 Donkeys are an endangered breed of donkey, very large donkey, as you can see. Part of my job is to work with and train these animals, so this team is Mary, who's a very new male of donkey, and then Katie, who's an old mule who we use to train all of our newest recruits. And maybe with fossil fuels making problems these days, we may end up using a lot more mules in the future. I would hope so. So here we are at the Hunger Mountain co-op where Kale Hamel is delivering eggs this morning with her friend Karen. Kale, tell us a little bit about how you weekly come here and deliver eggs. So this little outfit is from Vermont compost, which is a compost company. Our program today, the fifth in a series on exploring climate change in Vermont, demonstrates a real and practical solution to the bad effects of fossil fuels, showing how we can train draft animals for logging, for plowing, and for pulling carts. The Amish provide a good example today in the use of draft animals. Cuba, short on fossil fuel, has allotted hundreds of thousands of acres for organic farm co-ops where the soil is tilled with animals, not tractors. Could this be Vermont's not-so-distant future? Using draft animals, like we used to 100 years ago, the training of draft animals can play a big role in the solutions to climate change, particularly in an agricultural state. Alright, so as Steve said, my name is Kale Hamel. I'm from right here in Montpelier, Vermont. Currently where I work, my business is really all over. What I do for a living is training large animals, equines and bovines, which includes horses, donkeys, mules, and cattle. And so I will train animals for other people, and I also offer sleigh rides, weddings, wagon rides, a variety of different services with my own animals. And so part of what I was showing Steve is what goes into training all the animals I work with and really what goes into running my business. Training climate change in Vermont, our program demonstrates a real and practical solution to the bad effects of fossil fuel, showing how we can train draft animals for logging, plowing, pulling carts, and much more. Could this be Vermont's not so distant future? Using draft animals like we used to a hundred years ago, think about it. This is a climate change solution. I definitely think so. I think it's plausible, especially considering the fact that people have been using animals to work the land and for transportation for thousands of years. We've only recently transitioned away from that, say, a hundred years ago. Yeah, we tend to be short-sighted, don't we? Now we'll go to the Kaylee's Braveheart Farm, home of her business called Braveheart Beasts. But before we go there, I want to make an observation that I ask you to follow carefully. My father, a Nebraska rancher, taught me to break my wild pacifino stallion and my quarterhorse stallion. Their training was long and laborious and sometimes a dangerous experience during which they more or less broke me as well. My methods were forceful and unpleasant for the horse. I want you to take close notice of the stark difference between my traditional methods and Kaylee's. See how patient, gentle, kind, affectionate, and focused she is as she trains a variety of horses, mammoth donkeys, oxen, and her eighteen-hands stall, perchuron draft horses which are many times her weight. Our not-so-large animals, the two spotted ones here are each boys. This is Julius and this is his teammate, Roman, and they're a team I matched and drove a little while ago, two summers ago, and my mom ended up falling in love with them and buying them from me. So currently they're her pets, the little pasture ornaments, just looking handsome. All right, so this is Lady. She is a four-year-old miniature horse. I consider her to be a dwarf horse just because of her size and proportions. It kind of leans her into a genetic rarity of dwarfism. You can see she has a little bold forehead. Her legs are very short. Her belly is very wide. She's just a little out of proportion. And only 29 inches tall, she's completely full-grown. And so I got Lady, I think I mentioned before, to be a therapy horse because she is a perfect size for it, but very quickly I figured out she's not a perfect disposition. She's what we call a one-person horse, so she's very oriented to working and connecting with one person rather than being friendly toward everybody. And so I quickly became that one person as I started to embark on trick training with her. And so she's been learning tricks with me for about six months, and we have learned quite a bit. We have a couple of tricks we'll do here in the barn, and I also am training her to do what's called liberty work, which is where she moves just based on my body language. And we can probably demonstrate a couple of turns and some backing up with that in here. You just usually need a lot more space. So we have a routine, if I can get her attention. There we go. We are at attention. I have a little grain in my pocket. You can see she knows that. Are you ready? Can you say hello? Look at that. Good girl. Hello. Good. Now, Lady, you want to do some tricks? Yes, we want to do some tricks. You're not going to forget. Are you? I didn't think so. All right. Now, looking at you, you're pretty small, and you're pretty cute. Can you be a little cuter? A little smile? That's a little smile. You can see her. Hey. Okay. Nope. There's that. Now, can I have a kiss? She's getting a little carried away. Uh-oh. She's not performing by any means, and Lady is a mare, and for those who aren't experienced with horses, mayors tend to be a little bit, they have a little bit of an attitude. She's demonstrating a little bit of an attitude right now. She, right now, is just throwing every trick in the book at me because all she wants is food. And this really is just part of what comes with working with these animals. They have good days and bad days. So when this happens, all we