[Andy Carson]

@Anthony 33969 wrote:

Are there any hand tools, perhaps similar to a scythe, that could be used?

I love my slingblade (also known as a bank blade, kaiser blade, etc).
http://www.forestry-suppliers.com/product_pages/View_Catalog_Page.asp?mi=1768

I have used this to clear all sorts of saplings, brush, grass, and weeds. If you are cutting lots of grass, there are more efficient tools. Swinging this tool for a while is fun, but it saps your energy, as it really packs a wallop. It cuts brush/saplings up to maybe 2 inches with ease. On the bigger end of that range, you will want to use an angled cut rather than trying to cut straight accross. I’ve even taken down a 4 inch tree, although on the bigger ones you have to swing more than once from opposite sides to take them down. That said, if you’ve got alot of stuff that is 2.5 inches or bigger, I would recommend a different tool. In my hands, this tool really shines in clearing out areas with thick mixed vegetation, where grass, brush and small trees all together. Perfect for field edges. It’s also perfect for if you feel like you have extra energy or had a bad day. Hang it by the door and scare the neighbors! 🙂

[Andy Carson]

I am sorry to hear about your bad day, Kevin. I am a beginner with oxen too, but 8 months old seems so early to give up on a team for a lack of patience. In my mind, they are just babies, with years of growing and maturing to do. This is not meant as a excuse, just an observation. Personally, I think it’s great that you have been able to do as much as you have done. I will let the more experienced teamsters give you more specific advice on this specific problem, but wanted to tell you that when I am (or have) felt discouraged, it was helpful for me to look at difficulties as “opportunities for really meaningful improvements” rather than as “demonstrations of failure.” Thanks for that thought, Mitch (I took the liberty of paraphrasing it). This way of thinking has helped me keep my head cool in some potentially frustrating situations, and perhaps it will help you too, Kevin. 😉

[Andy Carson]

I also found the grazing “rules” to be very very difficult to follow with horses. In contrast, I have found them pretty easy to follow with cattle in small rotated sections. The cattle have a much reduced tendancy to overgraze favorite areas and skip over “latrine” areas. My horses would sometimes being pulling grass out by the roots when there is 10 inch tall green fresh grass 100 feet away. Then they started running for no particular reason, sometimes skidding this way and that on soft ground turning beautiful productive pasture into muddy wastelands. The pasturing of horses, and thier tendancy to waste grass in various ways, was/is probably my least favorite aspect of horse ownership. Sorry if this sidetracks the thread, I just wanted to get that thought out, and this thread was kinda going in all sorts of directions anyway.

[Andy Carson]

It went well, Ed, see above. Sorry, I was having technical troubles for a while.

[Andy Carson]

I went out with this new disc for the first time today. I really wasn’t sure the boys could pull it very long, but thought I would try and switch fast if it was hard. I was sure they could budge it at least, so I thought it was time to try. They actually pulled it quite well. Harder than the spring tooth, for sure, but not as much harder as I would have predicted. Boy, this disc really rips up the soil. It doesn’t need the extra weight either. They could only pull it for about 30 minutes, but I think this is a good start and I bet they work into longer times soon enough. I have been trying to drag photos over here from facebook, but for now I’m just going to post the links. One is of the disced soil, the other is of the boys in the pasture after working. I have been trying not to race, but I always in a subconscience race to be able to pull this thing for spring work. Race over… I also wanted to show a photo of my team. They have really gained so much muscle and quality weight in the last month or so.

PS. I figured out how to post the photos from another site now. My comp does let me just drag them over and I had to something slightly more complicated. I am glad I can post more photos now…

[Andy Carson]

I recently lost 5 young buckeye/leghorn cross pullets. I didn’t really notice at first because I didn’t keep as good of track of these pullets as they got in the habit of roosting in the run-in and tree branches rather than in the coop with the other hens. This cross makes wild things… As a result, they were not locked up at night like the rest. The pullets were taken at night on different nights. There were no fight scenes in thier normal roosting places (no blood, feathers, or carcasses). Yesterday, I heard a sound like a frightened lost puppy and went to go find it. It was coming from a thicky wooded fencerow. I didn’t find the puppy or a foxden (the sounds went away when I got close), but I did find the remains of my lost pullets. They clearly didn’t wonder off, but were taken back into the woods (maybe 100-200 yards) and eaten. The entire carcass was consumed (including bones and entrials), with nothing left but feathers. The feathers were scattered randomly in small piles. This was not a surgical job. There is no water in the area where they were eaten. There is a pond on my property, but it is in an area patrolled by my dog so raccoons would very likley not want to hang out there. This sounds like a fox to me and the sounds I was hearing make me think there is a den somewhere close by. I looked for one, but will probably look more. Crappy thing about it is I just put up an electric fence around the whole place. My dog used to patrol the fencerow where those pullets were eaten, but now he can’t get there. In intending to fence out potential predators, I may have inadvertently given them a safe base closer than it could have been otherwise…

