsh choices between feeding kids and keeping a worn-out workhorse companion on the farm. And even now, other folks might simply take a more pragmatic view.

I think the “why” of using work horses is a great springboard for discussion. From an economic and time standpoint (issues of environmental footprint set aside), my assumption has been that our market garden would be more efficiently managed with a 30hp tractor for primary tillage and spreading, and a lightweight cultivating tractor — but I’d be happy if real numbers proved me wrong. We make our entire living from our farm income. We have made working with horses work for us, we love being able to work with them to get real jobs done on the farm, and we believe it is better for the planet that we work in this way. From the holistic goal point-of-view, horses fit well into our larger vision of trying to farm sustainably and in a way that is humanly enjoyable. We are most certainly a hybrid horse and tractor powered farm. With every passing season we have taken new strides in replacing the tractor by integrating horse power deeper into our farming system.