do is pick up where we left off, which is a kiss. So she's waving right now. I'm not going to acknowledge her waving. We ask for a kiss. Uh-huh. Aren't you good? Give me a kiss. No, it's a kiss. So then we're going to say, good job. Can I have a high five? High five. There it is. Good job. A little bit of a high five. Wait. Have a shake. Can we shake it this one? We got reach and shake it. There you go. Good. All right. Now, we'll see how much focus we have. Can you spin? Good girl. Have it the other way. Look at that. Good girl. Good girl. Have it the other way. The other way. Good job, lady. Good girl. All right. Now we're going to do a couple more things. High. I'm going to ask her. Nope. Nope. Come here. So ground zero for her is her shoulder against my hip or leg. Okay. Uh-huh. By using my body language, I can ask her to do different things with her body and position herself just with me without halter. So I'm going to try and do this so that you can see it. Oh, Lord. We're still distracted. Still distracted. Ready? Ready? Ready? Ready? Ready? Ready? Ready? Ready? Ready? Ready? Ready? Oh. Wait. Okay. That was good. Doesn't she, out? That was good. I thought she walked pretty. Yeah, we're about to do that. So that is all of the tricks right now. We're working on a Spanish walk. Which we'll see. I don't want to go too far out of the light. We'll try this, right? We do it. Take a look at that. Next one. Good. She has to come forward. Wait, wait one second all this is gonna do is I will touch come here Which like I want And then the next one and the next one look at that and the next one. There we go We have to get grain that was a little rough we made it through We made it through And here is our farm hand That was a good demonstration Here's Kaylee with two Perturans that we have rounded up in the forest and now Kayla Kaylee will tell us about these horses All right, so a primary part of my business is doing what they call agritourism Which is offering things like sleigh rides wagon rides even weddings to the public as a service And so this team here is as you said a team of Perturand draft horses They're a type of French draft horse very common in the US And I use them as my primary team to do all of those things with so on the weekends We do farmers markets. We do fall wagon rides sleigh rides in the winter. We've done weddings funerals all of that with a vast array of equipment and So these horses this is Twinkle. She is a mare She is four years old right now. I've had her since she was a yearling and I have trained her myself She was actually the first horse I ever personally trained I had worked with quite a few prior She is very big and actually as I said, she's only four and so she is still growing She weighs about 1,700 pounds right now is what they call 18 hands at her shoulder Every hand is four inches. So 18 hands is six feet at her withers here And she'll gain probably probably 500 more pounds before she's finished at seven years old She's very young and new to the whole working scheme Whereas this very gentle kind boy. This is King. He's a 14 year old gelting that I Brought home last fall to work With as a teammate for Twinkle and so King is much more experienced at working than Twinkle is So what we do is by harnessing them up together King helps Twinkle learn about the working world So about working in traffic standing still being a decent civilized member of society and so far. She's catching on very quickly To smile She's actually losing teeth right now. Yeah, they're called caps baby teeth And so she's lost a couple caps. If you look in there, she has buck teeth. You see her buck teeth Now Twinkle is always very good about halter. So is King But what can be particularly tricky with draft horses because of their size they can learn to put their heads way up in the air So that you can't actually slip it over there But these guys we keep work very fun and engaging so they Look forward to halter because they know it means time to come out and do some some fun activities Today it will most likely just be interacting and grooming and loving which is very important All right King is a little bit in my way They're very spatially aware of where their feet are horses because their eyes are positioned on the sides of their heads As opposed to humans where we're front-facing and see 360 degrees around them and can very easily see all four of their feet and so Because of that, they should be aware of you enough to not step on on your toes For being a horse, I've trained myself and also since I've had her Since she was a baby. We have a very close relationship as you can see Hello And so right now I'm just I'm gonna jump on her back and we're just gonna ride around fair back a little bit Just have some fun Every animal I work with it is really important to keep things fun and engaging and Part of how we keep things engaging is every specific animal whether it's a horse an ox cow donkey They all have a specific way of thinking So as a trainer It's up to me to learn and use their ways of thinking to help communicate what I'd like them to do And I The world is like a dream Here I want you to see the contrast in size between twinkle at 18 hands high and Lady at 29 inches high. All right. So each of these guys is part of a team of oxen So this is Indy and Boone a team visiting from New York For three months just so I can train them to their basic commands and then these two little red ones It's our justice and legend a team that I bought personally to train and then sell to somebody looking to either get into working Oxen or who have been working oxen for a little while and so When I when I say oxen common misconception is that oxen is a specific breed But really any breed can be trained to be an ox Since ox is actually more of a title So when we start training a team of oxen we start with animals about this size they're known as bull calves because they're still intact