[Andy Carson]

How is it going with the new ox so far, Jeffrey? Have you been able to work him much? Don’t be shy about asking for advice on any problems that you have. There are alot of very helpful and knowledgable people on this site that can help. It’s none of my buisness, I know, but I am excited by your projects and want you to be successful.

[Andy Carson]

Tanja,
Your arguments could be made against the slaughter of any and all animals. Industrial scale animal raising and slaughter is fraught with images that many Americans find disturbing, and horses are no exception. It would be consistent to rail again industrial slaughter, and I think you have an excellent point there. I could also see a good argument to be against the slaughter of any and all animals, and leading a purely vegetarian lifestyle. Not my choice, but it is consistent and logical in many ways. To propose that horses are somehow different from “meat animals” is completely absurb. What makes horses so different??? Humanity certainly owes a greater historical debt to cattle than horses, and we eat them all the time. Pigs are often sited as the most intelligent farm animal, but we eat them all the time too. It’s hard to find a farm animal friendlier or with more “personality” than a goat, and many people eat these too, wihtout widespread uproar. So what is it that makes horses so “special”??? Have you actually thought about this, or is it simply that horses feel special TO YOU? These are perfectly find feelings to have, but you can’t expect other to share your subjective feelings and they are certainly not a good basis for law.

[Andy Carson]

There are several designs to chose from and your application will differ from others, but I think it would be useful to list the features that I have found to be important in shelter design/construction. This might give you some way to determine what is important for you.

1. Ventilation. I have been much happier with shelters that have big open sides that allow moist foul air out and cool clean air in. I like a whole open side, at least, not just an open door or window.

2. Drainage. Make sure to locate shelter on a piece of ground with good drainage. Wet manure, urine, and trampling will turn a moderately drained area into a swamp.

3. Access to outside. Cattle (or at least my cattle) tend to “veg out” in the winter, concentrating manure, mess, etc. Anything that can be done to “get the boys to play outside” makes your life easier.

4. Reinforcement around “rub points” and in feeding areas. 2×4’s are small sticks to a big ox. Thick wood and bolts are good in these areas, and concrete embedded posts are golden. They are especially strong when pushing to get to food, so think about how you are going to store hay and grain in your system. I made the mistake of storing extra hay next to my feed bunk out of the reach of my oxen (but ALMOST within reach). I am rebuilding the feed area this year.

5. Proximity to feed, hay, water, house. Hauling water gets old and cattle drink a lot. You will not relish a long trips with buckets in winter. Same goes for the hay and feed. Heated water troughs that can be filled periodically with a hose are very very nice. A location next to the house where you can throw on some boots and feed in your PJ’s without getting all “garb’ed up” in the middle of winter is also very nice. This stuff sounds like no big deal in the middle of summer, but in winter these “little” inconveniences really add up.

Overall, I think this portable shelter is a good idea in theory, but am a little concerned about the practicality of it especially in cold climates in winter. Once these skids freeze to the muddy urine soaked ground, i bet it’s going to be a real bear to move the shelter until spring, so I would be very careful about picking a spot with great drainage. On my place, there aren’t really tons of places where I could locate a shelter that have good drainage and are also pretty close to my house, hay shed, etc. If it only one or two places, you are not really getting the true advantage out of the rotation system. If the shelter is fixed, you could make the shelter so much more robust and incorporate many features that would be nice to have (much more robust design, feed storage, electricity, etc). Perhaps it would be a good compromise to keep the shelter fixed and feed in rotated areas, which would distribute the damage. Just throwing out ideas. Again, I think this is an excellent concept in theory, but I am not sure about how practical it is.

[Andy Carson]

It would be a simple modification to add some chains that run from the front corners of your sled to the center of your pole. They would have to be just the right length so as to allow turning, but prevent jack-knifing. Once you have the length determined, you could set up hooks and the pole would still be easy to transfer from one thing to another. It could be just like hooking up a trailer, one ball, two chains. I think this is a great idea.

[Andy Carson]

Thinking about this more, I bet these lessons would apply to feeders/bunks designed to feed grain as well. IE, circular feeders in open areas might allow more undisturbed feeding of lower ranking cattle than linear bunks. The grain would have to be spread around a circle widely enough that one animal couldn’t access and guard the center. It would take alot of grain to fill a hay ring, but if the grain holder was shaped like a wide half donut (or a tractor tire cut in half), a relatively small amount of grain could be spread in a circle for all animals to access without bullying. Alternatively, one could simply hang buckets on the inside of a hay ring. Has anyone seen something like this?

[Andy Carson]

Fascinating stuff, Tim, and very unexpected (at least to me). I was indeed thinking of building a linear bunk and will now build a circular (probably hexagonal) one instead.

Based on this paper, I have a greater understanding of why one of my oxen (the lower ranking one) tends to go in grab hay, pulls out, and wastes some hay. I had been using a linear feed bunk. It makes a lot of sense too that I would only have one ox that enters and exits, while the dominant ox just bellies up and chows down.

