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Per discussion at Talk:Cattle I've split-apart this article from Cattle. Oxen redirects here: although the plural may be somewhat more common due to the usage of the animals normally in pairs, the singular is not rare. This article needs substantial work and is but a stub, Cattle#Oxen needs to be updated to show only an basic excerpt from this article.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 21:14, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Random edits

sorry about them, was messing about at work and anyway, its back the way it was anyway. (wave hand in front of face) it never happened! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tardy (talk • contribs) 06:56, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Species

It would be nice to have some species specific links or information. If someone wants to know about breeds or scientific informtaion it would help to have some links. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 167.7.17.3 (talk) 18:15, 28 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oxen are the same species as cattle, Bos primigenius, as indicated by the text, "Oxen are commonly castrated adult male cattle". Simply put, an ox has been raised for labor, while a cow has been raised for food. Zarggg (talk) 22:41, 14 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Group of Oxen

A group of oxen is called a boxen - should we add this to the article? 78.105.205.191 (talk) 21:46, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't true. Oxen is the plural form. Vivaldi (talk) 06:15, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wagons, carts, oxen, bullocks etc

Please see discussion at Talk:Bullock cart#Carts and wagons. Richard New Forest (talk) 10:56, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am surprised to see the photo Zebu oxen in Mumbai, India. I thought cattle couldn't be used as a beast of burden in India.71.218.254.173 (talk) 23:42, 3 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

German interwiki

Montanabw reverted my deletion of the German interwiki link. In my opinion this link is missleading, as it suggests that Ochse is the exact translation of Ox. This is not the case. Ochse means any castrated bull, regardless of how it is used; the German article therefore also makes references to castrations in meat production. Under these circumstances an interwiki link that suggests the sameness of the two lemmata provides desinformation rather than information. The usage of cattle for transport is, in the German Wikipedia, best discussed in the article Ochsenkarren, but as this article is already linked to in the article bullock cart, which is the actual translation. What might be helpful is an etymology section in this article that discusses the change of meaning, but I have no information about the etymology of the English word, only about the Middle High German meaning ...--Hannesde Correct me! 09:09, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mental capabilities

In many parts of the world, oxen, especially the castrated male ones, are synonimous with massive dumbness. A schoolteacher could scold a not exactly bright pupil that he's as dumb as six oxen combined. A person who does something really dumb or offending could be titled as "ox with a coat of arms" ("címeres ökör" in the hungarian language). 91.83.35.58 (talk) 21:40, 23 November 2010 (UTC)This information has been proven to be incorrect by the society of ancient agriculture.[reply]

Images

Just an FYI that my tweaking of the images is based on my understanding of preferred procedures on wiki and is made in good faith. I have been told that because people set different default prefs sizes and we all have different sized screens, sometimes fixed sizes can wind up looking very weird on some computers, so when we want to deliberately make a photo bigger than the default that the "thumb" paramater gives the "upright" parameter is added instead. On my own computer "upright=1.5" usually is about the same size as 250px, making the image enough bigger that when a larger-than-normal size is desired, it appears. That section with the painting, the shoe and the stand is just too many images in too little space, the idea of using the parameters to be side-by-side isn't too bad and may be more elegant than my sandwiching of images right and left, but the real problem is too much in one spot, would be nice to figure out a way to spread things out a bit. Open to further discussion. Montanabw^(talk) 23:19, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not questioning faith, just the result. If what you've been told ever finds its way into the MOS we can look at it again. Tested on everything from iPod to cinema display. Yes there are too many images in that short section, that is why I put in the breaks and used the floating table. Best solution is to expand the section. What is the name of the neat chisel x plane seen in the Canadian video?
Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 00:50, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Steer?

