costs of equipment

[sanhestar]

Hi,

what are the costs for pulling equipment for oxen?

[Lane Linnenkohl]

That’s apretty broad question, with an even broader answer. Can you be more specific? What types of equipment? And I’m sure prices in Germany will be different than here in the States.

Lane Linnenkohl

[sanhestar]

Hello,

well, let’s start with yokes and/or collars.

I don’t know of anyone who would built yokes in Germany, think, I will have to import from the US or ask a friend who is a carpenter, to make me one.

[bivol]

hi!

solution#1
well there are blueprints for a neck yoke at tillers international, and if you could persuade a carpenter or someone skilled with woodworking to make one it should be fine. the frame is the easy part;the bows are a problem.
one tip though; if you are making an american bow, or neck yoke, make the bows of iron or steel. they are stronger and more durable than wooden bows, and i think easier and more foolproof to make.
the wooden bows need to be steamed and bent, you need special equipment for that, and the wood can snap in process, leaving you to try again.
also, a neck yoke, if preserved good can last a lifetime, but its wooden bows can’t, so you are looking at improvising making them every x years or so.

as for steel bows, go to a blacksmith or a forge. bent steel pipes also work great.

anyway here are a few links on the subject:

http://www.iscowp.org/Ox%20Power/HOW%20TO%20MAKE%20A%20YOKE_copy(1).htm

http://www.singingfalls.com/gallery_oxen/oxen_gallery.html
these are yokes with steel pipes for bows

solution#2
you could also make an upgraded whitters yoke. works just fine.
here are some pictures.

good points are that there are no bows and thus no fuss with bending the wood, or steel pipes.
on the bad side there are no blueprints, so you’ll have to improvise.

important: if you are making an american neck yoke, the neck seat( the touching surface of yoke and neck) MUST be as smooth as possible, because this yoke rocks back and forth. in dr. conroy’s book it is said it must be as smooth as glass.

good luck!
hope i could help!

[fabian]

using forehead-yokes up to this time,in octobre 2007 I built my first american style neck yoke (because I’m faszinated of its simplicity and I need equipment for my one-axled cart for driving it with a team).
As I am a professionel basket-maker, I made the bows from Rattan-poles.
May be, that they will bend under very heavy load. but they will serve my purpose. Contrary to wooden bows, they may bend, but, if made from good Rattan, wouldn’t break, even under heavy load.
But the most advantage of the Rattan-bows is their flexibility. It’s not difficult, to use a 6″ bow in an 8″ yoke. So I can yoke different sized animals togehter and I can use my yoke more or less for every animal I’m training (I usually beginn training with 1 to 1,5 year)

[Patrick]

One yoke maker here in US advertizes $40 per inch for a single, $60 per inch for a double. That’s measured in size, not in overall length, so a 10 inch single would be $400, a double $600 US. I don’t imagine that shipping costs to Germany would be too prohibitive for even a large single. A double may be another matter. http://www.berrybrookoxsupply.com/index.htm

[fabian]

that would be about 438 Euros. I think, it is a fair price for the kind of yokes Tim Huppe makes and offers. It took a day of dusty work to shape the yoke beam, not included the time, that was needed for adjusting the irons, covering and steaming the bows.
For “research” I made a simplified yoke for “developing countries”, but including everything, a properly made yoke needs: smooth neckseats, dropped hitchpoint and well fitting bows. That took only a percentage of time of making an “original american style yoke”, but it works as the same matter.

With a sorry for my clumsy English
Wolfgang

[sanhestar]

Wolfgang,

the idea of using rattan is great.

Do you have plans/pictures/blueprints of your yokes for “third world” use?

I’m checking ebay right now for cow collars. Got a nice one for 1 EUR plus freight (no leather work but wood and metall parts in good order still), I don’t think I will be that lucky again.

[Howie]

I spend a lot of time making ox equipment, there is very little of it that the average person can’t make if he can find someone to tell or show him how.
Back 100 to 150 years ago a lot of the oxen were taken into the logging camps with no yoke and not even broke. The teamster would hew out the yoke and bend the bows, no steam, and the smith would make the iron for it.
most of these steers would be about 3 years old. Within a very short time they were either skidding logs, or feeding the logging crew.

[sanhestar]

found a lot of interesting information here

http://www.animaltraction.net/Harnessingandimplements/HarnessingandImplementsch3.pdf

on page 7 several types of withers yokes.

[OldKat]

@sanhestar 4674 wrote:

Wolfgang,

the idea of using rattan is great.

Do you have plans/pictures/blueprints of your yokes for “third world” use?

I’m checking ebay right now for cow collars. Got a nice one for 1 EUR plus freight (no leather work but wood and metall parts in good order still), I don’t think I will be that lucky again.

Yes, I ‘d like to see these myself. When I was a senior in college & while I was in grad school, the university I attended had a contract to train Peace Corps workers for agricultural production in 3rd world nations. One of the things I remember seeing them working on in the Ag. Mech. Shop was a simplified yoke. If I remember correctly they made everything from metal, but I’m going back 30 years here so I’m not quite sure.

Wolfgang, if I saw what you are talking about I could probbaly tell if it is a similar concept. Interesting, because I’ve never thought of this one time since then.

[fabian]

The 8 ” “yoke for developing countries” is a simple squared timber (8×10 cm), 140cm long. The width is the 10cm site, the depth the 8cm site. The neckseats are shaped and smoothed. The rest of the yoke is rough like bought in the market. In the middle of the yoke, for dropping the hitchpoint, I have glued a second wooden piece (50 cm longs) which is secured by 4 screws, which connect two ironplates (at the top and at the bottom of the yoke).
It works not like a simple withers yoke but like a neckyoke.
It’s not pretty fromm its design, but good for the aninmal’s health, like demanded from drew Conroy.
I should take a pic and show it here.

With a sorry for my clumsy English
Wolfgang

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