Development and Evaluation of Improved Double Neck Yoke for Draft Animals of Jharkhand State

The yokes effectively distribute the load on a pair of working bullocks. In some cases, excessive yoke weight causes obstruction to movement of the bullocks. Two designs of yokes (length 190 cm and weight 7 kg) were developed to suit the local draught animals as per their size and neck configurations using local materials. The developed yokes eliminated the short comings of the existing yokes. Experiments were conducted on the test track as well as on field, at three draught loads viz 8%, 10% and 12% of the body weight of bullocks, to evaluate BAU, Ranchi developed yokes and compare their performance with the improved yokes of GBPUAT, Pantnagar and OUAT, Bhubaneswar for getting higher efficiency by the animals. With the BAU developed yoke the bullocks could pull the load upto 12% of their body weight continuously for four hours whereas, with the traditional yoke, the bullocks could pull continuously only upto 10% load of their body weight. At 12% load, with traditional yoke, the bullocks experienced fatigue after 3 hours of continuous operation.