The last bullock (or oxen) team I saw was in the early 1990s on Banks Peninsula in the South Island of New Zealand. They were for show only, and the bullock master used to spend two days walking the team about 90 km to Christchurch for the annual A&P Show in November. Three days later he would walk the team home again. He ceased doing it soon after as the bullocks gradually died off and were not replaced, so much work involved in selecting and training them.
Nowadays, "bullock" and "steer" mean the same thing, more or less. "Ock" is an antiquated suffix that meant "small" - so a hillock was (and is) a small hill, a pillock was a small pillar (though it has taken on rude slang connotations today), etc. Likewise, "bullock" originally meant any small bull. However, it has come to mean a castrated bull (steer) in modern times.
And people say."oh but Australians don't have culture",.that was as Aussie as it gets!...that's Aussie culture .well done fellas,definitely a rare breed
Five yoke of Oxen is a rare sight anywhere these days. We used a yoke of ox to get logs out of the woods because the ground was steep and we weren't allowed to cut access roads in the mountains. We allowed the oxen to pull their own weight and our logs usually weren't as big as that one. Keeping shoes on five yoke sounds like a real pain in the neck.
These animals are pampered. In the old days oxen were worked harder but still treated as well as the bullwhackers that worked them. Only stupid people mistreated the animals they depended on. The same kind of people that mistreated their fellow humans.
¿ Pero es que no se dan cuenta de que, con esa forma de tiro , se ahorcan los animales? Muy bonito, muy bonito pero los animales se hacen daño. Hay que ponerles una collera mas cómoda. Podrian tirar mas y sin hacerse daño.
Bulls are present for doing hard jobs. But when raised in a family they do nice jobs, like this shown in the video. Moreover, we consune milk and meat.
These are the videos that make me proud to be part of this great country. Have some of the yokes for oxen hand made by my grandfather who had working bullock team on his farm all pieces hand made at his own forge as well. Thanks for great video
what is the 43 thumbs down for? I know this is an old video, but does anyone know how the brake system works on the wagon, do the brakes go on when the oxen stop pulling?
A man I used to know was a teenager of the 1940's on Banks Peninsula in NZ. The bullock teams up until that time used to drag massive totara (podocarp) logs either on small log rollers or on sleds, down the slopes to the foreshore from where they were tow-floated to the destination mill. The use of wagons was rare because of the undulating and often steep terrain, but when on easier land the lad mentioned above would walk brake duty, rope in hand, behind or beside the wagon. Brakes were blocks of hardwood on swivelling levers that were pulled against the wheels of the wagon. Wedges and blocks of wood were also used, thrown on the ground ahead of the wheels. The last bullock team in my home community was disbanded after WWII, when tractors replaced them.
some nutjobs think this is animal abuse. They don't realize the relationship and investment between man and working animal. They also don't realize the huge decline in working animals like horses for example. There might be 1/10th the population of horses now that we don't use them much. They stand as neglected pets for little girls who have now moved on and gone to college. The wagon doesn't roll very easily anyway so it stops on anything other than a steep decline
Horses are built in a way that they pull with their "shoulders & chests". Cows and oxen pull via their slightly stopped neck tops and hence the Yoke Frame is designed to support that body design. I am sure others can explain it better.
