[OldKat]

@Ixy 8918 wrote:

out of interest…I am just starting riding my first steer now – i have sat on him for very short periods before, purely to get him used to the idea of me being on top before he got big enough to really complain about it. Now I can mount and sit up there and he doesn’t mind. 😀 before I ride him untied and like, move somewhere, I need to find someone trustworthy to scrape me off the floor and take me to hospital if something goes wrong 😉

i’ve got a long history in horseriding, used to be quite good, but have had a long break from that – in a way though i’m glad because this is so different – it definately feels weird not to have a big reassuring neck in front of you…

Ixy,

See the thread “using an ox for riding and packing” posted by bivol on 3.9.09 in this same category. It will give you multiple links to videos etc of people that are doing exactly what you asked about.

Good luck.

[OldKat]

@James Campbell 8931 wrote:

I have an oliver sulky plow in good working condition. I was using it last year to plow with two horses. It is 650.00 and I can paint it oliver green for you for $225.00 including materials

CASH SALES ONLY
No Bussiness calls or transactions from Friday after 3:00 pm or Saturday all day (my Sabbath)
in Bellows Falls VT 05101 call for appointment (802)463-3230 James Campbell

James, a few questions for you;
What shape is it in? I guess it is in working order, if you used it last year? This is a single bottom plow, moldboard plow? How big is the bottom?

What size horses did you use it with? What type of soil did you plow with it? i.e. sandy, loamy or clay?

Anybody have any ideas what it would cost to ship something like that 1/2 way across the country?

[OldKat]

@Ixy 8918 wrote:

out of interest…I am just starting riding my first steer now – i have sat on him for very short periods before, purely to get him used to the idea of me being on top before he got big enough to really complain about it. Now I can mount and sit up there and he doesn’t mind. 😀 before I ride him untied and like, move somewhere, I need to find someone trustworthy to scrape me off the floor and take me to hospital if something goes wrong 😉

i’ve got a long history in horseriding, used to be quite good, but have had a long break from that – in a way though i’m glad because this is so different – it definately feels weird not to have a big reassuring neck in front of you…

I think Bivol, or someone else from your side of the pond, posted a thread several months back with some videos of some youngsters riding steers or young bulls and at least one of a young lady riding a bos indicus bull of some sort, I think with a saddle. I think they were in Central or South America. There was also one of some guys riding Texas Longhorns with Mexican style saddles & wearing big sombreros. I think they were in Oklahoma.

I can’t recall if it was all on the same thread or not. I’ll look for it and see if I can find it.

BTW: when I was a kid I use to show market steers at our county fairs and FFA shows. After we finished showing them we often would ride them and/or drive them for a few weeks before they went to the slaughter house. Been quite few years, but it seems to me that they took right to it.

[OldKat]

@Biological Woodsman 8921 wrote:

Dragging pastures with a chain harrow is a good small job that is beneficial. Some folks use the same device to drag gravel roads to knock the hump out of the middles.

A stationary treadmill would be a good addition if someone has something to do with the power generated from such a device. Cultivating row crops is a good thing to do with them too.

That road work is a good thing to do too, if you have the time.

Maybe some other folks will have ideas. I understand having to get it done with the tractors though, since we often end up in the same situation, because of the same weather related issues. I often just get discouraged that I have to many acres and to many horses when that happens, but it boils down to to many expenses to address with animal power alone in all settings. Need to scale things to appropriate sizes…. (like Carl and others). But we do keep them in the woods all the time so at least that work is always there.

Make ice cream! 🙂 Yum!

[OldKat]

@Rod 8916 wrote:

What I did on mine was weld a 1-7/8 ball on the sled on top of the chain loop. Then made an adapter from a 2″ receiver with a trailer hitch welded on to it. This way I can use my universal pole with the 2″ male part on my other equipment or hook it to the sled and get the full articulation I need there. All my equipment is setup with 2″ receivers so I can move the poles around from one to the other.

Not exactly sure what a chain loop is, but I had thought about using a trailer ball on the stoneboat and a hitch welded to the tongue or to a 2″ square tube & a receiver welded to the tongue. In fact that was my plan right up until I found some 5/8 thick discs about 6 to 7 inches in diameter in the scrap bin at a local welding shop. I then decided to make a fifth wheel type of deal, but it is the same basic concept as what you have done.

