Use Bulls & Oxen.

Without training & using the bull cow protection is incomplete.

Who Can We Give the Bull To?

Once inspired by their Guru’s instructions about cow protection and simple living, the disciples wanted to get a cow. “But to get milk we have to breed the cow,” they thought. They were wondering what to do with the calf, especially if it’s a bull. “Could we give it to a farm,” they asked their teacher?

The question is asked in all innocence and with all good intentions. But it’s the wrong question, because just as the purpose of sex should be to raise useful children, the purpose of breeding a cow should be to raise a calf.  It’s not that if the calf is male he’s a useless burden to be gotten rid of. Producing a bull with no plans to train and use him is not cow protection in the full sense.

The teacher warned against neglecting to engage the bulls in useful service. He cautioned the devotees, “The cow is wonderful and valuable in society. But you should also use the bulls by engaging them in tilling the ground. People may call this the primitive way, but it is very practical for engaging the bulls -- have them work in cart loading, transporting, and so on.”

Later in his instructions he was even more emphatic, “You will see. It is sure to come. If you do not use the bulls for ploughing, one day you will say, ‘Let us cut their throats.’  Why does cow protection imply working the oxen (neutered bulls, sometimes called “bullocks”)? Because it is most ‘practical’,” he explained.

  Appalled by modern Western dairy practices, we might think that cow protection simply means milking cows without slaughtering them. But this incomplete conception of cow protection is not practical in the long run.

Simple Economics

For example, each time a good cow has a calf, the cow might produce 15,000 pounds of milk (about 1830 gallons). In the United States, at $2 a gallon, that would bring about $3,660. What does it cost to raise the calf? In 1987 it was found that to maintain each animal cost about $1 a day – for tractor-produced food, shelter maintenance, medical expenses, and so on. So raising the calf for its expected life of twelve to fifteen years would cost at least $4380. Balance that against the $3,660 worth of milk, and you’ve got a net loss of at least $720.

This is why commercial dairies kill their bull calves. They’d go out of business if they had to maintain non-productive animals.

 Thus practical solution to this problem is - work the oxen. A person might spend $200 a month on car payments, but if that means he or she can earn $1000 a month, then it’s worthwhile. So keeping an ox might cost $365 a year, but if he’s productive enough, the cost is well worthwhile.

Equally important: if an ox produces his own feed, his maintenance cost shrinks dramatically -- and we begin to see what self-sufficiency is all about.

When Krsna advises krsi-go-raksya, the terms krsi (agriculture) and go- raksya (cow protection) are naturally interdependent. One result of cow protection is that we get oxen to be trained for farming. And one result of Krsna conscious agriculture is that we protect the working oxen because they produce food for. Even vanijyam, or trade, in a localized, petroleum-free economy uses the oxen -- to transport grain.

  Of course, cow protection in any form has some value, but unless we work the oxen, we can’t get the full benefit. Cow protection that depends on charity can never become the economic basis of society. Therefore, we emphasize the importance of working the bulls. By doing so we can fully realize the benefits of cow protection for sustaining society and engaging both humans and animals.

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