[bivol]

@jac 21024 wrote:

Can any of you oxen owners point me in the right direction for a web page relating to the numbers and usage of oxen in around 1750-1800… primarily in Scotland.. The reason I ask is I am starting a project at Robert Burns cottage in Alloway.. his birthplace. The project revolves round the Clydesdale horse and we are planning workshops around the horses role in agriculture at that time. Eventualy we will reinstate the small field at the rear of the cottage into the market garden the Burns father had at the time of the birth of the poet… however I have an idea for another avenue of thought… could it be possible that oxen were the power source at that time. Burns father was very poor and horses cost a fortune at that time.. also the stalls in the cottage seem very small so I wondered if it was possible that oxen were the power source… thank you in advance people….
John

hi everyone! long time no see!

in short:
yes, yes, yes!

i think oxen above both horses and cows in scotland at the time period! and about stables, i could it have been that they kept their livestock outside most of the time?

historically and culturally oxen seem the most plausable solution. this is because if you look to compare any other similar agricultiure system, like those surviving in peru or ethiopia, (small fields, rocky soil, no animal fodder production) oxen are used, and not cows.

this is because cows require additional feeding, something that wouldn’t have been very common or probable in scotland at that time. which rules out horses, too.

other common traits of there substinence farming systems are:

-care is given to have a maximum amount of animals on a certain space no matter their state.

-animals are not selected, they are primitive breeds

-husbandry hasn’t advanced up to the diary level – animals are kept as -status symbols, for meat and for work, and little or no for milk.

-oxen are valued over cows, and are given better care than cows.

herding systems of scotland have lots in common with husbandry practices in, say, croatia at that time.

now, i guess the following: oxen were definitelly used, either way. in case of multiple teams oxen would again be picked cause they’re cheaper.

anyway, found this article, could help. http://www.foxearth.org.uk/oxen.html

here is something about cultivation in scotland in the period http://www.electricscotland.com/history/rural_life4.htm

here is the entire book http://www.electricscotland.com/history/rural_lifendx.htm

numbering… complicated at least. my guess is to see how much land was tilled at that time, and calculate the number of oxen that way – only have to see how much can an ox team plow in a season.

and divide it into two cathegories: big relativelly fertile land in lowlands under “maybe horses”, and check that out more.
in highlands how much land, acres, calculate under definitelly oxen.

(Joe, didn’t forget, just now got out of trouble, will resume writing soon!)

hope i was of help, good luck!

[bivol]

@Rustedthrough 20110 wrote:

If you have ever hauled two pails of water with a shoulder yoke, and with a simple rope over the shoulder, you should know immediately that a stiff but properly rounded smooth surface is vastly preferable to a raspy flexible one. I would agree wholly with Berta that the rope is used as a matter of cost.
If fine line control is the issue, ropes from the ears or ropes from halters combined with voice commands and consistent training is also possible. I am not aware of Ox teamsters in Philadelphia, London, or Paris using lines and rings as a directional system From Chaucers father’s to Franklin’s time. If the narrow streets of these cities, littered with horses, carriages, and people did not require fine control I would be surprised.

Berta, the ring may be smooth, but it’s also round, it makes the septum take on it’s round shape, whereas the rope adjusts itself to the nose, and becasu it’s also lighter, the oxen don’t feel it as much as the rings.
and you’re right for better not bewing flexible. sharp jerking the rope should be avoided.

i am not aware of many oxen in cities in europe or US (correct me if i’m wrong), mostly horses were used there, and oxen for farm work.
it is possible to control oxen in many ways, but how effective the contol is in real life situation (a halter won’t help if the animal gets really excited) or long-term damaging, (ear ropes are disscouraged, and i agree), that’s another issue.

[bivol]

Joe, started to work on the article, will send it when it’s done.

