The Organic Experimental Engine (oxen)
(Page 5 of 9)
May/June 1973
By John R. Scarlett
An alternative to making your own yokes or buying them used is to contact one of the men who still does this work to order. We know of two: Leon Blake of West Fairlee, Vermont and Arthur Hines of Terryville, Connecticut. A new yoke, including bows, costs $75.00 to $100, and a new bow alone will run about $10.00. You might find used equipment in good condition for about half that money.
Whether you make or buy a yoke, one serious defect to watch for is cracks—even hairline breaks—in the wood that comes in contact with the steer's skin. Nothing less than Iameness, it seems, makes an ox go on strike as quickly as having hair pulled from his neck. It's also important to see that the yoke—especially its bows—fits your team. These curved sections should be large enough to allow you to put a hand between the wood and the ox's neck, but small enough so that—when the animal is pulling—the bow does not rub against the front of his shoulders .
RELATED CONTENT
. . . AND YOKING
One great advantage of working with oxen is the simplicity with which they can be coupled and hitched. Even though yokes are heavy, putting one on a team is fairly easy.
To "harness up" our work animals I first tie John and Paul side by side to some stationary object (usually the side of our chicken coop). Then I pick up the yoke, walk between the oxen from the rear and stand between their shoulders, where I rest the left end of the yoke on the ground with the nuts of the reinforcing bolts facing me. Next I [1] remove the bow pin from the right bow, [2] pull out the curved piece and hook it under and around the far side of the right ox's neck, [3] insert the two ends of the "U" back into and through the beam of the yoke and [4] secure the fastening by sticking the bow pin through the protruding end of the bow nearest the center of the framework. Then I repeat the operation on the left side with the other animal. That's how I was taught to yoke a team but any way that works is probably good enough.
Though yoking is still a bit awkward for us, we learned the procedure in only a few minutes. It took a little longer, however, for my small body and the team's large ones to get used to standing so close together. Twice I was stepped on (or the oxen were stepped under). It hurt. Pain taught me also that an ox's head is as wide as the reach of his horns . . . a fact I learned one morning when a casual twist of Paul's neck left me with a bloody lip. Ox horns, by the way, are usually tipped with screw-on metal caps to prevent a team from "hooking" each other.
HITCHES
Oxen and horses are both hitched to a neap, the eight-to-twelve-foot-long beam of wood that extends from the front of a wagon or sled. Thus any horse-drawn equipment can be adapted for use with cattle. Instead of the whippletrees (For all you non-farmers, a whippletree is the same as a singletree, which is part of the equipment used to hitch horses and mules to wagons and other farm implements.—MOTHER) and harness needed for horses, however, you use just the bare shaft. Its tip goes through the ring on the underside of the yoke and is held in place with a wedge of wood, a steel pin or a chain. In the last case—our own method—the chain attaches to the ring and to the wagon end of the neap. (Incidentally, much of the work we do with our span—pulling stoneboats, stumps, logs and stuck trucks—is done with a chain alone and no shaft at all.)
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