Oxen for a little friend

NIIICE! i hope he does become a teamster, he’ll sure have someone to learn from!
and nice to have the knowledge stay in the family, too!

This is not a question of age.
This year I got from my best mother cow Bella a couple of nice twin steers (Fred and George) which now both are castrated and I hope that they will make a fine team of working steers and then oxen. (pic at the end of my reply)
for the time passing quicker, my wife made me a team of oxen from this figure:

she paints in order of the Pinzgauer-cattle Breeding Association in Austria other cow-models from this company in the typical Pinzgauer colour (like lineback cattle/Gloucester type) in brown and black.

in 2006 she made me a team of Pinzgauer cows as oxen in our traditional hitching with a forehead yoke (see at the end).

since last year I drive the cows in an American type neck yoke because I have the possibility to make the yokes myself.
because oxen grow larger than cows and I don’t have oxen sized forehead yokes, I also will drive the steers in neck yokes.
and so I had the best christmas present ever under the chrismas tree, a nice pair of Pinzgauer oxen (at the end). My wife is very correct in details: she shortened the horns of the Longhorn Bull, bended them slightly and even cut of the balls of the Bulls (George’s more than Fred’s, because he is castrated by surgery, Fred by Burdizzo knippers, which remains more scrotum).

My wife said that, as long I have this crazy hobby, she won’t ever run out of ideas for christmas presents.

a second present was a pair of lined gloves which I can wear while being outside with the team in winter. since I know that Tim Harrigan wears a kind of awesome gloves when driving his team, I said to my family, while putting on the gloves: “call me Tim Harrigan.” which resulted in confused faces (my family does not know Tim Harrigan). I hope Tim Harrigan will not be offended when I try to become the “Original faked German Tim Harrigan” , including using the ends of the yoke bows as a glove holder when resting.

happy christmas at all
and please excuse my clumpsy English. I hope that I’m a better ox teamster than English writer

Wolfgang

she shortened the horns of the Longhorn Bull, bended them slightly and even cut of the balls of the Bulls (George’s more than Fred’s, because he is castrated by surgery, Fred by Burdizzo knippers, which remains more scrotum).

That really is a knack for detail 😀
bad news: 😮 leaving less at castration time means less on the scales at the butchers