Like most of us, I am confused by the
way the beef industry is trying to get the cattle industry to use low
stress cattle handling methods. If my own first hand experience had
not already taught me better, I would think that low stress
stockmanship is just a worthless bottle of snake oil. We must
remember that this isn't about forcing cattle to go where we want,
but acting in a manner which makes cattle think it is their idea.
Twenty years ago, when I first saw an
ad for a cattle handling seminar I laughed. At the time I was working
under a manager who was a big fan of Bud Williams, and shortly after
the ad came out, this man and the cowboss went to Bud's seminar. To
me, this pair was pretty confused to begin with, but when they came
back, they seemed to be worse off than before attending the seminar.
It was fairly obvious that this so called low stress cattle handling
was just a bunch of snake oil...Or was it? The following spring I was
informed that I was going to be attending a seminar with one of the
other hands. Was I irritated at having to go waste time attending?
Yes. Was it a waste of time? Most definitely not!
To me, nearly all of what Bud Williams
was teaching was very obvious, as I was already doing it. However to
most of the people attending, it was hard to understand. Perhaps the
most confusing thing for people to understand was putting cattle
through a gate by working the gate on a “T” with the person in
front putting the cattle through the gate and the people in the back
doing no more than necessary to keep the cattle in the back, facing
to the front. This concept is simple, and Bud shows video of doing
this in several different situations, yet people kept asking
questions of how to do it for over half an hour. By this point the
realization set in that Bud knows what he is doing, but people have a
hard time grasping the principles because they go against human
nature. I was struck by the realization that there is such a thing as
low stress cattle handling, but many, if not most people have a
difficult time understanding it because so much of it goes against
human nature.
Today, low stress cattle handling is
sort of a buzzword at least with the main stream agriculture
publications, and the NCBA. Unfortunately nearly every article is
nearly a copy of the others. They have little real information, and
virtually nothing new. Watching some of the videos produced will
convince a person that low stress cattle handling is all hype and
will not work in real life situations.
This is especially true when people
giving demonstrations talk about “training a cow to drive.” You
do not train a cow to drive. Where the cow goes is totally dependent
upon what you are doing and how you are doing it. 99% of the
time a cow runs across the pen it is because you lost position or put
too much pressure on the cow. What is seldom (if ever) mentioned is
when you see that cow thinking about making that move, moving away
from the cow rather then putting pressure on it will straighten the
cow's direction.
When watching demonstrations on low
stress cattle handling, the movements are so subtle that spectators
may miss the slight drop of a shoulder or turn of the body that takes
the pressure ff a cow and changes her mind. More often than not, the
person demonstrating does not mention that to the audience, so that
the finer points of what one needs to do, and when are lost to the
observers. The same thing holds true for handling cattle horseback.
At times, simply changing the angle of your horse to the cow will
calm the cow down and get the results you want without speeding up.
Unfortunately, most of us have been taught to keep our horses
parallel to the cow at all times.
This may work well in arena events
where you are judged (and given “courage points”) for chousing
cattle around the arena, but it is the last thing one wants to do
when trying to keep your cattle calm and things flowing. There are
times when simply moving one end of your horse, one step, will calm
the animal you are working and allow it to turn without losing
momentum. In the branding pen, that one step may give you a clear
shot to rope a calf without it bounding through the rest of the
calves and stirring them up.
For more information, visit http://www.naturalcattlehandling.com