Is an ox a steer? I think not. Oxford American Dictionary defines 'steer' as 'a male domestic bovine animal that has been castrated and is raised for beef'. That is not what an ox is (though of course a steer by that definition might still become an ox if suitably trained), so I have removed the steer reference. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 13:04, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In Australia Jap steers previously referred to as ‘Jap ox’, are steers with heavier carcase weights destined for the Japanese trade.Cgoodwin (talk) 01:34, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In New England a steer is any castrated male bovine under the age of 4, those used for draft are known more specifically as working steers. "Ox" is only applied to animals that are four years or older and therefore presumed to be fully trained.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 09:49, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a mention of this under Training, but I need to locate my references in a box; online references for this take a lot of digging too as most of the links are to 4H competitions and they simply assume one knows this.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 13:42, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think in view of what you say some mention of 'steer' should go back into the lead also, will do that tomorrow if no-one else has. Three questions:

with this and that and cgoodwin's bit, is there enough to say about steers and bullocks to justify a small stub for them instead of the present redirect into the innards of Cattle?
can we get rid of santa's (unreferenced) reindeer – the 'Tum' and 'Tum-tee' naming system seems to have been in use in the US as well, though of course I can't find the ref now – so they are probably misleading as well as irrelevant
and in the bit about teams in southern England, shouldn't that read 'bullocks' rather than 'steers'? Does anyone in England talk about steers? (I grew up on a farm in southern England, called them bullocks). Does anyone have that Bob Copper book? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:40, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm from southern England too, and I've heard "steer" used widely. In the passage referred to Copper just calls the replacement oxen "young ones", but elsewhere (top of p 99) when talking of an ox team used for puddling clay he does call all of them (young and old) "bullocks". However, not sure whether it matters too much in this article, as we are using general modern language to explain what he said, and I think "steer" is more widely understood in this context. "Bullock" is potentially a little confusing, because of its Australian use as a synonym for "ox" itself; also in some dialect usages it is not limited to males. (Worth getting hold of a copy of Bob Copper's book if you can – very interesting historical account of his early life, then the second half the book is the folk music for which the Coppers are famous.) Richard New Forest (talk) 13:37, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I favor keeping a ref to steers here. Maybe the steer redirect could point to here instead of cattle (making this article, in effect, the home for castrated male bovines, if you will). I'm of mixed feelings about the benefit of a new article. On one hand, I hate dinky stubs for no good reason. On the other hand, it IS true that for horses, we have filly and colt (young geldings are called colts, for some reason). Just a thought. Montanabw^(talk) 22:24, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not too keen on this article being a place for all castrated bovines, as in many cultures cows and bulls are widely used as draught oxen. Richard New Forest (talk) 13:37, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, a colt is normally a young stallion and Colt (horse) is a tiny stub that is barely more than a WP:DICDEF. The significance of steers goes well beyond oxen and in the 20th and 21st Centuries they are far more important as meat animals. They are also key in the history of the American West. They probably do deserve their own article but I wouldn't want to just carve something off as it would likely just get merged over again shortly unless it was carefully planned out. Besides as one can see from this discussion and the article, an ox in some cultures is any male bovine (or even any bovine used for draft), whereas a steer is far more commonly used as the term for a meat animal and only in some limited (but significant) areas refers to a young ox.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 06:33, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll go with the consensus here if this article should stick to draft uses, though some mention of steers and bullocks to clear up the confusion might be useful. I could go either way on a new article about the beef steer, though I agree with Doug that it shouldn't be a crummy stub, we should look to do a solid job as was done with, for example, bull. On the horses thing, while technically a castrated male is a gelding from the point of castration, the term "colt" is widely used on a colloquial basis. But that's neither here nor there. Montanabw^(talk) 16:50, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree we should mention them. Maybe in a special section on etymology and naming variations, where we would discuss all of the history of the word "ox", the variant meanings of "ox", and the regional variations in terms for both "oxen" in general and "young oxen" in particular. That would keep it out of the way and lend itself well to filling with citations as they become available without cluttering another section with this stuff.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 12:23, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

History of use?

When were the first oxen used and where? No mention of this.Malick78 (talk) 10:41, 17 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Definition

the posted definition of Ox is inconsistent with both Merriam Webster and Oxford English Dictionaries.

The posted definition states that it is necessarily a "trained" draft animal.

The first definitions of Ox in both referenced dictionaries define the term as a unqualified member of domestic Bos taurus. Thus, all cows, bulls, steers, heifers, calves, etc are oxen, whether or not they are trained as working animals.