[Andy Carson]

Thanks for the thoughts. I was able to get my field completely springtoothed over the last few days, and was trying to keep the boys off the chain as much as possible. I did notice that my nigh ox does know how to sidestep in turns, and seems comfortable with the concept. He gets on the chain when he doesn’t sidestep fast enough or far enough. It is easy for the turn to go too fast because my off ox tends not to sidestep in haw turns, but tends to angle in instead. This makes him turn faster than the nigh and puts the chain on the nigh. So, in my mind, I really have to keep my eye on the off ox here and make sure he doesn’t try to turn too fast. I ended up slowing the off ox and pushing him out on haw turns rather than slowing my nigh. Sometimes the off ox was even a bit further back than the nigh in haw turns, which actually has some advantages. Having the off further back not only slows the turn and gives the nigh more time to step over, but it also opens up more room behind the nigh for the chain to swing. I suppose in a perfect world they would be totally even, but having the off ox back in haw turns makes everything so much easier than having him forward. Now, I just have to try to keep the off ox’s butt in when turning haw… That been a tough one so far, as it is so easy for him to simply angle in. I suppose I need a hook on my goad?

As far as signalling, I ended up going with a tap on the front of the nigh and a tap on the back of the off to initiate the haw. This, along with my body position, seems to let them know we are going to turn haw. Then I tap in various other places (front of off, rear of nigh, flank of off) as needed to manage thier body positions after the turnin initiated. Although is it somewhat counterintuitive to tap the front of the nigh and the rear of the off when you are going to do a tight turn, they are very used to this being the “haw” command and tapping the other places that I use to micromanage the turn tended to be confusing until the turn was initiated.

Still need to practice sidestepping on “gee” a lot. My off ox is a bad sidestepper moving out. I tend to not do this much because doing fieldwork with “gee” commands makes me walk in the tilled soil. Whaa! 😮

[Andy Carson]

@Tim Harrigan 33867 wrote:

If you can not picture this process or figure out how to implement it, we need to continue this discussion. This is an animal comfort and health issue.

I think I understand, but let me check. I think in a perfect situation, the team would swing with the chain and the yoke at a perfect 90 degree angle the whole time. To stay at a perfect 90 degree angle, the oxen must both sidestep rather than angling one way or the other. Depending on loads, conditions, experience, and the degree of the turn, one might be able to turn while going forward, or one might need to alternate swings and pulls. If you are swinging while pulling, this would have to be a forward and sidestep maneuver, which might be hard esp if the turn is rather tight. If you swing and pull (rather than doing both together) you can make tighter turns, but be careful using this technique because the load is going to swing upon an axis that is somewhat unknown and will depend on how the weight/drag is distributed. The axis of rotation of the load will not be the point where the chain attaches to the load/implement, it will be some distance back from that point. If you swing around an axis that is not the true axis of rotation for the load, and swing very far, it is going to drive the chain into one of the oxs legs when you start. This would do much more than rub and chaff. To minimize the possibility of this happening, when you swing without moving forward at the same time, you should frequently pull the chain tight enough to rotate the thing you are pulling (you can make sure it is completely rotated by advancing a short distance). By frequently making small advances, even if your educated guess as to the true pivot point is wrong, there is probably still enough room between the chain and the oxs leg. Does this sound right?

This leads to another sets of questions… If turns should always be sidesteps (rather than speeding one ox up and slowing the other ox down) than signalling a turn by tapping at the rear of one ox and the front of the other ox is just wrong??? You don’t want either one to go faster and you don’t want either one to go slower, you want a sidestep and a pivot… Oh jeesh, have I been doing this wrong the whole time? Maybe the commands i know work for wheeled things or for wider turns and there is another set of commands for tight turns? I am kinda getting mixes messages here. There seems to be one school that says rubbing on the chain happens from time to time and here’s something you can do to make rubbing less damaging. There seems to be another school of thought that says rubbing should never happen and if the team touches the chain there is a fundament problem that needs fixed immediately before work can continue. Thoughts?

