nervous about first pull!?!?

I assume the steers are trained to the yoke and know the basic commands such as stopping, back, gee and haw etc. Usually it’s best to start them on a small load such as a tire etc and work up to bigger loads. Keep a halter on them until you are comfortable and to use as an emergency brake as the may panic at first when they feel and hear the load behind them.

Besides turning them off you could also hurt them.

I am not a drover, so this is just general working animal thoughts.

I think this early training is very important to establish the pace of their efforts.

If you load them heavy or heavier to start with there is a tendency to move faster against the resistance which is not what you would want for a working animal. Hooking any learning animal to more than they can do comfortably is a formula for balking. Moving faster makes it easier and that is not a lesson that can be lived with later in their working lives. Your job is to slowly develop their strength to the greatest level without defeating their confidence or asking for more than they can do for their level of conditioning and training.

The point is to reward them for their best behavior – to have a positive reinforcement of that behavior. In other words when they move confidently, slowly and patiently against light resistance they will develop that mode of travel later despite the load being or becoming heavier – if you reward them for the effort while training by stopping them when they are doing everything exactly right. Rewarding by stopping when everything is perfect is the hardest part of being a new teamster with new animals. But look for that feeling of all is going good and say whoa. Allow them to stand quietly and regain their wind and then ask them to start again.

Positive reinforcement example:
We had a young fellow working a big team of Devon/Jersey cross steers on one of our logging jobs back in the fall. Big pretty brutes with lots of power and energy.

The problem was that they wanted to travel fast all the time regardless of the load and the drover had to constantly run up front and try to slow them down. (I have to mention that all this activity was somewhat unsettling to the horses that were in sight of it.) Well this seemed (to me) to be rewarding them for going fast. Every time they would start running out of the woods down the skid trail he would run up and stop them. So we suggested that he start them for just few slow steps and stop them while they were still traveling at a safe controlled working pace. It didn’t take but a few repeated reward sessions like that and they were going slower and getting much more rest for the behavior.

So start them light and slow, as Carl says go light and go often and rest them when they are doing everything perfectly. It has been said that “the greatest reward for any beast of burden is cessation of demand”.

Got luck, take your time, build them up, enjoy your work and help your animals enjoy it too.

somwhere in here you need someone to help you fit the yoke and bows and to set the draft.

The ” Tiller’s fit” is a very good place to start.
Now you should start them on a very lite load and see how the yoke seats and if the cattle are comfortable with it. You will have to adjust it to make the cattle happy if they are to be good workers.
Most people have a tendency to use a yoke that is to big and have the bows to low.

It may be difficult to observe this on your own team if you are the only one to drive them. Maybe someone can video you from both sides, and you can observe the yoke dynamics.

very important point;
from where you are driving the team, you can observe little, especially since your attention is on the animals.
if you can find someone to take pictures, that already would increase your awareness for probable tight spots
but if you can find someone to videotape you, the team and your work, that is a whole different story: you can sit back and watch what every detail is up to in slow motion and that not always fits the impression you had from your point of driving……

lots of luck – and fun;)
elke

@Howie 5946 wrote:

Most people have a tendency to use a yoke that is to big and have the bows to low.

So it is ! When I started with the neck yoke I first set the bows to deep and the yoke slipped upon to the withers. Now I think that I set the bows right. The team does not show any signs of discomfort . And the yoke sits where it should sit.

Wolfgang