I’ll get the up and down articulation by using a 2&1/2″ pipe collar slid over the 2″ pipe that runs from one runner to the other. Hopefully the side to side articulation will happen with the fifth wheel deal. The ball setup is probably better, but I didn’t want to pay for a trailer hitch! (Color me cheap!) 😉

[OldKat]

@jboyd 8857 wrote:

i used a2″ pipe for my wagon it has worked fine for many years
jboyd

Yep, that is what I actually settled on. I’m making it so I can easily detach it and use on other (future) equipment. It will be pipe on the tongue part, but behind the hammer strap it will transition to square tubing to fit a receiver.

Thanks again.

[OldKat]

@Donn Hewes 8883 wrote:

Hello Carl, Andre, and everyone, JL, Glad to hear you hooked up the four. It is funny how some people just like working with one or two which is great; and other’s just keep wanting to add more horses! Even though I enjoy a team as much as the next person, I must confess to a thrill from even three or four.

I would love to work with Andre and Sam on multiple hitches. I am at my best on animals abreast. I can show at least three different ways to drive them. I have almost no experience with the tandem hitch, ( doubled my knowledge last year! Thanks again) but I am a good hand.

Carl, if you are taking notes already, the other thing I would like to do is bring my mower with the dolly wheel. I would like to work with someone with another mower and two teams. One with D ring harness and one with out. it would make a good illustration for folks about how the two harnesses are different and how they should fit, and how they work. Also makes a good mower demo as you find interesting things to talk about on each machine. There was a women there last year with a mower and a nice team of horses. I wish I could remember her name. I would love to work with someone like that. Time to feed sheep. Donn

Is NOT Donn Hewes! (Didn’t want that title to confuse anyone :D) It IS to drive 8 head; 4 and 4 to a disc or other field implement. 🙂 Something like the picture Plowboy posted a month or so back. It could actually happen now; as a guy just recently moved to our county from Hawaii and he brought 6 Clydesdales with him (and one has since foaled). So maybe now I will have someone I can combine my two black mares with for a multiple hitch. I can’t wait until he and his family get settled in so we can start driving together. He is about 10 years younger than me, but has about 30 years experience driving drafters … I may finally have a mentor prospect!

[OldKat]

@near horse 8655 wrote:

Hi,

I typed in a lengthy response and somehow lost it when I tried to expand the thread to see the earliest posts. So, I’ll take that as a sign to be short(er).

The amount of energy in a feed that is released or “lost” as heat is known as the heat increment. Although it is often viewed as a “loss” becuase it doesn’t add to production (growth, lactation, work), it is an important source of heat for maintaining body temp, particularly when it is cold – imagine a 55 gallon hot water bottle inside their body. That said, feeds we identify as “hot”, like grains etc don’t necessarily release the most heat. In fact, I think we call them hot because they are providing the most energy to our animal for activity. Some of the poorer quality roughages (like straw) actually provide the highest heat increments.

As far as why Rod’s one ox is panting, I don’t know but also tend to believe it will subside as he acclimates to both work and environment (temps).
You did mention that he has much of his winter coat still but the other one doesn’t(?). I’m just throwing out ideas here but – animals will be slow to grow hair/shed etc if they are protein deficient (kind of a conservation thing).

Also, heaven forbid, but hopefully he doesn’t have hardware disease (metal like wire in the rumen). In that case, it won’t subside with conditioning or season.

On a lighter and male chauvinist note – Rod, are you sure there’s not some cute little heifer in the next pasture? That would explain a lot.:)

Good luck.

I doubt this is the issue, because you didn’t say anything about your ox doing this in past years; BUT if he has done this in past years it could be caused by the type of hair coat he has. If he still has more haircoat than the other and it has warmed up in your area he may just be hot, period. Some cattle just shed quicker than others and some have a type of haircoat that basically prevents them from shedding off to a slick hide. To test for this pull a little bit of the undercoat (not the guard hairs or the long winter hair), put it in your hand & spit into it. Then start rubbing the mass of hair in a circle. If the hair goes every which direction and remains a mass of loose hairs the animal will be an early shedding one and will shed off to a slick coat. If the hair rolls up into a ball the animal will be slow to shed and may not shed off to a smooth coat. The tighter the ball, the more the animal will hang onto its haircoat.

