Selling my Big Lad :'(

[Nat(wasIxy)]

Feeling sick about it, but we’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, long term planning, and driving for better efficiency on the farm. Nobody’s questioned my oxen, they know better than that, but I have….The hereford is essentially lazy and slow, despite how nice and loving she is, so I think she’d be better off as a suckler so have put her in calf and will sell her with it at foot next year.

But Angus my simmental X, the first ox I got, is becoming a bit of a problem these days. He’s just so big – there are no physical boundaries for him, unless he’s surrounded completely by electric wire, he bashes fences down, rubs his neck on the barn and pushes the posts out, pushes panels out of the side to make windows for himself and so on. He’s not exactly being badly behaved, but it’s an awkward expensive problem on a farm that’s been designed around jerseys and dexters. I can’t prove it, but I have a hunch that he was largely responsible for a fence coming down that allowed the entire herd to escape into next door’s silage field and do a lot of damage….

I got him when I was single, and was full of plans to do logging and farm work, going round from job-to-job with him. Now I’m married and settled, that’s not really on the cards and my brother in law does all the farm work on the tractor. The most we do is bring in firewood, take silage out to sheep, or pull up blackthorn. All far too easy for him. It’s like having a shire horse in its prime with nothing to do.

The smaller oxen are just much more appropriate for me, easier to feed, maintain, enclose and transport. I think cows make better riding animals than steers long term. Nobody wants a dehorned simmentalxfriesian for filming or advertising….so what do I do? There’s only one answer really. Hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, he’s taught me so much. I’m a little worried I have a swinging rock on a string for a heart to be so practical about it but I’m not made of money at the end of the day 🙁

[CharlyBonifaz]

oh my….
any chance you can find someone that will work him the way you planned originally?
over here, we have one ox in “animal assisted therapy”, may be that would be an option to put him to good use?
any hiking tourists in your area? ever thought of using him for a packing-ox?
:confused: thinking….

[Nat(wasIxy)]

We have rules here which stop him travelling around like a horse, I would love to use him as a pack ox but every move he makes off the registered ‘holding’ has to be noted, reported to the government, and triggers a 6 day standstill period in which he can’t move again and no other animals on the holding can either, unless it’s straight to slaughter. Very restrictive to work around 🙁

Very, very few people work oxen in Britain, you can probably count them on one hand, and I really wouldn’t trust him unsupervised with a beginner; he isn’t perfectly trained, he was my first, and I didn’t think back then about how important it would be to for instance, teach him how to stand by himself for extended periods of time. 🙁

[Baystatetom]

Its tough for sure. I had a team of jerseys that I decided were not going to be strong enough to pull the logs I wanted to be cutting. When it came right down to it I would have kept them forever before sending them to slaughter. Luckily I talked my cousin into taking them. Now they are living on the other side of town and we can visit from time to time. I don’t envy you in the least. Good luck
~Tom

[dominiquer60]

I understand where you are coming from. I knew when I took on my first team that they were destined to have other purposes at some point because they were not really mine to keep. I was initially prepared to turn the heifer out with the bull and watch the steer willingly load onto the trailer to the auction. I had posted an ad here on DAP for them in late winter, and I didn’t get a response until may when we where starting to think about clearing the “pets” out of the barn (this includes my current team, some ready to butcher steers and the lawnmower calves) so that we could wean last falls calves. I feel very fortunate that a nice young farmer purchased them and they are being used on a new farm just a couple hours south of me.

Could there be a working museum or educational farm that might be able to use your steer, if only as a friendly steer? It is a tough decision to make. Working draft animals is as practical a we make it for our selves, and sometimes we have to make decisions that are in the best interest of the whole farm and not necessarily in our emotional or certain animals best interest. I know with my steer I was mentally prepared to visit him in the freezer when I was planning meals, at least then I would have seen him to the end and known he had a good life. Just glad he still HAS a good life.

Be prepared for the worst and hope for the best,

[Nat(wasIxy)]

A museum would be good except there’s nothing historical about him – not even any horns! Another thing I didn’t think about when I first picked him…

I’m glad I’m not the only one to have had to make this kind of choice…I’ve eaten others before, but they weren’t working out as oxen so it wasn’t anywhere near the same kind of issue.

[Howie]

Just due to my health I am going let my great pair of Devon oxen go before winter. I know it is going to be hard but all good things must come to an end. Even a good life.

[Robin]

Howie,
I hope you are going to sell Pat & Willy as oxen. They are a great team. Haven’t heard from you in a long time. What will you do with yourself????
Frank & Jesse are still doing well. I’m still glad I have them.
Take care.

[Nat(wasIxy)]

I hope you manage to find a home for yours Howie!

[Howie]

I am going to have a huge two day auction on 2nd and 3rd of Sept.
I might sell them then.

[bivol]

Hi Nat!

sorry to hear you have to let Angus go.
it is sad, but it’s a good thing you’re thinking this over seriosly, because love or no love, having animals will always lead to a sad end (weather natural or otherwise) after all the joy, there is no escaping this part of animal husbandry!

anyway, i got this idea… why not try to sell him (or give him away) to a Hare Krishna farm? i know there is at least one cow protection manor in England. they should like taking in a big, (mostly) trained ox they could employ him within the same week.
all the more because there aren’t a lot of working oxen in England should make your case stand out.

[Nat(wasIxy)]

Well I couldn’t do it. I went out, he stood nicely to be haltered, and gently held his head against my leg, and I crumbled. Then the bull, his friend, came up and touched his head to angus’ too which made it even worse, like he was saying goodbye!

[bivol]

out of a loose-loose situation you picked the lesser to loose.
selling livestock you’re attached to is one dark side of farming. still, just because it was (and is) customary to do so, don’t blame yourself for not being able to copy it! and that goes for selling as well as killing – some people, no matter weather growing up on farm or in a city, just aren’t cut for it – i’m not, for one, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of!

there is another thing.
some things are not yet meant to happen. we human don’t see the entire picture yet. and no matter how hard we may try, our schemes wont work until it’s time. i believe it’s not yet the time or the right chance.

[Nat(wasIxy)]

Well, he’s gone. I was a coward and couldn’t play any part in his loading. But the final straw came when we were cutting some steers out to slaughter and he got so excited by it he just crashed straight through another fence at a gallop!

[Anonymous]

@Howie 28347 wrote:

I am going to have a huge two day auction on 2nd and 3rd of Sept.
I might sell them then.

Howie, I am just curious, did you sell your Devons? I know you were having an auction but never saw any followup about your team.

[Author]

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