and As you work with them after they've been castrated if they're being trained to work They're known as working steers if they're not being trained to work They're just known as a steer and so the working steers as they learn to work on a cart and pull logs and Really kind of get adjusted to a working lifestyle They'll be known as working steers until they're four years old Which is when they're considered fully mature and then they'll be known as oxen So it is really quite the process which all of these boys have started on And they're all doing very well with their training. So there are teams out there that pull Competitively there are teams that are work primarily on farms and there are also teams that are primarily shown at county fairs right now, it's mostly popular to show a team just because People most people anyway, aren't really set up to have applicable work say in in a field or in the woods But I have known plenty of teams that actually help their teams to make a living and earn their wages by by working They're four months going on five months old. This is Boone and Indy. They're a team visiting For how New York they're gonna be with me for three months to learn their basic commands and how to work in a full cart And the little log and then they'll go back home to the farmer They came from to continue their work with their teams teamster and owner and grow up to be a working farm team So so far what I've been covering with them in the oh, like I said, is their basic man I haven't hooked up to anything as of yet today. Hopefully we're going to hook them to the cart for the first time And introduce them to some terms with a poll in between them, which is a very important skill for a team to have Right now though. I'm gonna go over some of our preliminary work Exercises for their activities and then I'll go through how to yoke up a team So with these boys, they were started really into training at about three months old Which is a little bit older than when we like to start them and it's very It's pretty amazing actually how fast these young animals will become set in their ways and Attune to their own agenda as opposed to the agenda of their teamster And so when you start older animals say three months old like these guys were they were a little bit hesitant to go along with What I was asking them to do how I was asking them to behave And so what we do to kind of reverse that is to build a really trusting relationship So the first problem I ran into is that they were a little bit Spooky meaning that they didn't like to have hands on them. They didn't really like to be approached That could be because of one of two things it could be just because they didn't have a lot of handling as young calves Or that they're still being activated to a new space a new person and they still need a little bit more So in order to overcome that we always start our work or our play As I like to call it with young animals These animals are young to the point where they shouldn't really be working all the activities They're doing should be enjoyable and should be establishing really enthusiastic attitudes so that by the time they're older They'll be happy to see the you'll come out and go and be productive and get a lot done with their teamster So back to what I was saying we start our exercises with a body rub down And so this does two things you can see boon here It's already starting to pull back on his halter and that's because I just entered what's called his flight zone Which is the area around his body or how close I can get to his body without him becoming uncomfortable So while I do this, I don't want him pulling on his halter. I want him relaxed. So I'm gonna ask him for I'm gonna go again And so I'm gonna start at his head And I am really just going to rub down and if he steps back I'm gonna ask him to step forward And so this gets him used to me being close to his body and also helps him associate my touch with positive things Because all this feels really good to him. This is when we can itch all those places that he can't itch himself I'm gonna go on to his other side. It's important to do this on both sides Because these animals horses too won't Transfer what happens on one side of their body to the to the other So whatever exercise you do on one side you have to do on the other So he moved there because I touched the ticklish spot under his belly right here So I am just gonna keep my hand here till he relaxes like that and I'll take it away And so that release is his reward. So this to him Was uncomfortable the first time I touched it and I just held it there until he relaxed And then I released when he did relax. Well, I know that's what I wanted him to do So you can see he's much more calm when I touch down touches like Good so he picked up his foot and that's because he's he's a smart boy, and that's also what we do I handle their feet before we yoke up This is so that when they're big if they're working in the field They get a stone caught in their hopes they won't kick or fight for you to pick up their foot and take it out And so he's allowed to take a little bit it's a very odd feeling to stand on three lights And so I'll hold it until he's relaxed like this and then once again that release is to put it down to reward it Like I said have to do it on both sides Very good. All right, so that's Boone. I'm gonna go and do Indy Very quickly, you probably won't be able to see much because Boone will be blocking the view. He steps back and he's gonna ask him to step forward Too as I do this Boone's demeanor has already changed. Indy's will change as I do this. This helps them relax Which is very important Before I start to work with him. I always like to start with an exercise like this and even just brushing him down To help them once again enjoy coming out and being with me and getting some work done Good You can see how relaxed he is about this. This is what you're