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@bugman 4234 wrote:
Iwas thinking the same thing. And where do you get the rings? What does the vet charge for the piercing? Thanks for any info
well i’ll tell you what i know: i personally think nose ring system, if used properly, does not make the animals headshy. what makes them headshy are wrongly attached nose-rings, nose rings who are connected between animals themselves. this system of control sucks, if i may say, rather don’t use any nose rings than this, as the animals constantly tug at each other’s noses as they go, which hurts them, so they asociate payne with movement. this makes them headshy.
the “right way” to do it, if i may say so, is to attach a line that leads from each animal’s nose ring directly and only to the teamster’s hands. in the sence the nose ring serve as brakes, if you use a yoke. (and i recommend it if you use lines) if you pull the left ox’s nose ring, he stops and the right ox keeps walking and the yoke turns left. same to right. you pull both if you want to stop.
noserings can be used on any breed of cattle, but are, i think, most affective on alert and excitable cattle breeds, or cattle which are being trained mature.
here is a text which i saved, from ayudarna fellowship, or hare krisna, on the subject…
“Because of the fine control one gets by nasal harnessing, driving them becomes accessible to everybody regardless of size, sex or age. This makes ox driving easy to take up. The simplicity of the system means anybody can take it up, train the oxen and work them.
A friend of mine wanted something to do for the bulls, so I asked him to train the bull calves. He was a bit bemused because he had no experience with oxen what to speak of training them. The two bull calves had been castrated at one year of age and at the same time had nose rings put in. We put the oxen in a small training yoke. Their nose ring, looped around the back of the head and then secured to the center of the back of the head. A small two wheel cart (more or less a seat on two wheels) was fixed to the yoke. My friend sat on the cart and from the start he was driving the bulls all over the field. To move left he called Haw, he stopped the left bull by pulling back on the rope attached to the left bull s nose and, at the same time, gently tapped the right bull to keep it moving around the left bull. To turn right he called Gee, pulled the right bull and tapped the left bull. To stop he called Whoa and pulled back on both bulls. To start he called Get Up and tapped both bulls.
As you can see this system is so simple that anybody, even without experience can do it. Obviously to have the bulls working well you must work them regularly. Gentleness and firmness should be the attitude of the driver.
The bulls of Bhaktivedanta Manor are all harnessed by the same method. They system is so amazing that the bulls are used extensively for padayatras, festivals and carnivals. All these involve the bulls pulling a cart through very busy roads, where lorries, buses, cars, etc. are rushing past. The nasal harness gives pinpoint control of the bulls.
Personally, I would encourage everybody to take up any system of training bulls, but I must say, from my experience and by confirmation of scripture, the system of nasal control seems the most practical and easy to implement”
oxen become sore nosed if the nose ring is put in too soon, when they are still calves. my best guess is to learn the calves to follow you, and tame them. when they grow big enough, than put the nose rings in. and simple two lines work best, no four lines (one for each side of turning) are needed.
nose rings should be broad, not to deform the noses, like those on the pictures bellow.
with nose rings, and ofcourse training and practice, you will more easy learn oxen to plow alone. my guess is thar once the cattle learn to defy lou even to the least degree, while you are walking by then, they will always defy you more openlly once you move back to plow. with nose rings, cattle know you can always control them and make them listen by pulling the rope, they can, compared to another team with equal training but no nose rings, always be better controled than those without nasal cont. the point is, cattle you walk by know thast you can’t punish them as effectivelly when you’re not around. cattle driven with nose rings always can be, and are used to, being controled from behind. they may not see you, but they know, if they act up they can expect a tug.
you can use nose’rings in oxen in head yoke, like in cuba.
well i hope i could help!Marko
@Howie 4231 wrote:
bivol
I found it very interesting that I have two yokes just like the ones on the cattle in that WWI picture. I wonderd where the originated.
well, this yoking system has been subject of my attention, but i found out little. i’ve seen a development phases in hungary in their ethno collection. it seemes this yoke was either developed in the panonian plain (today hungary and ukraine and poland) and spread to south and east. nowdays it’s used in hungary, serbia, continental croatia, bulgaria, romania, parts of turkey, and even to pakistan. beats me how it got there, maybe it’s an indigenous design. if i were able to speak hungarian, maybe i could solve this…
my best guess is panonian plain, and not pakistan, becaise if you look good you’ll see that there is no grab ring in the middle of the yoke, there’s an iron piece that goes through the yoke. the tongue is held by a second iton piece. this is a totally diferent system, as the yoke is under fixed angle, but n the collection it shows that the yoke was developed with itanother curiosity… my cousin, who has more knowledge of ethnology, told me that hungarians use slavic words for agricultural tools. this means they were not agricultural peoples when they settled in today hungary, they learned agriculture from the slavic peoples they subjuged. and slavs lived in the entire region of middle and eastern europe. so you can say that that yoke is in fact a slavic yoke.
i’ve seen this yoke in usa, probably brought by farmers from eastern or middle europe.thank you for your intrest elke!
so, boskarin…well, enthusiasts of the breed like to call it the biggest mammal of europe, but they are forgeting chianina cattle though:D
well, the horns of boskarin are also selected to be shaped back, so they don’t get cought up in wines when plowing the wineyards. the breed was formerly, before mechanization came, also spread to slovenia, a neighbouring country. the breed conservation program was started in the ninties, and through a group of dedicated breeders specimens looking like purebred bulls and cows were selected and a breeding program was started. how could they tell? well, true, purebred boskarins have bule upper mouth and a dark strip on their back.
in the 19th century the government tried to improve the breed by adding romagnola blood to the breed, but the attempt was short lived because cross-bred animals couldn’t match the purebreds in working preformance and resiliance. but the question arises why was the boskarin used only as draft animal, and not as a milk animal? well, the animal on the coat of arms orf istria is an istrian goat, now extinct, but it proves that goats and sheep provided the milk. this means the cattle were bred exclusivelly for their draft preformance, in the past more important than milk and meat preformance combined, and that they excelled in it.
so, it is one of the rare cattle breeds in europe selected primarly for work. this makes them spirited at work, but obedient and afectionate. only a rope around the horns is used to control the animals. they are also long lived, and live up to 20 years.
they are browsers.
although it’s not usual to milk the cows, under good feeding conditions they can giva 6-8 liters of milk with up to 6%butterfat. by comparison, holstein gives 2%. cows can give up to 1200 liters of milk in a lactation, which is a lot when you see that no selection work was done for milk.on podolians
they can work up to 16 years of age, not because they are weak, but because their teeth are worn out.i love podolians!
[IMG]http://www.flickr.com/photos/blese/204185696/sizes/l/[/IMG]
