Sustainable
Farming Connection |
Where
farmers find and share information. |
Low-Stress Livestock Handling
Herding methods and facilities that put less stress on
you and your stock. |
 Diagram
©Temple Grandin | It's no secret that stress
reduces disease resistance and increases health care costs -- whether you're
talking about livestock or people. These sites and other resources will help
you increase your stock's productivity and profits by showing you ways to reduce
stress in the way you handle and herd animals and how you design and build your
livestock facilities.
 |
Grandin's
site features excellent photos and diagrams illustrating principles of
livestock handling, such as the flight zone (above), as well as blueprints
of low-stress facilities. Photo ©Temple Grandin | Dr. Temple Grandin's Web Page
If
you raise any kind of livestock -- cattle, hogs, sheep, horses, buffalo or even
wilder animals -- this is one of the most valuable Internet resources you'll
find.
Temple Grandin is perhaps the world's foremost authority on
livestock facilities and handling methods designed to reduce animal stress.
(Nearly half of the cattle in North American pass through systems that she
designed.)
This comprehensive site will help farmers and ranchers
better understand livestock behavior and apply that knowledge to herding,
working and facilities-design. Some features include:
- Understanding
Flight Zone and Point of Balance. Whether you're rounding up stock on the
range, moving dairy cows through lanes in intensively managed pastures, or
loading hogs onto a truck, these basic concepts will help make the job go
smoothly. Grandin uses excellent diagrams and photos to illustrate these basic
principles.
 Sample
design for a hog chute ©Temple Grandin |
- Be sure to explore all the links from the
Recommended
Basic Livestock Handling menu. You'll find out why a misplaced coffeecup
can make animals balk, and how to move stock easily with a stick and a plastic
ribbon instead of a prod.
- Sample
Designs features plans for chutes, corrals, sorting pens, feedlots and more
that are designed to prevent injuries to stock and workers, and rely on the
animals' instincts to get them to do what you want them to do.
- Don't skip the Animal
Welfare menu, which points out the
Economic Advantages of Good
Animal Welfare.
The diagrams and photos make the pages exceedingly
user friendly. (Graphic-heavy pages are sometimes slow to load, but they are
worth the wait. Open a second browser and load the next page you want to
explore while you're studying another one.) If you want even more depth or are
interested in the solid research behind Grandin's designs, the site includes
many online references.
Ordering
information for Grandin's books
are also available, including her widely acclaimed
Thinking In Pictures, which
describes her experiences with autism and reviews the latest research. |
 Low
Stress Livestock Handling
This section of the
University of California's Sustainable
Ranching Research and Education Project site provides a good introduction
to Bud William's stockmanship techniques. The introductory pages give you a
taste of Bud's methods, which start with a change in attitude from "I'm
going to make that animal do what I want," to "I'm going to
let that animal do what I want." These pages also provide some
good anecdotes and make a strong connection between stress, productivity and
your bottomline.
If you don't need convincing, skip right to
Belief & The Will To
Do It, Version 2.0. Here you'll finding a nicely illustrated primer
diagramming William's basics of how to use the animals' pressure zones to get
them to start, stop, and essentially go where you want them to go.
If
that whets your appetite for more detailed info, Williams offers a five-hour
video of his presentation at the Strockman Grass Farmer Conference held
in 1990. (Cost: $100.) He also puts on
livestock handling
schools. For more information contact Bud at
EuWillia@bordercity.com or write:
Williams Stockmanship School, P.O. Box 2220, Lloydminster, Alberta, Canada T9V
1R6. (403) 875-9256.
|
©1997 Committee for Sustainable
Farm Publishing
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Send
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