I've already replied to whitecrow's question via PMs several days ago. Still, I'm reposting some of my musings :
"Ostriches ? True, but those are African ostriches and such cases are quite rare (
especially riders,
ostrich-drawn carts are more common). Also, you'd need to spend a lot of time to train even a single ostrich to do such work. Most of the
cart-pulling ostriches were and are used in races on circuits, so I'm doubtful whether they'd be that good for hauling wagons for hundreds of kilometrers without acting extremely stubborn or not breaking a sweat.
Emus, while related, are not African ostriches. They're smaller, less muscular and generally harder to tame. Since Jared
jossed carts drawn by emus in LORAG, I've decided to eliminate them as an option as well.
Moa imported from New Zealand are even less of an option - LORAG mentions repeatedly that their pea-sized brain and tendency to get spooked by anything they don't comprehened has made them not only impossible as draft and cavalry animals, but also improbable as domesticated creatures altogether (they always smash through fences and corrals, despite often mortally wounding themselves). In short, they're too stupid.
However, if you have any plausible idea concerning native Australian megafauna as beasts of burden and ersatz-horses, I'm all ears. Don't be affraid to extrapolate a bit from one of the extinct-in-OTL giant marsupials.
I myself am already doing some drawings on how they could be tamed or evolve further into a more tamable/domesticable form.
whitecrow said:
Interesting points, though as far as I'm aware there was no selective breeding for ostriches to make them into good beasts of burden. It is possible that with thousands of years of domestication by a people that had no horses, ostriches/emus would be selectively breed to choose traits which make them good draft/riding animals. Unfortunately, I'm no expert on these birds and can't say just how successful these efforts would be or how long it would take.
I'm not too much of an expert either, but the evidence I've seen so far makes me doubtful about their usefulness in this particular area (i.e. beasts of burden).
whitecrow said:
As for Moas, I'd like to point out that chickens have tiny brains too and yet they are domesticable and can even be kept as pets. Unless Moa are somehow psychologically fundamentally different from ostriches, I don't why they couldn't be domesticated under right conditions.
True, but no one has ever relied on ckickens for pulling carts.
And have you ever ridden atop a chicken's back ?
Chickens often manifest the same behaviour as moa - if they're firghtened, they'll try to get out of the location they feel is dangerous by running away in panic, often choosing nonsensical routes while doing so (TBH, panicing humans aren't much better in this regard, sadly
).
While the chicken was indeed domesticated in OTL, it was for meat, eggs and (occasionally) feathers. The same goes for moas in LORAG - though they're just semi-domesticated wild game there, living both in New Zealand and in eastern Australia (after they get exported from the latter as game for royal hunting parties).
whitecrow said:
This reminds me of a rebuttal of Guns, Germs, and Steel I've seen on this site. Jared Diamond says that zebras are impossible to domesticate, so Africans missed out on getting a horse analog. But it was pointed out here that zebras can in fact be tamed and that there is no evidance that zebras are more agressive/harder to tame than wild horses. And since domestication in progressive taming over multiple generations, there seems to be no reason why you in theory couldn't domesticate zebras. Why that did not happen in OTL is another question.
My personal theory is linked to the abundance of
infected tsetse flies south of the equator: It made horses very rare there, and most of the poorer native states and empires that formed in subequatorial Africa (e.g. most Bantu countries of southern Africa) couldn't afford them. And, as much as no agriculture developed in OTL Australia due to a lack of founder crops, no zebra-taming developed in Africa due to a lack of tradition in raising horses or similar equines.
With less infected tsetse flies, a bigger and longer horse-keeping tradition could develop and eventually lead to some progress in zebra domestication: With zebras probably being bred into an equine not unlike a donkey or sumpter (in terms of outward appearance). The breeding might involve interbreeding with horses, leading to analogues of OTL
zebroids (fertility would be an issue, though). All of this could eventually lead to a lowering of the natives' dependance on imported horses. But there are several serious problems along the way when it comes to zebra domestication.
Speaking of a POD that diminishes and eliminates tsetse flies, here's an older but interesting discussion about the topic:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=160971
Just please don't necro it, it's really over 4 years old.
Still, an interesting read.
whitecrow said:
As for ideas for other draft animals. Well here is one that came up in the last potential Australian domesticates" thread I took part in (this one is probably ASB, but still interesting to consider).
Some fringe "scientists" argue that
Gigantopithecus blacki made it from South-East Asia to Australia and spawned various Australian aborigines legends & descriptions of Yowie. Now let's for a second assume that the fringe is right and this creature...
...made it to Australia and managed to adopt to the local conditions. Can you just imagine what the aborigines woukld be able to do if they found a way to domesticate/tame the
Gigantopithecus? Riding seems like only the tip of the iceberg here...
I could see gigantopitecus being used for slave labour (frankly, what else), but as a draft animal... Just no. It's a big ol' ape. It's not even good at walking on all fours for an extended amount of time. To make it into an efficient cart or travois puller would take far more patience than with a ratite.
And, even moreso than with birds, I think one ape would not be willing to be used as a horse by another ape.
"
