Interesting ox conversation with a co-worker from Nepal

I had an interesting conversation about oxen today with a coworker of mine who is from Nepal. His family had an agricultural background and the ox was their primary draft animal. Very interesting how they go about training and care. They use whithers type yokes exclusively, some with a dropped hitch point, some without. They primarily use ard-type plows. He had tried using one before, but said they are very tricky and he never did it enough to get the hang of it. Said they cut a width of maybe only 4-5 inches wide, but like to go deep, maybe over 6 inches deep. All very interesting. The most fascinating thing to me was the use of the oxen. In his memory, no one seemed to keep or want the male offspring of their cows. In a vegetarian culture, they are often just turned loose to fend for themselves. None are castrated. He wasn’t sure if anyone kept and raised calves as oxen, but the ones he knew of captured a couple semi-feral bulls and trained then to work as adults. Kept them intact too. They are smaller critters than our typical European breeds, but still, this seems challenging. At any rate once a farmer had trained a team, he would keep them until they got old or died. My friend estimated this was another 5-8 years from when they were first trained. Many smaller farmers (like his family) didn’t own their own team, but rented the use of a neighbors team by the day. The owner would show up with the team already yoked and with the plow already hitched up, hand over the whip, and come to get the team at the and of the day. Driving was exclusively from the rear, and all the direction was with the whip. Another interesting aspect of their care was that they were always stabled because they would often hurt themselves on the steep hillsides and there isn’t a tradition of fencing. All the grass or hay was cut by hand and brought to them daily. Often, the few grass was mixed in with old hay to make it more tempting. They rarely, if ever, got grain. It is fascinating how other cultures do things. Working with semi-feral adolescent intact bulls sure seems like it would be tough… Not passing judgement, just an observation…