[bivol]

nope, pulling a heavier load in the beginning of their training will likely sore them off rather than cure it. also dr. Ox.

but, if if he already knows the concept of pulling, work him with a heavier load (it should not be so heavy he barely moves t, but it should still be demanding to pull for long), but so that he bolts, so when he bolts, he can’t run for long, and far. while he’s trying to run, keep up with him, but don’t yell or so, just be quiet and stick to him until he gets tired. if he changes direction, give a command for that.

make sure the load isn’t scaring him: no high, moving load, no loud clanking noises, etc.

when he gets tired of running about with a heavy load, and starts to walk, you either goad him to walk for just a bit longer, and then stop him when he’s obviously tired and he’ll stop. than you PRAISE HIM for his good behaviour.

after that, let him have a minute or so to rest, and work him a short session, a few minutes most (or more, depending on how tired he looks), so he doesn’t connect bolting and you praising him with end of work.
after work’s done lead him to the stoneboat and let him inspect the load.
do this couple of times until he’s obviously OK.

this approach should make him forget why he bolted, or that he even bolted. the trick is to control the situation when he bolts, and let him think you don’t notice, so he thinks he’s just pushing a bit more effort into wast you want him to do in the frist place. he’ll soon forget he was afraid. and coupled with the increased load he should be soon sored off running away.

“hey, master don’t notice, so there is obviously no danger!”

and

“Oh, i already know this! No, i won’t run this time, too tiring! Um, why did i run in the first place?” *Homer Simpson dis-focused look* “oh, well, time to go!” *pulls away*

just be careful, if he’s prone to bolting, be careful when introducing him to new tasks, esp. while he’s till young.

so much for me, it’s late, going to bed.

bye, and good luck!

[bivol]

yes, they’re nice, although they do seem a bit slow and heavy for a traditional breed…
and maybe you’ll become an ox guy one day, they sure have their charm, that dormant strength you can see in their motion, and their docility and calm despite allthat power. they have something noble around them.

i know tastes differ, but i could go for a water buffalo or two, nope, i wouldn’t mind!

[bivol]

no problem Wolfgang!
when i find something, it’s a minute to post it here, so everyone can see it. i’m glad people enjoy it!

charly, i don’t know what breed they are, crosses maybe, castrated early, and so they are both bigger and taller.
just a few days ago i started using google translate to get me to different languages

i googled chinese words for “ox plow”, 牛耕
and found these videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9QyNHq8T0A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfVCwBtmYvk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bywjHMEHIB8

enjoy! 🙂

[bivol]

nice plowing, Charly!

oxnun, i haven’t forgot, i’ll fix it round Christmass, sorry for taking so long!

anyway, a few videos:
turkey, logging with buffaloes (RARE):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBoL_Op0MOQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4AHeK7eEDI&feature=related

shoeing; a nice technique of getting oxen to the ground
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx0UgmN9dv8&NR=1

from france:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOiZMMBYeJc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdZntZzzrmc&feature=related

double hitch with a head yoke:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCSIk9v9CNU&feature=related

from Reunion:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMSILz4V8Zw&feature=related

[bivol]

well said!

also, wherever they’re in, it musn’t be damp. air circulation is vital for health.

[bivol]

well, OldKat, there are also ards made of modern materials, that are more efficient than wooden ones.

the whole not turning the soil way of cultivation has real sense, since the microbes thrive in specific depths. ard only lets the air in (the ideal being 50% dry matter, 25% water, and 25% air).

turning the furrow itself began in conditions of wetter northern europe (you’d slice the soil instead of breaking it) as a way to cope with the incapability of the ard plow to plow in wet heavy soils.

here are a few links:

one is about a herrandina plow.
you have a technical description of iron point parts, i think it will be useful.
it’s in spanish, but there is a small picture of the actual plow. it was made in an attempt to improve the peruan plow by making the all iron one instead of just the point being of iron. it is reportedly more efficient since they needed 28 hours to plow a hectare with a conventional wooden ard, and with the herrandina it took 18 hours. (i think plowing here means double plowing).

also, an article about the plow.

for a sulky plow, i think you could attach who points, or even three.
i hope that will help!

for more info, google herrandina plough, or arado herrandina.

cheers, Marko

[bivol]

let’s start with a little asian vid. here one can clearly see the symetrical plow that is tilted to produce the furrow. the power source is a buffalo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SKLsdh0Bsg&feature=player_embedded

plowing with bantengs
(i think)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ki7PKnWv0Gw&feature=related

a romanian buffalo wagon
there are, since medieval times, water buffaloes in romania, as there are in hungary too (how they got there beats me though!)
oh, check out one-bad-ox / one-good-ox temperaments 😀
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzq912Yi288

oxnun, i have some at least 10 minutes of oxen action, plowing and some little wagon pulling i filmed a year ago. this year i only took photos…
have to upload the rest soon…

if you want the whole footage of the festival, about 20 minutes, i’ll send it, but this week i’m really busy, and my brother (cousin actually) is too, and he is the technical guru of the family. so after that i’ll ask him to burn it, and send it.

others are Envoile le petite i got from France. unfortunatelly no subs, but i think they make them subbed now. it’s about working oxen in france. i think you can order it on the web, i got into contact over this forum.

