Farm not using it's ox

[Majickthyse]

While my farm was ploughing I assigned an ox to the farmhouse and the family started to use it.

Following the first harvest, with the ox still assigned, I ended up with 3 families hand ploughing and the Ox left waiting at another hitching post.

Any ideas if there is something I can do to jog the ox into being used?

I've tried un-assigning and then reassigning it to the farm...

[Majickthyse]

No-one else has seen this problem?

[Tibi]

Everything about farming is bugged. Fields get plowed at super speed by themselves, people and oxes take the least efficient route possible to plought them, and people start planting seeds in november for some mysterious reason.

[Neodymium]

have you taken the "heavy plow" dev point and built the upgrade on your farmhouse?
If not the ox cant plow, but can only be used to help collect harvested goods from the field

[Adalon]

Originally posted by Neodymium:

have you taken the "heavy plow" dev point and built the upgrade on your farmhouse?
If not the ox cant plow, but can only be used to help collect harvested goods from the field

Of course, both have been done.
That is why they pay attention to the presence of a bug.
Only free residents plow with oxen.
For some reason, the farmer plows only with a hoe, but not with an ox.

[step_y]

Try placing a "hitching post" next to your farmhouse

"hitching post" processes in queue . Ex: if you are say building 10 buildings
Game process:
ox = build 10 buildings
ox = go to farmhouse

it is even worst, when you are cutting wood, sending wood to sawmills
having 20 ox, in multiple "hitching post" does help mitigate this

[Kedryn]

Originally posted by Tibi:

Everything about farming is bugged. Fields get plowed at super speed by themselves, people and oxes take the least efficient route possible to plought them, and people start planting seeds in november for some mysterious reason.

Winter wheat is planted from Sep-Nov in the Northern Hemisphere temperate climates.

[Lexor]

Originally posted by Majickthyse:

While my farm was ploughing I assigned an ox to the farmhouse and the family started to use it.

Following the first harvest, with the ox still assigned, I ended up with 3 families hand ploughing and the Ox left waiting at another hitching post.

Any ideas if there is something I can do to jog the ox into being used?

I've tried un-assigning and then reassigning it to the farm...

I also experienced this. But not all the time. I already have seen farmers using oxes for plowing, but most time, "waiting" or unemployed citizens are doing this (currently, it's the waiting carpenter most of time). So it's hard to say, whats going on here, since it's not "never". For sure, it's bugged somehow.

[Neodymium]

yeah, fair point.
I missed that OP said it had been used for first plowing already. my bad

[Phaidrin]

I had this problem. They will plow with the assigned ox, but if you have families assigned and there's plowing to be done they'll want to do it. I don't know if an ox will go into a field with hand plowing happening. You can send your families off to do other tasks until seeding time, but I have to admit it's a bit stressful counting on one ox to do four or more fields before winter sets in. I micromanage my fields importance levels. If the families are dead set on clearing plowing and then seeding a specific Very Important Field and another field is merely important then once the harvest is all moved to the farmhouse your ox only has one job left - plow the other fields. (I'm assuming farm-designated oxen do not transport goods to the granary) Also if the ox finishes the 2nd most important field, you can draw farmhands to seed it by making it the most important - but keep in mind that hand plowing is random patches and oxen have to do full lengths so having an ox fully plow a mostly hand plowed field probably won't be worth it.

edit- also set your fallow fields to very low, they can be done whenever.

edit2 - i like the hitching post idea, I put a second well at the farm for similar reasons, but if you're familiar with Dwarf Fortress you will not be surprised when this has negative results.

A peasant with only one well is s%!t out of luck if the well is in use, a peasant with two wells will go to other well even if it takes ten times as long as using the first well the next time it is free. As far as I know the only way to hitch farm oxen at the farm is to have no other stables/posts and no other oxen. If I'm wrong and you can designate a specific ox to a specific stable, then yeah that is a great idea.