Ixy, go for it!:D

[bivol]

thanks, Mitch, i’ll keep it up!

there’s another story related to Jamestown, how the fort itself was built: it was a wooden triangular fort encircling the entire settlement built within weeks, again, with hand tools but also without any draft animals!

i guess we still have what the old timers had, only we’re too tucked up in all of our modern commodities to actually need to apply that energy to accomplish something, so we can’t believe such feats can be done.
and i guess it’s also because of our reliance on machines that we’ve lost confidence in what can be done by muscle power.

but i think that talent for improvisation and that raw energy required to do stuff like build a ship or a fort from scratch, or bring back a railway back to working order are still within us all, and no boubt it’ll come out when needed!

but!

we still need to train this talent, if nothing to learn hoe to think creatively. that’s why half-regulated life can be so beneficial, like when you don’t have all the necessary commodities so you have to figure out how to get or make them.
in comparison, modern way of life with its hyper-sophistication and hyper-specialization (and ofcourse, loads of regulations for everything) can really be oppressive to open creativity.

[bivol]

ok, i think i’ll write an article for RH.

found some guidelines, must say they’re a bit intimidating, but i’ll still give it a go. it can’t hurt.

[bivol]

once tried to put a candle out with hairspray…. didn’t quite work out :rolleyes:

but it is good for killing files and mosquitos if nothing else is available, as a foreplay to famous anti-pest slipper shaolin!

soooo sad we didn’t know of this when my generation were kids!…. oh well, cultural exchange today is beautiful!

backyard ballistics, got it!

[bivol]

Ixy, i don’t know. i think i’m not getting payed…

oh, yeah, AN UPDATE:

SEEMS I WON’T BE HEADING FOR ISTRIA AFTER ALL, THE CAR HAS SOME PROBLEMS… see it wants gasoline, and i won’t give it to him…

so the QUESTION SUGGESTIONS are not neccessary…

but i think i’ll devote myself to writing about nose rings, that’ll be useful…

[bivol]

@Stable-Man 19892 wrote:

Growth economics, too, is sort of a losing game. We need to grow the economy for the growing workforce…but if you don’t have a growing workforce, there’s no need for more jobs. So far we don’t account for environmental degradation in the GDP (check out Herman Daly’s books for info on that). Our electrical demand is going up and what people don’t seem to realize is we need to mine material for our solar panels and wind turbines and rebuild infrastructure to deliver it. We use so much oil in everything that life without it is incomprehensible.
😀

why just don’t shift the surplus workforce back to the farming? what’s the problem, if a lot of people go self-sufficient, the government wil be unable to conrtol their substinence, and that’s how people are controled today.
the problem i see is that in a democracy, if one party says “we have to reduce energy consumption”, the other will say “no we don’t vote for us!” just so they get to the power, no matter the real needs.
what is needed is a consensus of both parties, but no political party will actually bite the hand of those who feed them. no, i’m not talking about voters, i’m talking about big bussiness.

reduction in energy is needed for everything. we all use so much energy we think life without it is impossible!
just like a kid who knows who to calculate, but he has relied on a calculator his entire life, so now he has to calculate something by hand, he’s afraid, because he’s never done it (he has relied only upon the calculator), although he knows he’d be able to do it.

p.s. thank oxnun, i’ll keep trying to write good ones.
about the conferences, that’s the point! if you’re self-sufficient, there’s not a lot, if anything, they can do to threaten you, you’re not bond to the system they have so much influence over.
and this scares the (both the big bussiness and the government) because they will go bankrupt (industry) and they’ll loose the influence.

the like for the book is here

[bivol]

@dlskidmore 19889 wrote:

I agree, but there is still a limitation on growth in that sector as well. After you break big agriculture back down into little family farms that are just a step above self-sufficiency (make enough extra to pay taxes and have a few nice things) you will still run out of land if the population continues to grow.

The really sad part is, that you can’t limit population growth and remain a viable culture, as the other cultures out-breed you and replace you. This is a no-win for a peaceful society that’s trying to become sustainable with a neighbor that is not. But if neither neighbor is sustainable, that’s also a problem in that neither can spread it’s excess population to the less populated country, and there will be either war, disease, or famine to decrease the population and restore balance as nature always does (or in the last such cycle end the world.) Even if you convince your neighbor to be sustainable and you overpopulate into their territory, you will only prolong the inevitable.

