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Nat(wasIxy)
ParticipantHaha wow, good to see you back bivol – a LOT has changed since this post! I didn’t work ted in a yoke in the end, and Pretty went to slaughter. I started with Rum & Raisin instead in a yoke made especially for me, and I like it. The only problem is that Raisin is in such poor health. I have another pair, bubble and squeak who are similar, Bubble is extremely cow hocked, Squeak is good. Unfortunately Rum & Squeak don’t fit together because Rum is huge and Squeak is tiny! grrr!
I have a pair of dexter calves, Rook & Raven, but they are 6mo and still living wild out on the marshes currently! The fun will start when they come in for the winter…..
ParticipantLike howie, I get through a lot of steers! But very, very few stay the course. sometimes they just aren’t suitable for me. There’s plenty more fish in the sea, and the really excellent ones are out there. I don’t agree with the common-in-the-horseworld idea of flogging on and on with a difficult animal…just go get a good one instead and start enjoying your life. Let’s face it, this is a hobby, so it really should be enjoyable, life is too short!
ParticipantYes, oxen are easy to train and yes, you see tiny children riding buffalo yada yada yada – what is not taken into account from a photo is how many animals get trained and how many end up as beef, or suitable for children to ride. Also, things are very different if these animals are trained by people who know what they are doing, live in that culture, have the right facilities etc.
When you don’t have that, you get Frye. I’m glad you’ve stopped dictating what can and can’t happen and have put some effort in, and things have changed, just as I said they would if you did. I’m not a ‘naysayer’, but you have to face facts sometimes.
ParticipantNot really, unless something gives you have a bad situation on your hands and a lovely trained ox will not be the outcome. You have to change something, or the situation will stay as it is.
Mature pet-friendly steers that grow up without discipline and control are dangerous pure and simple, and this guy’s already running the show. Cattle never forget a learnt lesson, and he has learnt many times already that he can do just as he likes. It is not a beginner’s task to put a situation like that right, and better facilities would be needed to do it.
If having an ox would be such an important future resource to this place then they’d better start putting their backs into doing it properly. Otherwise I think the oxen would be better off out of it altogether. Personally, I don’t want to offer anymore help, I want Frye to go somewhere well fenced and with company so he doesn’t have to exhibit such neurotic behaviour and doesn’t run the risk of seriously hurting someone one day.
ParticipantI ended up swapping a herefordX calf for two dexters with my husband, to kill two birds with one stone – a well matched yoked pair (with any luck) and historically correct for re-enactment. But then we got the possibility of a job that required a yoked pair NOW, so I had another look at Raisin.
He’s much better, still a bit skinny with a big gut, but looking healthier, a little fatter, seeming perkier, and a nice sleek coat.
Hopefully he’ll come right with time?
ParticipantI got my stepdad to make me a yoke – he’s a woodsman sort of character and had no problem making it from various plans in books and form tillers international’s web resources. No hope of buying one in the UK! I gather you can in the US though? places like berry brook ox supply?
ParticipantYes getting him used to being tied is a good step – I would throw time out of the window myself, and just tie him until he stops fighting and is calm, then release. If he doesn’t fight because he does have this training, all well and good! Yes then you can build the time up and tie him in different locations, you walking out of sight and so on. I think you’ll find that getting him ‘used to’ a yoke, or any bit of tack, is easy peasy with oxen – this is not the hard bit. What you really need is for him to be listening to you and respecting you as leader…much harder at this stage!
ParticipantI think they’d be OK – maybe a bit ‘lively’ and an independent nature, but I’d give it a go! I always wanted to drive a team of three abreast – a welsh black, a ruby devon and a white park!
ParticipantI’m not laughing at you, but I would definately second the idea to attend a workshop – you are lucky to live in a country where they exist, so make the most of it. Oxen are different to farmed cattle, and different again to horses.
I think using the horse to train the ox is an extremely bad idea, when you yourself don’t know what you are really doing. If something bad happened, it could easily ruin both animals an be dangerous for you.
If this animal is a year old and to be honest, sounds spoilt if it’s ‘nuzzling’ you as a yearling, you really have your work cut out as a beginner. Mine are usually fully trained by the time they are yearlings – you’re speeding into teenage territory really fast! That said, if you work really hard no doubt you can manage it.
Why do you think you may be able to ride it if you can get it used to a bit or hackamore? Forget bits and hackmores, you’d have to TEACH it to be ridden – there’s nothing magical about a bit or hackamore that tells and animal how to be ridden. Sorry if that sounds harsh! Too many people think riding is about slamming a saddle on and a bit in when really they are the final steps…
ParticipantI asked the abattoir yesterday and they said they once had one with some barbed wire in, but it’s not a common occurrence. Rope and baler twine, much more common! Now I could see him having some of that inside, but he’s been this way (poor) most of his life now. When I can afford it again I’ll get the vet out to see if he can tell whether there is some in there…can they do that? I’d rather not put him through surgery ‘just to see’.
ParticipantThis for me is one of the handiest parts of having an ox around! I was astonished when it first started happening – the older, trained guys seem impatient with the disobedient young ones and can actually help get them in line! They seem to very much know they henjoy a special position, being closer to the humans. My oxen all live with the herd, but even from when he was a real youngster, if we were rounding up the herd on foot, Ted would separate himself and come and stand near me rather than be herded. Now I lead him and the rest follow. Being mostly dexters the rest of the herd escape fairly often, but Ted is usually always willing to follow and the rest fall in behind.
One time my hereford was being led by my husband while I tried to get a young jersey calf down to the barn from the field with it’s mother – it was the stubbornest calf we’ve EVER ahd the misfortune to have to handle, and Peach (hereford) was getting annoyed too, so she hooked one of her big horns around its backside and pushed it down to the yard for us! LOL
ParticipantYes I will ask!
ParticipantWe slaughter all our cattle locally and have never heard anything like? Or from anyone else? It must just not be an issue here but I can’t see why? Baler twine is a good possibility though – they go mad for that, particularly human-reared calves. When I can afford it I’ll get the vet out to investigate that, but for now the good news is that over the last couple of days he’s made a good comeback! I guess ‘Dr. Green’ kicked in? My husband remarked yesterday as we were feeding them that he almost didn’t recognise him!!!
ParticipantI just have never known cows to be on the lookout for metal at all? Not sure how to explain this, but it’s just never an issue/spoken about in england at all? this is why my mind boggles about it!
ParticipantThanks all, yes I hadn’t thought of breaking the other as a backup, but its a good idea!
‘Hardware disease’ is pretty unheard of here? My mind boggles about it to be honest, either a) our fields aren’t as full of stray metal as yours or b) our cattle aren’t as attracted to stray metal as yours! Just doesn’t enter our thinking at all! Very peculiar…I hear a lot about it from you guys though!
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