Oxen

 

One of the fun rides here in Nauvoo is the ox cart ride.  It's pretty cool to sit behind the huge oxen.  Oxen were preferred to pull wagons across the plains.  They walked slowly enough to be walked along with.  A month or so ago we got three calves - one was four hours old when we acquired it.  They will be raised to pull ox carts in a few years.  The oxen are trained almost immediately to be familiar to humans.  Each one is trained to be part of a two ox team and will be on one side of the yoke or the other it's whole ox career.  Don't know how that works when we have three of them but I'm sure that will be figured out.  They have horns because they would slip out of the yoke without them.  Pretty neat.