Bah. I’m just being depressing now. We can only do the work that’s in front of us, that God gave each of us to do, and contribute our small parts. The big picture thinking gets overwhelming and gets in the way of providing the world what love and hope we can.

wise words you said there! sometimes it’s better not to see the entire picture. do what you can, be as marry as you can, and have trust in God!

it is true other cultures have a higher birth rate than ours, but that’s just because we in the west have a horribly low one. everyone now lives in the cities and they all want something for themselves, my job my career, my clothes, my expense, we have hyper-individualism, to our own long term damage.
still, i guess these people push for this individualism because they don’t know better. maybe i’m naive, maybe i’m just like so, but pictures of a local neighborhood and community, neighbors going about popping up for a visit, helping each-other, peaceful existence, they are burnt in my head as the very best means to live is to live with others, is the people around are good.

one way an equilibrium of positive birth rates in the country could be sucked up by cities with negative birth rates can keep a country with stable population.don’t worry about hyper-population here in the west, we can take a lot more, but we first have to even get a positive birth rates nationally.

and we have to go from this horrible hyper-individualism to a more neighborhood-like community, be it in the city or countryside.

this shift to local community and countryside can happen and it will happen (if something worse doesn’t).
the “best thing” is that such a shift already happened in recent history so we know it can work: in- Cuba.
up until 1989. cuba was a russian-tailored society with emphesis on all the thing an industrial society should have, and with all the effects of city life in the west, alienation, no local community in the cities, diminishing countrydise population, industrialized agirculture based on export while importhing food from eastern block…

it all came to a sudden halt (better, a crash) then the soviet union fell apart: no oil, no chemical fertilizers, no tractor parts, no food imports from eastern europe!
this whole period was came to be known as the “special period”,(there was famine, shift in agricultural policy, to organic farming, city gardens, smaller farms) and long story short, the people started leaving the cities for countryside and farming occupation, in the cities the local a tightly-knit community was again established.

raising children in the cities is very expensive indeed. they all need food you have to buy, they all need activities (because you’re not there as a parent; you’re working), they all need their own room ,they all need cellphones, this, that, etc,…
and they’re more exposed to trends etc, they want to fit in, and it all now costs money.

in the countryside the culture and needs are vastly different, even if i might say, more basic at least for needs. it is sure more economical to have more children in the countryside than in the city.
real estate id mostly cheaper, food can be locally grown, children can help with the work (useful, they learn, and they spend time with parents)

*looks up* oh man, i really go of the hook above….

[bivol]

hi!

i just contacted the president of boskarin society, and i found out the following:
i’d have to go and arrange the interviews myself.
second, they’d probably expect to be payed for it, he said, there’s always someone coming around, asking questions taking pictures and some making a profit out of it, and the breeders have nothing out of it.

also, he said, St. Jacob’s fest is tomorrow, so he said i should come mingle with the crowd some hours before the start and ask every teamster or old-timer a few questions. he said, an hour o

the only problem is, i don’t exactly know what to ask;

since they can’t explain how they train the oxen, i thought i’d concentrate on:
1. history,
2. meaning of oxen back then for very survival,
3. vs. tractors,
4. ww2
5.

but i don’t know if there’s be anything like enough for RH; i’d still prefer a normal article. but we’ll see!

if some of you have some questions, feel free to tell me what i should ask!