[bivol]

hi juan!

unfortunately i don’t understand spanish, but i see these are river type water buffaloes.

is the belly strap a bit too tight on pics 13-16?

[bivol]

oh, ok.

than an actual travois would be better.

always wondered how the dogs could pull significant loads with a travois, guess i need to look more into the problematics. overall, a good idea, give it a go!

[bivol]

@Ixy 12328 wrote:

Has anybody used a travois with their oxen? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travois

I’ve seen mongolians using them with yaks to carry the elderly on migrations – seems like a simple, easy way of transporting perhaps a single small bale, sack of feed or a load of firewood – I think I’ll give it a go!

it could work, but the problem i see would be placing too much weight on the neck.
if you’re using a single ox, and i think you do, maybe a little different design bcould suit you better. here some pics:

here the same design, a somewhat more detailed view

you notice that the load is actually carried on the back pair of staves, but so that a good part of the weight of the load on back staves is leaned on the front ones, so the load is for the most part held on these four. a significantly lesser ammount of weight is so placed on the animal’s neck, even if the design is somewhat more sophisticated.
the good thing about this design is that it retains the benefits of a travois, such as relative simplicity, low loading surface, but doesn’t inherit the faults of a sled, such as enhanced friction on the runners.
this design also makes possible to load a heavier load rthan on the travois without the same friction as the same sized sled.

[bivol]

@Ixy 12119 wrote:

Oh gosh bivol I have tears in my eyes- I can just imagine it 🙁

IMO, my oxen are way more affectionate than 95% of all horses I’ve worked with – I’ve worked with, it must be, near 200 horses and most had a very aloof kind of temperament. Whereas, my cattle are genuinely curious about people and seem to love to spend time with me, they love physical contact more too, I guess because they groom each other by licking for a long time, whereas horses just nibble shoulders. I can rub mine all over for hours and they lap it up.

Yesterday I was picking berries with my partner in the herd’s field – eventually Angus came over and hung around watching patiently so I just had to go have a ‘grooming’ session with him 😀 I think cattle are slightly less expressive than horses – less noise and the ears going back etc – which makes it hard for humans to understand/relate to them. I can ‘read’ Ang pretty well now though.

i know, i was almost crying, too…

some animals are bred for food, and we know that from the start, so we don’t bond with them too closelly. so, when i’d get them killed, at least i won’t be someone they completely trust.
but animals we work with spend much more time with us, we inevitably bond with them, and they bond to us, they trust us – this may be the most difficult part when sending them to be butchered.
i know when in the past the oxen got too old to work, the mearchant would come to buy them off, and included giving two older calves in the deal, too. but still, it was sometimes a drama for the entire family, everyone crying…

for now i couldn’t send an animal that completely trusts me to be butchered, be it working or not, although i know i will sooner or later be in this sort of situation.

but if i work with an animal that doesn’t have a good character, and constantly tries to hit/outsmart me, or pull something off, than i’d certainly be more willing to send it to the freezer than an animal that trusts me.

i think one can read cattle almost as good as horses, if not better.they are quite expressive, if one knows where to look (ears, as mentioned) i can clearly see where a cow is looking, and what she thinks of it, whereas i can never be sure just what goes in a horse’s head. that’s also one of the reasons i like cattle better!

[bivol]

hi everyone!

here are a few links on google books i think you could find interesting:

http://books.google.com/books?id=FE2N0aUh0TQC&pg=PA90&dq=training+oxen#v=onepage&q=training%20oxen&f=false

i’ll get on translating that story after my upcoming university obligations are over.

i’ll just write a short story about an ox and his owner.

this is not a happy story, but i think it is worth telling.

this is a recent and true story about a boskarin ox and his owner. i had watched a documentary about these oxen, and in the beggining an older fellow was tellinmg his story.
he was a rather thin, sunburned man of lively and polite manner, who had spent his life tilling the land he had owned in the istrian countryside, an inner hilly region of the peninsula.

was telling about oxen and what they meant to him and histrians. the oxen had the same almost cultic status in histria as they had in maine an nova scotia. they were indespensable because of the soil condition and hilly terrain. the histrian ox was selected for millenia especially for work; for his strenght, longetivity, stamina and temperament. the bulls were tought to work, and only those who possessed good working qualities were allowed to mate.

