Springtime for oxen
Spring training for twins Barley and Rye at the Farmers’
The training of the oxen at The Farmers’ Museum has begun and it’s fascinating.
“We have twins, they are Brown Swiss from Milford, it’s great!” said Bob Thompson, Associate Direcor of Agricultural and Facilities Support Services.
Twin brothers Barley and Rye were about a week old when they got to the Museum. Born in September, they already weigh 525 pounds apiece. When they are grown, they will each weigh one ton.
“We just started training the oxen, we are training them to be working animals,” Sandra Vanalstine, a farmer at the Museum, said. Ms. Vanalstine has been with the Museum for two years as a farmer and now in charge of training the oxen. (By the way, ox is singular — one animal; the plural oxen means more than one.)
“I try to make it fun for them,” she said. “You start off by simply leading them, petting them, talking to them all of the time. Then come the verbal commands and yokes.”
The twins work on commands before the farmer puts on the yokes.
“’Haw’ means turn left, ‘gee’ means take a right turn, and ‘whoa’ means stop,” Ms. Vanalstine said. “They understand those words.”
The Farmers’ Museum opens its Spring Workshop season on Saturday, April 2, with a series of programs throughout the month and again in June taking place at the museum at 5775 State Highway 80 in Cooperstown.
Say hello to Zeb, a Percheron working at The Farmers’ Museum in Cooperstown. He’s 28 in horse years — that’s 80 for us humans — and has been with the Museum since he was three (horse years). he’s more than 16 hands high, each hand equal to four inches, and weighs in at a svelte 1500 pounds. Bob Thompson, Associate Director of Agriculture and Facilities Support Services at the Farmers’ Museum, said Zeb is “pretty much retired now. He used to do wagon rides, plow the fields, and help cultivate the hops. He has arthritis but was a hard worker for a long time. Now he has a new job, he meets and greets all of our visitors! Everybody loves Zeb!”
