[78-L] Sunrise ^

[David Sanderson]

On 1/9/2011 1:57 PM, Benno Häupl wrote:
>
>
> 3. if horses need their hooves to be shod, why not the cattle?
>
> Never seen any ox shoes?  I see them sometimes on eBay Germany and France
> in the 'Primitives' section of antiques. Unlike horse shoes, they are of half moon shape,
> and much smaller in diameter, of course.  Very much like the irons for the human's shoes.
> The ones offered on eBay mostly date from medieval times. They usually go for
> about $100 a piece.
>
> Mind you, cows are artiodactyla (paired hooves), and horses are perissodactyla, i.e.
> they only have one hoof per foot. Double hooves on a foot spread when the animal
> walks, and so the surface of the foot extends (like the foot of a camel), therefore only
> oxen that were used to draw carts on paved roads were shod.
>
> Benno

Oxen were routinely shod in this country - we have a few odd leftovers 
from my great grandfather's teams lying around.  You can't raise a 
single foot to work on it, like a horse, so blacksmiths had slings with 
pulleys that allowed them to lift the whole animal up for shoeing.  When 
people used to move barns and houses around casually it was oxen that 
made it possible; if the barn won't move, just borrow another team from 
a neighbor and hook it on.  There are photos of barns on the move, 
pulled by maybe 20 yoke of oxen, with people running along putting 
rollers under the building.

-- 
David Sanderson
East Waterford Maine
dwsanderson685 at roadrunner.com
http://www.dwsanderson.com