To save fuel, a farm looks back

By Nick Grabbe
Staff Writer

Published on August 29, 2008

Blue and Red are 5-month-old male Jersey cattle that are learning how to turn right at the command "Gee" and turn left when they hear "Haw."

In a few years, when they are oxen and weigh about 1,600 pounds each, they will put their training to use by working at Simple Gifts Farm in North Amherst. That will reduce the amount of gasoline the farm will have to put into its tractors.

"Anything a tractor pulls you can do with oxen," said farmer Jeremy Barker-Plotkin. "And there's the appeal of not dealing with machines, and lowering our carbon footprint. We can generate feed locally instead of using fuel that's coming from places we're destroying with our wars."

Oxen have a long history of helping human beings by pulling plows and hauling logs, and still do this heavy work in many parts of the world. They were replaced by tractors in the U.S. in the 20th century, but in New England, they were used until the 1960s, and traditional methods of handling oxen survived.

With oil prices rising, there's been renewed interest in using oxen on farms. They have less impact on the land and provide valuable manure as well.

Colin Cabot uses oxen at Sanborn Mills Farm in Loudon, N.H.

"The slow pace and ease of working with oxen make them a perfect alternative to tractors," he has written. "Oxen are also easy to care for because they don't often get sick. They won't work as fast as a tractor, which makes oxen the animals for those of us who want to slow down a bit."

Training days

At Simple Gifts Farm, Berta Wermer stops by twice a day to feed and train Blue and Red. She's a 23-year-old student at the University of Massachusetts who is studying sustainable small-farm management. She lives at Puffton Village, just across the street from the farm.

In addition to turning on command, Blue and Red are learning to back up and stop when they hear verbal cues. Blue and Red's age is the equivalent of 8-year-old people, and if they learn to obey now, they will stay obedient the rest of their lives, she said.

"Starting when they're young gives a lot of advantages," Wermer said. "When they weigh three-quarters of a ton, if they haven't been trained, they'll do whatever they want."

This winter, they will learn to pull a hay sled in the snow and could start doing heavier work in 2010, she said. Wermer has already built a wooden yoke with the help of a UMass graduate student in wood technology, and is getting Blue and Red used to wearing it.

Blue has even learned tricks, such as charging a white rag when he hears "Toro" and kneeling on command. Every time the animals perform a task correctly, Wermer offers words of encouragement and a reward of grain. They also like apples and squash.

"If you get to be dominant, they'll do it with love and attention," she said. "You don't have to be aggressive to be dominant."

Blue and Red are twins and are not yet castrated. They were born on a dairy farm in Framingham whose owners hoped they wouldn't get eaten, as most male calves are, Wermer said.

The daughter of a veterinarian practicing outside Burlington, Vt., Wermer started working with horses when she was 3 and once trained a camel.

"When an animal has a job to do, it gives them a sense of purpose," she said. "Their job now is learning, and they're really enjoying doing it right."

Farm's mission

Simple Gifts Farm leases 36 acres near the intersection of North Pleasant and Pine streets. The land is owned by the North Amherst Community Farm, a local organization that acquired the property in 2006 with financial help from the town and state.

The farm provides organic vegetables to more than 150 prepaying households and sells produce at farmers markets and local stores.

Livestock farmer Dave Tepfer raises sheep, pigs, goats and chickens there and sells meat and eggs. The farm's annual harvest festival, featuring an appearance by musician Erica Wheeler, is scheduled for Sept. 28.

The farm spends thousands of dollars a year on gasoline, and the bill will double this year, Barker-Plotkin said. By tilling the soil on either side of crop rows for weed control, or pulling wagons to the fields and back for harvesting, the oxen will save the farm money, he said.

"It's always been a dream of mine, after I got a farm better established, to get draft horses or oxen," he said.

Nick Grabbe can be reached at ngrabbe@gazettenet.com.