FARMINGTON – Mike and Frog stood next to their owner, Foster Meserve Jr., for their turn to pull 4,600 pounds of stone Wednesday at the Farmington Fair.

The two 7-year-old oxen, yoked together, were different in color and weight.

Mike, a black-and-white lineback steer, weighs about 1,300 pounds.

Frog is a Brown Swiss and weighs 1,550 pounds.

Meserve, 37, of Wales, has been training oxen for 22 years, a skill he learned from his father and grandfather.

“When I was 15, I got my first pair of steers. They’d never been yoked. They were just calves,” Meserve said. “They’re very good-natured. Mike is a little too good natured. He just doesn’t have the enthusiasm as Frog does. He’s laid back. He doesn’t much care. “

He’s a crowd watcher, Meserve’s wife, Dianna, said.

“Frog is pretty excitable. He likes to do it. He’s very strong. He is one of the best animals I’ve ever had as far as willingness to work,” her husband said.

Frog got his name when Meserve broke him to training when he was 2.

“When I hooked up something to the chain, it scared him. He was leaping around he broke a mirror on my truck,” Meserve said.

He spends most of his free time with his animals.

“I should find a better way to spend my money,” Meserve said. “But this is where my vacation times goes and we take care of them all year long.”

Each of his nine steers gets 20 gallons of his special mix of grain each day.

He mixes a 50-pound bag of sweet crimped oats and molasses with a 50-pound bag of Course 16 that has corn, more molasses and vitamins and adds a bag of energizer milk producing dairy pellets for protein and energy. Then he puts a scoop of sunshine pellets on top to give them more protein.

That’s in addition to hay.

The trick to teams working together is they have to like each other and you have to put a lot of time into them.

He spends hours each day with his animals.

Mike and Frog have worked together for about a year.

They’ve hauled 5,600 pounds in a 6-foot continuous pull at best.

When it was time to enter the ring Wednesday, the two slowly walked with Meserve at their side and his father, Foster Meserve Sr., at the rear.

The oxen were to pull 4,600 pounds as many times as they could across the ring in 5 minutes.

“Come on Mike. Come on Mike,” Meserve said as the two oxen worked their way down the ring.

He swung a goad stick – a wooden stick with tape wrapped around it – round and round in the air making a whistling-type sound and he made kissing sounds to encourage them.

The animals stopped and took breaks and got some patting and more encouragement before they pulled again.

When the pull was done, the run was measured at nearly 183 feet, enough for a white fourth-place ribbon and $50.

Dianna Meserve said the steers are their children.

“Part of them being good is the time he spends with them,” she said. “He comes home from work and goes to the barn.”

Meserve, a dispatcher in the heavy truck department at O’Connor GMC in Augusta, said it was a good pull for the team.

“Mike has always been a weak steer,” Meserve said. “He’s not as strong as the rest but always goes in and does the best he can. If they give me what they’ve got and do the best they can, that’s what I’m looking for.”