Howell Farm's young oxen are now on training wheels.
A report from Farmer Rob:
Star and Stripe are pulling quite well now. Stripe is very responsive to verbal commands, but Star less so. This may be because Star is too dependent on the lead rope as a cue. We have been working on weaning him from that by doing some figure 8s around a couple pins in their paddock with the lead rope removed.
The cart was primarily to give us something to back up as it is hard to back up a dragging load. It also gives the calves a variable load so that, for example, it gets heavy for a few steps when they pull it through a ditch. It also pushes them downhill which gives them practice holding back a load.
Last week Star weighed in at 290, and Stripe at 345. The amounts were not much of a surprise, but I thought the differential would be greater because Stripe looks quite a bit bigger.
Star and Stripe are pulling quite well now. Stripe is very responsive to verbal commands, but Star less so. This may be because Star is too dependent on the lead rope as a cue. We have been working on weaning him from that by doing some figure 8s around a couple pins in their paddock with the lead rope removed.
The cart was primarily to give us something to back up as it is hard to back up a dragging load. It also gives the calves a variable load so that, for example, it gets heavy for a few steps when they pull it through a ditch. It also pushes them downhill which gives them practice holding back a load.
Last week Star weighed in at 290, and Stripe at 345. The amounts were not much of a surprise, but I thought the differential would be greater because Stripe looks quite a bit bigger.
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