A pet bull is just a castrated bull. According to archaeological research, it became a human assistant more than ten thousand years ago, a little later than a dog.
Who is the ox? Is it a pet or wild?
The taming by man of a wild tour ( Bos primigenius ) began at the time of the beginning of the Neolithic (from the tenth millennium BC). A wild bull lived on the territory of Asia and Europe, but initially its domestication, judging by the excavations of archaeologists, was started on the territories lying in the triangle India-Altai-Armenia, Mesopotamia, Persia. On the territory of modern Hindustan, the zebu became the progenitor of a cow.
According to biologists, the ancestors of modern cows occurred when crossing already domesticated cows from the tour and cows from the zebu.
To date, the tour as a historical wild animal does not exist. The latter died out by the sixteenth century (the reason was the immoderate extermination of both the forests and the tours themselves), and purebred zebu live both in the wild and domesticated in their historic homeland.
Meat, milk, skins - for the sake of this set domestication took place. With the development of agriculture, there was a need for draft power, first for transportation, and then work - arable, harrowing, transportation of crops.
Using bulls for this was more expedient than horses - bulls are even slower, but stronger and more enduring.
Castration of bulls as a permanent way to obtain draft animals unique in temperament, strength and endurance
Oxen - animals obtained after castration of young bulls at the age of about a year. Removing the testes leads to the fact that the body of the bull, without receiving the necessary hormones (which are produced in the testes), starts to work differently: muscle building is going on, the temper is calmer (this is no longer a burrow, like a bull), although the horns grow like ancestral ones ( like a tour).
The real working ox is an animal with a rather heavy head, a high pronounced withers, a muscular strong neck, and a wide chest. A strong skeleton, huge hooves, straight legs enable the ox to move freely and, most importantly, very stable.
A correct and quick operation to sterilize a bull does not give any complications; in veterinary practice it is considered quite ordinary (there are even several methods), although in many developed countries at this age the bulls are no longer neutered (to get more tasty meat (beef) they are sterilized in four -six months).
The use of oxen in Russia
Already in the middle of the twentieth century, the country's agriculture did not use oxen as draft cattle. Although in the Soviet Union, even during the years of World War II, many collective farms plowed the fields on bulls (oxen in the southern regions) due to a lack of equipment as such and a lack of specialists serving it (the male population of the country fought). The situation was leveled by the middle of the century, and then there was no need to use oxen.
Today, some farmers use castrated bulls. Today's Russian ox is an animal that can be useful in conditions of export from the fields on impassable roads (albeit at a low speed) of an overwhelming load (hay, crop of vegetables). Farmers even share their experience not only with the use, but also with the training of these animals.
Using an ox for farming is much cheaper than keeping a horse, but the types of work are almost the same. No forging and harness is needed, and feeding is much cheaper, there is no need to use bulls rejected for slaughter.
The use of oxen today in developing countries in Asia and Africa
The population of the countries of these regions is constantly experiencing an increasing need for food (the main increase in the number of people falls on these regions). The development of agriculture is limited by the absence (often simply lack) of mechanical energy due to the poverty of countries and their inhabitants.
In Asia and Africa, farmers more than in other regions of the world depend on the availability of draft power - oxen (less often camels, buffalos, elephants). Animals pull two-wheeled carts (Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam), double teams.
Harrowing, weeding, in rice fields (water), bulk cargo (hay, harvest from the fields) are carried out on these animals - oxen.
In the photo posted in this material, the labor of draft animals is recorded.