Oxgoading (sage ability)

Oxgoading is an amateur-status sage ability, in the study of Mammals, providing the character with the skills needed to manage oxen, donkeys and mules. They have sufficient knowledge to be able to handle waterbuffalo and yaks also, should they get some experience with these animals.

The ability provides skill in handling a yoked pair, starting and stopping them, turning them, backing them, keeping them pulling evenly, and keeping them steady under load. Oxen are used above all for power rather than speed: ploughing, hauling carts and wagons, dragging timber or stones and other heavy farm work. An ox-goad was the ordinary driving tool for this job: essentially a long staff used to urge the beasts forward and help direct them while they were pulling. With donkeys and mules, the ability applies to their management as pack and transport animals. Loads can be balanced and secured, the animals can be led in file or singly, stubbornness and balking can be dealt with, and the beasts can be brought over distance without wasting their strength. Mules are especially valued for endurance, steadiness and their usefulness in carrying burdens or drawing vehicles.

Those with this ability also know how to yoke oxen without wasting time, how to read whether an animal is about to resist, shy or tire, how to keep a team straight in a furrow or on a road, and how to get useful labour from these beasts safely and steadily. The ability does not include riding skill as such, nor the treatment of sickness, lameness or breeding, but concerns the ordinary handling of working beasts so that they perform as intended.

Hitching

While the ability does not provide the character with the ability to function as a teamster, it does allow the harnessing, yoking and hitching of animals correctly to carts, wagons, sledges, plows and similar burdens. The character knows how to arrange the tack and fittings so that the pull is even, the burden properly set and the animal not needlessly chafed, tangled or distressed by bad handling.

This also includes the balancing and securing of loads, the spacing of animals in file or pair, and the ordinary tethering of such beasts when not in motion. Those with this ability know when a load is badly placed, when a vehicle is dragging unevenly or when one animal is working against another.