OUR SHARED PURPOSE

Sharing knowledge and support so future generations can choose to work with draft animals in order to fuel livelihoods, promote land stewardship, and grow community.

A working community of  people and animals.

OUR STORY

We are draft animal practitioners of all ages, teaming up to share support, resources, and learning opportunities for everyone interested in the timeless traditions of training and working with draft animals. Founded in 2011, we are preserving wisdom and advancing new solutions to caring for the land, producing food, enlivening communities, and earning a living. 

Together, we can create the gentle path to a more human, natural, animal-powered world.

Timeless ways still work

WHY DRAFT POWER?

APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY

Live power is both applicable and viable  today.  Be it through draft horses delivering broadband infrastructure to rural areas, agritourism keeping small farms viable, or oxen providing both power and fertilizer to CSAs, working animals are still a  feature of our  working landscapes. 

ECOLOGICAL CONCERNS

Animals are a applicable source of power for human beings. Although, unlike many common sources of power, consume annual and perennial plants and therefore are naturally solar powered engines. A well oiled relationship between human and beast can provide many if not all the ability of a small tractor.

QUALITY OF LIFE

Working with draft animals offers the opportunity to truly be part of a team developing a relationship built on trust and mutual respect unlike any other.  Humans have cultivated these relationships with horses, oxen, and dogs for thousands of years, and they still offer satisfaction and joy to modern teamsters.

SCALE

Live power is more than hand work and less than industrial production. Workmanship, quality and precision becomes inherent when working with animals. This is due to live power being a finite power source that takes patience to capture on a daily basis. This forces human to live in the now and make the best decisions always for efficiency and effectiveness.

ENGENDERS COMMUNITY

Working animals and animal husbandry as a whole is a craft that books will only take you so far. Many of the old timers would elaborate or suggest that it is in fact an art, impossible to quantify nor value. This makes the knowledge of working animals simple and plain a shared knowledge and by definition word of mouth. Or in this case word to leather-in-hand.

ACCESSIBILITY

Draft animals, especially cattle and donkeys, can  provide a lower barrier to entry for reducing human labor and increasing productivity  in places where motorized equipment is unfeasible or unavailable. 

Our Board

We are an incredible group of volunteers. Above and beyond our daily work with draft animals, managing farms, livestock, and forests; board members put thousands of hours into organizing, educating, and building a community around animal power and sustainable land use. Meet us here. . .

Daphné Rose Courtès

  • Daphné Rose Courtès (she/her), President, Events Committee Co-Chair, Finance Committee Co-Chair. daphnerosecourtes@gmail.com. St-Camille, CA

    Daphné was born and raised in Paris and she started riding horses at a very young age. After moving to Quebec, she did a three year program in growing organic fruits and this is how she met Paul Chaperon and his family during an internship. He became her mentor and gave her the opportunity to use horses everywhere on a farm. From doing loose hay, logging, seeding, plowing and much more, it revealed her passion for working horses. She started her own small-scale logging business after buying one of her mentor’s horses, Fred. Using a single horse, the goal of her new project is to harvest wood in an ecological and thoughtful way.

Woman farmer plowing field with two draft horses. Maggie Smith is an independent part-time farmer, growing edible dry beans on borrowed land with the assistance of borrowed horses

Maggie Smith

  • (she/her), Vice President, Communications Committee Chair, Podcast Coordinator. margaretsmithlonglake@gmail.com, Ithaca NY

    Maggie grew up in a near-total absence of horses or farming, in the middle of the Adirondack Park in New York. In high school, exposure to Essex Farm planted a draft-power seed in her heart, and experiences in college sold her on organic agriculture. In spending seasons at Northland Sheep Dairy and Natural Roots CSA, she saw how the two things could be integrated and there was pretty much no turning back. Maggie currently lives in Trumansburg, New York, where she is in her second year of independent part-time farming, growing edible dry beans on borrowed land with the assistance of borrowed horses. She is the proud co-owner of an awesome yearling draft filly that she's training up for her future team. DAPNet has been invaluable to her so far and she hopes to be able to give back to this fabulous organization going forward!