anyway, this older man had boskarin oxen for hobby and some work, as they are held today by a few enthusiasts. one day he decided his ox was too old and decided to have him slaughtered for meat.

because of the transportation, he decided to have his ox slaughtered in his friend’s slaughterhouse, who met all necessary requirements. his ox was huge, and so when they tried to use a stun gun on him, it only bled his forehead. his friend went to get a bigger one, and they fired it in the forehead. the owner was standing on the entrance, and when they fired it, but the ox fell on his forelegs, he knelt, he didn’t fall over, and he looked behind, to the door, where his master was standing,as to say (as the man was telling this, his voice broke):”why did you do this? why did you have me killed? i trusted you, and you killed me! how could you?” this all was said in a glance, the huge ox fell aside, and the butchers were preparing to start their trade.
the man started crying like a little child and went straight home. this old man was crying just recalling this, too.

for a week he couldn’t help himself, and then his wife asked him:” why are you crying that much about an ox? you’re a man, for Heaven’s sake!” “I know” he said, “but I can’t help myself.” this old man knew his ox for at least a decade, so i believe him when he said he understood what his ox told him with a glance before he died.

after this story the documentary moved on, but it had left a deep mark on me.
honestly i never quite got to write this story here, maybe because it could provoke a so called bianco-check for cattle emotions, where they don’t exist, too. but now i understand my worries were unfounded as most of you have working cattle and know them best. there are oxen that are emotional, and others that aren’t.

but this story shows cattle can be, with proper handling and temperament, can be every bit as affectionate as horses, and share a deep bond with their humans.

[bivol]

my guess is that horses are more superficially appealing to people, they are more openly affectionate and eye catching, while oxen have all that undeserved bad par too. and could it be that, at least in america, people who worked oxen were generally poorer than those working horses, so they had less education and tendency to write books not all because they had to work to feed themselves and pay the bills…

as for general literature, it is supposed to be appealing to the broad public. as both a writer and a publisher you have to get people tpo read the story, and they’re more likely to pick up “Black beauty” than “The winter of Rod and Buck” now we all know how little girls want horses etc. that’s hoe the public oppinion on an animal is shaped. horses also tend to look more pleasing to the public, whit their long manes and tails, their expressionful eyes, and their overall athletic (= running about, plot) nature… just my opp.

i plan to translate a newspaper story about a man who had oxen some time soon, ideally for Christmas, as it’s called the Christmas story, so…

[bivol]

yes, he is plowing stubble, but i’ve seen these plows in their local variations do good work on clay soil too. only it goes really slow.:(..

do you notice the plow being a little tilted to the right? it’s not accidental, chinese mouldboard plows are for good part of designs symmetrical, like ard plows, so to form an angle and push the earth aside, they tilt the plows a bit. it’s actually brilliant!

what breed? my guess a common yellow chinese cattle bull, maybe a local strain. and i’ve wondered if it has a hump, but yesterday figured out it isn’t a humped animal, and probably no humped X humpless cross.

if you click on the small pictures, you’ll find another bull who has a pronounced neck muscles, but when the yoke tucks in, this forms a hump.

about peace corps, i’d like to try some extension work too, gotta check with my university, i think they could. btw. i’m studying agronomy, animal sciences!:D

[bivol]

well, it’s been a long time, but i want to make some things right here.

i came to the conclusion that my reply was wrong. it is the eastern yoke that is more efficient than the forehead yoke.

in my recent research i found out that the eastern yoke can be almost as efficient as the bow yoke, but only when used on a bull or a stag. these have a pronounced neck muscling, which makes a big cushion for the yoke, which, being bent, grips around the neck for more surface. the rule is here, as everywhere: the more touching surface, the more comfort and more pushing power.

on making a yoke: my guess is that you would do best to first take the measure of neck thickness there you want to place your yoke,(that would be closer to the base of the neck, where cattle are said to pull more) with a wire on the angle where the yoke will be sitting. then you either bend wood or iron bars. if you use wood, round off the edges after you finish bending. drill the holes for ropes, two on the ends of the yoke, for pulling the implements, and two half way from the neck to the first holes. these will best be drilled so that the rope don’t go under the yoke where the animal pushes into it. better to use a wide cloth instead of a rope to disperse pressure and choking on the neck area.

[IMG]

[IMG]

all these bulls have wide necks and consequently a larger touching surface to this simple yoke. my opinion is that this yoke, with bull, could be well used on dry land, if one could find a smaller plow, or maybe a single horse one, too…

Dean, it took some time, but i hope i cleared it all up now.

cheers,

Marko

[Author]

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