This ox yoke hangs on the wall going from our sunroom to the kitchen. It is a constant reminder of my grandfather, John McCoy, who bought a team of oxen in 1936 to log a Tupelo tree swamp that TVA was going to force him to sell. He wanted to cut the timber before the sale because the TVA flooding would kill the trees.
He had plenty of mule teams, but they did not work well in the swamps because their hooves were round and would sink into the mud and create a suction. Whereas, an ox has two toes that spread apart when they put their feet down. When they lifted their hoof the toes came together. That made the hoof smaller, breaking the suction, and allowing them to withdraw their hoof from the mud. This allowed them to work in wet and muddy terrain.
In the bottom picture are two ox shoes. They were shod, like horses and mules, in order to protect their hooves and give them more traction.
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