We have a draft horse powered, 100% grass-fed sheep dairy in Central New York. We use draft horses and mules to do all of our farm work. Draft work is my passion and I try to do everything I can with our draft horses, mules and donkey. They mow hay, ted and rake, and bale hay. They plow, disc, harrow, and cultivate. They skid logs for firewood and ash logs that we mill for building projects.
A forecart is a simple two wheeled cart that allows the horses to pull lots of equipment that would have been hitched to the back of a tractor 30 or 50 years ago. A basic forecart will pull ground driven manure spreaders, hay rakes, and lots of other stuff. For a horse farmer that wants to pull a PTO driven piece of equipment there are two choices: a small motor (24 hp) on the forecart or a ground driven forecart. The ground driven carts are commercially available for $4000-5000. I think we can make one from the parts of an old tractor for a lot less. The tractor we have in mind is a Allis Chalmers WD 45. This tractor has about the right overall weight and a good set up between the transmission and the PTO. I hope to use the new ground driven PTO cart to run a modern hay tedder and rake. There are other possiblities -- a snow blower, a combine?
I think this will be a fun project to have a bunch of folks working on together on for a weekend. Let me know what you think. If you would like to see some pictures of our farm, check out my web album: picasaweb.google.com/mulemandonn
this sounds great! if my schedule allows i will most definitely be there.
Here are two drawings Donn did of two components of this tractor conversion. These are his preliminary ideas of how these two pieces might work.
We're gathering supplies as the event approaches. The tractor that we originally purchased, an Allis Chalmers WD-45, had more wheel and tire problems than we'd anticipated so it's probably headed for scrap.
We're looking at a Case VAC now. It's smaller and older than the WD45 and has a good easy shifter for putting the PTO in and out of gear. It has 32" tires. If anyone knows how this tractor is set up inside to power the PTO (from the transmission or directly off the rear axle), we'd love to know.