Blue Mountain Farm Blog

Axel chain draft on an easy entry cart. This allows an appropriate draft for the neck collar for maximum pulling efficiency. Purple lines show the line of draft, from collar to cart.

Putting it all together – finally.   The picture is poor in it’s angle, the shafts are actually quite level despite the apparent pictured slant.  The purple lines indicate the collar and trace; illustrating the line of draft.     The mini donkey was able to move out and pull adults quite easily.

The harness and neck collar was purchased through Chimacum Tack ( http://chimacumtack.com/ ).  It’s of excellent quality and workmanship made of synthetic material, that is soft and easy care.  I customized the mini donkey harness package with adjustable hip drops, short tugs off of the hames, brown rein lines and nose band loops on the bridle.   I highly recommend Chimacum Tack in their outstanding customer service (thanks Janie!).  I was really pleased how cart and harness came together and now work easily for an appropriate line of draft.

Comments/questions appreciated.

Axle chain draft on an easy entry type cart.

Work in progress:  I’m setting up an easy entry cart for a miniature donkey.  I prefer neck collars on my animals for better pulling efficiency and comfort.  To get the line of draft correct on an easy entry cart for neck collar use, I needed to drop the single tree down to the level of the axle.    This change over took all of 20 minutes and cost about $20.    I’m still looking for some sleeves I can put over the chain so it doesn’t make noise on the bottom of the basket. (update:  I found some pipe insulation and trimmed it to length and wrapped with gorilla tape.  Sweet!)    When I get the rest of the harness back from the harness maker after some customizing changes, everything should go together smoothly; cart, neck collar harness and donkey.  That’s the plan anyway and when that happens,  I’ll post some more pictures of the turnout.