Spring has finally sprung on the farm! This means melting snow, longer days, and for the musk ox farm staff, calf checks.
Calving season is upon us and we are monitoring the cows that were placed in harem 8 months ago for any indication of the arrival of the next generation of musk ox.
Because we breed our musk oxen during their natural mating season (July-October), there ends up being 72 musk ox birthdays during the months of April-June.
You may now be asking, “how does one celebrate a birthday for a musk ox?”
We have a variety of celebration tactics but the answer to our approach truly depends on the individual ox.
Wrapped presents: One wonderful thing about birthday presents is the wrapping can be a gift in and of itself. This fact of life definitely applies to musk oxen as the “unwrapping” is often the true present. Another, less known, fact of life is that musk oxen love boxes and our farm staff often deliver enrichment via cardboard boxes.
Special treats: Musk ox are surprisingly picky eaters and it can be difficult to find ox-ceptable birthday treats this early in the growing season. Every fall and throughout the summer, farm staff collect and dry browse (fireweed, birch, and willow) to have available to the herd throughout winter. Come spring, budding trees are collected but the browse closet gets cleared out and delivered to the eager herd.
New toys: Unsurprisingly, musk oxen do not take it easy on toys and other yard furniture, this can make purchasing new, replacement toys costly and difficult for a non-profit to justify. However, many of our animals love interacting with stacks of car tires and their humans take pleasure in replacing tired tires with newer, squeakier options.
New pen: Every herd member is ushered into the barn weekly for health checks, weigh-ins, and routine. This is a great opportunity for herd manager Alyssa to enrich the oxen and rest pastures. There is a name on the farm for the zoomies observed when a group of oxen enter a new pen, “new pen energy”. We love when Alyssa is able to give the gift of new pen energy as a birthday gift.
Story time: One calf socialization strategy historically provided to musk oxen at the Musk Ox Farm includes a story time with farm staff. Musk ox calves can tend to be hesitant to warm up to humans and this calm oxperience provides new calves a passive opportunity to build trust in farm staff’s presence. (Public encounters coming soon).
Singing: Now, we won’t proclaim to be the most musically talented group of humans but try to stop us from singing “Happy Birthday” to our favorite, more tolerant of tone-deafness musk oxen. Occasionally the celebratory ox will actually stick around to listen to the song in its entirety.
And kicking off our 2026 birthday season…
Happy Birthday to 2-year-old bull, Benedict!
Benny will be spending the day enjoying fresh willow buds and playing with his “pen pal”, soon to be 1-year-old Marten.
