12/15/07

 ISCOWP News

Volume 16 Issue 3 The International Society for Cow Protection 2006

“OUR NEW OX TEAM”

1991 SPRING ISCOWP NEWS

1992 Vraja (on the right) leading the San Francisco Rathayatra in Golden Gate Park

 The plentiful rains had changed all the pastures to a luscious, mint green. It was a hot spring day, but the air was fresh and clean. As we drove through the fertile, rural back roads of North Carolina, we anticipated meeting 2 twin bull calves, our future ox team.

Their owner wasn’t going to keep them much longer and would sell them at the auction where veal and beef farmers buy their animals. We wanted to tell him he could forget the trip because we would be glad to buy them instead. Anxiously we looked for the silo where we were to turn in at the left.

It is not common for a cow to have twin bull calves. They would make a perfect team since they were the same age, size, and already have an emotional bond between them. Certainly this was a God sent arrangement.

As the silo appeared at the curve of the road we turned left as instructed and drove onto the farm property. In the farmhouse yard there were several hutches (pens) housing newborn calves. All the hutches housed heifers (females) except for one where the twins were housed.

As we approached the twins’ hutch, they perked their ears and strained their necks over the fencing to say hello. They had just been weaned from the bottle and did a good job of sucking on our hands, shirt sleeves, and anything else they could get a hold of. We were glad they were not afraid.

The farmer told us they were three months old, weighed about 250 pounds each and were the sons of the best cow in their herd. Then we told him about ox power. We explained how we would like to take

the calves and train them as a team. During the summer we would teach them to answer to voice commands, familiarize them to the yoke, and show them how to do light tasks as a team. He was fascinated, but he was not about to give them away free.

After we settled on a price of $350 for both, we went over to the twins hutch. Although they were both so similar because they were twins, each one began to reveal their individuality. The one we decided should be given the name Gita, born two minutes later, was a little smaller and more delicately built. He was more pensive and sensitive in his interactions with us. The other one was a little bit larger, more aggressive, and quite a character.  We named him Vraja after Vrajabhadhu dasi who donated the money to purchase him.

The next day we bought them to their new home. The first thing they wanted to do was run. Apparently they had been in their little hutch their whole lives and had never or rarely exercised. We put halters on them and with lead ropes we ran and ran with them until they didn’t want to run anymore.

On that day, April 16, 1991, a lifetime relationship of protection with love was begun. A relationship that would show to humanity the practical reality of a harmonious relationship between man and his brother, the ox.

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