When the idea of Ragtag first saw the light of day, we knew that there were many steps to take before we could safely say that this was a new idea that would do the job.
Firstly we had to cobble together some kind of prototype so that we could test the theory behind the idea and see if it really did work. We had a rumage round hardware shops and tinkered in the shed for a while and came up with something that seemed like it might work. We then went off down to the field, fenced off an area we could use soley for testing and got busy. We chose a few test plants, sprayed them and trod the makeshift Ragtags into place. It was then my job; yes, that's me, chief cook and bottle-washer, to monitor the test plants and take photographs and watch the progress. So I did; come rain or shine, night and day, bad back, hangover- who said that? Anyway, the process of the plants being treated was documented carefully.
We allowed a period of 3 weeks as the cut off point. It was obvious that the plant was long dead a good while before that, but the suprising by-product of using the Ragtag had been the rate at which the covered plant had started to breakdown. We quickly realised that the sheltered environment that existed beneath the Ragtag, was acting like a mini-greenhouse. The temperature increased along with humidity levels. This in turn increased the rate at which the plant decayed. This safe little place was also attractive to worms and grubs, who inturn would eat what was left of the plant and take it back down into the soil; leaving less plant debris to clear away at the end of the treatment. We felt that the 3 week slot gave a good enough breakdown rate to be used as a product benefit.
So the initial tests had poven very promising. The theory worked, the test plants were dead and gone. We decided that at this point to introduce it to the horses. We sprayed, stamped it in, pulled up a chair and got comfy. We wanted to watch what the horses might try and do.
They wandered over, had a look and wandered off again. How uneventful!
In another, completely seperate test, we wanted to see how hard horses might try to remove the Ragtag from the ground. After a thorough wash, and nowhere near any ragwort or herbicide spray, we sprinkled a few good handfuls of pasture mix type food around on the ground and trod in the Ragtag over the top. They all keenly hoovered up the mix, tongues, lips and teeth paying quite close attention right up to the edge of the Ragtag. None of them were able to get it out of the ground.
Providing the Ragtag is trodden down into the ground squarely and all the way, their teeth are just the wrong angle to be able to get hold of it and their lips just too thick to get beneath the outer rim. It was another testing victory and a big relief.
So there you are, we've done quite a lot of test with this device. We've given it to other people to try out, afterall, we all follow instructions a little differently! It's been used in the presence of a variety of different horses, on different land, in different weather conditions. We've listened to advice from industry plastics experts when it came to choosing the material. We chose the safest colour we could think of to also make it easier to see across the field and we're packaging it in the most straightforward packaging we can to keep the cost in money and resources to a minimum.
Afterall that, if you've got any ideas on how we can improve on Ragtag, let us know.
We then set to work on coming up with a horse and user friendly design. I've had horses on and off for over 20 years, so I was quite quick at spotting a weak design area that could easily be taken advantage of by a bored pony.
Once we'd designed something fairly close to how we knew it should be, we had a proper prototype made using a Rapid-Prototype machine through a company who's job it is to do just - make prototypes. Again, off we went down the field and started testing again. Firstly away from the horses, then 3 weeks later when all had gone well, we took it into the lions den.
To start with, they showed no interest at all. Then the shetland came over, followed closely by the others who all thought there must be something mighty fine going on in that neck of the pasture. Have a look at the picture. You can see quite clearly the scrape marks of busy hooves as they gave it a pounding.
