Rural Heritage December 2025/January 2026

seemed to still have energy when turned out in their pasture after the long walks. While walking as a team, Mack, the off steer, had the habit of lagging behind his brother. Mack tended to be less motivated than his competitive brother Joe. While in the yoke, the steers are not allowed to snack or drink to keep them focused and their heads up. I did not feed them treats as a part of the training process, which helped them stay focused and prevented them from searching me for food. The directions and yoke training went very smoothly, and I was able to train them to go up and down stairs, but the most difficult element was desensitizing them to people. They were incredibly friendly with me and anyone else who regularly gave them bottles, but they were not a fan of strangers or young children. For the first several months, they tended to spook when approached by something unfamiliar. This was understandable, but desensitization was one of my objectives as they prepared to attend fairs and other events. Training sessions should happen multiple times a day for the best results. I took my team out to the yard on halters or did a halter training session before putting them out every morning. The other common session was yoking them for walks, which was usually after lunch. I brought them in every night for their bottle and tied them up inside to sleep for the first three months. I handled them throughout the day, and they were very receptive to going along with my plans, although they could be stubborn if they were feeling moody. Another element of training was brushing them semi regularly to clean them, remove loose hair, and check for wounds or ticks. Every couple of days I coated them with a permethrin bug spray used for flies, ticks and other seasonal insects. This was not necessary but helped keep them comfortable during the very buggy season. Overall, they were healthy and happy calves throughout early training. Mary Osmer is a senior at the University of New Hampshire as a Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems major. She lives in Sanbornton, NH. This team of steers is her senior capstone project, advised by Dr. Drew Conroy. This is her first team of calves, which has required the construction of a shelter, yokes, and sourcing all of the feed and equipment needed for cattle.

and following my lead. Then, when we started going on longer walks as a team, the goal was walking next to each other in halters. Getting a team of steers to walk on a halter with little to no tension is a major milestone in early training. The animals should be responding to the teamster’s body position, vocal commands, and goad stick rather than relying on using a halter to move or stop them. I always walked them in their neigh and off positions so Joe could get used to being next to me and Mack gets used to being on the outside. The steers did a great job with halter training and walking next to each other right away, so I yoked them up at three weeks. The 5-inch training yoke was still very oversized for them, but it was beneficial for them to get used to the feeling of the yoke and being attached to one another. The size of a yoke is determined by the distance in inches between the bow shafts of each bow. Mack and Joe did a great job in the yoke early on, and we seemed to find a training mode when in the yoke. It became a struggle to train in places that were familiar to them because they were intelligent and got bored easily. They got very excited every time we turned down a new road and rarely wanted to turn around to go home. Walks in the yoke were up to two miles long at a month old, but they always Mary bonding with her month-old team in the summer of 2025.

Rural Heritage

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