going for When I do this, I don't want all their weight on me either. So if he was to put his weight on me I'd gently let his foot to the ground down to the ground so that He had to hold it off because he was gonna stay up in the air because these guys are each Probably 300 and 50 pounds right now when they're full-grown Average size for a whole steam steer is about 2,500 pounds So you don't want a 2,500 pound animal leaning all their weight into your hand If you're trying to lift his foot So, are you gonna pick this up? Very good There we go One black one Very nice Do some rubbing You can see he's already substantially Four laps and then when we started This is a pretty unique exercise. I for one have it come across anybody else that does this with calves But in the long run it really it does help It really helps to develop a good relationship a lot of trust which is important from an early stage That's that you have a nice relax. So the first step to yoking up. I'm gonna remove their collars These cabs were collars because at night they each have their own little stall where they go We like to tie these guys up at night because it helps them Establish patience Kind of get an idea of what what boundaries are and they give them their own Room first day. They don't have to share with anybody else collars are off So this here is the yoke I use to train all sorts of cabs This yoke has been around the block a time or two and So I make these from small sizes like this all the way up to the big sizes you need with a full-grown team And so this yoke in particular is made out of birch Typically, they're made out of hardwood birch cherry elm ash Even maple anything that can withstand withstand stress from pulling and so when I say yoke I'm referring to this body here in my arms and then these two U shaped pieces of wood are called bows they're completely separate and Run through four holes in the top of the yoke And so on the oak we have our neck seats which sit as the name implies on top of the neck The belly of the oak is in the very middle This ring here is referred to as a staple and then as I said we have our bows our bow pins and our spacers And so these spacers you can use anything block of wood plastic leather And that helps to fit the bow specifically to the animals neck to make sure they don't soar up during work So these guys the bows aren't fitted Very specifically because they're not pulling anything heavy as of yet, but with a larger team you want it to fit Just right so that once again they didn't soar and they didn't have anything To fear not look forward to while they're working with you so right now. I'm gonna disassemble this So my pins come out so do my spacers and I I'm going to take these I'm gonna set them in front of the cap so that I very easy access to them and Also even doing things like this Making noise This is called desensitizing. So these guys aren't naturally around loud noises or banging or anything scary So by doing that you can see they're not fazed by it because we've been practicing When you take them out if you're gonna take them into a public setting or Pull around a noisy piece of machinery or equipment. They wouldn't be scared So by doing that from the time they're young they grow up with it And it doesn't make them nervous early on so boom Just took a step back because I put the bow over his neck And so we don't want him to be nervous about yelping so That's just because he's still a little antsy little little nervous around me So I don't want him to pull back on the halter There so we just do that until he's relaxed as you can see and he didn't really mind that at all And I'm gonna take my yoke I'm gonna set it over their next like that. And so they're both pulling back a little bit And so right now this yoke is is free-sitting if one of them was to move too much It would fall to the ground so you want to be kind of focused and getting the bow secured under their neck and securing the yoke to the feet Like so And so now we're going to secure the bows in place with our spacers And so your bow pins this is a little bit of a controversial topic But you can see this right here is it's a hitch pin It's like a cotter pin and this round part I always like to put facing backwards Because if I was to have a team say in the woods and they went forward facing into a brush pile or a Clump of trees and got stuck the only way I'm ever gonna be able to get in there and pull the pins out so I can Unyoke them and get them out of trouble is if they're back and facing like that because if they're forward facing I might not be able to access or have access around their heads or horns So that is a really simple detail, but also a safety measure So that back like that. So this yoke is on these calves right now You can see these boys are wearing rope halters This is another training tool training starts by teaching them to lead or stay with you and so Eventually they'll graduate from wearing these halters to just listening to use I offer with my voice my body and my driving tool We call this a whip not because we hit our animals This is what we used to give them physical cues So I'll touch specific parts of their body to tell them what I want them to do and with practice Those will turn into visual cues. So say if I cut touch their butts to tell them to go Eventually they learn to just watch this whip come up behind them and they'll learn that that means to move forward For right now, they're pretty new to the yoke. So I like to keep the halters on them with Indy We refer to as our off-steer or the steer on the right right of the way for me I'm gonna make a loop in his lead like this Run it through the staple or the ring and hook it to this bow So I don't have him in my hand, but if I need to encourage him or correct him in any way pretty easy to grab hold of So you can see these boys are already moving. That's really good sign the biggest part of training