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An animal engine is a machine powered by an animal. Horses, donkeys,
An animal engine is a machine powered by an animal. Horses, donkeys, oxen
An ox ( : oxen, ), also known as a bullock (in BrE
British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Oxford Dictionaries, "English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer spec ...
, dogs, and humans have all been used in this way. An unusual example of an animal engine was recorded at Portland, Victoria
Portland is a city in Victoria, Australia, and is the oldest European settlement in the state. It is also the main urban centre in the Shire of Glenelg and is located on Portland Bay. As of the 2021 census the population was 10,016, increasing ...
in 1866. A kangaroo
Kangaroos are four marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern gre ...
had been tamed and trained to work a treadmill which drove various items of machinery.
See also
*Experiment (horse powered boat)
''Experiment'' was an early 19th-century boat powered by horses and incorporating the idea of a screw propeller, which was a new idea at the time.
History
''Experiment'' was a horse-powered ferry boat. It was a 12-ton, three-masted boat drawi ...
*Gin gang
A gin gang, wheelhouse, roundhouse or horse-engine house, is a structure built to enclose a horse engine, usually circular but sometimes square or octagonal, attached to a threshing barn. Most were built in England in the late 18th and early 19 ...
*Horse mill
A horse mill is a mill, sometimes used in conjunction with a watermill or windmill, that uses a horse engine as the power source. Any milling process can be powered in this way, but the most frequent use of animal power in horse mills was for grin ...
*Horse engine
A horse engine (also called a horse power or horse-power) is a (now largely obsolete) machine for using draft horses to power other machinery. It is a type of animal engine that was very common before internal combustion engines and electrificati ...
*Persian well
A Persian well is a type of water well found in the Middle East, often used in conjunction with a qanat. These wells feature an ox-driven pump where the ox walks in circles around a central drive shaft which turns a wheel that raises water via ...
*Treadwheel
A treadwheel, or treadmill, is a form of engine typically powered by humans. It may resemble a water wheel in appearance, and can be worked either by a human treading paddles set into its circumference (treadmill), or by a human or animal standing ...
*Turnspit dog
The turnspit dog is an extinct short-legged, long-bodied dog bred to run on a wheel, called a turnspit or dog wheel, to turn meat. It is mentioned in ''Of English Dogs'' in 1576 under the name "Turnespete". William Bingley's ''Memoirs of Briti ...
Books
* ''Animal Powered Machines'', J. Kenneth Major. Shire Album 128 - Shire Publications 1985. * *References
* Grinding mills Machinery {{livestock-stub