The head position aspect is interesting as well. There has to be loss associated with letting the hay rest on moist ground, but there are also losses from forcing cattle to feed in an unnatural “heads-up” position that seem to rival these losses. I would have never guessed that. I think that if I elevate the hay off the ground, I need to make sure it’s only a few inches.

Interesting stuff, and suprizing. It is good to rethink some basic assumptions.

PS. When I was worrying about bullying, my first thought was to make the linear bunk longer. In light of this paper and subsequent explainations, this would have likely not helped much (and might have hurt). Extending a linear bunk may have simply given space for the “bully” to hide in where he could feed comfortably and be out of the direct sight his “victims”.

[Andy Carson]

Thinking about this again, I might take a very low-tech approach. A true ditcher might work great, but it sounds like you have a small amount of this work to do and then the ditcher is going to sit. Alternatively, you could plow a furrow and a drag a log through it lengthwise several times to move the dirt and sod out of the furrow. It would be more passes, but the size of the log can be controlled more to keep the draft appropriate, and then you just have a log sitting around, instead of an expensive metal “uni-tasker.” I might also be temped to plant some sort of brush, willow, etc on the downstream edge of the berm. You won’t loose much grass productivity and it would protect again erosion in flood situations. Just throwing out ideas. It seems that there is much to the design of these ditches and channels. Too shallow of a slope and sediment builds up, clogging the ditch. Too steep of a sloop and erosion digs at the walls. I imagine you want to keep a somewhat constant angle to avoid these two extremes and are probably following a contour. I would be tempted to err on the side of “too shallow” (if you have to pick one side or the other) because you always have the log to drag through again to remove sediment. Rebuilding the wall seems more challanging. This is an interesting project.

[Andy Carson]

Fascinating stuff, Jeffery. I am on the edge of seat waiting to see how this works for you. I grew sunflowers this year in a similar system and have been very happy with them, even though cultivating has been a challenge from time to time. The nice thing is that they are about 4-5 feet tall now and the weeds don’t get light anymore. Another crop you might have luck with is turnips. They grow like crazy for me as a cover crop and while I didn’t use them as animal feed, I can imagine that pigs would self harvest these and enjoy doing it.

The other conclusion I have come to with reguard to growing feed for chickens is that while it is useful to have grains (or similar) for calories, it is most critical (at least to me) to grow something that is high in protein. My chickens do pick at the clover, but I can never tell if they are really eating as much of it as I would like them to, so I am uncertain how much I need to supplement with other protein sources so I end up supplementing as if they are not eating clover at all. They do love the sunflower seeds, though, and I can see if and how much of these they eat. I wish here were palatable legume options that were weed resistant, palatable, and didn’t require alot of processing (roasting, grinding, etc). I grew field peas a while ago, and found them to be weed resistant enough, but the widllife dessimated them. Perhaps next year I’ll try them again, as I have more fencing now and a dog that chases critters away.

[Andy Carson]

Does this give you any ideas? I would probably use a tool like this, but I would want to break up and sod and loosen the dirt before I went at it with a ditcher like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1hBe191-sU

Breaking up the sod/soil and then moving it will be hard work. You will probably want to make sure your ox is up to the task and watch him closely to make sure the work isn’t too hard. You won’t want to overwork him, and conditioning and the use of appropriately sized tools go a long way in preventing this from happening. I have no personal experience with this tool, but can tell you that using a single animal on a tool designed for a team is rarely appropriate without modifications to teh tool or the technique. I would guess you a good start would be to halve the weight on the tool. Maybe you have a very light person to stand on the ditcher or can fix less weight to it. Again, I have not used this tool, so am only guessing. There are several Tiller’s members on this site, though, and maybe they have more hand’s on experience with this tool and could offer thoguhts on how to modify it for a single. Normally, you can just cut tillage tools down to half the width to adjust from a team to a single, but I don’t think that would work for this tool, as it would likely put more pressure on the digging point and may not effect the draft significantly.

[Andy Carson]

This is great Jeffrey, I would love to see any pictures you haev to share. My oxen eat their pasture really fast too. If I give my oxen 3 days worth of graze, they eat 50-75% of the grass the first day, 20-40% the second day, and the last day they would finish up any remaining grass and start to work on brush and weeds out of hunger. These numbers aren’t scientifically observed, but I think you get the idea. I know the system you describe works, but it causes more day to day variation in thier diet than I personally prefer. I am sure you will get the hang of a system that works for you as time goes on. My oxen are big liars when it comes to food. They always ask for more and more and rarely need it. I have learned to ignore thier cries and instead feel thier ribs and hip bones, as these don’t lie. I know it’s annoying to more the whole paddock every day, though. In my setup, I have a single line that I can advance daily and move the follow-up line once a week or so (dependign on the pasture I’m in). This way, I am only moving a single line every day and don’t have to mess with the water (which is the most annoying part for me) and the majority of the fence. Hard to know if a system like this would work in your situation, but wanted to share anyway.