is teaching these calves how to move off of your body language whoa and You can see there is no tension on this. They're just very in tune to where I am and what we're about to do Excuse me So before we start to move I'm gonna review our five basic commands So the first two commands we always teach our commands and pairs is get up or step up Which is go forward and whoa, which is stop. What was your most important command is like driving a car You wouldn't want to drive a car without brakes So we teach those on the halter and then once we introduce the oak we start to teach our turning commands Which is ha for left and G for right and then our fifth and most advanced basic command is backing up And that's I consider that to be more advanced because they can't see directly behind them So once again going back to trust takes a lot of trust between the team and the teamster for the team to back straight and willingly Into an area that they potentially can't see so I'm gonna raise my left so you get up And so that was a visual command there very good And praise is also important with these boys. So when they do a good job, you'll hear me say good boys Yeah, yeah And I'll refer to them specifically by name too. They do learn their name Through these cones off to my right and And what you're gonna see I'm gonna be touching them on their legs and shoulders and also moving my body in front or to the side To signal them where I want them to go and I'll also be using my verbal command I'm gonna tell them get up which is forward And if you see me put this whip in front of them and tap their knees that just tells them to slow down You'll hear me say easy So Boon should slow down a little bit just like that and Indy will speed up Good And then just the opposite with the G turn Indy off to the right here is gonna slow down and Boone should speed up Easy Indy Good So I'm gonna position them now. I'll eventually learn to watch My body go toward his hip To signal a hot turn and I go toward his hip just to give him room to turn towards me So I'm gonna try and straighten them out. Whoa And so they're easy There's specific commands to teach them how to move just their back ends or just their front ends These calves don't know that yet. So I just move his rear end to the left The command for that for him would be put in Um, but as I said, I haven't taught that to them yet. So I just used my hand Instead to keep from getting them confused. So right now I'm gonna ask them to back up and um There are two approaches to this the traditional approach is tasked with a light amount of pressure And very steadily increased pressure until they um react I personally just like to ask with a light amount of pressure specifically when they're young like this Until they either pick up their foot or move it backwards And that will keep them From tossing their heads or putting their heads down in refusal to actually move Which is a common problem. You'll see what this just because this is a really unnatural movement. So back voice And we've practiced this a little bit Back room And what I want to see is a straight line backwards. Whoa So indy's getting a little carried away. There's a good problem to have Whoa and so Gonna step them up. Whoa And you can see indy That's faking them out a little bit. Whoa indy Indy put his butt out to the side again. So I'm gonna move them in just like that And so I don't want them to take more steps backwards than I'm asking for So they're anticipating what I want, but I want them to wait until I touch them There we go. Back. Good boy Back. Good boy Back. Indy Good And you can see how light this pressure is on their leg Back Good And as soon as they take a step back, I take that pressure away. Once again, that's a relief. That's their reward Good Back So that was really good. That was slow and straight and they did exactly what I asked of them So they do something really good like that Getting into a little flight zone trouble here, but I like to get down on their level and fair a little bit of love with them Tell them they did a good job Said before they haven't been hooked up to anything Equipment-wise yet. They've just been ground driving like this in the old So we have our little training cart over here So I'm going to introduce it to them today whether or not we actually hook on will be up to them Um, but they haven't seen this haven't smelled it. So what we're going to do Is in order for them to be hooked up onto this one of them needs to step over the pole In order to line up So I want them each to step over the pole Then we're going to do your round Do it again Of course them. I'll let them figure this out in their own time. Good boy I'm going to ask for a hot I'm going to let them look at this part The actual cart because this is us going to be following them I need them to understand that it's going to move and so Personality-wise these boys are are very different Boone is a little timid And indy is pretty curious So you can see boone took is taking right now a step back while indy Is saying put which is nice, but I just wanted them to see that that was actually going to move because to them any moving object Could be living could be dangerous But they stayed relatively calm So I'm going to see right now If they'll hook up for me So I want indy to step over the pole In turn, huh? Now, this is a manure that takes practice, but he's doing a very good job So he needs to move off or feet over the pole Whoa right there good boy And then We need right now so back up This is where that chest comes in I need to have some to back up a step toward an object that they have no idea about good Oh So so typically when you're hooking up a cart you'll have what they call a t-pin Which is a t-shaped pin that goes through a hole We right now just have bailing twine Little farmers fix here high And so this Goes through I'm going to go nice and slow. There's going to be some noises there