Ox Power Handbook by Paramananda das

Lesson 5: Starting To Work

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Oxen & Hay Cutter

Your oxen have individually learned all the commands, but you will find that there is some relearning involved when you yoke two oxen together. You should repeat all the lessons so the oxen can relearn the commands as a team. A large training ring - 48 feet (30 m) in diameter - should be used. There is plenty of room for them to walk around, and yet they are confined, which helps focus their concentration. Since they have already learned the commands individually, it should not be difficult. Continue the lessons until you are satisfied they are obeying you.

When you yoke the oxen, each ox should have his own side. You shouldn't switch them back and forth. If an ox gets used to working on one side and then you switch him, you may experience extreme difficulty.

Keeping the Neigh Ox Near
Generally you put the better ox on the far side because he is more easily controlled. Your off ox (the ox on the right or far side) is not directly within your grasp, so he should be a good boy. You can even put a rope on the halter of the near ox [neigh ox] and hold him if necessary. You can speak and use the lash to control the neigh ox more directly. Also, if one ox walks faster than the other, he should be on the off side. If the off ox is slower and is always standing back and you can't see him very well, it's hard to control him.

When you begin training a pair of oxen to work bear in mind that it is going to be a gradual process. They may be very strong, but you must start with an almost weightless load and gradually increase it to their full capacity. I know this is just common sense, but you would be surprised how this simple dictum is readily abused by passionate teamsters, who go against their better judgment in the name of "getting the job done." When you first hook the oxen to load, the whole concept of pulling is new. However, it is to your great advantage that pulling is their natural propensity. That is why they are called "beasts of burden." They also have a propensity to be lazy, but this training is not so difficult, as long as you don't prematurely overload the oxen.

Start with a Light Load
So at first you want to hook them up to something very light. I like to use a small two-wheeled cart, because it offers no resistance at all. The oxen are aware that they are pulling something, but it is very easy to pull. If they get scared and back up, the cart will just back up with them; whereas if you had a four-wheeled wagon, they could jackknife the wagon and break the tongue.

If you hook them up to a dead weight (a load without wheels) like a log or a sled, their freedom of movement is also restricted. If they back up or turn too sharply, they can break the tongue or step on top of the log. But if they are just hooked up to a two-wheeled cart, whether they turn or back up, no matter what they do, the cart just follows along with them, and you are less likely to have any accidents.

Even if the unthinkable would happen (the oxen get away from you and run off), this two-wheeled cart will just follow along with them wherever they go. Of course, the cart should not have any weight on it at first. We just want the oxen to get used to pulling something and overcome whatever fear they have. If you hook them up to a heavy load right away, you are beginning the inauspicious process of ruining your oxen. On your two-wheeled cart, be sure that the tongue is long enough so that when you go downhill, the cart doesn't bang into the oxen. This is very disconcerting, and they really don't like it. If something from behind them, which they can't see, comes crashing into their legs, it is frightening and it hurts.

Of course, this would only be an issue with a wagon or any implement which is on wheels. A sled doesn't slide forward and bump into the oxen, unless, of course, you are pulling it on ice or snow. So make sure the tongues on all your implements are long enough so the oxen don't start off their training by being banged in the heels. It is hard enough for them to get used to the yoke being pushed up against their horns. They have to learn to keep their heads up when they are going downhill, and hold back the load with their horns. The load will push forward, and their horns are very functional for holding it back.

You have to be alert that the oxen don't run off when you are first hooking them up. That is another bad way to start off a career of working. The oxen may be quite nervous at first. When you hook this cart up to them, they hear it clanking and they feel the weight. They may decide that if they walk or run away fast enough, the cart will be left behind, not understanding that they are chained to it, and it is going to follow them wherever they go.

So you should really hold on to these oxen when you hook them up, and have an assistant to help hold them or to walk in front of them. Tie the two oxen together by their halters, so that they can't separate from each other beyond the regular walking distance. Put a lead rope on the near ox and walk next to him on the left side. Don't leave these oxen unattended or untied when they're yoked up, and don't try to drive them without holding on to the lead rope. Especially in the beginning, they might get spooked by the cart and decide to run away.

Some animals, having once run off, never lose the inclination to do it again. Once they've realized their strength, the possibility of doing it again is always in their minds. They see it as an immediate solution to their problems. Certainly it is very dangerous. The oxen are likely to get injured if they run off while hooked to a load. Also, the load may catch on various objects like fences, vehicles, trees, and who knows what - and destroy them. So be really careful and hang on to that lead rope when you are starting these new oxen.

The oxen must learn correctly how to start a load; otherwise it will always be always a sore point. If the oxen jerk on the load to start it moving, it puts undue mental and physical stress on them. You run the risk of breaking equipment, and it is very inefficient. It takes many times more power to start a load than to pull it once the load is actually moving. So to learn it properly, the oxen should start slowly with something which is technically a load, but actually has little weight.

Once the oxen get used to performing all the commands with the cart hooked up, then you can gradually add more and more weight, but never so much at once that they notice the difference and become alarmed. Just increase the load in very small increments and your oxen will learn how to start a load smoothly - and keep it going without becoming neurotic.

As long as you start small, the oxen will start smoothly. If the load is not heavy, then all they have to do is naturally start walking. If it is a little bit heavier than it was before, they will just lean over a little more, but they won't have to jerk the load. If you make a big increase in the weight, then their tendency will be to back up, and then try to run forward and jerk the load to start it. But you will find that if you very gradually increase the weight, they won't develop this bad habit. You can slowly build them up to their full pulling capacity in this way.