This may or may not be of concern to you depending on your latitude: below 35 degrees North be wary of keeping / buying animals that won’t test positive for early / full shedding. Below 30 degrees North, don’t even consider keeping an animal that won’t pass this test. This is the cause of the so called tropical degeneration of animals that fail to thrive in warmer climates. I suppose at some latitiudes it may even be desirable to select for animals that WILL retain their haircoat, but it would have to be fairly far north.

BTW: This process was developed by the late Jan Bonsma of South Africa, probably one of the most preeminent cattlemen of the last 100 years or so. It will work with any age of cattle. I use it because I have to select for slick haircoats in my area because of the heat. I have red cattle and have noticed at least some correlation between the lighter, yellowish red cattle being slick coated & the darker, cherry red cattle tending to not be slick coated. Not always true though.

[OldKat]

@bivol 8577 wrote:

hi!

i asked about the oxen in the main forum in croatia, and there people said oxen would eat only good/top quality hay, with oats and fresh grass.
when i mentioned corn stalks and straw, even when not at work, they said i’d have to call the vet after feeding them the mentioned stuff.
they worked with simmental oxen, though. they’re big and consume as a team over 200 pounds of good quality hay each day, plus the oats.

so, i’m confused. i thought oxen in general could at least live on a diet of partial corn stalks and straw. at least that’s what i red in the article on the net years ago.
is this conception based on the fact that they worked with a big industrial beef breed?
you may say that farm work can be done with a lighter breed. that’s true. 2000 pounds per animal is enough, i think. as opposed to the s. weight of 2900 pounds at least.
are there oxen, reasonably big, who can live at least on a partial diet of cornstalks and/or straw, when not working?

bivol,

I’m a horse guy … not an oxen guy, so I am no expert here. However, I do have cattle and last I checked oxen are just great big bovine type guys (or almost guys) so therefore the cattle experience should count for something.

One of the benefits of cattle, in general, … not just oxen, is that they can eat roughages that horses and other simple stomach animals would starve / colic on. In the US it is fairly common to put an electric fence around corn fields after harvest and turn cattle; cows, stockers, whatever in on it to clean it up. Granted, they may find some spilled grain, some ears that the combine knocked down, but didn’t pick up, some crabgrass or other post crop grass in addition to the stalks. Still, their primary diet is going to be the stalks or what is left of them. If you are bringing cut staks to the animal and that is ALL they are getting, then you might have to supplement that with a protein supplement of some kind, liquid feed or something similar.

Question: When you say corn are you referring to the crop the American Indians referred to as maize? I know at least in the past some Europeans called whatever the locally grown grain crop was as “corn”. If that is the case the answer might be different. Also, what quality straw are you talking about? If a grass or other plant material is extremely mature and fiborous, it might be so low in quality that bovine couldn’t utilize it, but it would have to be pretty poor quality before they couldn’t utilize at least part of it.

Here again, I’ve used poor quality hay and supplemented it with a liquid feed when I didn’t have anything else to feed. So I find it hard to believe that oxen couldn’t subsist on lower quality feedstuff when idle.

[OldKat]

@J-L 8575 wrote:

Russ, I think you’ll find it an easy job. I occasionally put a saddle horse in harness to work when I run short of horsepower. Usually the horses that are broke fairly decent under a saddle don’t have much problem going to work. I do find that it helps some of them to become better individuals.
The town water intake is on our ranch here and the guys who run the plant come here daily. The boss stopped me one day in the grocery store to visit and had to comment on how he watched me feed and haul hay etc, just about daily and hardly saw the same critters hooked up two weeks in a row. One day was a black and white paint horse and a blue roan mule, next week was a red and white paint horse and a black mule, then a black mule/sorrel mule, sorrel mule/sorrel mule, and so on and so on.
Being mismatched can happen even when both animals are the same size. The reverse is true also. One of my favorite matchups is my little 950 lb blue roan mule and a 1300 lb perch mule. They just work well together and match their gate well. If anything I have to get after the big mule to stay up with that little blue mule (who was a saddle mule for 4 years before I put a collar on her one day. In two days she was feeding cows for me.)
Watch your horse and go along as fast as he can tolerate it without a blowup. It usually comes to them fairly quick. Work what you have and have fun doing it.