Forest worker with hard hat and ax. IanMcAfee Snider is a Mountain Silvicologist, Regenerative Rancher and Forestry Educator at Clemson University. Also, a mountain guide, carpenter and Eagle Scout!

Ian McAfee Snider

Smiling farmer with draft animal teams. Raymond Ramsey grew up farming. He’s the Farm Manager at Sanborn Mills Farm where they grow vegetables, livestock, and grains using oxen and horse power.

Raymond Ramsey

Woman driving carriage pulled by draft horses. Emily DeYoung is instrumental in Draft Animal Power Field Days. She’s worked as an Assistant Barn Manager, managed log yards and her Kunekune pigs.

  • Raymond Ramsey (he/him), Executive Committee Moderator. ray@sanbornmills.org, Pittsfield, NH

    Ray is honored to be a part of this organization. He grew up on a 180 acre family farm in Indiana where his family grew grains, hay, and livestock. He also worked at several dairy farms in the community. After serving in the Marine Corps he moved to New England and settled in Pittsfield, NH 22 years ago where he lives with his wife and two children on a small homestead. He is the Farm Manager at Sanborn Mills Farm where they grow vegetables, livestock, and grains using oxen and horse power.  

Emily DeYoung

Woman farmer with draft oxen team. Cindy Nickerson was introduced to horses at a young age in 4-H and Pony Club and now has her own team of milking shorthorn oxen living in Edgecomb, Maine.

  • Emily DeYoung (she/her), emilymdeyoung@gmail.com, Boylston, NY

    Emily is excited to join the Draft Animal Power Network Board of Directors this year! Emily has already been working alongside the DAPNet board of directors and has been instrumental in the planning, management, and execution of our organization's annual field days. She has worked this year as a coordinator for our forestry and woodlot intensives and she has been attending our weekly meetings for event planning. Emily grew up on her family's farm where they raised grass fed Herefords, it's here where her love for agriculture, animal husbandry, and the outdoors was fostered. Emily attended Paul Smith's College to study in their forestry department and found herself spending a lot of time down at the horse barn and gardens. After taking a course in draft horse management, with Teaching Teamster Bob, Emily became infatuated with working draft horses. She was hired-on to work as a paid barn hand, sleigh and wagon ride driver, and continued to learn more about utilizing draft animal power in farm and forest settings. Upon Bob retiring from the college, Emily was asked to work as an Assistant Barn Manager, alongside Sara Dougherty. Emily was a critical component in keeping the draft work on campus alive! Since graduating with her undergraduate degree, Emily has gone on to manage log yards, purchase a small homestead, and has been making handmade soap using the lard from her herd of Kunekune pigs. Emily has a background in horseback riding, draft animal forestry and farming, as well as woodlot management.

Cindy Nickerson

Young farmer with draft horse team. Ben Retberg studied at Sterling College, North Branch Farm, and works with Belgians to harvest firewood, cultivate a market garden, and make hay for the dairy.

Ben Retberg

  • Ben Retberg (he/him). Secretery. ben.retberg49@gmail.com, Penobscot, ME

    Ben grew up working with livestock on his family's farm in Maine.  A love of animals combined with a desire to steward land ecologically drew him to draft animal power. He found the nuance and pace of live power deeply rewarding, so he left school to pursue it further. After apprenticing at North Branch Farm, a mixed power nursery in Maine, he returned to his family's farm with a team of Belgians. Now farming full-time, Ben works with the his drafts to harvest firewood, cultivate a small market garden, and manage pasture.

Rachel Bower

  • Rachel Bower (she/her), Podcast Coordinator. rachel.bower0210@gmail.com, Vienna, ME

    Rachel was first introduced to working with draft animals while working on a small horse-powered vegetable farm in 2021 and after that season, she was hooked. She found out about the Draft Animal Power Network via a bumper sticker on an old farm truck and soon after went to her first Field Days where she took the Draft Horse Basics workshop, connected with mentors, and has been involved with the organization ever since. She’s eagerly awaiting the day she has a place to bring a team home to.

