Draft animal oxen: historical necessity and modern need

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:45

A pet ox is just a castrated bull. According to archaeologists, it became a human assistant more than ten thousand years ago, a little later than a dog.

Who is this ox? Is it a pet or wild?

Human domestication of the wild tur (Bos primigenius) began at the beginning of the Neolithic (from the tenth millennium BC). The wild bull lived on the territory of Asia and Europe, but initially its domestication, judging by the excavations of archaeologists, was started in the territories lying in the triangle India-Altai-Armenia, Mesopotamia, Persia. On the territory of modern Hindustan, the zebu animal became the progenitor of the cow.

According to biologists, the ancestors of modern cows occurred when already domesticated cows from the tour and cows from zebu were crossed.

To date, the tour as a historical wild animal does not exist. The latter died out by the sixteenth century (the reason was the immoderate extermination of both forests and the tours themselves), and purebred zebu live both in the wild and in domesticated form in their historical homeland.

Meat, milk, skins - just for the sake of this setdomestication took place. With the development of agriculture, a need arose for draft power, first for transportation, then for work - arable, harrowing, transporting crops.

The use of bulls for this was more expedient than horses - bulls are slower, but stronger and more enduring.

Castration of bulls as a permanent way to obtain draft animals, unique in temperament, strength and endurance

Oxen - animals obtained after castration of young bulls at the age of about a year. Removal of the testicles leads to the fact that the body of the bull, without receiving the necessary hormones (which are produced in the testicles), begins to work differently: muscle mass is building up, the temper is calmer (this is no longer a habit, like a bull), although the horns grow similar to the grandparents (like the tour).

A real working ox is an animal with a fairly heavy head, high pronounced withers, a muscular strong neck, and a broad chest. Strong bones, huge hooves, straight legs allow the ox to move freely and, most importantly, very stable.

A correctly and quickly performed operation to sterilize a bull does not give complications, in veterinary practice it is considered quite ordinary (there are even several ways), although in many developed countries at this age bulls are no longer castrated (to obtain more delicious meat (beef) they are spayed at four to six months).

Use of oxen in Russia

Already in the middle of the twentieth century, the country's agriculture did not use oxen asdraft cattle. Although in the Soviet Union, during the Great Patriotic War, many collective farms plowed fields on bulls (oxen in the southern regions) due to the lack of equipment as such and the lack of specialists serving it (the country's male population fought). The situation leveled off by the middle of the century, then there was no need to use oxen.

Today, some farms use castrated bulls. Today's Russian ox is an animal that can be useful in the conditions of exporting heavy loads (hay, vegetable crops) from the fields off-road (albeit at low speed). Farmers even share their experience of not only using, but also training these animals.

Using an ox for farming is much cheaper than keeping a horse, but the types of work are almost the same. There is no need for forging and harness, and feeding is much cheaper, there is no need to worry about using bulls rejected for slaughter.

Use of oxen today in developing countries in Asia and Africa

The population of the countries of these regions is constantly experiencing an increasing need for food (the main increase in the number of people falls on these regions). The development of agriculture is limited by the absence (often simply a lack) of mechanical energy due to the poverty of countries and their inhabitants.

In Asia and Africa, farmers more than in other regions of the world depend on the availability of draft power - oxen (rarely camels, buffaloes, elephants). Animals pull two-wheeled carts (Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam), pairedteams.

Works on harrowing, weeding, in rice fields (by water), for the delivery of bulk cargo (hay, crops from the fields) are carried out on these animals - oxen.