nervous about first pull!?!?

[Anonymous]

hello all,

this is my first post, about my first team, after finishing the making of my first yoke(6″), on the verge of my first pull.

what should i know about the first pull? the only job i have for them is a few goat-gurdled elm trees in the pasture. any reason why i can’t just go for it?

thanks for reading,
loren

[HeeHawHaven]

I know nothing about oxen, but I say “good luck’ and have fun!

Dave

[Rod]

I assume the steers are trained to the yoke and know the basic commands such as stopping, back, gee and haw etc. Usually it’s best to start them on a small load such as a tire etc and work up to bigger loads. Keep a halter on them until you are comfortable and to use as an emergency brake as the may panic at first when they feel and hear the load behind them.

[Anonymous]

thanks for responding! we do know the basic commands, and i am weary of the potential for panic attacks. i can’t leave the barn without halters yet. the best i can do is take one off and tie the other’s lead to his bow, after a few minutes of driving.

as far as starting light and working up to heavier loads… it seems intuitively correct to me. what risk do i run by starting to heavy?

[Rod]

Besides turning them off you could also hurt them.

[Carl Russell]

Go light and go often. They should learn to pull comfortably before having to learn to work at it. If you work up gradually, they will never know the difference. If you pin then down right away, they may never give you what you want when they should. No one who knows anything is going to ridicule you for pulling a few branches first just to see how they are put together.

Carl

[Gabe Ayers]

I am not a drover, so this is just general working animal thoughts.

I think this early training is very important to establish the pace of their efforts.

If you load them heavy or heavier to start with there is a tendency to move faster against the resistance which is not what you would want for a working animal. Hooking any learning animal to more than they can do comfortably is a formula for balking. Moving faster makes it easier and that is not a lesson that can be lived with later in their working lives. Your job is to slowly develop their strength to the greatest level without defeating their confidence or asking for more than they can do for their level of conditioning and training.

The point is to reward them for their best behavior – to have a positive reinforcement of that behavior. In other words when they move confidently, slowly and patiently against light resistance they will develop that mode of travel later despite the load being or becoming heavier – if you reward them for the effort while training by stopping them when they are doing everything exactly right. Rewarding by stopping when everything is perfect is the hardest part of being a new teamster with new animals. But look for that feeling of all is going good and say whoa. Allow them to stand quietly and regain their wind and then ask them to start again.

Positive reinforcement example:
We had a young fellow working a big team of Devon/Jersey cross steers on one of our logging jobs back in the fall. Big pretty brutes with lots of power and energy.

The problem was that they wanted to travel fast all the time regardless of the load and the drover had to constantly run up front and try to slow them down. (I have to mention that all this activity was somewhat unsettling to the horses that were in sight of it.) Well this seemed (to me) to be rewarding them for going fast. Every time they would start running out of the woods down the skid trail he would run up and stop them. So we suggested that he start them for just few slow steps and stop them while they were still traveling at a safe controlled working pace. It didn’t take but a few repeated reward sessions like that and they were going slower and getting much more rest for the behavior.

So start them light and slow, as Carl says go light and go often and rest them when they are doing everything perfectly. It has been said that “the greatest reward for any beast of burden is cessation of demand”.

Got luck, take your time, build them up, enjoy your work and help your animals enjoy it too.

[Anonymous]

thank you very much for your time folks. i’ll probably drag some twigs or a tire this afternoon, as long as it is not raining buckets. maybe in a few years i could have some wisdom to offer in return. for now, every conversation about working steers is humbling; and gratitude is all there is.

thanks again.

[Howie]

somwhere in here you need someone to help you fit the yoke and bows and to set the draft.

[Anonymous]

thanks for the thought Howie. i have read the tech guide put out by Tillers which allowed me to measure the steers’ necks to make the right sized yoke. I rounded up to the closest standard size and built a six inch yoke with 2.5 times bow width between the bows.

for the bows, i went with the Tillers recommendation of the snug hand on the side of the neck and the loose hand under the neck. i drilled the bows and added spacers to achieve the “tillers fit”.

as for as the “draft”, i assume you mean the height at which the team feels the load. this is a combo of pulling angle, (or chain/pole length) and hitch point height….right???

does the “tillers fit” seem like it is a good one to you?
and how do i optimize the draft that you spoke of?

[Howie]

The ” Tiller’s fit” is a very good place to start.
Now you should start them on a very lite load and see how the yoke seats and if the cattle are comfortable with it. You will have to adjust it to make the cattle happy if they are to be good workers.
Most people have a tendency to use a yoke that is to big and have the bows to low.

[Vicki]

You could go online to find photos of winning teams in ox pulls. See how the bows slip next to the neck but do not hit the bone point of the forward shoulder. See how the oxen hold their heads, not way down nor way up. If your ox twists his head or throws his head up, the bow is not right.
See how the bow rotates back a bit to fit into the shoulder notch and the oxen can lift and push the neck seat.
It may be difficult to observe this on your own team if you are the only one to drive them. Maybe someone can video you from both sides, and you can observe the yoke dynamics.
Howie is the expert on yoke dynamics here. He uses a system on the yoke attachment to adjust draft angle. You can adjust draft angle somewhat by shortening or lenghtening the chain.

[CharlyBonifaz]

It may be difficult to observe this on your own team if you are the only one to drive them. Maybe someone can video you from both sides, and you can observe the yoke dynamics.

very important point;
from where you are driving the team, you can observe little, especially since your attention is on the animals.
if you can find someone to take pictures, that already would increase your awareness for probable tight spots
but if you can find someone to videotape you, the team and your work, that is a whole different story: you can sit back and watch what every detail is up to in slow motion and that not always fits the impression you had from your point of driving……

lots of luck – and fun;)
elke

[Robert MoonShadow]

Elke & Vicki; Excellent idea! I’m gonna steal that idea & use it with my donkey! As you can see in the photo section, he’s a bit of a ham… maybe it’ll entice him to be on his best behavior ‘for the camera’!
{Or knowing donkeys… maybe not :p }

[fabian]

@Howie 5946 wrote:

Most people have a tendency to use a yoke that is to big and have the bows to low.

So it is ! When I started with the neck yoke I first set the bows to deep and the yoke slipped upon to the withers. Now I think that I set the bows right. The team does not show any signs of discomfort . And the yoke sits where it should sit.

Wolfgang

[Author]

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