Ciss
Well-Known Member
Did any early bird hear the item on farm working horses in Poland and why they should be re-introduced here as a more eco-friendly and cheaper form of power on smaller agricultural units? The introductory speaker was Sir Julian Rose (who has organic farms in both South Oxfordshire (his family estate) and in Poland and the following feature included a couple who use horses in the UK to do logging in smaller woodlands.
Very interesting -- and the costs quoted weren't oo far off including shoeing (although I think having only flu vacs and wormers as the sole vet cost each year is a little optimistic) but I can see a bit of a problem. Not many people deliberately breed small X shire/carthorse crosses in the UK ATM and as no-one has really worked horses in the agricultural way since the mid-1950s there isn't much knowlegde left around about how to it :-(. OTOH, I have seen many horses of this type in Poland and they have never stopped working them, especially on 20 hectare units where tractors are a bit out of scale, but I suppose it could give a whole extra incentive and dimension to British breeding if it took off!
Very interesting -- and the costs quoted weren't oo far off including shoeing (although I think having only flu vacs and wormers as the sole vet cost each year is a little optimistic) but I can see a bit of a problem. Not many people deliberately breed small X shire/carthorse crosses in the UK ATM and as no-one has really worked horses in the agricultural way since the mid-1950s there isn't much knowlegde left around about how to it :-(. OTOH, I have seen many horses of this type in Poland and they have never stopped working them, especially on 20 hectare units where tractors are a bit out of scale, but I suppose it could give a whole extra incentive and dimension to British breeding if it took off!
