New Source For Low Stress Stockmanship

Finally there is a source of information on low stress cattle handling that reaches out and encompasses more than just the few wel known names in the industry. Whit Hibbard is a fourth generation rancher from Montana with a P.H.D. in Human Science that applies appreciation for scientific rigor, critical thinking, evidence-based rationality, and empirical research skills to the study of stockmanship.

His new Stockmanship Journal combines both science based information as well as evidence-based rationality through a combination of articles and video. Perhaps the first page to visit is his video montage which includes video clips of low stress stockmanship in action.

Until later, keep your cattle calm and your horses top side up!

Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is

Instruction in low stress cattle handling should be as easy as selling iced tea in Texas. However too many people assume that A) They already are using low stress methods; or B) The claims being made are not possible. It also does not help matters when people being sponsored as experts put out videos like the one below, which prove the point that low stress is too slow to be effective in a real life situation. This is not saying the people in the video don't know what they are doing, but that the way the video was edited will sure enough convince a pen rider or anyone working cattle for a living that low stress handling does not work because it is too slow.

 During the fall run,  feedlot cowboys may have to pull over a hundred animals, then take another two or three hundred from the hospital pens back to their home pens in a day. In the following video it takes over 8 minutes to pull one heifer, which comes out to over 800 minutes (or 13.3 hours) just pull that 100 sick animals a guy would be pulling. That would require a second shift of cowboys to take the cattle from the hospital pen back to their home pens. The example set in this video is, to me, and anyone working in the real world, totally unacceptable. Is there any wonder that so many producers and their employees think that they do not have time for low stress cattle handling?

This has prompted me to put my money where my mouth is.

During the months of May and June of 2012 I am running a special promotion.  Are you curious as to whether or not I can actually get your cattle to acting as a herd? Are you running a holistic grazing program and are curious to really find out if you can manage your cattle without spending time and money on un-needed fences? Now is your chance to find out without taking a big gamble. Pay me the estimated round trip cost for gas from Van Horn to your ranch, and I will work with you and your cattle for a week. If at the end of the week, your cattle are not easier to handle, and beginning to graze close together as a herd, you ow me nothing. If your cattle are easier to handle and are beginning to graze together as a herd, then you pay me $2000.

This program includes working with you (and your help) on your horses, as well as your cattle, and consulting on possible infrastructure changes to make your ranch more efficient. Call me to reserve a date!

Cattle Handling's Best Kept Secret

With all of the articles and videos on reduced stress cattle handling, how can there be a “secret?” To be honest, I didn't realize it was a secret until I started watching some videos on how to pull cattle in a feedlot. Time after time I watched the experts pass up perfect opportunities to to take advantage of this but they never attempted to use it. By not using it, their average time to make a pull in their videos was approximately eight minutes. As anyone who has ridden health in a feedlot knows, taking this long to pull a single cow is not feasible, especially during the fall run when a person may be pulling over 100 sick animals a day.

This secret no one talks about requires a handler to abandon conventional wisdom, human instinct and think like a cow. When a cow cuts across the pen conventional wisdom and human instinct both tell us to keep our horse parallel to the cow and get to the head so we can stop it. The problem is that (even when we are successful) we are putting pressure on the cow to speed up before it stops. If we get the cow stopped, we still need to get it turned towards the gate. If we don't get it stopped, we are starting all over again. So what is the best kept secret to keep a cow calm and turn in the direction we want?

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The secret lies in thinking about what the cow is doing and removing both the desire and opportunity to do this. We cause the desire to go around us when we put on too much pressure. When we try to get ahead of the animal to stop it we are, for as long as it takes us to do so, are putting pressure on the cow to go faster. In order to slow the animal down and get it to turn the way we want, we need to take away both the pressure and opportunity.

To do this all we have to do is widen the gap between ourselves and the cow while still tracking it. As the gap widens the pressure we are putting on the cow lessens. At the same time we are far enough away that the desire to go around us also goes away. At this point the cow will either stop, or turn away from us.

