draft horses getting notice!

September 14, 2009 in Essays & Articles

lots of greenhorns we know work with draft horses, and our friends at Sterling College are busy teaching the next generation.  Yes! Magazine takes note:

Sterling’s Draft Horse Program Receives Accolades from Yes! Magazine
Craftsbury Common, VT—Having a 2000-pound draft horse as a teacher is something a Sterling College student takes for granted. So it took us by pleasant surprise to have our Drafts Horse Program listed as one of Yes! Magazine’s “Radical Acts of Education,” in their fall 2009 Learn as You Go issue.

The editors of Yes! highlighted 13 Radical Acts of Education from across the nation—their pick of the top, “organizations and strategies that foster life-long learning and personal growth while teaching age-old and brand-new skills.”

Check out the Yes! list and the Sterling write up at: http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/learn-as-you-go/what-draft-horses-teach-college-students

The Sterling Draft Horse program is taught by Draft Horse Manager Rick Thomas and divided into two classes. This first course introduces students to the systems required to safely manage and work a team of draft horses. Topics include the natural history of Equus caballes, functional anatomy, physiology, and draft horse care methods including both conventional and alternative medical approaches. Following extensive practice with ground driving maneuvers, horses are hitched to a variety of carts and implements to learn safe hitching and operational procedurals to do farm and forest work.

In the second class, students use horsepower to actively manage the College’s farm and forest. Typical work applications include equipment maintenance, logging, sugaring, soil fertility management, tillage, planting and cultivation. Economic consideration of using horses on the farm is considered as the class compares and contrasts Amish and English farm systems.

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