I am unfamiliar with this technique you are describing with the log. I think you are dragging it sideways so as to smooth out mounds and fill in wallows? If you are going downhill, the log might roll up on your ox, which would give me pause if I was working hills (or even flats if the log was very round and rolled easily). I would probably select a log with a convenient elbow, bend, or bow in it that prevents rolling (or even cut the log and bolt it back together in “Vee”). This system seems like it would work OK for smoothing, but if it works to your satisfaction will likely depend on the soil conditions and your expectations/goals for the future use of these areas. What you are going to do with them? On second thought, this might be a great activity reguardless of your future goals as it will be great work for getting used to your new ox. Other than the possibility of the log rolling (which can be fixed), this seems like ideal “get to know you” work. Depending on your future goals, you might follow with another tool, but it will be a much easier task with this experience to fall back on.

[Andy Carson]

I agree a scoop is a lot of fun. There are two approaches that I have used for dumping. One, you can just bring the handles up in the rear, letting the nose dive into the ground, which brings the whole thing over. Be careful to have you horse ready for this action, because it kinda makes a loud bang right behind them and it can be spooky. Alternatively, you can stop your horse, lift up on the handles and wiggle the tool back and forth to dump some or all of whatever you are dumping, advance and repeat. I have done both and either works fine. If you manually dump, you can spread out whatver you are dumping a bit more than if you just tip, which dumps it all in one spot. A word of warning, don’t let you reins catch on the handles if and when dump the scoop. Very Very bad things happen.

[Andy Carson]

In the article, there is discussion of industrial restaint methods for cattle and sheep slaughter. I think goats would be similar. I could use a sawhorse type setup to support the goat in an upright position, with legs in a hanging natural position, strapped in place. I felt like the process of tying the goat was more stressful that the killing act, although still acceptable to me. I put him on a table, on his belly, with each leg tied to a leg of the table. I think he initially objected to the “legs out” position, but when he was tied tight, he relaxed again. It was more stressful than it may have possibly been, and although it was perrfectly acceptable to me, this doesn’t mean it could get even better… The sawbuck would work too, no doubt, but I like the belly down position (instead of on the back) for blood collection purposes. If I had a good reason to avoid stunning the goat, I probably would. For this goat, I just gave it a single hard whack on the back of the head (behind where the horns would be) with a heavy framing hammer and he was instantly out. This is the recommended stunning position for goats, which is somewhat different from cattle and sheep due to heavy bone in the “butting” area of the skull. I was happy with the effects and will probably do the same unless there is a reason to change. No need to fix what is not broken. I do think I will work on my restrain apparatus, though, I think this is a great suggestion.

http://www.grandin.com/humane/restrain.slaughter.html

Rob, I found that the slaughter and precessing was very very similar to deer (albiet a small deer). It sounds like your skills would certainly be up to the task if you are ever interested in it. It’s hard to know if I am ever going to get to eat many of my own animals. There always seems to be such a market for them that I seem to only eat culls and old ones.

[Andy Carson]

I saw the sawbuck in the book, Carl, which I am pretty sure I saw you recommend in another post. I have to admit I was attracted to it, but wasn’t sure if it was easy to save the blood. My minds eye had it running around the sides of the neck through the hair and dripping in unpredictable places. I wanted to keep the blood relatively clean, so i stunned, hung, and cut over a bucket. Is it easy to catch the blood in the sawbuck setup? If so, please share your technique.

[Andy Carson]

i think I’ll try composting this stuff too. I can put a small piece of fencing around the mound to keep my dog out, if needed. It seems to be a simple process.

Andrew, your story reminds me of the first time I trapped a raccoon. After I killed it, I put in on a stick in the misguided belief that a dead raccon will be a deterant to other raccoons. This does not work very well, at least for me, but it does attract turkey vultures. I chased them off, though, because I had chicks in a pen with an open top at the time. I doubt really that they would fly into such a small area, but the risk wasn’t worth it. I buried that coon shortly afterwards, which started this whole story.

[Andy Carson]

My opinion is to do whatever is going to reduce weed pressure the most. If you have time to do a summer fallow and plant a late cover crop, that seems great. A fallow does alot to reduce (and change!) your weed pressure in suprizing ways. If your land is like mine, the fallow takes time and many passes. If you don’t have that kind of time, I wouldn’t try it, because a half-job on a fallow just leads to a bunch of weeds. I get hammered by weeds a lot too and I suspect that it will be years before my land is Nordell-style. Doing whatever I can to control weeds in a way that leads down the Nordell-type path pretty much dictates my farming practices right now. You climate is different, though, and you might have greater concerns about erosion during a fallow. I am unfamiliar with your land… I am not planning on doing fallows all the time, but I think they can be very helpful when the weed pressure is very high.

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