If we train our horses to move laterally this will allow us to give cattle that extra space whenever a cow starts to cut across the pen and prevent it from happening in the first place. This one little “secret” will allow you to pull cattle not only in a calmer manner, but faster as well.

 For more information For more information, or to have me help you with your cattle handling, visit my main website or email me

Technology And “OFS”

Between my eight year old son asking me “How did you do it back then Daddy,” and the #Agnerd hashtag on Twitter, I've been dwelling on the pros and cons of new technology. Looking at all of the technological advances within my lifetime, one may assume that I am nearing the century mark. Surprisingly enough, I haven't quite reach my 57th birthday. All of these advances have given me a severe case of OFS (Old Fart Syndrome) when I hear about new technology.

OFS comes from remembering when black and white television was the epitome of high tech household appliances. Until I was eleven years old, I had to pick up the receiver and tell the operator what number I wanted to call (My parents number was J-111). There were several other people on our “party line” so you had to wait until the neighbor was done talking before you could make your call. Cell phones with call waiting, call forwarding, conference calls, caller ID, voice mail, internet access or any of the other eighty odd thousand phone applications (we consider necessity) were science fiction.

Today is seems most people are not only dependent, but addicted to technology. OFS has me wondering where the balance is. Is all of this new technology making our jobs in the cattle industry more efficient, or is it just restructuring our workload in a way that alienates us from what we should be doing?

We have back tags which tell us that a cow has been in heat. Then we have ear tags which tell us that an animal is running a fever. We use portable electric fencing so we can control where our cattle graze. We use a siren to call them into feed, then once they are used to the siren, we use the Pavlov's Dog response to move them to fresh pasture. If we aren't calling them and baiting them with a feed truck, we fire up the four wheelers or helicopters so we can get the pasture move or gather done “faster.” OFS tells me a man on a horse is cheaper than a man in a helicopter and can handle the cattle cheaper and with less stress, but the techno addicts can't see that.

In the feedlot, we are using high tech antibiotics so we can mass treat cattle on arrival so we won't have to pull sick cattle in their first few days on feed (regardless of the fact over half wouldn't be getting sick in the first place). Then we use ear tags which tell us if cattle are running a fever or not by turning on a bright red light when cattle are running a fever. These high tech tools allow us to not just spend less time observing cattle but to hire less experienced labor as managers figure all the help has to do is pull the cattle by the tags rather than the symptoms.

Besides making us dependent on technology to keep our feedlot cattle healthy, it is adding to input costs rather than lowering them. Bud Williams has proven time after time that feedlots can reduce their antibiotic inputs, as well as morbidity and death losses by as much as 50% by simply changing the way cattle are handled. Wouldn't it make more sense to simply change the way we handle cattle than adding to input costs?

When it comes to education, rather than hands on experience, we take multiple choice tests on a computer hooked to the internet. It is actually possible to receive a diploma (through a university) in reduced stress cattle handling without ever seeing a cow up close and personnel. To make it even more interesting feedlots are making cattle handling videos and computerized classes available to teach their employees better cattle handling procedures.

Once again, OFS raises it's ugly head. Proper handling of cattle is largely an intuitive task. It becomes even more so when we put the cattle handler on the back of a horse. Thinking we are actually teaching people to become effective at reduced stress cattle handling is like having a pilot who has flown nothing but single engine planes a multiple choice test on the internet and turning them loose in a Stealth Bomber...It isn't going to work. The only way you can truly teach proper cattle handling is by a combination of instruction and closely watched hands on experience.

The amount of new technology we have, and the things we can do with it are pretty amazing. We do need learn to balance between the old and the new. We need to ask ourselves two simple questions to see if the new technology is actually beneficial, or if we are using it to satisfy our own techno-addiction.
1. Will it actually reduce input costs in the long run?
2. Is adding the the new technology the most cost effective way to achieve the end result?


If the answers to number one and two are yes, then perhaps the new technology would be something to use. If not, then we need to recognize that we are only feeding our own techno-addiction.

The Power of "I Can't"

"It doesn't matter if you say you can, or you say you can't, you're right."
Many years ago I read the above quote, and it stuck with me. I don't remember who the quote is attributed to, but the simple wisdom of it has stuck with me through the decades.This self fulfilling prophecy really applies when you are considering different management techniques.

