[dlskidmore]

Someone has offered trained oxen available in spring time. Serious reading and spousal negotiation to go on this winter. (Hubby is probably right that I need a better handle on my health issues before I take on something new, but I’ve got some leads and a new doc, might have things worked out by spring.)

[dlskidmore]

No, I’m talking about beasts of burden working in places without good roads.

Entirely theoretical question. Someone had argued that I should invest in cattle so I’d have oxen in a doomsday type event where I may need a beast of burden to evacuate with, but I think oxen are more useful in a normal farm environment than on the run. (I do want oxen someday, I just think the doomsday evacuation scenario is a poor argument for them.)

[dlskidmore]

…and the bottle stage requires a lot more time and energy than even giving them a good daily training walk. It’s not just the training, it’s the baby raising. If I’m doing beef steers I can just let them wean naturally…

Can you recommend anyone that offers trained handy steers for sale? Short workshops on handling oxen? I think most of what I need to learn yet will be hard to learn in a book. Even if we could absorb it that way, nobody writes about how they hold their ears when they’re happy, or which body part twitches first when they spook…

I’m already stretched a little thin, I have to think carefully about cost/benefit. My husband is a bit worried about this idea and would rather I just expanded the sheep flock. It would be nice to have strong helpers for some jobs, but I need equipment to help them work, and I need to spend time with them and build the relationship.

• This reply was modified 10 years, 2 months ago by dlskidmore.

[dlskidmore]

Would you consider a novice? How much training would I need first? I’ve been interested in oxen but I have no mentor locally. (Although I know a few horse men.) I have 10 acres to pasture them on if it would be suitable to use temporary electric fence. My barn has a number of empty horse stalls for winter boarding. I have no draft equipment (unless you count my tiny little cart that we hook to the lawn mower), but there is a dealer around the corner that works with the Amish and might find me something. We could at least use them to haul some logging debris out of the hay field. I would want to use them to haul a manure spreader, a mower, a rake, and a wagon, but I would not use them a lot and they might need reconditioning if they have heavy plowing work to do the following year. I’d be willing to do demo work at a county fair, but I don’t have the time off work to do more than one.

I have a minuscule amount of experience working with draft dogs, understand some of the principles of good draft and drafting commands. (Although the oxen are strong enough to not worry about the extreme cart balance issues with the dogs who can’t have much weight on their backs.) My best trained draft dog died before being mature enough to handle the weight, my current pair contains a couch potato and a nutcase so I’m not doing much with them right now.

We currently raise grass fed lamb. We are still working on rehabilitating our pastures and need temporary stock that can help us with that while our purebred flock (and sheep proof fencing) is still growing into the space, and It would be a good opportunity for me to try working with oxen before putting the time in to train my own pair. Our other options are beef cattle or goats.

I am in Western NY. I have no livestock trailer but already know I need one and am looking. If they need to be moved right away then I’d need them delivered and they’d go in with the sheep until we got the next pasture set up.

I understand if you can find a more experienced home for them that you’d probably prefer that. They are probably better off with experienced hands and full time work, but I didn’t think it hurt to ask.

[dlskidmore]

I logged in today because I’ve had issues with hay contractors and am seriously considering converting those 10 acres to goat or cow pasture. (To try to get back on topic here.)

[dlskidmore]

Although a bit long and not entirely right, I don’t mind the topic. I usually stay quiet, but this man claims to be my brother so I must try to gently correct him.

If you are prepping for biblical reasons, I suggest you re-read Matthew 24.

15 “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’[a] spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— 16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 17 Let no one on the housetop go down to take anything out of the house. 18 Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak.

No wagon full of survival goods there, not even your coat, just run. That’s the only end times prep instruction I know of in the bible, and it doesn’t even necessarily apply to anyone outside of that region. The people fleeing Judea have to go somewhere.

If you look through Revelations, you’ll see that those refusing the mark of the beast won’t be able to own property, buy, or sell. If you can’t pay taxes your land will be taken from you. With the increasing surveillance in our world, you really think you can successfully hide in the woods if they really want to find you? You start shooting down drones and they’ll know right where you’ve been. Even if you succeed, you’re just surviving, you have no ministry left in the world.