Rachel Breeden

  • Rachel Breeden (she/her), Treasurer, Education Committee Co-Chair, Finance and Fun-raising Committee Co-Chair. rachel@turnerfarm.org, OH

    Rachel grew up on a hobby cattle farm in Glencoe, Kentucky where she gained a fundamental understanding of large animal behavior. It wasn’t until college that she learned it was possible to combine her childhood passion for horses with her farming goals. In 2021 she earned a bachelor's degree in Sustainable Agriculture with a minor in Draft Animal Power Systems from the Wendell Berry Farming Program of Sterling College. (Now The Berry Center Farm & Forest Institute) 

    Since 2022 she worked as the Draft Animal Program Manager at Turner Farm in Cincinnati, Ohio where she looks after six draft horses and two donkeys. She and her team work extensively in eight acres of organic produce, participate in private events held on-site, and teach introductory driving classes. In her off-time she is beginning her own small operation, Spotted Ox Farm, to continue to explore draft-centric farming methods.

Ruth Burke

  • Ruth Burke (she/they) | DAPChat Coordinator. ruthkburke@gmail.com, Oxeye Farm and Native Plant Nursery, IL

    Ruth is an artist, professor, first-generation farmer, an ox drover, and sometimes horse teamster. Burke's creative practice revolves around ideas of human-animal kinship, most recently through a series of large-scale earthworks created with draft animal power. She is the proud steward of Clark & Sparky, a five year old team of milking shorthorn oxen. Ruth Burke is currently based in central Illinois where she owns and operates Oxeye Farm & Native Plant Nursery.

Matthew Schofield

  • Matthew Schofield (he/him). Gratitude Coordinator. nonconformistfarmer@gmail.com. Iron Thistle Farm, Holley, NY


    Matthew has been working with horses and oxen for 18 years, along with working as a professional farrier/blacksmith for 14 years. Much of that time was also spent at living history museums to help educate the public on early 19th-century agricultural practices. He now works in the tree care industry while building up a small farm in Western NY.

Ariana Auger

  • Ariana Auger. Events Committee Co-Chair, Newsletter Coordinator. arianacauger@gmail.com. Gloucester, MA 

    Ariana was born and raised on the North Shore of Massachusetts. Her love of horses has remained a constant in her life since the age of 5.  She completed an Associate’s Degree in Veterinary Technology in 2011. After 8 years as a Veterinary Technician at a large animal practice, she went on to pursue her dreams of starting her own farm and foundation for a homestead.  

    After attending DAPNet for the first time in 2023, she went out and almost immediately purchased her first set of calves. It is those steers that have paved her way into more involvement within the organization; attending weekly meetings with the events planning committee and a lifelong commitment to further engagement of humans with draft animals. 

    In addition to her pair of working steers, she also owns riding horses and a small herd of beef cattle with her husband Cole Desmond.  They plan to continue expanding the farm and herd in the coming years.

Anna Knapp-Peck

  • Anna Knapp-Peck (she/her) | Communications Committee Co-Chair. annasoxen@yahoo.com, NY

    I have been training and working with oxen for 25 years. The last decade has been focused on using single oxen with a 3-pad collar and harness. I live in northern NY where oxen aren’t common. I enjoy DAPNet events because of all the like minded people. I’m looking forward to being more involved as a board member.

Carl Russell created Animal-Power Field Days. He devoted his life to the earth and living power. His ecological stewardship was unmatched. He was a natural teacher, sharing with eloquent words.

IN LOVING MEMORY OF

CARL RUSSELL

February 1st, 1960 — June 9th 2022

It's with heavy hearts and somber minds that we announce the great loss of our co-founder and member Carl Russell. He started this organization with his wife, Lisa McCrory in Bethel, Vermont when they created the event, the Northeast Animal-Power Field Days. Carl devoted his life to the earth and to living power, his ecological stewardship was unmatched and has inspired many. If you have been to a forestry demonstration at a Draft Animal-Power Field Days, you have probably heard Carl speak. He was a natural teacher and shared his knowledge with purposeful and eloquent words. We know Carl was very proud of the network of teamsters that DAPNet has become and all of our volunteers are committed to continuing his vision forward.  

CARL'S OBITUARY
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