Frustration

[Kevin Cunningham]

I know I always do this. I have a bad day with the steers and run to the computer to complain, but I think I need some advice again. I am starting to really dislike my near steer. Heck I am really starting to get fed up with this team in general. Now before you jump down my back and give me a stern talking to about my attitude. I want be clear that I have put more time, energy, patience, persistence, perseverance, blood, sweat and tears into this team than anything else in my life. Period. I have dedicated myself to making this work. I’ve been looking at myself and making drastic changes in my life to make me better teamster. I’ve changed gear, and housing, and feed, and done just about all that I can do to make this team work together. And I am still not pleased with my progress. Two years into this and I am seem to be backsliding and developing habits in the team and myself that I know are not conducive to making The Team. I have already started to train another set of steers, because I know that my current one A: can’t be trusted at all and B: can’t pull worth a damn. I wish I had the guidance of an experienced teacher who could look at a load and say, not yet they can’t pull that. Or something, because despite reading every book, website, or scrap of information on oxen and really looking at my training and trying my hardest I am still failing at making a decent working team. Don’t get me wrong, they are okay. They can do a lot, but I do have high expectations and it is not what I wanted to get out of the amount of time I have put into this. I will probably keep this team until they turn 15 just because I am stubborn and refuse to give up. But really I think I was dealt a difficult hand first time around. Here is what I think the problem is. I have never been able to get this team to work together. Maybe if I was more experienced I would’ve been able to tell that in the beginning, but I now have so much invested in these bloody steers that I can’t just turn around now. My off steer walks slower, he can pull more. I know this because when I was in between making yokes I hitched him as a single to the load that I had been having trouble with as a team and he pulled it no problem. He pulled it all over the farm with out stopping. But the team was balking and refusing to pull it. When I tried to work the near steer as a single he balked and threw a fit. In the yoke he is always rushing ahead and I am always pestering the off steer to speed up and the near steer to slow down. The habit never changes and if left on their own they would pull diagonly, the yoke that is. The after constantly rushing or getting fed up with my taps on his nose to slow down he balks and twists in the yoke. This can also come out the blue. We are walking along and he decides he doesn’t want to pull anymore and then he swings his butt out and tries to twist out of the yoke. The ensuing chaos is not good for anybody. I for the life of me can’t get him to step his butt back in and his horn is usually caught under the yoke or on the chain. It is the worst habit possible, and I feel helpless to stop it. I have tried tying the tails together, that was joke there is no way to get that to stop them. They break the string, use rope, the rope slips off, use the hair, hair breaks. Not working at all. So I have tried anticipating it. I watch him like a hawk and I can see the signs of a fit coming quite clear, so I am ready to urge him forward, which he does for about two seconds and then he is back to fussing and eventually he gets pissed off and balks or I lose attention for a second and then he balks. And now he is large enough that he is breaking my little PVC bows. I can’t afford to get some nice wooden ones made yet and I have been doing fine with PVC as calves, but now they are big and PVC snaps and then the chaos is even worse. Loose steers and mass panic, me include, because now I really have a dangerous situation on my hands. I am at a loss. It seems to be getting worse. I used to think it was the off steers fault and I don’t think he is perfect but I can really tell that the big problem is the near steer. The off steer has the bad habit of delaying starting, or he is just slow. He delays the start a second and the near steer is rushing ahead. I work on this over and over and over but I can’t seem to get them to start the load together, every single time. Sometimes they can but I need them to step up into the yoke together every time not every once in a while. So his delay coupled with the near steers rushing and then balking and the fact that I still have inadequate equipment, because I don’t have real bows yet and I have a mess of a team, me included. Maybe I just need to build more character or something, but honestly this is a very difficult team, always has been, and always will be. Any suggestions, really I am willing to try just about anything. Sorry but I desperately needed to get that off my chest.

[CharlyBonifaz]

lots of steam under your hat …
several solutions to (parts) of the problem
1. can you have bows bent from iron? can you enforce your plastic bows with iron or wooden bars?
2. Have you tried to offset the center of your yoke?
3. Has your near-steer a painful right shoulder or a bow-bunch there?
3. Any chance a second person could help you with correcting the habit of the near-steer?
4. Could you accept that the first team is a learning team, nothing else – a lot of mistakes are made on both sides and if it is (as it sounds) a difficult team (not really fitting well together) may be it was not meant to be to begin with? Cherish the many lessons they have taught you to improve working on your second team 😉 The experiences you have gained working with them … They showed you all the loopholes and then …
5. You could leave it as such and concentrate on your next team; you could still use the off-ox as a single if he is a reliable help; there are many situations where 2 is one too many …
6. will your younger team be equal in size? that might give you a chance to switch partners in the team or work 3 together; what I’m trying to get across is, this situation might give you options you have not realized yet 😉

Don’t get mad at anyone in the team, everybody does as seems fit; there will always be a situation where that is not enough …

[Kevin Cunningham]

Thanks for the response. I am pretty sure that this team is going to stick around, but it is not The Team. They are useful enough but I will be training another one, and another, and another until I find what I am looking for. I will keep these butt heads until the next in line can do some of the tasks that I do depend on them for around the farm. And I will probably try and work the off steer more as a single. Everything else I have tried hasn’t worked so for right now they earn their keep as manure producers. Thats some bull shit!