I do aim for independence for my own reasons, but I am not sacrificing the good I can do today to save my neck tomorrow. Heaven ain’t so scary that I want to stick through the end times to avoid going there. Revelations serves as a warning, and when those times come it will be a comfort to those that believe (even if the rapture is pre-tribulation, there will be some that come to believe afterwards) that there will be an end to it, but I don’t think it should affect how we live out love for God and people before those times come.

The first commandment is to love God, the second is to love your neighbors. If I have an extra $100 and I have a choice of using it to prep or sending it to orphans in Haiti who are hungry and uneducated today, I don’t think prepping is the Christian thing to do. What you do is between you and God, but don’t be judgmental of those that do not prep.

[dlskidmore]

An interesting note, she despises dairy bulls, but thinks beef bulls can be reasoned with. She hasn’t a lot to say about steers, although she recommends growing them out more than a year for better flavor.

[dlskidmore]

Oh, and by the way, the Family Cow book was perfectly good in Kindle edition. Reference books are often a tossup as to how well they go to Kindle. This book was mostly prose, not a lot of tables and diagrams. I read it using the Android app on a tablet.

[dlskidmore]

I finished reading Keeping a Family Cow, and frankly, reading that book makes me more interested in keeping dairy goats than cows. The economics discussion highlights the $4000 worth of milk that you get out of the deal, but I don’t use $4000 worth of milk, cheese, butter, and yogurt combined in a year, and in my state selling the extra is not viable. (One cow is way too small to sell to the guy with the milk trucks and the processing plant, raw milk sales legal with lots of licencing requirements that are such a hassle that very few farmers are willing to do it.) She argues that it takes 5 goats to equal one cow, but for someone that wants 2/5th the output and 2/5th the cost, a couple dairy goats make more sense. Especially if you can breed them in opposing seasons and stay in milk as long as you want to. (Might be nice to schedule a dry period in the depth of winter when no-one wants to be milking anyway.)

On the oxen side, the book does have very good information about nutrition, cattle care, safety around cattle, and training calves to halter.

I also found the general discussion about the human food chain and the history of milk very interesting. I found it less fanatical and more fact-based than other pro raw milk sources I’ve read. I think it is a worthwhile read even if you don’t end up keeping a dairy cow.

[dlskidmore]

Goals:
1. Beef
2. Labor
3. Maybe Milk Someday, but not while I’m working full time.

I just thought the family cow book was aimed at complete newbies keeping micro herds, while the oxen books might assume I know something about the species already. My Small Scale Livestock Farming book is aimed at a much larger scale than I’m thinking.

[dlskidmore]

… it was like a corn binder but smaller…

[dlskidmore]

Yeah, most grain binders wouldn’t be suitable. The first one I saw though was pretty small, just a V in the front, and the knotting apparatus in the back, spat the bundles out behind. Tried to find it again and can’t, which is making it unlikely that I’d find one for sale anywhere.

[dlskidmore]

I’ve never heard of using a round pen with dogs, they really like traveling places and ground drive well on trails early. (Besides being so much easier to handle, the extra security of the round pen fence is not as necessary.)

[dlskidmore]

Flail mower will run a bit more than a side delivery rake but will definitely aid more in mulching in weeds than the rake will. I’m currently using all the mulch I rake up, but I could probably get the hay guy to leave me a cart of less favorable hay down by the garden while the hay contract lasts.

*still pondering* At this rate the house sale won’t complete until snowfall, so I guess I have until spring to consider what solution I’m going with.

Looking forward to getting out of the haying contract, but I need it for now.

[dlskidmore]

A puppy harness and a light drag like a twig or soda bottle can start teaching the basics without putting too much weight on them. My Great Danes that I trained to pull couldn’t take serious weight until two years old, but they could drag bike tires and such very early. Husky/German Shepard should be ready at 6 months. If you want to do heavy work and need to be very sure, get an x-ray to test if the growth plates are closed.

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