[Vicki]

Thanks Bumpus, I’ll look into the vitamin A deficiency and watery eyes.

[Vicki]

Tonya, most dexters grow a nice set of widely curved-in horns on their own if left alone. Some environmental things can misshape them, like if they rub against something every time at the feeder. Mine had one droop because he had a wart at the base of the horn at a year old. I just caution you not to overreact or act too soon to “correct” her horns. If they really are straight up, I’ve not seen that, and you could do a little scraping. Usually the young ones have horns straight out vertically, like a set of mountain bike handlebars! But after 18 mos. or so they begin to develop the upward/inward curve.

If you want to scrape, use the edge of a piece of broken glass, or a knife I suppose, on the inside topside of her horns. Just scrape a little of the shell from base toward tip. The horns are growing fast if she’s young, so watch and repeat a bit if you think you need to. I think the dynamic in this is that by thinning thus weakening slightly the shell of the horn on one side, the shell on the other side “tightens” more, the scraped side can expand a bit, changing the arc of the curve to widen where scraped
I messed around a bit with my dexters horns and wish I hadn’t. The one I never messed with but to clean and sand a bit for grooming, has more handsome set. Except the one whose horn drooped, I rigged a pulley over his tie area, and weighted the horn up with a half gallon of water, just overnight for a few months. It brought that horn up enough so the droop is barely noticeable. He was about 2 when I did that.

[Vicki]

Robin, I DO remember that, and almost mentioned it. I was thinking of asking if I could hitch along with Howie to NEAPFD, but the dates were bad for me. Instead went to Tillers the next week and had some valuable experience.

You and Jed and Grey are a great “love” story!

[Vicki]

A great discussion!

[Vicki]

If you all had something east, but not TOO east, I sure would want to come. Howie once took me and his 4H club to Brooklyn, CT for Sandy Eggars field day, and it was great. It was for people to practice cart courses and pulling, before the fair season, I believe. Ray Ludwig advised on cart work, one of the top pullers helped in the pulling pit. In the evening we had games, where my friend and I pulled a stoneboat in eliminations, hitched to a 2 x 4, pushing with our hips. Boy, did that give me an understanding of teamwork in the yoke! Robin came, too. Only too bad it was too far to bring our own cattle.

That was quite a long haul for us.

[Vicki]

Yes, Tillers!

[Vicki]

Yes, yes, we’ve all heard this many times, blah, blah, blah. . .Bumpus, you are always trying to stir the pot. I suspect you enjoy watching others in conflict.

[Vicki]

I almost always have volunteer pumpkins and tomatoes, and frequently potatoes, grow in last year’s compost heaps. This year I had a pile of last years’ straw manure bedding left to mellow, that looked ugly, so I intentionally planted pie pumpkins on it, which produced great. One consideration about potatoes in compost is the pH: if too high the taters can scab, but if you have leaves and coffee grounds in it, it is usually not too high; lots of manure can be high pH.

I always cover my mellowing manure heaps with some sort of squash that really use up the nutrients, shade the pile, and hide it.

[Vicki]

I find, like Ixy, that cattle are knowing and affectionate, some more than others. I’ve eaten lots of my own cattle, bred on our farm, and some that were trained as oxen. But it will be a hard day when my current “boys” have to close their eyes for the last time. Unless my world changes drastically, I will not be able to eat them. They don’t sleep on the bed like the dog, but we have a lot more between us than I have with the dog.

[Vicki]

Carl, allow me to add that britchen is sometimes used with oxen as well as horses, for the same purpose of helping hold back a load, and on a single ox it also minimizes the ox tangling in the traces because it holds the traces up near the rear legs. So britchen is not exclusively equine.

If I am incorrect about this, let me know.

[Vicki]

Carl wrote, “Effective sharing has more to do with commitment to communication than it has to do with simplifying the message.”

I agree wholeheartedly. Words are tools for communicating, though they are not the only tools. Some words needs to be defined or explained. A skilled communicator assesses the level of his hearers’ understanding and builds from there. But I am totally against the dumbing down of language itself and mourn the shrinking vocabulary of modern society.

