Ox Training Begins

The ox training book came in the mail yesterday. Read the sections on early training and yoke building and felt good about starting the training.

So today, I grabbed a sapling from the ground, cut it into a switch and went into the paddock. I started with Bonnie. Put a lead on her and started going over get up, gee, haw and whoa. The book talks about how the goal is to get the calves to respond to verbal commands, so to begin with you use the switch to give some encouragement. This encouragement only happens after a moment of the calf failing to follow the command and then stops being needed in most cases.

Bonnie took some time to get moving and got distracted easily. But I made sure to give her some praise when she did the right thing.

Melvin fought the lead when I put it on him. So after holding him still for a while, I got on his left side and began training him. He caught on a bit faster than Bonnie.

Definitely learned how important it is to have the calves tied up and in shelter for the bulk of the day. Doing that would make the calves much more comfortable with being on a lead for training. So I have a friend coming over in a couple of days to get a shelter built.

Overall, a fairly good first day of training.