driving oxen with lines indian style:good or bad?

[mathuranatha]

I have pierced a dozen or so bullocks noses over the years .The best way Ive found is to have a narrow bladed knife sharpened on both sides of the blade really sharp .Secure the bullocks head so he cant move it at all, not even a little bit is best .I cover their eyes so they dont learn what a knife looks like so they wont be afraid of one in the future .Then I just tab it through really quickly , in and out again within like half a second .If your really quick and the knife is really sharp they dont seem to feel any thing at all and just lick the blood from their nose as if to say where did that come from.

Trying to push the pointy end of a nose ring through is very low and difficult by comparison and causes them lots of pain relatively .

mat:)

[mother katherine]

Yo, Bivol,
So glad you have time to write again. i’ve missed your interesting information bits.
oxnun

[Nat(wasIxy)]

Lush grass is all around here – I train them to the command ‘head up’ and always instil in them from the getgo that there’s NO eating when the halter is on, unless we are stopped and I allow it, as a reward – and I always decide when they stop and we move on. I’d muzzle them if I had to.

I don’t see india as the pinnacle of cattle stockmanship down the sacred cow thing – I appreciate that’s all very nice, but there’s a dark side like with any culture where animals are used as a basic means of draught and transport without say an RSPCA or government breathing down their necks, and a lot of poverty. The sacred cattle can be thin and parasite ridden, eating rubbish in the streets. Working horses and cattle can be harnessed incorrectly, overloaded, starved, whipped and beaten etc. Nose rings are used here, and in India, and I’m sure some people in the west and east also don’t use nose rings…I’m still not seeing it as any better than without just because it’s used in India?

[bivol]

mat, a great insight! after you pierce the nose, how do you insert the rope? and, do you do it right away, or wait?
hearing your story, i now know how the indians could pierce the noses with minimum of payne for the cattle. it’s often our own, western, point of view¸, to confuse nose rings with nose ropes, and then brand the peoples using this technology (not only indians, but the entire far east!) as cruel, when they are in fact only being practical.

thanks oxnun, will try my best! 😀

ixy, what you said is completely true, and even worse is how they treat running bullocks.
but i was refering to the roots roots of their knowledge, which is very old, and these modern people use these sophisticated systems (or rather, use a system in a sophisticated way) without knowing its long roots. when compared to nations like cubans and parts of argentina, indians are more than fair. in cuba and agrentina mature wild oxen are worked with nose rings and violently broken in withpout any attempt to actually tame them beforehand.
it’s dangerous for teamsters and a living hell for the oxen.
and i think it’s fair to say because they don’t know of any other methods to approach and work with cattle.
so from this point of view the knowledge indians posses is a valuable knowledge indeed.

i’ll post another thread shortly, dedicated to far eastern plowing style.

[Berta]

Thinking about the rope/ring in india the first thing that comes to my mind is that a polished stainless ring is a lot more expensive than a piece of rope. Sure there might be metal rings around but likely they are rusted some and WOULD cause an infection. The choice of rope might be better than metal there because of limited access. Likely, those who might be able to aquire a smooth metal ring/pin/bit aren’t exposed to them and do not seek them out.

The benifits I see with metal over rope are twofold. (Note, I have used neither – my team get horse curb chains on their halters for going in public)

1) because the rope can fold in half, a sharp tug could put all the pressure in one very small spot – much more severe than spreading the pull over the width of the septum on a solid metal object.
2) if there is irritatin, for whatever reason, it can drain around the smooth and inert metal. A rope could absorb snot/puss/serum and develpe abrasiveness.

[Rustedthrough]

@Berta 20033 wrote:

Thinking about the rope/ring in india the first thing that comes to my mind is that a polished stainless ring is a lot more expensive than a piece of rope. Sure there might be metal rings around but likely they are rusted some and WOULD cause an infection. The choice of rope might be better than metal there because of limited access. Likely, those who might be able to aquire a smooth metal ring/pin/bit aren’t exposed to them and do not seek them out.

The benifits I see with metal over rope are twofold. (Note, I have used neither – my team get horse curb chains on their halters for going in public)

1) because the rope can fold in half, a sharp tug could put all the pressure in one very small spot – much more severe than spreading the pull over the width of the septum on a solid metal object.
2) if there is irritatin, for whatever reason, it can drain around the smooth and inert metal. A rope could absorb snot/puss/serum and develpe abrasiveness.

If you have ever hauled two pails of water with a shoulder yoke, and with a simple rope over the shoulder, you should know immediately that a stiff but properly rounded smooth surface is vastly preferable to a raspy flexible one. I would agree wholly with Berta that the rope is used as a matter of cost.
If fine line control is the issue, ropes from the ears or ropes from halters combined with voice commands and consistent training is also possible. I am not aware of Ox teamsters in Philadelphia, London, or Paris using lines and rings as a directional system From Chaucers father’s to Franklin’s time. If the narrow streets of these cities, littered with horses, carriages, and people did not require fine control I would be surprised.

[bivol]

@Rustedthrough 20110 wrote:

If you have ever hauled two pails of water with a shoulder yoke, and with a simple rope over the shoulder, you should know immediately that a stiff but properly rounded smooth surface is vastly preferable to a raspy flexible one. I would agree wholly with Berta that the rope is used as a matter of cost.
If fine line control is the issue, ropes from the ears or ropes from halters combined with voice commands and consistent training is also possible. I am not aware of Ox teamsters in Philadelphia, London, or Paris using lines and rings as a directional system From Chaucers father’s to Franklin’s time. If the narrow streets of these cities, littered with horses, carriages, and people did not require fine control I would be surprised.

Berta, the ring may be smooth, but it’s also round, it makes the septum take on it’s round shape, whereas the rope adjusts itself to the nose, and becasu it’s also lighter, the oxen don’t feel it as much as the rings.
and you’re right for better not bewing flexible. sharp jerking the rope should be avoided.

i am not aware of many oxen in cities in europe or US (correct me if i’m wrong), mostly horses were used there, and oxen for farm work.
it is possible to control oxen in many ways, but how effective the contol is in real life situation (a halter won’t help if the animal gets really excited) or long-term damaging, (ear ropes are disscouraged, and i agree), that’s another issue.

[Nat(wasIxy)]

Oxen were used to deliver Atora suet as a marketing strategy in the UK – they went all over, I always see photos in urban settings, and they don’t have rings. In fact a photo of a rung UK ox is pretty rare?

[dlskidmore]

There’s a trend in human body piercing to start with a small piercing and put progressively larger objects through the hole to enlarge it. I’ve no piercings myself, so I don’t know much about it. Would this be a less painful way to make the larger hole for a nose ring in an ox?

[Author]

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