[Andy Carson]

@Carl Russell 33859 wrote:

…If they are allowed to turn evenly, like might be accomplished by a wheeled vehicle, it will cause the inside animal’s hind legs to be forced back inward toward the angling chain.

I know there is a tendency to ask for a turn by placing the whip in front of the inside steer, but turning under load should be accomplished not by slowing them down, but by encouraging that animal to step up and to the side at the same time.

I usually use the pain from the chain to my advantage coinciding a command to step out, or up, at the same time the animal comes in contact with it. I would compliment a turn command with encouragement to put out…

Ha! You are exactly right. I am pretty sure this is what was going on with my team as they were used to pulling a two wheeled thing before. I also tend to slow my nigh ox in haw turns. I will try your tip, and I bet it works. Thanks!

PS. The NS pole system sounds interesting to me. I might try it sometime when I am feeling adventurous. It would also have the added benefit of preventing backchaining (or at least making it harder). My team hasn’t done this in a while, but it would be nice if it was impossible…

[Andy Carson]

I think that one of the reasons my off ox keeps his head low is that he tries to snatch a bite of grass when he’s working. Bad, Bad, and I have had a tough time trying to fix this. The kinda telegraphs when he’s going to try for a bite. He hangs back a bit so his head is hidden behind my nigh ox and they reaches down for a qucik bite. My goad is at his rump by this time, but he’s getting positive reinforcement from the grass at the same time he gets negative reinforcement from the goad. So, this has been a really hard habit to fix for me. Sometimes I feel like we make progress on this front and sometimes not… Not making excuses, but I pasture them at night and put them in a sacrifice area during the day. When they work, they will have been without pasture for a while and there in fresh green spring grass right at thier noses. That said, when they were only on hay I didn’t have fresh spring grass, so it’s not a fair comparison. I have essentially decided this is a battle that is not worth fighting at this time because I can get nose baskets… Perhaps heads will come up then.

[Andy Carson]

It is interesting that this topic brings up the point of if the team should touch the chain at all, and what the consequences for this ought to be. The first few times out, my nigh ox rubbed hard enough to remove hair and cause some bleeding. Not alot of bleeding, and the wound was not deep, but I didn’t like it and put the piece of plastic pipe on to prevent this in the future. The plastic pipe is large diameter, self cleans in the rain, is relatively slick, and is free to rotate around the chain, all of which probably add to comfort. Perhaps this makes being against the chain too comfortable? My team doesn’t let the chain ride on them, but still rubs on the chain/pipe enough during turns that if I didn’t have protection of some sort they (esp my nigh) would be sored. I had been overlooking this in general because I felt like there were more important things to focus on and figured that the team would figure out that thier legs need to get out of the way or they will get bothered by the obnoxious rattly thing that the chain with the pipe becomes when it’s rubbed. Obnoxious, but not painful. Maybe some teamsters use a less “comfortable” type of attachment to keep them off the chain? A little rubbing during turns becomes a big deal when I do field work, as there are so many turns.

[Andy Carson]

Ha, funny how much a firehose can look like a strap with a ring on the end! I had to double check… Mine rub the chain too, so I guess I don’t aheva good show team either.:D

[Andy Carson]

Thanks for the photo, Erika. Nice team. I like your chain/strap combo. I made me start another thread in the oxen section…

[Andy Carson]

It’s good to hear you are back to work too, Erika. How old is your team now? 3?

[Andy Carson]

@Carl Russell 33770 wrote:

establishing a cadence of exertion and rest that conserves energy will not only get more work out of them physically, but it will also maintain enthusiasm.

This is one thing that I have found that this team likes. They really really appreciate working and taking short breaks. With my horse, I tended to just “go” the whole time and tried to tailer the load so that she could maintain a reasonable walk the entire outing. It seems this team accomplishes more by working for 5 minutes and resting for 30 seconds (I am guessing at these times) than by just “going” the whole time. Maybe this is an ox thing? Reguardless, they just love catching thier breath and I don’t mind because I can pick rocks and throw them off to the side of the field. These are mostly smaller rocks than I would not have bothered picking otherwise. Thier ability to just stand there unattended while I wonder around picking and throwing rocks is a real advantage. I think this is also a good time to work on thier lateral movements or just give them a pat, a neck rub, or try to find an itchy spot.

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