Build a Horse-Drawn Work Sled

If you run a small farm and own a horse, or any draft animal, a horse-drawn sled can help you get more work done.

By Gladys Mackey Beattie
Updated on October 7, 2022
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by Adobestock/Anton
man with horse sledge outdoor

If you run a small farm and own any draft animal, a horse-drawn sled can help you get more work done. Here’s how to build a horse-drawn work sled.

Here In Quebec, we’ve found our easy-to-build horse-drawn sled to be just about the ideal device to handle the kind of haulin’ chores that crop up almost daily on a farm. And–since most of the materials needed to construct the simple freight carrier are probably already around just waitin’ to be used–you can put the versatile sled to work on your homestead for next to nothing!

Easy Construction

To make a 3′ X 6′ model, lay out two 6′ posts or Poles that taper from approximately 10″ to about 8″ in diameter. If the skids have some natural curve at their larger ends, so much the better … as the bottom front of each runner must be hewn or sawed off to form an angle of approximately 45°.

With that done, place the posts side by side (as they’ll appear on the finished sled) and cut three notches–each 3″ deep and 4″ wide–in the top of both runners … to accommodate the three 4″ x 4″ x 36″ crosspieces. (Make sure that the mortices match and are square to the skids and that the skids are parallel when the braces are in place… otherwise, you’ll have a crooked sled that will never run true.) Now, nail the crosspieces securely in place, and your basic frame is complete.

To make the floor of the sled, you’ll need approximately six 1″ x 6″ x 60″ boards. Nail the planks solidly to the crosspieces to help keep your sled square under rough conditions.

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