# can a dairy cow be trained/used for light plowing/pulling?



## cathleenc (Aug 16, 2007)

the question is probably mostly just curiousity... but can you train and use a dairy cow for plowing/pulling? Is it okay for the cow?

We're hoping to get a small family milk cow - like a jersey/old world jersey/mini jersey sort of size - 40" high or so at the hips. We have an area we'd like to grow alfalfa in but the area is so small that it isn't effective to use a tractor + plow. So I started wondering about putting the (future) cow to work plowing the field..... and just had to ask. 

thanks!
Cathy


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## Cotton Picker (Oct 10, 2008)

cathleenc said:


> the question is probably mostly just curiousity... but can you train and use a dairy cow for plowing/pulling? Is it okay for the cow?
> 
> We're hoping to get a small family milk cow - like a jersey/old world jersey/mini jersey sort of size - 40" high or so at the hips. We have an area we'd like to grow alfalfa in but the area is so small that it isn't effective to use a tractor + plow. So I started wondering about putting the (future) cow to work plowing the field..... and just had to ask.
> 
> ...


Cattle have been used for draft since just around the dawn of time/thirty.

I would say that the investment in time spent training a cow for draft... Combined with the expense of harness, plow, etc... Combined with the udder trauma (No Pun Intended... OK.... I lied ).... Would not be good for either her, nor milk quality.... To say nothing of the added physiological stressors and energy requirements to maintain both the energy to perform draft chores.... Combined with milk production... Combined with reproductive efficiency on top of that.....

I would say that you would be better off in the long run to establish you alfalfa with either rented equipment... Or hiring a custom farmer.....

Ne vous fÃ¢chez pas, s'il vous plait... Just my $.02


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## cathleenc (Aug 16, 2007)

Cotton Picker,
I think the harness and plow could be borrowed from a neighbor who plows with draft horses. I think he'd help with the training, too, in exchange for some homemade cottage cheese (he's highly motivated by homemade cottage cheese).

I know cattle have been used for draft for time eternal... but not dairy cows in specific. The mental image of a holstein pulling a plow is even funny to think of!

Probably it would be a lot easier to have the neighbor with the draft horse, harness and plow train me in how to drive a draft horse under harness than anything else. Still, sometimes the mind just has to ask. The question unasked is the dumb question - a life full of possibilities is a rich life.

thanks
Cathy


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## Janis Sauncy (Apr 11, 2006)

Well, since you're going to have to breed that cow periodically to keep her in milk, chances are, at one time or another, you're going to end up with a bull calf.

Maybe it would be better to train up a young steer for that kind of work?

I've never had cows but I would think you might be putting a cow's udder at risk doing that kind of work. At least with a steer, that could be his "job," whereas otherwise he'd likely end up in your freezer.

Win/win!

Janis


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## cathleenc (Aug 16, 2007)

Janis Sauncy said:


> Well, since you're going to have to breed that cow periodically to keep her in milk, chances are, at one time or another, you're going to end up with a bull calf.
> 
> Maybe it would be better to train up a young steer for that kind of work?
> 
> ...



yes and no. A bull calf would be sent to someone else's place to grow for 20m as it's the only way I'll be able to butcher it and we have minimal pasture. We have to stay as a one cow farm! but a good idea!


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## genebo (Sep 12, 2004)

To make her into a draft animal only requires that she be of an even temperament and able to be trained. It's a lot of work training her to be an ox.

As a dairy breed, she has a slight build. Not heavily muscled. She won't be able to do as much work as a heavier muscled breed.

Genebo
Paradise Farm


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## Cotton Picker (Oct 10, 2008)

cathleenc said:


> Cotton Picker,
> I think the harness and plow could be borrowed from a neighbor who plows with draft horses. I think he'd help with the training, too, in exchange for some homemade cottage cheese (he's highly motivated by homemade cottage cheese).
> 
> thanks
> Cathy


You are most welcome Cathy.....

You have posed a bit of a conundrum... In that oxen are generally harnessed with a yoke rather than a collar...

http://www.taws.org/TAWS2004/TAWS04-Conroy-040419-A4-all.pdf

I can see it now.. You are off to the fields with your little cow all trussed up for work... And as she passes her pasture-mates they shout to her..... Looks like the yoke's on you today! :banana02:

Having said that... Horse collars come in different sizes... A draft horse collar would all but slip around the ribcage of a small cow.....(Slight exaggeration )

If it were me... I'd find out just how much homemade cottage cheese it would take... To get your plowboy neighbor to work up the alfalfa patch with his hosses......


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## cathleenc (Aug 16, 2007)

you know, Cotton Picker, you are a punny kind of guy.

BTW, do you know that Piaget, one of the leading child psychologists/developmental theory thinkers believed that puns show our mastery of language? that language is the most complex skill humans ever learn - and that adults continue to 'play' and show off their mastery of this complex skill - through puns? I think that makes puns even more fun.


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## Ken Scharabok (May 11, 2002)

I think it is more of a time/effort vs results (bangs per bucks/effort) situation. Varies by area, but for roughly $2,500 you can buy an old Ford 8/9N with light implements and do many times the amount of work than you could with a light-weight draft animal.

For some reason I've always been facinated with stories of the Westward migration via the wagon trains. I don't recall seeing a single reference to a milk cow being used as a draft animal. They were either teathered behind the wagon or driven separately.


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## Cotton Picker (Oct 10, 2008)

cathleenc said:


> you know, Cotton Picker, you are a punny kind of guy.
> 
> BTW, do you know that Piaget, one of the leading child psychologists/developmental theory thinkers believed that puns show our mastery of language? that language is the most complex skill humans ever learn - and that adults continue to 'play' and show off their mastery of this complex skill - through puns? I think that makes puns even more fun.


Hi Cathy....

Well.... You know I do it just for pun..... 

Child psychologist/developmental theory thinker... Eh?..... And here I thought that Piglet was just Winnie the Pooh's friend.....

My daughter and I were verbally sparring one day and she exclaimed.... "Oh No!!"...."I've opened Pun-dora's box!!.... The wistful memory of that conversation is a MOOving experience... Why.... You might ask?.... Because she upstaged me!!!... Alas and alack!....Ergo, goes my ego..... Or... Leggo a' my ego!.... OK.... I'll stop now.....


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## sammyd (Mar 11, 2007)

What are you going to pull with one slow cow?
Would you expect it to produce any milk when you are expending all its energy pulling a load around?


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## Ronney (Nov 26, 2004)

sammyd said:


> What are you going to pull with one slow cow?
> Would you expect it to produce any milk when you are expending all its energy pulling a load around?


And that about sums it up Cathy. Forget the idea because it just won't work. As Ken pointed out, even back in the days of the Westward migration people valued their cows as milk producers and recognised that they weren't going to be able to pull a wagon and produce milk. A milk cow gives it's all to produce milk and to do so needs to be grazing most of the daylight hours which it's not going to be doing pulling gear around. Nor do they have the muscle or bone structure for this type of work which is why oxen and draught horses are used - and look at the size of them.

Cheers,
Ronnie


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## Quiet Guy (Oct 29, 2006)

cathleenc, Go to this site www.draftanimalpower.com and look under "oxen" and "other draft animals"


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

Plowing takes a lot of power and a lot of time and requires a good deal of experience. Even on farms that are mostly animal powered, plowing is often reserved for tractor power. IMHO, your time would be better spent hiring plowing done.

A horse harness won't work for a cow. A horse harness can be modified.


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