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@bradley 21900 wrote:

Do you guys know when using the traditional names Star and Bright, which one is the nigh and off?

Little pilgrim, Volumes 1-3 – Star is the off ox in this story, and Spot was the near.

Farmer Boy – Star is nigh and Bright is off

The chestnut pipe: folklore of Shelburne County – Both Star and Bright are given as nigh names

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@OldKat 21752 wrote:

Not sure how much time you intend to spend taming your heifer that is headed for the deep freeze, but whatever works for you …

If you’re new with cattle, working with a difficult one is a way to train yourself. Get the mistakes out with this one that doesn’t matter, so the next one you train right.

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@Marshall 21821 wrote:

What I have always wondered is how do we know who really won the election. Vote all you want and then take the politican and medias word for it as to who won? I know how the process is supposed to work but is that what is really being done?

Doesn’t do us much good to speculate. Either your vote counts or it doesn’t. You can volunteer to work the polls if you want to at least get a closer look at the process. I think it’s technically a paid position, not volunteering…

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@dominiquer60 21802 wrote:

If you get an older steer consider finding a small farmer that handles the young stock in a situation where they often interact with people.

There is a little bit of a 4-H cattle scene here, I think those are fairly promising. The kids struggle with them, but they are at least handled enough for it to be possible to handle them in a strange location.

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@Carl Russell 21805 wrote:

Sorry you guys, that Daviidwilson was a spammer….. I nuked him.

Carl

I thought his post looked awfully familiar… Odd way to spam, copying other folks posts…

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People want to feel like their votes matter, and today very few third party candidates win. The tea party is trying to split that quandary down the middle by hijacking the primary of an “official” party. (Not that I disapprove.)

I do whenever possible vote for candidates on third party lines instead of on the big two. It’s just a small protest that I don’t want the big two controlling my vote, although they often have more qualified candidates than the third parties around here.

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If you are around dairy people, you might consider working cattle.

Yeah, the topic has come up a few times. It seems at least worth my while to get a weaned steer and see what I can do with it while it’s growing. Oxen are a much lower risk proposition than horses, as you can always eat them if they don’t work.

I don’t think I can bottle feed until I quit the day job, so I’ll just have to take my chances with one a little older.

Right now I’m looking at ways of reducing my total power needs, to try to work with no big tractor or draft animal. Little jobs can be handled with a walking tractor. I think I’ll have to buy all my winter hay. Oxen would be downright handy though for dragging pasture, and moving stuff.

I had a draft dog that would have been helpful in moving small stuff, but she passed away recently. Hopefully I can find and train another before we have our down-payment ready.

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@mstacy 21766 wrote:

Have you given any thought to putting a few pigs to work in the flooded paddy field with portable electric fencing?

Anyone serious about such a thing might look at mulefoot hogs. There is speculation that the non-cloven hoof is less likely to be affected by damp conditions.

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@clayfoot-sandyman 21732 wrote:

My experience now tells me that the only way to really have a bovine who is totally steady is for that animal to see you as being 100% in charge.

I’m not opposed, I just see that as step 2.

The beauty of cattle is that they are still tasty if they don’t work out for their primary purpose. Can’t hurt to give your favorite gentling method a try while she’s growing big enough for the freezer though.

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Every species is prone to bribery. Bring food, back off to an uncomfortable but non-threatening distance, allow her to eat, take food away when you leave. Repeat more often than the normal meal schedule until she eats all her food in a meal. If you can’t spend that much time with her, let her free feed a low-value food and use a high-value food for training. Then slowly decrease the comfort distance until she eats food right next to you, and looks happy to see you when you enter her enclosure with food.

Hopefully a cow person will give you more specific advice.

I’m not opposed to showing an animal who’s boss, but I usually like to start from a position of the animal being comfortable and happy with my presence, so backing off the force has a reward effect rather than making them think of an escape opportunity. I don’t want to start any battles I can’t finish and end with a period of affection and reward. Before that point I only restrain for their own safety, I don’t try to make them do anything.

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@Jean 21717 wrote:

I tell you what if he is a christian then I am a virgin.

There are bad eggs in any community, even Christian ones. Too bad the folks at his church probably don’t know what he’s doing so they can straighten him out.

As for cash-only vs banking, as long as I live in a dangerous neighborhood, I’m quite happy to have my money in plastic form, which is not so easy for a thief to spend. If I lived elsewhere where theft was rare, I might feel differently. Banks do serve a purpose and overall benefit society although they do have more than their share of bad eggs in their community.

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@mitchmaine 21710 wrote:

they might be thinking “man, wouldn’t it be great working a horse in the woods.” but being strapped to $1,000,000. worth of equipment and payments, have to make some remark about size and money to support what they do

That was the very thing that got me interested in animal power. I started looking at the price of tractors. Then I started looking around at reasonable profits to expect out of that hefty investment, and came across some little paper by an extension office trying to better support their Amish constituents. It turned out, after some study, that the Amish folks were making more per acre and working fewer hours a day than the modern tractor farmer. They couldn’t work a ton of acres at the walking pace and rest break schedule of a horse team, so they never got rich, but for a small acreage it made more business sense to work horses.

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@dominiquer60 21514 wrote:

I know too that some of this footwear will also last me many years.

I’ve got a crooked hip, so anything with a heel lasts me about 6 months. That left outer heel wears out, and then it totally messes up my gait and hurts the hip more. I have used barn boots for particularly wet conditions, and extra sturdy leather boots for climbing on rocky ground, but it’s cheap sneakers for everyday wear. I’m considering learning how to be my own cobbler, and make myself a pair or two.

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@Tim Harrigan 21261 wrote:

A good team will test a new teamster within the first few minutes, if only in subtle ways. If the teamster demonstrates worthiness to lead, the team will bond. I do not think it matters if they are one month old or a started team 8 months old. A good, started team if very capable of making a green teamster look silly if the leadership and experience are lacking. Even a well-trained, 8-month old team has a lot more to learn. It is not an issue of who started them, the issue of who is leading them.

This is why I want to start with calves. Not for the sake of the calves’ training, but mine. While the animal is still small you can overcome mistakes with physical domination, and you have all those growing months to retrain anything you trained incorrectly.

I actually intend to start with beef animals, and train myself for a couple years before I pick a pair to not have for dinner and raise on as working cattle. It may seem wasteful to train an animal that I don’t intend to keep, but it’s like any trade, you have to get a proper education before you can do it right. I’m in no hurry, I am only planning to cultivate a small area at first, with only a rototiller for powered tools.

If I felt I was an experienced teamster, an experienced team would be preferable, ready to work with only a little big of bonding and acclimation to my equipment/environment to work out.

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@dlskidmore 21124 wrote:

You can always ask for a core sample a few weeks before he cleans the barn and needs a place to put it.

Anyone know how expensive US Composting Council Seal of Testing Assurance composts tests are? I recall my extension office charges quite a bit for trace metal testing, but some of the other stuff isn’t bad, like pH and N-P-K.

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