Colloquially, yes, the word may be used to distinguish working animals. However, this should be clarified in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:838C:8F80:BD9E:5730:C15B:18F5 (talk) 15:24, 13 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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Riding-oxen

In response to Justlettersandnumbers removing the "Riding equipment" section I made:

Cows and bulls are also occasionally ridden, as mentioned in the "steer riding" article. As such, the "steer riding" article does not suffice. If cows and bulls are ridden as well, even if only occasionally, then the title should be something like "cattle-riding". Wait, that’s not singular, but there’s no consensus for a gender-neutral singular term for just cattle at the moment.

The term "ox" has come to mean cattle of any sex that are specifically used for riding and draft purposes, so it seemed that this information should be included here. It still mentions that they are predominately steers, but also that cows and bulls are also used as oxen; the term "ox" isn’t gender-exclusive.

The steer riding article talks about the rodeo sport of attempting to get on the back of a steer and hold onto it while it tries to buck you off. This is in no way related to the actual riding of steers for transportation, and it seems like the two subjects should be on different articles entirely. I thought that maybe I should let it just talk about the sport and that I should remove all information pertaining to the transportational riding of steers on "steer riding" and move that to the ox article, and add a "This article is about the rodeo sport. For the riding of steers as transportation, see ox" sort of thing on the steer riding article.

Also, now that I know to not cite Wikihow articles, I will fix the references.

I will revert your revert and change this back to how it was, remove information pertaining to the transportational riding of steers on "steer riding", and will add a "This article is about the rodeo sport. For the riding of steers as transportation, see ox" on the steer riding article. If you still have any opposition to this, please let me know. SaltySemanticSchmuck (talk) 05:59, 4 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What are ox shoes for?

I know that they serve basically the same purpose as horse shoes do, but the ox shoe section should actually mention the purpose of them. SaltySemanticSchmuck (talk) 05:59, 4 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Needs a grammar edit I can't make

This article is apparently "semi-protected" due to vandalism, and I don't have an account, so I can't fix it, but the section on Shoeing needs a simple grammar/spelling fix in the second sentence, so perhaps someone with an account can do it: it currently reads "The continual strain beared on their feet by the weight they carry"; "beared" should be "borne", of course.

Oh, thanks for the input! I didn’t notice that. SaltySemanticSchmuck (talk) 03:01, 1 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I undid your undo of what I tried to do because you shouldn’t have undid it

Undo: I made some small edits, none of which I could see to be unconstructive in any way; in fact, I see them to be quite the opposite. I fixed a link that didn’t have all its brackets, corrected "halter" to "bridle" (halter basically means a bridle used for leading, and a bridle is basically a halter attached to reins used to control an animal), removed whatever the heck kind of typo ”ox cues" was and added "separate parts" because that’s what it was trying to say, changed "ox shoe" to "oxshoe" because I have seen many places spell them without a space, and improved the wording of one sentence from "Ox shoes are usually of approximately half-moon or banana shape" to "Oxshoes are usually of a flat shape with an outline similar to a half-moon or a banana" because they’re of a flat shape with an outline similar to a half-moon or a banana. I removed "approximately" in that sentence as it seemed to not be needed. The final thing I added was what oxshoes are used for, why they’re used, and how they benefit if they’re used.

Look at what you undid again. I only made things better. SaltySemanticSchmuck (talk) 04:01, 1 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Citation needed

Under common commands, this claim appears:

“Get up (also giddyup or giddyap, contractions for "get thee up" or "get ye up")”

That’s a pretty bold claim to make with no proof. To my sense of logic it also doesn’t seem to make sense. Wouldn’t commands meant to be understood by an animal normally NOT be expressed in formal language, but simplified intentionally for the animal’s sake of understanding the direction? I’ve never even heard a farmer say “giddy up” and I’ve been around a lot of them. They’ve all used the simplest form, “Get up!” or, “Giddup!”

My personal reasonings aside, the claim should either be sourced or removed. 73.69.251.97 (talk) 12:42, 12 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]