[bivol]

thanks Tim! i try to write stuff that’l be interesting.

oxnun, i wanted to do an interview with such people, but the problem is you hardly find a teamster willing to talk about oxen. basically they all think i’m pulling their leg.

when you ask them, they are first surprised you ask, and then they give you short, nonchalant answers what was done but they can’t describe ways and methods, i think they used them but can’t describe them, it’s like they used them like an instinct. as for busha and podolian, i gathered it all from books, if i find some more, i’ll write it here.

but to write an article for RH i’d need more than a few patched-up sentences by reluctant old people…

options:
1. interview
i tried calling the president of Boskarin breeders just now, and i’ll try again tomorrow. maybe he can fix me an interview with some old-timers, that’s my best shot.
the guys from Istria are the most pleasant people i’ve met so far, even if they talk an ancient local dialect i can hardly understand, i’ll tape it and later translate it. i just hope he’ll find someone.

because, when you come to them with a sentence:”hi, i’d like to make an interview with you for an American ox-interested magazine,…”, it is likely they’ll think i’m pulling their leg, so i need to contact the president first.

2. as for those texts i translated, that was all, i can’t use them due to copyright, AND it wouldn’t be fair.

3. own text
this idea i like the most. i thought of writing a text about nasal control, leaning on conclusions and experiences from the thread.

i think it’s both an interesting and a useful issue, because it has lots of negative publicity, as well as people using these methods of control here often do hurt the animals, not because they want, but because they don’t know do-s and don’t-s of nasal control.

ofcourse help and contributions from others will be mentioned.

i have to be cautious and skeptic of my knowledge, esp, when presenting something to lots of other people.
well, i was cautious, but as ma gave me good advice:”you don’t have to walk on Mars to write about it”.

and if you all here think it’s ok, then i’ll give it a shot!

[bivol]

oh, i see then. didn’t know that… well, it is logical, “from community to community”.
guess Scott’s right and i ain’t…. true enough.

but here’s the catch: i THINK (99% sure) i know how, for ex. some stuff works (like nose rings), but thinking ain’t going to do good if i didn’t already do it myself. which i didn’t.

now i can write about ideas and suggestions in a forum, but to write something from a mostly theoretical standpoint, and present it to the whole ox community in US and Canada (nay, the entire draft animal community), that would be bit overbearing of me, now wouldn’t it?
that’d be like putting a fistful of stuff i think is salt in an ocean and expect to have done good work.

esp. since there are here all around people who know a lot more than me…

[bivol]

@Scott G 19891 wrote:

If you bovine power folks start submitting decent manuscripts with photos, chances are that Joe would publish them. “Build it and they will come.”

No contributions = No content

that would be like asking regular citizens to submit manuscripts about stories they’re involved in, and “if they’re good, the editor will publish them”.

LOL where’s the journalism here?

as i said, there’s ample information here, more concentrated here than anywhere else online, so anyone interested can google it out (and consequently not buy RH to read it there).
and since this all knowledge is here, online, in plain view of anyone interested enough, i guess it’s up to the journalists to make a pick at a story, and make it, because otherwise, interested people will read it here, and “the train already left”.

so, if kind people from RH want to make a story based on the knowledge here, it’s up to those same RH guys to ask, find, write and submit stories they think the audience will like.

references and questions will ofcourse be answered, if we can help, but it’s up to the journalists to be… well, journalists.

so, he asks, we answer, that’s how it could work for a portion of a text, but “we concept it out”, “we write it”, “we submit it”, and Joe “says OK”, umm, that’s a bit stretched, isn’t it?

we are just a bunch of online practitioners and enthusiasts, but we’re not journalists.

and there’s another saying:”i offer a finger and now they want an arm”.

[bivol]

@near horse 19893 wrote:

How about using them as projectiles in a homemade air cannon?

similar to the potato cannon?
LOL i’ll keep that in mind in case the situation here cooks up again:D;)

[bivol]

@dlskidmore 19874 wrote:

Well, yes, we can always grow spiritually, personal development, in technology in productivity, but there is a limit to population and city sprawl size.

and why is it necessary to have big cities? and who said it’s good that we have most of people in living cities? i believe we have to have a good balance between countryside and city population.
IMO it is better to have a substantial population living in the countryside.

don’t forget huge cities are a product of our highly-industrial and specialized way of life, and ALSO of government efforts in all the first world to keep the food producing population to about 10% of society.

[Author]

Posts