[bivol]

hi loring, welcome!

books about training steers… Oxen; a teamster’s guide (by Drew Conroy) is warmly reccomended, about other books… well, i don’t know of any other books about training steers… maybe The oxen handbook (also Conroy), or Bullock driver’s handbook, but if you know about other books , please let me know…

your steers are about eight months now, right? well, that’s not so young. are they tame, or halter-broken?
anyway, stick to what the book says, and DON’T LET THEM ESCAPE WHEN HALTERED!

yokes-

in the Oxen; a teamster’s guide you also have instructions on making a yoke.
some say one needs lots of yoke sizes for a growing team. on this site is a story of a couple who had raised oxen from little few-day calves, and they used only three yoke shapes. and the oxen were holstein, so don’t sweat about lots of sizes!

after, say, three years, oxen stop growing (or, fill-up really slow until they are seven). sometimes they may need a bigger yoke when older and fill up, but i’ve red somewhere (on this forum) that you can simply make new yoke bows, if you don’t shape the bow holes exactly parallel, as in letter “U”, but make them (the bow holes) in an angle to each other, to accomodate bows that are more shaped like a falling drop. anyway, the bows i mean are in attachments.

if all that is too complicated, you can try harnesses, especially for growing oxen. harnesses for oxen, that is, you can see them here.

good luck!

[bivol]

no, there’s no cross-bar, they’re simply chains leading from the animal’s leather collar (not the harness) to the pole, where they are secured by pins.
i don’t think they need cross-trees.

note that the chains were fastened well before the animals. this is because they were in the breaking position, they breaked the wagon and remained there. this is where the oxen should be when they’re breaking, not too far behind (so, watch the chain length!). the pole should be long enough,too.

also, look at this picture. seems to show the chains. the big iron ring aroung the pole is fixed to the middle of the chain, and it’s slipped and fixed to the pole.

[bivol]

good points!

figured cows would work only half a day and not lack much in terms of milking, but i could, for example, push a milking cow more one day (if she can take it), and compensate the milk production for the day by supplementing with goat milk…

i posted this thread partly because i was skeptic about the working cow’s performance, although seeing pictures of farmers plowing with two cows…. i forgot how important physical conditioning is, especially with cows.:p

i guess it sums up to looking how an individual animal takes it. though having a mongrel cow or heritage breed is better than having a modern breed purebred one.

thank you for your help! this subject, it was really bugging me.
sometimes we need an impulse from others, no matter how hard we think about something, it’s the others that point to the solution.

[bivol]

good points, thank you!

figured cows would work only half a day and not lack much in terms of milking, but i could, for example, push a milking cow more one day (if she can take it), and compensate the milk production for the day by supplementing with goat milk…

i guess it summs up to looking how an individual animal takes it. though having a mongrel cow or heritage breed is better than having a modern breed purebred one.

[bivol]

thanks!

i didn’t know this command was used, though it makes sense….
larry, good idea, so one doesn’t have to learn a horse two commands.

[bivol]

considering a relatively low (sometimes free in US!) prices of good sized donkeys, they could be used for agriculture, too. a small farm would do on donkey power, given the soil isn’t too heavy, and the climate is right.

i found these donkeys harnessed to a plow in africa. they are pulling a double-furrow plow:
the pics are in upper 1/5 of the page.

or, this vid:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iHf69orG1I&feature=related

the donkey is used to cultivate a greenhouse (?), which lowers fuel costs, AND keeping a donkey gives one excellent greenhouse manure.

[bivol]

yep, that’s a good idea!
sheep are very afectionate, and i think could be trained to pull carts, etc.
just, you’d have to trim their coats so they don’t overheat!:p

[bivol]

hi juan!

don’t worry about not knowing english, the best way to learn is to often read and hear a language you want to learn. this is how i learned foreign languages.

and also, by comparing your spanish text with english translation, i’m starting to learn a bit spanish myself!:cool:

i hope you will succeed in having a oxen team!

[bivol]

Anne, einfach toll, that was wonderful!
you’re doing a great job, it’s amazing how responsive the little brown cow is!

[bivol]

Gulo, you really got me interested in buffaloes! only, i think i’ll have to go to Hungary to get them.

i have a couple of questions:

are they castrated?

would you post some pictures of your buffaloes in harness?

and about yaks (maybe it’d deserve a new thread, but…)
did you plan on training yaks to work? either on saddle or in yoke, they should turn heads in fairs….

[bivol]

Hi Gulo!

when you mean pole, do you mean the wagon pole?

if you mean road work, than you basically harness them as on the picture below.

note that the pole is held level above ground without the oxen holding it up, as they would do with a yoke.

braking is accomplished by heavy leather collars around each animal’s neck, who are connected to the pole.

[bivol]

OK, thanks!

[bivol]

pigs were learned (actually learned themselves) to herd cattle.
the vid is here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc0fY3BstdU

[bivol]

@CharlyBonifaz 10889 wrote:

also leaves you with less room for error
we used a dremel to put the holes were we wanted them……
elke

did you pre-drill the holes for nails, or use screws instead of nails?:confused:
maybe the nails should be made of steel…. does anyone know how to make shoeing nails?

[bivol]

hi!

i’d warmly recommend a shoeing stock. it’s the best way for learning to shoe.
first, research hoof anatomy; you need to to get the mental picture of hooves inside and out.
once you have the necessary equipment, get some cattle joints from a butcher and shoe them. you can then saw them in half to see where the nails went.
this is what was written in oxen; a teamster’s guide.

also,
if you shoe your oxen by throwing them to the ground, you should deprive them of food so their bellies are empty while you’re shoeing them. you’d also need a few people familiar with cattle.
oxen have thinner hoof walls than horses, so thinner nails are needed.

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