This week’s new animal is X-Eddy Ox. As we go through each and every animal story for the week, we also get to learn about what the real animal is like. One of the interesting things we learned about oxen is that they chew their food over and over and over again. This is called “chewing the cud.”
A baby ox is called a calf. It is almost automatic for my son to say that we go look for a picture of baby animals from the internet. (We’re thankful for notebook computers, like what I we use.) We also learned that oxen bodies are very strong. Sometimes, oxen are used to pull plows or carry heavy loads. Some oxen are also raised t for their good meat. Some farmers raise oxen just for their good milk. Other farmers sell oxen hides (skins) to make leather for shoes and belts.
We also learned that oxen live in most parts of the world. In wintertime, oxen sometimes live in warm barns and eat the farmer’s hay and grain. When spring comes again, the oxen go out to the pasture to eat fresh, green grass.