Herding A Bovine Potpourri

Some people have asked how herding cattle in this way is more efficient than controlling them with fences. For starters, you don't have to buy, build and maintain (or continually move) extra fencing,and you need fewer water points. Using this method on yearlings or dry cows (and receiving them all at once) is much, much, easier than receiving a Bovine Potpourri a little at a time. Despite the challenges, and necessary adjustments the program is still working, and improving.

One adjustment I've had to make is using more than one water point. It seems that these cattle have a tendency to jump in the five foot drinkers and stand there, then break the float on their way out. Once, I saw  a cow standing in a drinker with her calf next to her, nursing (something I have never seen before.) This forced us to designed and install a modification to the existing float guards which will hopefully take care of this problem. While having to work off of more than one water point makes it take longer to place cattle, it has been a learning experience. 

The second pasture in the rotation I  had five water points to work off of. The interesting thing was that, even though the cattle were mixed where they were grazing, they would return to the water point they came from. In the case of grazing associations, this could have some benefits if the herd instinct was instilled in each herd before going to summer pasture. The association rider could place the cattle on different water points, and keep the cattle separate within the same allotment. At the end of the grazing season it would be simple to gather each owner's cattle separately, and decrease the shrink involved with sorting several herds simultaneously (which would in return, increase profits a minimum of 3 to 5% ).

Despite the difficulties this particular project has, it is still working. Rather than spending money on labor building and maintaining (or moving) fences several times a week (or daily), one person spends three days placing cattle where they need in the pastures. Because of the social and physiological differences within this herd, and using multiple water points, placing within the pasture does take all day. If the water system was simplified to a single water point, and the cattle were all the same class, placement within the pasture would take four hours or less (for a total of 12 hours of labor per week.) 

Despite  the diversity of this group of cattle and using multiple water points, we are still getting the desired results of taking roughly a third of the forage and also getting animal impact distributed across the pasture, as shown in the following photograph.                           

 While they are spread out to fit feed density, the following picture shows roughly 100 head working as a herd. Notice how they are all grazing in the same direction. Once we make the next pasture move at the end of next week, we will be able to wean the bigger calves at a set of pens next to a water point. Once the cows have bawled off, I will start all of the cattle up a canyon in the direction of the next pasture in the grazing plan  and allow the cattle to sort themselves into two groups.

Open cattle, older calves, bulls and those in the first and second trimester of pregnancy will pick up and move out easily, while those cattle in their third trimester, calves under a month old and older thin cows with calves on them will take their time getting started. This will make it easier to instill the herd instinct into the cattle and (hopefully) keep the bulls away from the cows which are calving. (One problem with running bulls year round is that 12 to 24 hours before calving, cows change from producing progesterone to estrogen. This change in hormones causes cycling cows and bulls to seek out and ride cows beginning to calve, causing dystocia.)

Week Two of Holistic Herding on 32,000 Acres

One thing I want to emphasize before going any farther, is that instilling the herd instinct happens much faster when when using the same class of cattle in a herd, and all of the cattle arrive at the same time. This project is being done with the cattle coming in over a period of three to four weeks, and consisting of everything from open yearling heifers, to older dry cows, to week old pairs and calving cows.

Instilling the herd instinct in a mixed group of cattle like this is harder (but not impossible) as the younger open cows move out readily while the springers will move slower, and cows with young calves have to pick up their babies and can only move as fast as their calves. Never the less, The cattle are basically grazing the areas of the pasture they are being placed into.

As mentioned in last week's post, the weather threw a kink into the program when a cold front moved in ahead of a storm and the cattle drifted into the brush. Tracks showed that the cattle were staying together until one part of the herd hit a fork in the trail and split them into two bunches. Somewhere in the middle of the brush, part of the one group stopped while the other kept going into the next pasture, as the fence has been down in that area for years. As Monday was my day for changing pastures anyway, I gathered the draws and placed those cattle in the southwest corner of the new pasture. The following video shows how easy it is to gather in the brush and put the cattle through a gate and still have the cattle paired.

