Push From Behind Draft Horse Snowplow

Push from behind draft horse snowplow MISCELLANEOUS EQUIPMENT Miscellaneous 13-1-11 "It works much better than I ever thought it would," says Joe Blake, Ottawa, Kan., pleased with the "push-from-behind" snowplow he designed and built for his draft horses. Blake built his first horse-drawn snow-plow several years ago. It had a V-shaped blade and trailed behind the horses. The problem was that it was only good for opening a trail the width of the blade and the horses had to be able to easily walk through the snow they were clearing. After watching his neighbors push snow with blades on the front of pickups and tractors, he wondered why horses couldn't do the same. To build a push blade, he first drew up plans on paper and then made a scale model. It looked like it would work so he constructed a working-size prototype out of plywood and 2 by 4's. He planned to make a final version out of metal but the prototype worked so well - on drifts up to 4 ft. high - he saw no reason to make it out of metal, which would add weight to the plow. The only metal component on the plow is a metal cutting edge to prevent splitting. The curved shape of the 80 by 34-in. blade was modeled after the shape of a pickup blade. Teams hitch to the blade like they would hitch to a wagon. Double trees fasten to the rear of the 12-ft. long tongue that runs backward from the blade. Chains go from the breast strap to the back of the blade and are used so the length can be changed for different size horses. There is a solid bar between the breast straps of the horses that lets both horses turn. The tongue is sloped from 36 in. off the ground at the rear to just 8 in. off the ground at the front, creating down pressure on the blade. The blade can be set in five positions, two angling each way and one straight ahead. The angle is changed by removing a single bolt. Blake says horses need no special training to pull the plow but they must be able to back well since they end up going backwards almost as much as forwards. "If you own draft horses, snowplowing is a good chore for them because it teaches them to work together and it gives them something to do in winter," says Blake, who is considering selling the plows for a price of about $250. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Joe Blake, Rt. 3, Box 221, Ottawa, Kan. 66067 (ph 913 242-5560).

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