Hello. Why do they call them Sheep's Foot rollers? was the thing invented in Arkansas? The toothbrush was invented in Arkansas, had it been invented anyplace else it would be called a teethbrush. :drinkup
Maybe the early ones resembled sheeps feet... I dug in an area that the dirt was hauled in with mules and carts... I was as hard as concrete.... all those hoofs smashing the dirt..... We had a Hyster Pad foot.... brand spanking new.. mid 70's... what ever it touches was compacted. It had 1 foot square pads.. But the specs on the job said sheeps foot 2"x 2" pads.... The hyster would run around smashing the ground, then the farm tractor pulling the sheeps foot would ride along bearly marking the surface.
From what I've seen the sheepsfoot variety are nearly always "towed & static" where "padfoot" types can be towed, static, powered to vibrate & or self propelled variety.
the hyster was a huge vibrating monster of a machine... we had a powered vibrating sheepfoot that we towed behind a little dozer.. it was a real pain to back up.... and several plain old static pull behinds of various sizes
maybe my history is bogus..... Yeah, seems like i had heard/read that some of the original great road contractors , the Romans, used flocks of sheep to compact roadway subgrade, and that the knobby rollers we see today are the evolution of that......
forsythebros. you are correct. the romans didn't build the roads but their slaves did. the soldiers over saw the slaves and they brought there sheep with them for food and wool to replenish clothing. they would bun them up and down the road compacting the soil. after they "walked it in" they would lay some crushed stone and and level it. then here comes the reason those roads are still there. the slaves would fit paver type stones together, and the soldiers would go behind them with a spear and poke it in between the stones. if the spear could fit between the stones the soldier would then stab the slave with the spear!!! this means that the stones were so tight that the water would not get under them. this with the fact that they crowned there roads, is why they are still being used today.