If you hook the oxen to a load that really frightens them because it feels very heavy, they jump to the conclusion that they can't pull the load. They feel the weight and give a little jerk to try and move it. If it doesn't move right away, they become alarmed and conclude, wrongly, that they are trying to pull a mountain. They then decide that you are just a madman and that they are never going to pull anything ever again. The next time you hook them up to something and tell them to go, they're just not going to do it at all. As a matter of fact, they will go backwards. This is called "balking," and is a certified "bad habit."

Therefore we emphasize the importance of starting the oxen off very gradually. Don't ever put so much weight on them that they jump to this wrong conclusion, that the load is so heavy that it is impossible to pull. If you overload the oxen before they are used to pulling heavy loads (and before they trust you and understand that the harder they pull, the more likely they are to move the load), the result could be that the slightest load would cause them to immediately short-circuit, stop, back up, get all flustered and nervous, and think that some impossible, horrible task is about to be imposed on them. When animals get like that, they are called "spoiled." That comes from repeatedly asking too much of them too soon, or more than they are willing or able to do at any give time.

The oxen are not so unforgiving, though, that you can never make a mistake. For instance, maybe they are pulling a log, and it gets caught on a stump or a rock, and you don't realize it. You tell them to get up, they pull, and the log won't move. The oxen get flustered. That may happen.

Depending on the temperament of the oxen, they may or may not be affected by it at all. It may take repeated mistreatment of that sort to actually spoil them. But don't underestimate the possibility of spoiling your oxen, even if they seem to be very tolerant and forgiving. Don't subject them to that kind of misjudgment, of being commanded to do things that they cannot do without hurting themselves, or tripping and falling down, or bumping into things that cause them pain - things that they cannot do without great difficulty, or at all. Repeated treatment of that sort will eventually spoil any oxen. They will become dull, oblivious, and callous to your commands, because they don't really trust you.

Once you've had practice with the cart, and the oxen are used to the idea of pulling, a nice easy thing to hook them up to is a log. This trains them to pull a dead weight. You have a lot of control over the weight by gradually increasing the size of the log. So it's a nice way to develop their strength and teach them how to start a dead-weight load.

Training in the Woods

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Oxen become very dependent and submissive when they are in the woods

Many people like to train oxen in the woods. As soon as I did it, I understood why. The oxen become very dependent and submissive when they are in the woods. They tend to look to you for instructions, because they are so much surrounded by trees and obstacles that they are bewildered. Because of all the trees, they don't know where to go.

If you are out in the open and the oxen can see the barn or any place familiar to them, usually they will want to go there. Oxen always want to go toward the barn, because that is where they live, and that is where they eat. They always walk a lot faster toward the barn than when they are going away from the barn. But in the woods, it's neutral territory. It's just trees all around, and the oxen have pretty much lost their sense of direction, so they look at you as though to say, "What do I do next?"

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In the woods, it's neutral territory It's just trees all around

Also, they tend to walk slowly woods because of their natural caution. You can really practice your "Gee!" and "Haw!" commands weaving in and out of the trees. And there are so many nice logs to drag, lying around in the woods. You can pick a size log just suitable for the oxen you are working. When you feel confident that they are used to it, you can hook up a bigger log.

Preventing Injury and Fears
Beware of simple obstacles that frighten the oxen. For example, some animals really dislike walking through ditches and puddles. They may be used to avoiding such things in the pastures, but now they must overcome their fear because it is not very practical if the oxen won't walk through a puddle or step over a ditch. An ox who is afflicted in this way looks at a puddle with terror, as though he is being asked to jump ship in the middle of the ocean; and to walk through a one-foot-deep ditch is like asking him to jump off a cliff and commit suicide.

So when an ox stops in front of some obstacle, obviously frightened, be prepared to quietly coax him along. If you get excited and try to force him along, he will try to jump over the puddle or ditch. Since he's yoked to another ox and hooked to a load, he'll never leave the runway and will land in the puddle or ditch, possibly on his knees, and who knows what other commotion will be caused.

As you can see, this is another opportunity to spoil your oxen, so don't get excited. Stand in the puddle or ditch yourself, walk through it, speak kindly to the ox, splash the water around with your hand, and rub some on his nose so he can smell and touch it. Oxen and horses rely heavily on their sense of smell to test things. Then try to lead them across the abyss, one step at a time if necessary. Don't forget, this is basic training. Don't make him cross the obstacle until he is convinced it is harmless. You may be impatient, but the oxen must be given first consideration.

You can accelerate the work training of new oxen by hooking them together with fully-trained oxen. This principle of association is very effective. In our case here at Gita-nagari, now that we have so many trained oxen, we can work with a new team a little bit, and then just put them in the middle of a span of six oxen, with a trained team in front of them and a trained team behind. If they stop, they are simultaneously dragged from the front and bumped from behind. They very quickly understand what is going on, and they start walking along and pulling. Since it is natural for them to pull, in that situation they respond quickly and understand what they are supposed to do.

Generally, we train the oxen in teams of two right from the beginning, and have them always working and learning everything together. That works fairly well. But if we just need one new ox as a replacement, then we may team him up with a trained ox and have him learn that way.