unsure about And some motions and so I want to be completely sure That they're going to be okay with this and this is actually hooked on to them So I also want to make sure that their focus is on me So you never want to rush this Especially the first time you ever do something you always want to make sure it's positive because this is going to be the beginning of their foundation for pulling apart in the future So if anything about this is scary All I'm doing is making training more difficult the next time we go to hook on So we're just going to take this at their pace I'm paying attention to them and listening to them So now when and if they're a little uncomfortable So that is securely on the oak And before they move I previously put indy's rope halter Over balloons bow so that he was more independent and free moving Because they've never pulled this before I want to be holding on to both of them In case he gets scared So I have both leads And we're going to keep this short and sweet All I'm going to do is ask them to do a G and a ha turn around those cones And then we're going to be done And so what you're going to see is when they turn one is going to have his butt out way out to the side And the other one is going to be getting pushed by the pole and that's because they don't know how to side stuff yet That's a much more advanced command and comes with time Practicing on a piece of equipment like this So right now we're just going to come up and they might jump a little bit. They might go a little faster Put something behind them. Whoa So what we do is we go forward and we stop and go forward and stop and that's to remind them they have brakes There's a little jump Okay, reassure it Okay, I'm not getting louder excited. Whoa They're scolding them for jumping. They're allowed to react how they're going to So I'm just staying completely calm Because even though they're focused on what's behind them, they're still in tune to me and my energy and emotion So if I stay calm and act like it's no big deal, they're much more apt to be relaxed by the end of our session So what we don't want is him to try and turn and look at that I'm gonna stuff it in. There we go So I won't unhook these guys until boon calms down a little bit to indy. This is nice because it's not really that big of a deal Once again personality wise. He's not as spooky as boon is That's one of the reasons why I have them yos like they are so that boon is next to me And I can reassure him much more easily What's up? He's a little hesitant to move and that's okay And they encourage them. There we go. Get up Go ahead. I'm gonna try and keep him moving now Get up. Better. He didn't really jump that time, which is good Now we're gonna try easy A g-turn And so boon is gonna stick his butt out And indy It's his turn to get pushed over by the pole It's gonna look a little awkward and it is a little awkward But as I said, it will get better with practice Step up But there we go. It's good when boon takes a step out in front of indy because he's pushing that turn around. Yeah And I'm just gonna ask him to go straight there Now we'll turn. Good boy So you can see they're both relaxed now. That was really a low key introduction. Nobody got too excited whoa Now boon might start to jump again because it's his turn to have the pole touch his legs Which is really kind of a foreign feeling pretty unnatural Once again as a teamster It's my job to show him that that's okay And to get him comfortable and accolated to it so that he's successful working in the future They're gonna haul I'm gonna slow boon down easy boon touching his legs Ask indy to cup haul So I'm using both the halters my voice my body and my whip right now to tell them where I want them to go Not an excessive amount of anything But there's enough to communicate very clearly So this right here Is the working dynamic you want. Ah indy when they're hooked up. This is really good Like I said, we're gonna keep it short and sweet So we're gonna walk back over to where we hooked on And then I will unhook them and unyoke them for the day and tell them what good boys they are Yeah, so this is my most recent investment into my business. This is a 32 foot Custom-made horse trailer wasn't custom-made for me. I bought it as it is And so this is what we use for events like weddings and wagon rides that would happen a distance away from our farm And this trailer in particular it's split into two different sections the front section here You can see where this ramp opens is where the animals go for transportation and then the very back portion is Completely closed off from the front and it's equipped with an electric winch And that is where all of our carriages and wagons are pulled into As we move from place to place So our most recent event was a wedding and actually our wedding carriage called a vis-a-vis is still in the back here And if you give me a moment You can watch As we open this up a little bit of a process Here's that Yes, and so you see this ramp folds down and if you were to look into the very front There's a winch and a cable that hooks to the front of the waggon or carriage and it pulls it in or lets it out So it actually allows one person to load or unload with the team And and which animals do you use with this? This is for my perturon draft horses Typically we would not hook cattle to this only because horses tend to be a lot cleaner to pick up after than cattle do And also quite a bit fancier just aesthetically. So So this is where people get married. Yes good one This story has been a learning experience to follow a day in the life of a large animal trainer The purpose of this story is to demonstrate how draft animals Can be part of the solution to fossil fuel emissions plus Be enjoyable to train It has been great to work with kele Especially as she was just as patient with me the cameraman As she is with her animals That's it for now. Thanks for watching