Logging with Oxen at D Acres Permaculture Farm
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ก.ย. 2024
- How out team of jersey oxen(August & Henri) are utilized in our logging operations.
www.DAcres.org
D Acres is a non-profit Permaculture Farm & Educational Homestead located in Dorchester, NH. D Acres researches, applies and teaches skills of sustainable living and small-scale organic farming. Striving to improve the human relationship to the environment, the center functions as a demonstration farm to role model exemplars of healthy living. Sharing a communal living situation, individuals come to respect and share values of interdependence and love of nature. In addition, the organization supports educational activities directed toward improving the quality of life of residents and the larger community.
The use of oxen for logging and other purposes is one of those great traditions that has never completely died out in New England! However, draft horses are also a New England tradition, and a multi-purpose breed of horse that was used for riding, pulling light vehicles, and draft work - including logging (when trees were MUCH bigger!) originated in New England - the classic Morgan horse! Morgan horses were so famous that Disney even made a movie about them.
LOS TRABAJOS AGRICOLAS ME ENCANTAN PUES UN SERVIDOR FUE CAMPECINO HASTA LA EDAD DE 22 AÑOS 9 MESES CULTIVANDO TIERRAS CON YUNTA DE BUEYES ME FACINA PAA DE S N DE LOS GZA N L MEXICO
Great film - thanks. We use horses but these lads are sweet too.
Very nicely done. Wow. Wish I knew more about the Oxen. They seem like easy keepers.
we use a stone boat on occasion for the logs and stones..it is heavy and gets bogged down in the snow...same with the forecart in winter...sometimnes easier just to skid them out on the snow
i think you are right..gonna bring them down another notch
Have you ever worked them single using a horse harness with the collar turned upside down. A fellow used to harness his angus bull to pull the feed bunk to new spots , no problem they dont know how strong they are. If they did we couldn't make them do anything right.
Cows and bulls can be trained as oxen, also. We think of oxen as being trained steers, but traditionally oxen were often cows.
If you're not already doing it, you might want to consider using small wheel carts for larger logs. Good job though. More people should work with these animals. It's what they really do enjoy doing. They're like nature tanks.
In addition to making them less of a 'bully', castrating bulls when they are calves increases the size the animal will reach at maturity, as the sex hormones play a key role in signaling when the growth plates in the bones close. Hence the saying, 'big as an ox' - NOT 'big as a bull'.
sccowboy281976 nice catch on the limp. Henri had a bad limp that winter...we worked slowly through that, two years later he appears to be all healed up :)
The audio is difficult to hear because the microphone was too far away.
oxen are less picky on the feed, have better manure, easier temperament, they have simple, inexpensive rigging and cheaper vet bills and feet expense
Oxen are not necessarily 'less picky on feed, have better manure, or easier temperaments'. The oxen you know may be a better fit for you. Oxen can be great, and a lot of fun to work with, but horses can be, too. Their manure is awesome!!!!! Cattle can be killed by bad feed,
and we almost never feed our horses grain.
Horses don't necessarily need a vet or a farrier more than oxen, either. Oxen feet have to be trimmed, and oxen with heavy work loads, particularly on stoney ground used to be shod, just like horses. It's a bit like saying a Ford is better than a GMC. It depends on what you are used to, and what you like. Some people like both, and both were traditional draft animals in New England, and throughout the USA during the colonial era, though horses became much more popular later, most likely because they are generally faster, not necessarily pulling a log - but pulling wheeled vehicles, and maybe plows, too.
Thankyou. =)
HOW DO YOU FEED YOUR FOREST?
I have two questions : Isn't it easier to work with a horse insed of two bulls? Why do you prefer bulls?
they do better in colder weather they dont like the heat but the ice can be dangerously slippery
You could have dragged that one log by yourself.
I promised my sister to bring her an ox as her wedding present. Thoughts?
i think bows are set a bit too high...
Aren't jersey bulls aggressive?
How do they do in cold weather?
People often ask about how animals do in cold weather, but seldom ask about how they do in summer. All the animals we keep, except maybe the pigs, prefer winter and cold weather.
So the cycle is cut down the trees and grow annuals.... great...
There's lots of good reasons to fell trees "You can't eat them" is not one of them
they have been castrated - changes their aggressive territorial tendencies