Massive Resource

[Kevin Cunningham]

I just spent a little too much time during my lunch hour scrolling back through the post archive in the oxen section of the forum. It was a good reminder of what an amazing resource this website is. I feel that there has been a dearth of oxen posts recently and I think it is high time to fire it back up again. I have some years now under my belt, I’m not an expert by any means but I have spent some time getting hands on experience and now I would like to start back thinking and writing about some of the finer points. No promises because it is the busy season for me but I plan on posting more often.

[allison]

Thanks Kevin,
My name is Allison and I have a Jersey Ox Team out of Chapel Hill, NC. I would like to introduce my blog:
oxenbreisfryer.blogspot.com
This is my first team and I am very new to oxen. I am a dairy farmer and don’t have a lot of time but I was hoping I could get some advice on how to slow down my team. It seems my boys want to just move so fast when I put them to work. I am not sure how to slow them down.

[Howie]

hey Kevin

No ONE is a expert together we are expert

[Carl Russell]

Great Kevin, it doesn’t happen by itself. Someone has to seed the clouds of discussion.

Hey Alison, welcome to Jersey steers. If you want to work cattle you should wear sturdy work boots. If you want to work Jerseys, put on sneakers.

That is a fact, but you can slow them down over the long haul through regular work, but once they get into the habit of moving out, they will continue. Make your workouts longer in time. Challenge them mentally with obstacle courses, lots of stops, and turns. Young draft animals will get tired faster from mental challenge than they will from physical exercise…

Carl

[allison]

Carl,
Thank you for the advice. I do need to challenge them mentally. Great tip. But for now, I’ll put on my sneakers 😉

[Kevin Cunningham]

Well I certainly did not get to posting too much last season. A farmers life is keeping with the ups and downs of the season. But I did get a lot of great experience with the oxen in the garden and I can’t wait for more this season.

Allison, yes I have seen your blog, I love watching the progression of the team. I can’t say that I have any great advice. With my team (JerseyXHolstein) I have one that is faster than the other. This has caused a great number of difficulties that we are still working through. I have heard so many times about the speed of Jerseys and now that we have a Jersey milk cow I can really understand the Jersey obstinance.

Like Carl said real work and lots of it are best for slowing down my boys. They seem to know when I am just loading them up and exercising them with the stone boat. They also get bored walking in circles with the harrow. It is truly a challenge to keep them challenged. The other thing I do is drilling. Step up, whoa, gee, haw, back in rapid fire to get their attention. Start and stop regularly so that they don’t get too barn sour. My team certainly has its vices.

Maybe this will be the year that I can stay up with posting more!

[Author]

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