What an Ox can do to frustrate you

Thrughout the ox working world there are circumstances that confound the ox driver. Its as though the oxen do it deliberately to avoid work….. at least for some time. Here are the ones I have experienced.

Pulling Out / Hauling Out. In this gem of a frustrating habit one ox or even both of them think it is a good idea to lean to one side on the yoke. This causes the other ox to compensate by leaning over to the opposite side at his end of the yoke. This is not done when they are standing up without motion but it often starts once they are moving. Sometimes they lean out so much that they practically are touching each others hooves. It looks weird, frustrates you the ox driver becuase, they are doing something unhelpfull to the work that is needed and it will tire them out straining against each other.

Some possible solutions you can try:

1. Get them to move faster. this sometimes helps (but not always).

2. Swop their sides. Now this will take time and they may have this in mind all the time to delay the work or just to frustrate the driver. By the way it is not a strict principle that the oxen have to be on the same side all the time. It is better if they can be so that they are used to working in that way, but you can switch them if you need to and they will adjust. Of course there is always one that will not take to switching sides for one reason or another. In particular sometimes some oxen dont like a more dominant ox to turn around its head in a particular direction and so they will keep walking to ensure they dont. This means you cant turn very well.

3. Put them on a wider yoke. You can only do this if you have a longer yoke. In our case we had regular yokes for all the general farm work of ploughing and cart or wagon work but we also had some potato yokes which were sized for a specific distance between potato ridges.

4. Secure their heads a specific distance apart. This can be done by either having a rope or small chain joining each oxen by the head collar (assuming they are wearing one). You shorten it until they stop pulling out, hopefully. Otherwise you have two oxen practically looking at each other but still doing their best to pull out. An even more visably distracting site and a posture not the best for working.