Oxen in the United States of America have played an important role
throughout its history. Unlike other countries, oxen were never completely
given up for horses, mules, or tractors. Instead, the culture of keeping
oxen has been maintained by a small group of teamsters in the Northeastern
states collectively called New England. Their continued presence
has been largely due to agricultural fairs and exhibitions where they have
been used in competition for the last 200 years. Ox teamsters were surveyed
in 2021 via social media using Qualtrics. The 423 ox teamsters
responding owned 1791 oxen in 39 states, with the majority of oxen and
teamsters in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts
and New York respectively. The gender breakdown of ox teamsters
was 59 % men, 40 % women. Results showed 257 teamsters used their
oxen for farm work, 213 for exhibitions and parades, 191 for logging, 173
for recreation, 165 for competition showing, 144 for competition pulling,
85 at living history farms and in historic settings, and 18 in television and
movies. Teamsters worked oxen an average of 7 hours/week and 89 %
train the oxen as calves. 289 people learned to train from friends, 211
from family, 202 from books, 158 from organizations related to oxen, 156
from the Internet, 152 in the 4-H program, 129 from videos, 94 at hands-on
workshops, 54 from magazines and 42 from living history farms. More
than 20 breeds of cattle were used as oxen with Milking Shorthorns
(11.9 %), Holstein-Friesians (10.9 %), Chianina (9.6%) and Brown Swiss (9.3%) being the most numerous.
