is a single ox a good idea?

Welcome Jeffrey!
Any chance you could put a goat or a sheep with your ox? These small ruminants are pretty cheap to buy and keep and I bet the ox would appreciate some company from a grazing animal.

Jeffery, my brief experience with oxen tells me that if they are given large spaces to graze, they will eat it all quickly and get fat. I am a strong believer in rotational grazing and moving the fence every day. It may seem annoying at first, but it soon becomes part of you ruitine and it really really increases the productivity of the pasture. I suspect you might benefit from a similar system. If you use a small mobile grazing area of electronet, which will hold the goat(s). By rotating goats and an ox over some mixed grass/brush areas, you could probably expand your pasture, too. My goats and oxen aren’t together very often, but when they are they basically ignore each other. They have their own kind to associate with, though. I think they would get along if alone, but someone else may had tired this exact thing before. The goats would appreciate some kind of shelter when it rains, too, but i am sure you can figure something out. This is probably how I would go about it. I am excited to hear how your single works out. Please share.

That is a great gift and i think you should take advantage of it. A single ox can be so handy! Ideal would be if you had another bovine or goat or sheep or pony, but with plenty of other critters and people around, the ox will probably be fine.

This is great Jeffrey, I would love to see any pictures you haev to share. My oxen eat their pasture really fast too. If I give my oxen 3 days worth of graze, they eat 50-75% of the grass the first day, 20-40% the second day, and the last day they would finish up any remaining grass and start to work on brush and weeds out of hunger. These numbers aren’t scientifically observed, but I think you get the idea. I know the system you describe works, but it causes more day to day variation in thier diet than I personally prefer. I am sure you will get the hang of a system that works for you as time goes on. My oxen are big liars when it comes to food. They always ask for more and more and rarely need it. I have learned to ignore thier cries and instead feel thier ribs and hip bones, as these don’t lie. I know it’s annoying to more the whole paddock every day, though. In my setup, I have a single line that I can advance daily and move the follow-up line once a week or so (dependign on the pasture I’m in). This way, I am only moving a single line every day and don’t have to mess with the water (which is the most annoying part for me) and the majority of the fence. Hard to know if a system like this would work in your situation, but wanted to share anyway.

I am unfamiliar with this technique you are describing with the log. I think you are dragging it sideways so as to smooth out mounds and fill in wallows? If you are going downhill, the log might roll up on your ox, which would give me pause if I was working hills (or even flats if the log was very round and rolled easily). I would probably select a log with a convenient elbow, bend, or bow in it that prevents rolling (or even cut the log and bolt it back together in “Vee”). This system seems like it would work OK for smoothing, but if it works to your satisfaction will likely depend on the soil conditions and your expectations/goals for the future use of these areas. What you are going to do with them? On second thought, this might be a great activity reguardless of your future goals as it will be great work for getting used to your new ox. Other than the possibility of the log rolling (which can be fixed), this seems like ideal “get to know you” work. Depending on your future goals, you might follow with another tool, but it will be a much easier task with this experience to fall back on.

We use a log drag behind a disc harrow to smooth a field for a crop. We attach it to the disc using a cable that runs through a clevis on the disc and 2 eyebolts on the log. It is free to angle one way or another depending on how we are turning at the ends. As long as you are actively leveling soil (there is some build up of soil in front of the log) I don’t think you should have much of a problem with the log rolling forward on level to rolling ground, but be aware of steep situations.

Fascinating stuff, Jeffery. I am on the edge of seat waiting to see how this works for you. I grew sunflowers this year in a similar system and have been very happy with them, even though cultivating has been a challenge from time to time. The nice thing is that they are about 4-5 feet tall now and the weeds don’t get light anymore. Another crop you might have luck with is turnips. They grow like crazy for me as a cover crop and while I didn’t use them as animal feed, I can imagine that pigs would self harvest these and enjoy doing it.

The other conclusion I have come to with reguard to growing feed for chickens is that while it is useful to have grains (or similar) for calories, it is most critical (at least to me) to grow something that is high in protein. My chickens do pick at the clover, but I can never tell if they are really eating as much of it as I would like them to, so I am uncertain how much I need to supplement with other protein sources so I end up supplementing as if they are not eating clover at all. They do love the sunflower seeds, though, and I can see if and how much of these they eat. I wish here were palatable legume options that were weed resistant, palatable, and didn’t require alot of processing (roasting, grinding, etc). I grew field peas a while ago, and found them to be weed resistant enough, but the widllife dessimated them. Perhaps next year I’ll try them again, as I have more fencing now and a dog that chases critters away.