Four-footed 'farm hands' return to Bootheel farm

Kennett farmer Steve Atwill knows it takes thinking outside the box these days to win, place or show in the agriculture trifecta.

Lately, he's used a couple of headstrong farm hands in his rice fields about two miles south of Deering to achieve what he called "a win-win" situation.

"When Jack Lewis at the Natural Resources Conservation Service office at Caruthersville mentioned using mules on the farm, a light went off," Atwill chuckled. "With the high price of fuel and hands at a premium, I thought, 'Well, why not?'"

Atwill is a no-till farmer who said he's as conscious about conservation as he is about his bottom line.

Although he can't remember anyone hitching up a mule team to work the soil since his grandfather's days, and Lewis said there are no such animals working other Bootheel farms, the farmer explained that he was willing to take a chance riding mules to spray his rice fields for red rice, an undesirable strain found in nearly all rice crops.

"I think other farmers are looking at Steve and kind of scratching their heads wondering if this is going to work or not," Lewis quipped. "This is an idea that came out of Moro, Arkansas.

"I have friends with a spray service there who were the first people I ever saw riding mules instead of walking to spray," he added. "Steve came in here, and he'd been walking his fields with a spray rig. He was soaking wet and wore out. Anybody who has ever walked a field to spray will tell you, that's plumb work."

Mules are crosses between donkey stallions, properly called "jacks," and horse mares. Females are dubbed "hinnies," and are stallion horses crossed to donkey jennys.

"I knew my friend Dennis Taylor in Cottonwood Point had some mules," Atwill said. "So, I gave him a call."

The farmer said his long-time buddy first furnished two mules, Red Man and Porkchop, and a hinnie named Goldie.

"Goldie hurt her hoof getting out of the trailer, so that left us with Red Man and Porkchop," Atwill said. "I knew mules were somewhat spirited and that they have their own distinctive personalities.

"But Porkchop was more than we expected," the 61-year-old farmer grinned. "Porkchop threw his owner, and wound up tossing one of my men in a ditch."

But when one of Atwill's farm hands, Hidle Huffman, told his boss he was experienced with riding mules, Atwill gave him a shot with Porkchop and a spray rig.

"I don't know if anyone else can even ride Porkchop," Atwill said. "We just got lucky.

"So Hidle and his son, Luke, have been riding Porkchop and Red Man for the last month or so spraying for red rice."

Atwill noted that horses will "work until they drop," but that mules, who are well known for their stubborn streaks, simply stop once they tire.

"We don't work them like that," he said. "In the heat, when temperatures are in the high 90s and the humidity is almost unbearable, they're good for about five or six hours.

"And, once they're in the field, we don't turn them down a road," the farmer and real estate broker added. "They want to go back to the trailer and get to the stable."

The University of Missouri Extension web site indicated mules "were once very important" to the state's fields and mines, and "raising mules was quite profitable" for some Missourians.

"William A. Elgin of Platte County learned how profitable when he received prize money totaling $5,000 for six mules he showed at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904, also known as the St. Louis World's Fair" the site stated. "It is here that people worldwide began to take notice of the 'Missouri Mule.'"

That interest lives again more than a century later in Dunklin County, Atwill said.

"We've had a few gawkers," he said. "People have pulled over to watch from the road.

"I've been the focus of a few jokes and some ridicule by other farmers," he laughed. "But that's okay. Hopefully, this is something we'll continue to do."