In drought conditions like much of the southwest is currently under, ranchers are culling herds deep to save grass. When you mention following an intensive, rotational grazing program the first thing out of their mouth is usually "I can't." This is of course followed by a myriad or "reasons" as to why it will not work on their ranch. The "reasons" range from water systems to how rough their ranch is, or how much brush, to their kind of cattle.

This brings me to my own saying. The only difference between a really good reason, and a poor excuse, is if you are listening to,  or telling it.  The "reasons" you give after spouting off the phrase "I can't" are only the excuses you give for not trying methods which may keep you from reducing your herd in a drought. When the first reaction is "I can't" you are not thinking of the positive possibilities, but the things which will only hold you back.

Conversely,  a person who says or thinks "I can" when approached with a new method to improve their situation will find a way to get it done. Again, this is a self fulfilling prophecy. When you say "I can" you are going to learn all you can about the new method so you can implement it for your situation.

The most efficient and effective way to manage your grazing at anytime is by herding your cattle through a holistic, intensive rotational program. You may need to make some changes in your water system, but for the most part the changes are rather simple, and relatively inexpensive for the benefits received. It will allow you to utilize grass more effectively, and in many cases allow you to graze areas of your ranch that usually aren't grazed at all. When the rains do come, this method will promote faster growth of grass, especially in tsabosa flats where the grass has become gray and matted.

Training your cattle to graze as a tight knit herd is simple. It is all a matter of whether you say "I can" or "I can't." If you want to keep your cow numbers up in this combination of drought and high prices, it may benefit you to adopt the "I can" philosophy!

Reducing Input Expenses

In my last two posts, I discussed how much money you can be throwing away through poor cattle handling procedures and the true worth of your cattle after inflation is taken into consideration. While changing your cattle handling methods is an easy fix, trying to cut other inputs can seem to be insurmountable. However it can be easier than you can imagine.

Labor

If you have more than one full time employee for every thousand head of cows, or two thousand head of yearlings, you are over staffed. If you practice reduced stress cattle handling methods, and get through your cattle once or twice a week, the only time you should need extra help is when you are branding, weaning, shipping, or preconditioning.

Fuel Mechanical Maintenance

Nearly everyone spends more time in their pickup or on four wheelers than they do a horse. In many cases (especially if your ranch is in rough country) you really can't go any faster in a pickup than you can on a horse. Even if your roads are in good enough shape to go faster, why burn the fuel and tear up an expensive truck or ATV? I recently talked with one rancher who runs 1,500 pairs, plus a few hundred yearling heifers. He is running three employees and burns up over 1,000 gallons of gas and diesel each month in three pickups checking waterlines. That is an expense of nearly $4,000 in fuel before you figure in wear and tear on the trucks, flat tires and an extra full time employee.

I have run 2,200 yearlings plus an additional 150 pairs on 50,000 acres with no help and burned less than 45 gallons of fuel a month (with the exception of running to town for mineral or other supplies every other month.) The amount of fuel NOT burned amounts to 820 gallons a month. At $3.40 gas this amounts a reduction in input amounts of over $30,000 a year in fuel expenses alone.

Your wheels are turning, and you are thinking of all of the longer hours you will be putting in without your pickup or ATV. When running the above ranch, I ran the waterlines on a motorcycle Saturday morning and was off the ranch by noon. I would do a quick run on Monday morning just to make sure there were no new leaks. During the week, I was seldom home later than 5 or 5:30.

Additional Benefits

The first benefit is one you may not have thought of, your health and stress level. You, or your employee will remain healthier, both physically and emotionally, riding a horse than bouncing around in a pickup. Second, your cattle see you and will be calmer when you go to gather. This also means you see your cattle and know where they are, reducing or eliminating going back out to gather remnants at shipping time. If you plan your riding carefully, you will be checking your fences regularly and keep them in a better state of repair.

