The thing that interests me is, being as the digestive system of equines is so much less efficient w/respect to grass than that of cattle, how come those mules were holding up so much better than oxen?
Birdwatcher
My guess is that foot-sore oxen simply were not able to forage widely enough to restore the energy that they expended during the day. In addition, it is likely that the oxen were two to three times the mass of mules, reducing the energy needs in favor of the bovines from a 6:1 ratio to about 2:1. Add to this the fact that equines are non-selective foragers compared to ruminants, so the mules were probably getting all the nutrition that they needed to maintain condition, while the bovines were exhausting their fat reserves and then burning up proteins to stay alive.
