Teams of Clydesdales help harvest 1.2ha of oats

VIDEO: HERITAGE Draught Horse Club members from Woodfield, The Basin and Silvan, have just harvested 1.2ha of oats using teams of Clydesdales and an early 20th-century reaper-binder. WATCH NOW.

TWO teams. One mission.

This is harvest time, Woodfield-style.

Heritage Draught Horse Club members Bill and Vicki Higgins, from Woodfield, Ashley Swan, from The Basin, and Andrew Lennfer, from Silvan, have just harvested 1.2ha of oats using teams of Clydesdales and an early 20th-century reaper-binder.

Harvesting a crop this size would normally be quick work, but takes the better part of two days using this traditional method.

Three horsepower: Bill and Vicki Higgins, from Woodfield, pause as Clydesdales Sonny, Finn and Toby do the hard work with Ashley Swan’s early-1900s Sunshine reaper binder to harvest their 1.2ha oat crop. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin

“All the neighbours think we’re mad,” Mr Higgins said.

The oats were sown at the end of May, and Mr Higgins estimated “while that crop was in we probably got about half of our normal rainfall”.

“It was a light crop this year, although we still got over 2000 sheaves off it, which is still fairly good,” he said.

“We got a lot of frosts as well, which didn’t help things.

“It did knock the quality around a bit, but it still was fairly good.”

If there was a silver lining, the crop’s height was ideal for using the old Sunshine reaper-binder, which belongs to Mr Swan and is dated to the early 1900s.

“Usually the crop is so tall, we really struggle to get it through the machine,” Mr Higgins said.

“The ideal height is between 3-4 foot, but sometimes it goes to 5-6 foot and when it gets that big you can’t get it through the machine properly.”

The Higgins used eight Clydesdales, belonging to Mr Lennfer and Mr Swan, working in teams of three to strip the crop.

Mrs Higgins said their own horses were only part Clydesdale and were not big enough to pull the reaper binder.

“You really need great big, strong horses to pull the binder,” she said.

“It’s quite hard work for them.”