Abandonded Gear by the 49ers
More significant than anything that happened to the Mormon companies on the road in 1849 was the news that came back from the valley with Almon Babbitt early in September.…
More significant than anything that happened to the Mormon companies on the road in 1849 was the news that came back from the valley with Almon Babbitt early in September.…
Oxen could tolerate lack of water fairly well because their third stomach, the rumen, stores extra water. It was the dust that killed them. “The worst enemy they had was dust,”…
“Oxen can do very well on sagebrush,” notes Ford, “and in the spring when the sagebrush is frst starting to grow, they can eat evergreens . . . but dry…
Draft animals were the single most expensive component of an overland Ford draws on his historical knowledge of the period to point out the economics of buying stock. “In 1847,…
Unlike horses and mules, oxen are not directly controlled with bridle, bit, and reins handled by a driver seated in the wagon behind them. Instead, the drover walks to the…
Now, suppose you have three teams of horned steers, all yoked up and pulling your wagon along the Oregon Trail. Ford will point out that you still don’t necessarily have…
When Ford demonstrates the historical method for yoking a well-trained team, he places his oxen—in this example, Thor and Zeus—side by side in the driving position. Standing beside the team,…
Bulls can be trained to pull a wagon, but steers (that is, castrated males) are preferred, largely because they grow larger and stronger. . . . “Because he has longer…
"The oxen that drew emigrant wagons west were just everyday domestic cattle, Bos taurus, that had been trained to pull under yoke. That training is what distinguishes an ox from…
"The journey [to California or Oregon] was some fifteen-hundred to two-thousand miles across plains, mountains, and desert—at an ox pace of two miles per hour. Including rest breaks, the average…
"In this way the cattle kingdom spread from Texas and utilized the Plains area, which would otherwise have lain idle and useless. Abilene offered the market; the market offered inducement…
"The risks were now that stragglers might be killed for their arms and equipment, that venturesome young bucks might raid the horse herd for glory, or that the antic Indian…
"Oxen, already worn from the strain of crossing the Green River Basin, died by the dozens on the rough ridges of the Overthrust Belt. "Dead animals all the way up, the stench…
"A yoke of oxen is two animals leashed together by a yoke: a crossbar of carved wood fastened to their necks with oxbows. Two or three yoke (four to six animals)…
"The wise freighter would send or take with his train several extra cattle. In case of lameness or accident to an animal on a team an extra would be used and no delay…