Oxen speed

Time, Time, Time. Rod your cattle are young adolescents. It is a mixture of hyper energy and power. They just need work. But they need you to work them. I will tell you that the experience today can be daunting enough to dissuade you from going back tomorrow. If you want to gain ground with them, go back tomorrow. Now that you know what to expect, pace yourself. When they realize that you have more ambition than they do they will begin to pace themselves. Time, Time, Time. Good luck Carl

I guess I am the old man here and am crippled up so I can’t walk much. My Devon oxen will turn 7 in a couple months. For most of their work I use a fore cart with a seat on it and I drive them from the seat. When I have to walk they just have to wait for me.

I use a 6 foot lash whip and voice. Mostly just voice, but I am a believer in “Out of reach out of control.” So I carry the whip.

They definitely get slower as they get older .My first pair used to take 4 1/2 hours to get home from the local Hare Krishna farm 22kilometers ..Trotting quite a bit on the flats.They were 4-5 years old then .As the years went buy they took longer and longer and in the end it was taking a day and a half , camping out overnight .Then one refused to go out . He was the first to die at 15-16 . Most of my others lived till 18-19-20.

got a friend that takes his 14year old Govinda on the road regularly and he goes quite well still.he had an easy life though –always under shelter and fed well as a house pet . But the half dozen or so that i,v ever worked on the road were never so good after about 9-10 . just too slow .

I much prefer them fast than slow.In India they train them to walk fast on the road and never let them even think about slowing down . 6k/hour all day , you can hardly keep up walking even if you are young and very fit .So it was probably just laziness with mine as i wasn’t heavy enough with them .

If I get anymore [probably will] I,m going to do everything completely differently.Or just get my wife to train them . Hers turn out much better natured , friendly and obedient . Mine were always like solders marching off to be cannon fodder .Stiff upper lip , eyes ahead , more afraid of the officers than the enemy.

Good luck , have fun —Mathuranatha

might depend on how long you are working them and how hot it is, right? and whether you are going away from the barn (or the trailer) or towards it. lol

my milking shorthorns are easy for me to keep up with at a walk, i figure they average 2 mph. Less when plowing or dragging stones in the sun on on a hot day .
my mares i have to almost run-walk to keep up, 4 mph is more average for them.

but i’m sure it depends. my ox mentor Worth Mcclure in Lancaster co. pa used to talk fondly of a particular team of “cattle” he had as a lad in North Carolina in the 1920s. he said they were the only oxen he ever knew who would routinely pass horse teams on the way to the mill. said they were known throughout the area as the “fast cattle”.