[Brad Johnson]

Kevin-
I have absolutely no experience with steers, but I have experienced some of the same long term frustrations with the first team of horses that I called my own. Much of what you describe in the steer that just won’t pull his own weight was also true of a Percheron I had named Pete. I spent nearly three years trying to get him to work efficiently in the woods. His partner, Bob, I still have and was always a rugged puller, to the point to being hard to deal with from time to time (when I first got him he reared up every time I hooked the two of them to a load…). Bob improved as we built a good working relationship over time, but Pete’s issues persisted. Pete was super in the field and on small to medium size loads in the woods, but he balked when the loads got bigger. The issue was not physical, but rather mental. Some days it would take 15 mins of encouragement to get him to take off with a big load, but when he did decide to go he pulled it no problem. I could not solve that issue, and after two years I decided to move Pete on to another farm where he would do mostly field work, rather than being in the woods most of the time. The take away for me was that it is tough to solve some issues – they are what they are to some extent. I spent a lot of time beating myself up; I could have done better with him I thought, and that may be true to some extent, but I also think that there are some issues that I cannot do much about. Pete taught me a great deal about myself and horses in general, and he did a lot of good work while he was hear, and for those things I am thankful!
-Brad

[Kevin Cunningham]

It is nice to hear that others have had similar problems with certain animals. One of the good things about having a hard pair for my first team is that it has accelerated my learning curve. I would not have looked at most of the problems with my training and with working the team if I hadn’t had such marvelous teachers. That is part of the reason I will hold on to them at least for the time being. I plan on making a another single yoke for Joseph, the off steer and trying and do more of the small farm jobs with him this winter. Oddly enough my team seems to do better when doing logging type work. Granted I have never really done any draft logging for real, but twitching logs and brush on the farm they seem to work well at. They get bored if I do too many circles with them. But varied terrain and loads seem to keep their interest and they forget about the food back in the barn.

[Baystatetom]

I hate to bring a discouraging word to the conversation, but I have heard from a lot of teamsters that their second team was their best. The first ones you learn on and the third ones its old hat and they often don’t get the time the first two did. Maybe its time to start breaking new calves, while you accomplish as much work as you can with the older team/single and then make the switch when time seams right.
~Tom

[Howie]

I have trained a lot of cattle over the last 58 years and only 3 pair stayed here
after they were 3 years old, the fun and interest is in the training.

Howie

[grey]

I don’t know if it helps to hear this any but I have a horse I’ve been working for 6 years who only in the last week FINALLY figured out how to really back up instead of her habitual toe-dragging shuffle. I had to go hunting for another method of teaching for this particular student/lesson/teacher combo.

[Nat(wasIxy)]

Like howie, I get through a lot of steers! But very, very few stay the course. sometimes they just aren’t suitable for me. There’s plenty more fish in the sea, and the really excellent ones are out there. I don’t agree with the common-in-the-horseworld idea of flogging on and on with a difficult animal…just go get a good one instead and start enjoying your life. Let’s face it, this is a hobby, so it really should be enjoyable, life is too short!

[Kevin Cunningham]

Well, it has been a little while since I vented all my steam out there. I still have a pair in the barn and not in the freezer, but I am learning a lot about my own and the steers limitations. I think a good amount of my learning is in my equipment. I know now that need to build better yokes and replace them sooner. I also know that I need to start bending bows, or maybe buying them. My steers are long past the stage where pvc is cutting it. I really wanted to start another pair this winter but my wife talked me out of it, since we are expecting a baby in October. What I am going to do this winter is get set up to build better tack, and committing to work the pair I have and learn what I can from them until I can start a new team. These boys are here to teach me some lessons that I need to learn before I can train a better team.

[Baystatetom]

Congratulations! That baby will teach you all about love and patients and how to not sweat the little stuff, all things that will help in every facet of your life, including oxen.
~Tom

[CharlyBonifaz]

thumbs up! and good luck! guess you know, you didn’t pick the easy way 😉
hope all of you will be doing ok by spring

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