Translation:Shulchan Aruch/Choshen Mishpat/338

Paragraph 1- An animal can eat so long as it is working on items that grow from the ground, whether they are attached or detached. They may eat from the load on top of them until the animal is unloaded, so long as one does not take the food with his hand to feed it.

Paragraph 2- One who prevents an animal from eating while working receives lashes, as the verse states, “do not muzzle an ox while it is threshing.” The restriction applies to oxen and all domesticated and wild animals, whether not kosher or kosher. The restriction applies whether the animal is threshing or doing any other work on items that grow from the ground. The verse only stated “an ox while threshing” as the typical case.

Paragraph 3- The restriction applies whether the animal is muzzled while working or before working and it then works while muzzled. He would receive lashes even if he muzzled with just his voice.

Paragraph 4- If one rented an animal, muzzled it and threshed with it, he would receive lashes and pay the owner four kav for a cow and three kav for a donkey. This is the amount the animal would eat each day for a long threshing which takes all day. He receives both penalties because he is required to feed it at the time he pulled it but it not subject to lashes until he threshed with the muzzled animal.

Paragraph 5- If a Jew threshes with a gentile’s cow, he could violate the prohibition against muzzling. If a gentile threshed with a Jew’s cow, the Jew could not violate the prohibition against muzzling.

Paragraph 6- If one tells a gentile to muzzle his cow and thresh with it- given that the prohibition against telling a gentile to violate a prohibition applies to all restrictions just as it does Shabbos- if he placed a thorn in its mouth and threshes with the animal and it doesn’t eat, if he placed a lion or the animal’s child outside, if he held back drink from the animal, if he placed leather on the threshed items in order that it not eat, in all these cases or anything similar, his action was prohibited but he would not receive lashes.

Paragraph 7- If the matter he was working on was something bad for his innards and would damage him, or he was sick and if he would eat he would have diarrhea, the employer may hold him back from eating because the Torah is only concerned with the worker’s benefit and he will not benefit from eating.

Paragraph 8- If cows walk on the grain as way of shortening their way, the owner would not violate the muzzling prohibition. There is no concern of muzzling in the case of barley soaked in water that is dried in the oven and then threshed with cows to remove their shells, because they are already subject to the laws of tithing. Because of the concerns of others seeing and we don’t want them to say he is muzzling his cow, however, the owner would bring some of the food and hang it on the animal’s neck so that it could eat from it.

Paragraph 9- A renter is permitted to feed the animal bundles of straw so that it does not eat a lot of the food it is threshing. The owner of the cow is permitted to starve it so that it eats a lot of the food it is threshing.