Time to Reconsider the Horse?
 

I was reading Gary North's column at LewRockwell.com, and he concluded with this:

You should look at your employment possibilities, your retirement portfolio, and the solvency of your employer. How well would your company do in an economy in which gasoline is at least $10 a gallon? What about $20? How would you do personally under these circumstances?

I suggest that you sit down with a pencil and a piece of paper and write down the changes in your life that would be imposed by gasoline at $10 a gallon.

I live in rural Georgia, and as neat as the fossil-fuel-free solutions on here are, I'm wondering if a horse-drawn buggy might not be an economical solution, either now or in the near future.

Lane

there slow... but usable.. I know a guy who cant drive due to a medical problem, so he has a horse and chariot style buggy that has room for him and passengers.. he goes all over in this arrangement.. even in the winter he uses it he uses a propane heater inside and encloses it in plexiglas. pretty cool actually... probably good miles per pound of feed for the horse too..

top speed is about 20mph but usually now more than a slow trot is all he goes.. say 10 mph. works well for him.

But what about the maintenance costs and needs for a horse? I won't pretend I know anything about one but my grandpa raised pigs/hogs and well.... they were quite the headache in both upkeep and routine.

*pig-powered transport? ...NAH!*

I think I saw someone on the news last week using a cow-drawn wagon to cross the country or to reach the capitol (WDC). I don't think it was fuel related but more of the "we can do it" sort of thing.

But if you've already got the means for animal support, I don't see why not unless there is some silly law that says you can't (wouldn't surprise me if there was one somewhere in the codes).

I remember seeing an old advertisement for one of those "newfangled automobiles". The ad compared the cost of fuel against the cost of keeping a horse, and figured the car was cheaper.

I wonder at what point it flips back...

On the plus side, the horse's "exhaust" is good organic fertilizer for your garden.

PS: Quite by coincidence, I was driving back from the Bay Area yesterday (via Calif 88), and passing through Lockeford (IIRC) what should I see by the roadside but a sign "Horses and Yoke for Sale". (For those who don't know the area, it's farming country with lots of orchards & vineyards.)

My wife has a 6 mile commute and is considering taking her horse to work. Luckily, the place she works also has horses. At 8 mph (trot speed) it would take her 45-50 minutes to get to work.

How do the horses fare in -40?

The Amish are doing fine with horse drawn buggies around here and have been for hundreds of years.

Do the Amish commute?

No, most of them work from home via high technologies. Surfing the internet to find ways to streamline their horse and buggy to increase fuel efficiency.

You see you have to feed the horse whether you are using him or not. Huge waste of time and money. Also a huge problem with methane gases and the greenhouse effect. This is why you don't see the Amish commuting long distances.

My grandfather once told me "if it weren't for the automobile we would be up to our ears in horse $h!t".

Internal combustion engines are much cleaner. You don't have to worry so much about stepping into the exhuast.

I was going to say, "But you can't eat your car when it's too old to use." but I stopped myself.

DoH!

The Amish also tried downsizing to mules but were offended by passing drivers yelling "get your a$$ of the road!".

On the other hand, horse exhaust tends to stay where it is put, and makes good organic fertilizer. IC engine exhaust goes into the air, and you get to breathe it whether you want to or not.

snort

How do you get the grille block on the horse, though???

Horse Canvas Feed Bag/Morral | NRS - National Roper Supply - Western Wear, tack, team ropes, horse tack, team roping ropes, bits...

Strap it on!

I wouldn't be surprised to see a huge return to human-powered vehicles.

Really, what is a bicycle, but a horse which you don't have to feed or stable?

Ben: that's already happening. I've read a couple of stories recently about bike shops swamped with business. New sales, plus people bringing in their 30 year old beaters for tune-ups.

I found a rickshaw for my wife to pull me around in, but she decided we would just stay home more. Not a bad idea I guess.

The other day, after we had been working in the yard all day, my wife wanted to go somewhere expensive. So we got all cleaned and dressed up and went to the gas station. The service sucked, the food wasn't that great but it sure was expensive!

I have a retired neighbor with 3 working horses, he has a couple different wagons for different uses and goes into town and back on errands everyday or just out for a ride.
He also did a month long trip with them across Ontario recently, he stayed for free with other horse people and probably got free feed at most of them too! Free gas and lodging... When does that happen on a car trip?

The economics of horse transport aren't all that bad, your feed costs are fixed for the year, about $1200/horse plus shoeing is maybe $200/horse, and maybe an average of one vet visit per year for $150. You need a shelter at about $200/year/horse and some land, so maybe $300 extra in property tax.

That totals $2050 per horse for a year. Anyone figure that car ownership is cheaper than that? Plus they can reproduce themselves.

There are also horse loggers that can stay in business, with a skidder tire costing more than a horse team, never mind fuel costs or the payments on a $100-200,000 machine, there are some situations where horses come out ahead.

I know horses seem ridiculous from an urban point of view, but to some, a modern urban city seems ridiculous...
Ian

I like the human powered vehicles, and horses for heavier loads. Most of us can ride a bike to work faster than a horse could get us there (assuming paved streets) and hardly anyone packs very heavily for one day at work. Leave the briefcase there and just bring the essentials home and back...
I wish I lived a bit closer to where I work. When I lived in a college town, everything was within 5 miles. I didn't have a working car for over 6 months, but it didn't matter except when I wanted to visit my family at home.
Half the time, the bike was faster anyway - no parking garages, meters, plus I could ride right up to the door of where I was headed.

Horses produce a lot of Carbon Dioxide though. :P Prices are already more than the equivelent of $10usd per gallon here.

No, they don't, unless you're feeding them on oil or coal :-)

And before you come back with "but they exhale CO2", they're just recycling existing CO2 - remember the carbon cycle that you should have learned about in high school biology class? The problem with fossil fuels is that they dig up long-buried carbon and add that to the atmosphere...