My daughters paint gelding seems like he is starting to recover from whatever it was that ailed him & I was wondering how he would work with my two mares. He is about a hand shorter and at his heaviest maybe 200 pounds lighter than the mares; right now maybe 300 pounds lighter. I have some harness that will fit him, so he is going into the rotation next as the mares are coming along really well. This stuff sure is fun isn’t it?

[OldKat]

@Simple Living 8505 wrote:

If you go to the Google webpage there is a translation tool (just to the right of the main box you enter text into) that seems to work very well, just click on the words Language Tools. I’ve used it for years. All you have to do is enter the address into a box and mark what language you need translated from and to. It does the rest. I believe it works about 98% of the time. Even with that you can get the most out of the site. Hope this helps!

Gordon

It does help. I find interesting stuff all the time on the net that I can’t read because it is a different language. I never knew this was there. I’ll have to try it out.

Oh, and thanks Elke for the translation of the titles. Mules that dance? I’ve got a mental picture, but won’t go into that!

Thanks again.

[OldKat]

I sure wish that there were enough draft horse people in my area to do something like that. Sure sounds like a good time, with good horses and good folks. “It don’t git no gooder than that!” 😉

[OldKat]

@CharlyBonifaz 8484 wrote:

positively worth getting!
same author (lorene cancel) also filmed “Les boeufs au travail et les mules qui dansent!!!” and “Les Bouviers d’ALsace et d’Ailleurs“
http://ecole.des.mulets.free.fr/association.html

elke,

Can you translate these titles, or do you know of a way to translate these titles into English? My mothers family were all Alsatians, my fathers family was either 1/2 or 3/4 Alsatian depending on who you ask; so I’d like to know what this title means. Unfortunately, I cannot speak or read any French, or Alsatian (which I believe is now almost a dead language) No German or other languages either. 🙁

[OldKat]

@jenjudkins 8301 wrote:

Ed, I’ll bet he did some pulling competitions. What you describe is typical for marginally trained horses used for pulling. He is anticipating the load and the clink of the hitch. When he realizes its not there, he comes back to you. Like any pattern, I suspect with repetition, he’ll get the idea that he isn’t being hitched to something too heavy for him to handle and he will settle.

OldKat…what were you thinking? I’m curious…

Jen,

Almost overlooked this question. You haven’t been talking to my wife have you? I hear that a whole lot these days; “Stephen, what were you thinking?” 😉

Actually, I figured most people would say that it had something to do with the horse being concerned that he was being asked to pull too heavy of a load at some point in the past. Which is what I would have said & in fact did say in a PM to highway. I just wanted to see what others said as a way of testing my thinking. I wasn’t specifically thinking about the “pulling horse aspect”, but then again since we don’t even have those down here I don’t usually even think about them at all. I’ve never seen one in person(a horse pull), but I’d like to some day.

Anyway, I hope that highway can get it all sorted out.:confused:

[OldKat]

@highway 8442 wrote:

just got back with the forecart….

He was a pain today. Stood for the first hitch and after that did the whole prance move ahead routine.

When I tell him to whoa, he tried to continue to back up. I am confused and think I need some professional help. 🙁

That can be the discouraging thing; sometimes they seem like they get it and then they go the other way for a while. Hopefully somebody, somewhere has the answer for you. I know I don’t.

The only thing I could think of is try working him for quite a while doing something that requires he concentrate on the pulling, without having to hook and unhook all the time. Maybe try something like dragging a harrow, or if all you have is some logs to skid make him skid them for quite a ways without unhooking the load. Maybe after you wear the pi** & vinegar out of him he will be happy to stand while you hook up. Not that I have experience with this issue, but when I use to work cow horses I’d sometimes have to give them a little attitude adjustment before they got their minds wrapped around working the cows. Sometimes if they were fresh we might lope the fence line of a small pasture for thirty minutes or so before ever trying to untrack on a cow. That seemed work on them. Maybe something similar would work with your horse.

Good Luck.

[Author]

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