Direct Cattle Management

As I have pointed out before, using reduced stress cattle handling methods can increase ADG's with no added input. If you are running pairs, time your calving season to coincide with green grass. If you are in an area of cold and snow, this can cut your feed bill by two-thirds. You can either sell your excess hay or adjust your herd size to make up for the difference. Once again, this goes with the principle of reducing inputs while increasing income.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or email me.

Can You Afford To Burn Money?

I know of very few people who can afford to burn hundred dollar bills ten at a time, but many ranches tend to do just that every time they work cattle. This seems to be especially true on desert ranches where time is spent, not in the cattle, but constantly checking waterlines.

This past week I day worked on a local ranch which I've worked on before. Cattle are scattered out in groups of a hundred to two hundred per pasture, with the average pasture size around two thousand acres. If the cattle were ridden through even once a week, and handled with reduced stress methods one person could gather the cattle into the pens with no help, and a crew of four or five could get done with the sorting, branding, vaccinating and castrating fairly easily.

As these cattle only see people horseback when they are going to the pens to get worked, they are not only trotty, they have no intention of going into the pens. Since it is a known "fact" that the cattle are going to be hard to handle the crew grows to nine people, or an extra four or five hundred dollars a day.

Finding cowboys to work for day wages is hard. Finding cowboys that work for day wages who also work cattle in a reduced stress manner is next to impossible. As a result, when the cattle start getting leery of the pens, rather than back off and keep them quiet, the charge is on to get them into the pens as fast as possible. The pressured cattle wind up running off and in the ensuing stampede, calves have more stress related shrink, which winds up in higher than necessary morbidity and mortality rates. It also results in having to go back out to the pasture and roping calves that got away. At today's cattle prices this is costing in the neighborhood of thirty dollars per calf, or burning thirty one hundred dollar bills for every hundred calves you wean.

This week the ranch I worked on, between having to hire extra help, and their methods basically burned two hundred and five, one hundred dollar bills. If this isn't burning enough money, the cattle we worked this week is only one third of their herd, so between weaning the three groups, they are burning six hundred and fifteen of those one hundred dollar bills a year on weaning alone. Add a third that much shrink loss during branding and you are looking at over eighty thousand dollars a year going up in smoke.
Even including all related expenses, paying a cowboy thirty thousand dollars a year would save this ranch a minimum of forty thousand dollars a year. However the mentality seems to be that if a person is horseback in the cattle they are not "getting anything accomplished."

If you are tired of burning hundred dollar bills, and would like to learn more about reduced stress cattle handling, click here.

Taking Cattle Through Gates

Last week I covered starting and moving your cattle in a way which instills herd instinct in your cattle. Taking cattle through gates can either be one of the easiest things we can do with our cattle or one of the most stressful things we can do to our cattle, and ourselves.

Too many people tend to wait to open the gate until all of the cattle have reached the gate. This results in the cattle being forcibly crowded up to the fence. This creates stress on the cattle as they do not like to be forced together. When we are moving pairs this assures that the cattle will not be paired once they are through the gate. If we can have the gate open before the cattle get there, it is a simple matter of pointing them towards the gate without stopping the motion.

If the motion does stop, the only two things we need to work on is keeping the everything pointing towards the gate, and getting the cattle at the front to go through without pushing from the back. When you do this properly all of the cattle will go together, strung out as a herd naturally moves. Once they start through, the lead may pick up speed and may even run and play a bit. As long as they are headed in the right direction there is nothing to worry about as they tend to slow down on their own.

The two hundred steers in the following video had only been on the place a week. The only other time I had moved them was taking them from the pens where they had been unloaded, to this pasture. Not only was this the first time they had been through this gate, the pup I was using is deaf, and I didn't have a shock collar. Needless to say she made a few mistakes (to put it mildly) but the steers still all made it through the gate, and acted as a herd once they went through.



Taking cattle through a gate in the middle of a fence is actually easier than taking them through a gate in a corner. Take the cattle to a point a hundred yards to either side of the gate and have them turn down the fence towards the gate. Ride along, or just in front of the lead animals. When you reach the gate, simply get in front of the lead animals and position yourself so that the lead will go around and by you. They will see the gate and go through easily.