do forehead yokes cause skull damage?

[bivol]

hi!

this is a forehead yoke. they have previously been mentioned in a few threads so far.
i read in a book “oxen;a teamster’s guide” that a forehead yoke causes skull damage.

they can be made either of wood or of iron. both are padded. in a book from germany i have (modernes geschirr fur arbeitsrinder, rolf minhorst), where the head yoke is not mentioned positively, the forehead yoke is said to cause far less discomfort than a head yoke.

a wooden forehead yoke. personally i’m sceptical about this type. i believe they could cause damage….

could it be that it causes damage only when they push with entire force?

but does it cause damage to head?

[fabian]

@bivol 4924 wrote:

this is a forehead yoke. they have previously been mentioned in a few threads so far.
i read in a book “oxen;a teamster’s guide” that a forehead yoke causes skull damage.

I think, Drew Conroy quotes with this sentence Dr. Minhorst, who is a declared opponent of the forehead yoke. Contrary to Conroy, who says, that any harness has its strengths and its weakness, Minhorst believes the 3-pad collar as the one and only harnessing-system for bovines. In my area nearly all bovines were worked in forehead yokes and most farmers i told with, refused the use of the 3-pad collar. it was not the big success which is said about it. The mistakes which can be made with the 3-pad collar and the injuries it may cause, are much more and heavier than the disadvantages the forehead yoke has.
@bivol 4924 wrote:

they can be made either of wood or of iron. both are padded. in a book from germany i have (modernes geschirr fur arbeitsrinder, rolf minhorst), where the head yoke is not mentioned positively, the forehead yoke is said to cause far less discomfort than a head yoke.

see above 😉

@bivol 4924 wrote:

a wooden forehead yoke. personally i’m sceptical about this type. i believe they could cause damage….

could it be that it causes damage only when they push with entire force?

but does it cause damage to head?

As it is padded : why schould it cause more damages than the iron mades ?

[CharlyBonifaz]

old but padded;)
[IMG]
plus there is little movement, no rubbing, no abrasion……..
yes it should fit the head
elke

[sanhestar]

I found this story yesterday while surfing

http://www.h-bensberg.de/html/kuhjochschnitzer.html

it’s about the last yoke carver from Ferndorftal, Germany: August Menn. He was a cartwright (waggon-maker) and started carving and selling yokes in 1899

He would pride himself in carving working and showing yokes, fitted to the individual animal.

There’s an interesting paragraph about forehead yokes used before the 1930s. Apparently the shafts of the waggon where put through the rings of the yoke and arrested with pins, fixing the head of the animal. And apparently all padding couldn’t prevent that the vibrations from the cart and the kicks from the shafts would be transmitted to the skull of the oxen/cow.

Therefore this type of yoke was forbidden after 1930 and replaced by yokes that allowed the oxen/cow to be hitched with chains.

Maybe here lies the reason for some of the resentments against forehead yokes.

[fabian]

@sanhestar 5307 wrote:

I found this story yesterday while surfing

http://www.h-bensberg.de/html/kuhjochschnitzer.html

it’s about the last yoke carver from Ferndorftal, Germany: August Menn. He was a cartwright (waggon-maker) and started carving and selling yokes in 1899

He would pride himself in carving working and showing yokes, fitted to the individual animal.

There’s an interesting paragraph about forehead yokes used before the 1930s. Apparently the shafts of the waggon where put through the rings of the yoke and arrested with pins, fixing the head of the animal. And apparently all padding couldn’t prevent that the vibrations from the cart and the kicks from the shafts would be transmitted to the skull of the oxen/cow.

Therefore this type of yoke was forbidden after 1930 and replaced by yokes that allowed the oxen/cow to be hitched with chains.

Maybe here lies the reason for some of the resentments against forehead yokes.

There is a mistake in the article, which shows, that the author has no experience in oxen:
He writes “Vorkopfjoche” what means forehead yokes, but he means head yokes, in Germany called “Genickjoche”.
The forehead yoke was never forbidden in Germany as the double-head yoke is (whether the single head yoke also is (was) forbidden, I don’t know.)
What he means you can see here: http://www.bilder-hosting.de/show/UKWNT.html

With a sorry for my clumsy English
Wolfgang

[Author]

Posts