For what you want, I would be shopping in the broke/trained horse dept. I would go with a bit of age, 8 or up, been used a bit. For working farm horses you need to talk to farmers, hitch horse people. Some places to check are other driving people, horse auctions for names, the local elevator sells him feed, finding the draft horse clubs. Here in the Midwest, there are extensive networks of “heavy horse people” who do Plow Days, Show, Pulling horse events, Fairs, Wagon Train things. You just have to find a starting place. They all know each other to refer you around. Sometimes the events will be listed in your area local horse newspaper of coming events. Our Equine Times covers ALL horse activities sent in on their calendar for 4 states around.
Horse type sounds like you need a solid, medium body, classic western chunk already suggested. My grandpa used to get his chunks from ‘Out of the West, by Rail’, down in the freight yard. Ha Ha, not many like them anymore.
There are more chunks available, but not real inexpensive. Being marketed as the “heavy Hunter, or any other english discipline, Wamblood”. I am speaking of the half-draft crosses being bred everywhere. There are a LOT in our area, not cute enough to sell for riding. Sometimes look like a committee built them. Small bodies, large feet, legs, drafty heads. Big bodies, small feet, not great movement, rough gaited.
I suggest you buy such a horse broke, because the things you want to do, require a steady horse, practiced in working with equipment. You can easily get hurt with training drafts and machinery. They train in Pairs so solid horse holds down the scared one until it learns!! When the seller brags about horse being spreader broke, that means he should be able to do almost everything. Pulling and unloading with spreader is hard work, noisy, uncomfortable because they jerk around so with ground drive chain. Hitch and drive the horse attached to different equipment before taking him home.
I would want something around 15-16h, 1300-1600 pounds, big feet, big boned. My grandfather farmed with that size all his life, they were good workers, economical to feed, handled a good load, all the machinery. Tall horse is harder to harness, lifting that heavy leather. His smaller horses could always outpull much larger horses at the Fairs, until they would start to slip in the grass. He didn’t ask them for anymore try then. He never shod them except in winter, put a lot of miles on them.
Our local plow days have a real variety of breeds show up, often pictured in the newspaper. Usually all pairs though. Ponies, mixed breeds, to regular draft breeds. I would start asking with those kind of horse users, doing what you want to horse to do.
John Hammond in New Hampshire breeds both Cleveland Bays and Suffolks, does crosses also. Very nice looking young horses, quiet, kindly, solid bodied. He might be a good connection to start with for heavy horses. I am not sure where you are located or who could help you.
There are good and poor Amish, just like anyone else, but easy targets. I know a number of very good Amish people, do great jobs with horses, sell and train quality animals. Kind of like picking on black haired people, they are not all the same, just all black haired.
<BLOCKQUOTE class=“ip-ubbcode-quote”><div class=“ip-ubbcode-quote-title”>quote:</div><div class=“ip-ubbcode-quote-content”>Originally posted by slc:
we’d like to get a farm horse that can pull a cart on the road, manure spreader, mower and possibly some other implements on the farm. does anyone have some suggestions about breed, age, sources to find farm horses, etc. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
