Oxen are used for a variety of tasks on the Kelley Farm. Here the Shorthorn oxen drag a harrow through the fields to prepare a plowed field for planting. This living history farm preserves the techniques and spirit of mid-19th-century farming to dramatize the change in agricultural technology that took place from 1850 to1876.

The major change from ox power to horse power occurred on Minnesota farms in the 1860s. Teams of both horses and oxen illustrate the importance of the changes caused by this switch in draft power. The Kelley Farm draft horses seed the oats and hay in the spring.