Here’s an analogy: I may be able to build a table with nothing but an axe and a mallet; but there will be a big quality difference in it from a table made with precision joinery, rulers, lathes, planes, etc. Let us commit to becoming better-skilled craftsmen with words, using precision tools as well as rudimentary tools, so our comminication itself is beautiful, refined, exact. Then the concepts we are trying to communicate are, like a finely crafted piece of furniture, pleasant to behold, showing that the creator invested time and effort in making it, fit for use.

On this forum, people in certain skills and businesses are talking to each other with the vocabulary of those skills and professions, which is completely appropriate. Those of us who do not understand some terms are responsible to find out what they mean, by researching on our own or by asking.

If I am talking to someone outside my skill or profession, I should try to keep specialized language to a minimum, or explain it as I use it, if I am, as Carl stated, “committed to communicate.” But I should not avoid terms that are specific just because they may not be common. For instance, I’m not going to let someone get away with refering to that “Wood thingy” on my oxen. I’m going to respectfully tell them it is called a “yoke” and it is there to harness the power of the ox, and I am going to expect them to refer to it ever after as a yoke. I have a strong teaching instinct and I have high expectations on myself and others and I value language.

I am unclear about what Bumpus is asking and saying, so my post may be irrelevant.

[Vicki]

Thanks for the info on Red Nose. I’m going to try to learn more about it, not assume it’s flies.

[Vicki]

In order to tell the stories of oxen and ox-men of Nova Scotia, who are declining in numbers, is exactly why Frances Anderson researched and wrote In Praise of Oxen illustrated with outstanding photos by Terry James.

Pat Crawford wrote a child’s book based on true stories of her single ox, Bubba, which she wonderfully illustrated with her original drawings and water colors, titled Patience is Hard to Practice.

[Vicki]

My theory is that oxen were so common that people did not think to mention them much, and then in the nineteen-teens to nineteen fifties they were the memories of the older generation and so the focus of much anecdotal history and recreations, then after that interest has dwindled.

It’s like how if today you went on a trip in your SUV, you would write about the interesting sights and activities and people you encounter, but you wouldn’t bother to write about your car, what color, what kind of gas you put in it or how you rotated the tires or when you changed the oil, because that is everyday mundane stuff that everybody “knows about.” Maybe if you had a memorable accident or major breakdown that affected your actual trip, you might mention something about the car, but otherwise the car is just a tool taken for granted. My theory is that oxen were a common tool taken for granted. In pioneer writings, which I have studied for mentions of oxen, they are mentioned usually only in some uncommon or dramatic occurrence, like the team falling through the ice on Lake Erie as pioneers came from Buffalo, NY on the frozen lakeshore because the dense woods were too muddy during the rest of the year.

This scant supply of ox stories, compared to the profuse gushing romantic sentimental flow of horse stories, adds to their preciousness to me, and to the image of the ox as humble and unassuming, overlooked and under appreciated.

The ox stories are there, but not easily found. I think Bivol is on the right track about the kind of people who did and now do use oxen, that by nature and circumstance ox people are less often than horse people the story-writing type.

One delightful exception to the unmentioned oxen, is Ezra Meeker’s account of his emigration on the Oregon Trail as a young man in 1852, and his retracing of the trip as an old man in 1906. He writes a lot about his oxen. I cried reading about when Twist died. Read the book Ox Team Days on the Oregon Trail.

[Vicki]

The oxen in northern Uganda (and much of east Africa)are small zebu type with humps. The traditional beam and skein yoke of the region relies almost entirely on the hump to transfer the force. Dropping the hitch point and using bows, or even just curving in the skeins a bit with a dropped hitch, spreads force more widely to the neck and shoulders rather than only pressing on the hump, thereby increasing animal comfort, which translates to increased efficiency.

I was amazed at how quickly these bulls, most showing signs of rough handling like rope burn scars on legs and machete scars on sides, actually settled down to drive and work. We trained bulls 2 to 4 yrs. old in that Tillers collaborative project now called PeaceHarvest. After two weeks they were pulling plows.

I have some photos of traditional yokes and “improved” yokes in action there, to compare, but not time now to post them. Check out Tillers International website also for photos of humped oxen working.

So yes, I have trained and worked oxen with humps; and no, they are not either better or worse workers just because of the hump; but the traditional style of yoke in many places relies on the hump and would not work very well on non-humped animals.

[Author]

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