Domesticating the Muskox?

Uruk

As you live you learn, didnt know that they had been domesticated in Alaska though it makes for an interesting POD had it happened pre-columbus
 

zert

Could Musk Oxen after domestication. later be broken to pull plows? If so this might aid farming. Though they might be able to adapt to warmer climates.

Long shot, on another issue, if bison could be adapted to the plow.
 

DG Valdron

Open question really. Not all animals are equally useful for domestic labour. The musk ox are non-migratory, so I'd figure that they might not have the same work capacity. On the other hand, they do show behavioural and physical traits that are consistent with a good draft animal.

I did some work on them a while back.
 
ennobee

ennobee

Plus, if the original muskox is domesticated early enough, one might through selective breading develop certain characteristics and suppress others so that within a century or so you would have a completely different house-ox. May be some regions will specialize in strong oxen for pulling ploughs and carts or carrying goods on their back. Other regions might bread special oxen -well, cows of course- for milk or for wool. Then again, warmer regions might breed varieties with less fur that better suit their climate.

In the end it comes down to WHO is doing the domesticating, WHAT their needs are and WHAT ELSE animals they already have at their disposal. I don't see anyone being interested in domesticating wild oxen when they already have good horses and cows. But if the region does not permit the use of horse-drawn carts but forces you to rely on pack animals, the musk-ox suddenly becomes as interesting as the yak in the similarly unforgiving Himalayas
 

Benevolent

Banned
Fyi plow pulling is a useless task when you take into consideration the fact that muskox range in permafrost tundra regions.

An Inuit did teach a baby muskox to pull a sled though.
 

Dave Howery

Benevolent said:
Like it's been around some 50 years in Palmer, Alaska. Not the greatest milk producers but it's the fleece that's most valuable.
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interesting... are those muskoxen as meek as cows? I'd assume they have to be, or you couldn't milk them...
which brings up an interesting question... in most of the emerging civilizations around the world, it was a case of 'plant domestication first, livestock second', which always seemed to imply to me that people needed grain first before they could attempt any large scale domestication of animals. Are there any cases of 'straight from hunter gatherer to animal domestication and skipping plant crops'? To be sure, there were several later nomadic cultures that had livestock only, but that was after sedentary people already did the work in domestication. The only ones that come to mind might be reindeer and horses, not sure if the places where they were domesticated had crops already. Which might be why no ancient peoples ever domesticated muskoxen; the areas they are native too are pretty harsh, no real potential for plant agriculture...
 

wtw

Dave Howery said:
interesting... are those muskoxen as meek as cows? I'd assume they have to be, or you couldn't milk them...
which brings up an interesting question... in most of the emerging civilizations around the world, it was a case of 'plant domestication first, livestock second', which always seemed to imply to me that people needed grain first before they could attempt any large scale domestication of animals. Are there any cases of 'straight from hunter gatherer to animal domestication and skipping plant crops'? To be sure, there were several later nomadic cultures that had livestock only, but that was after sedentary people already did the work in domestication. The only ones that come to mind might be reindeer and horses, not sure if the places where they were domesticated had crops already. Which might be why no ancient peoples ever domesticated muskoxen; the areas they are native too are pretty harsh, no real potential for plant agriculture...
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Exactly, you would need to have musk ox more widespread and southern living and you have to have people inclined to do so.
 

Prism

If Arctic people were willing to domesticate the reindeer, than the musk-ox with it's fine wool would be desirable as well. As for a musk-ox that could tolerate temperate climates, maybe if the shrub-ox hadn't gone extinct.
 

telynk

Dave Howery said:
interesting... are those muskoxen as meek as cows? I'd assume they have to be, or you couldn't milk them...
which brings up an interesting question... in most of the emerging civilizations around the world, it was a case of 'plant domestication first, livestock second', which always seemed to imply to me that people needed grain first before they could attempt any large scale domestication of animals. Are there any cases of 'straight from hunter gatherer to animal domestication and skipping plant crops'? To be sure, there were several later nomadic cultures that had livestock only, but that was after sedentary people already did the work in domestication. The only ones that come to mind might be reindeer and horses, not sure if the places where they were domesticated had crops already. Which might be why no ancient peoples ever domesticated muskoxen; the areas they are native too are pretty harsh, no real potential for plant agriculture...
Click to expand...

There were lots of cultures which had domesticated dogs for hunting but no domesticated plants, and there's evidence that dogs were domesticated during the ice age, long before agriculture began. However, domesticated dogs and domesticated herbivores are two very different types of domestication....
 

Benevolent

Banned
Prism said:
If Arctic people were willing to domesticate the reindeer, than the musk-ox with it's fine wool would be desirable as well. As for a musk-ox that could tolerate temperate climates, maybe if the shrub-ox hadn't gone extinct.
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Different arctic people

Nenets and Sami are very different than Dorset or Thule.

Shrubox and other megafauna were going to go extinct, it's fanciful to want other wise given global history
Dave Howery said:
interesting... are those muskoxen as meek as cows? I'd assume they have to be, or you couldn't milk them...
which brings up an interesting question... in most of the emerging civilizations around the world, it was a case of 'plant domestication first, livestock second', which always seemed to imply to me that people needed grain first before they could attempt any large scale domestication of animals. Are there any cases of 'straight from hunter gatherer to animal domestication and skipping plant crops'? To be sure, there were several later nomadic cultures that had livestock only, but that was after sedentary people already did the work in domestication. The only ones that come to mind might be reindeer and horses, not sure if the places where they were domesticated had crops already. Which might be why no ancient peoples ever domesticated muskoxen; the areas they are native too are pretty harsh, no real potential for plant agriculture...
Click to expand...
Plant domestication isn't exactly necessary but is extremely beneficial, animal domestication seems to come from the desire to have a protein source after agriculturalists alter the environment to such a degree that one cannot simply continue hunting.

Also they have to go into a cattle crush and while there are some that love to be milked they seem to be the minority
Uruk said:
So perhaps a Musk ox-Harlans musk ox hybrids?
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.....so I'm not the kind of person who takes this sort of thing seriously so idk how to answer this
 
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