Because of the way things wound up the first week, and the move, the cattle are now in three groups, watering in three different places. Despite this, the cattle are still grazing in the same general area of the pasture, it just requires me to pick up each group off of their water point and place them. When they go to water, each group is going back to the water point they are familiar with. Despite the current stage in the training process, we are still getting the desired animal impact from concentrating the cattle as in the picture below.

When I make the move into the next pasture, the cattle will be placed into two groups on two different water points. The open cattle, cows in their first or second trimester, along with older pairs will be place on one water point, while the young pairs and cows ready to calve will be placed on a second water point. Because of their different rates of travel, this will be easy to accomplish as the first group will travel faster. I will have a person helping me on this move and one of us will simply bend the second group to one water point and hold them while the other continues with the other group to the desired water point. This will allow me to graze two different parts of the pasture simultaneously while working each with each group to get them to acting as a herd. The cattle will be in this pasture for 14 days before being mixed together as one herd. The move after the next pasture will be long, and up a steep grade. At this point the cattle will probably once again be ran as two herds in the same pasture. This would not be necessary if all of the cattle were open, or at approximately the same stage of pregnancy (or had the same age calves).

The optimum situation would have been to have all of the cows dry (or yearlings) and to have received them all at the same time. This would have shortened the training period from 4 to 5 (or 6) weeks to only a couple of weeks. However using different classes of cattle, receiving them over a period of 3 to 4 weeks, and training them in pastures with brush is allowing me to demonstrate that there are not many situations you cannot instill the herd instinct into cattle.

Herding Through a 32,000 Acre Grazing Plan (without small paddocks)

This is the first in a series of blog posts on using low stress cattle handling methods to grazed cattle holistically through an intensive grazing plan. The Circle ranch is basically a recreational hunting ranch that was in extremely poor condition when the Gill family acquired it. They have been steadily improving habitat and forage diversity/density through a combination of sub-soiling and holistic grazing.

Through this winter I will be herding 400 cows through a 32,000 acre grazing plan on the Circle Ranch in far west Texas, owned by Chris and Laura Gill and their family. The grazing plan was developed by Guy Glosson who is both a low stress cattle handling expert and holistic manager.

The key to this method is designing your water system so that you can water all of the cattle at one water point. On the surface, this may seem to be a big expense, but once you do this, time and money is saved by having fewer water points to check and maintain. Benefits to this method are

1. You can follow grazing plans without the expense of buying, moving and maintaining large amounts of electric fence.
2. You see your cash crop (cattle) several times a week and keep on top of health issues.
3. Areas grazed are done so more uniformly when cattle are acting as a herd.
4. Desired animal impact is concentrated and more effective when cattle are acting as a herd.
5. You can graze rough or rocky areas not normally grazed.
6. It is possible to precision graze the areas you want, while giving rest to other areas by cattle placement.
7. Cattle tend to run off coyotes when grazing as a herd (possibly wolves as well).
8. Cattle working as a herd are easier to manage in riparian areas.
9. Cattle being moved in this way are easier to handle in the working pens, adding to shipping weights through less stress induced shrink.
10. As cattle are consistently being moved to fresh feed, without stress, ADG's on yearlings, and weaning weights will be higher.

The following picture is an example of precision grazing. If the cattle had been completely trained when grazing, the impact would have been more concentrated.This area had been basically bare ground before sub-soiling. After the rain, forbes and a little grass grew on this spot. I placed the cattle on this area, where they returned for two days. You can see that grass has been grazed, and weeds have been trampled, as well as some fertilization. Next year this area will have more grass and forbes as a result of the combination of sub-soiling and grazing.

Depending on the class of cattle, and environment the training period will take anywhere from a week to five weeks (Rugged or brushy terrain will take longer, as well as cows with a lifetime of being scattered out) The training period on this set of cattle will most likely take three to four weeks as the cattle are coming in a few at a time. The first 100 dry cows came in on Saturday September 21^st with an additional 53 pairs added on the 22^nd. The following picture was taken on September 26^th, with the cattle basically acting as a herd.

On the morning of the 27^th, the weather changed with a big temperature drop and the cattle headed into the brush, splitting into two groups, with one group splitting again. I added another 60 pair on the 29^th, with the weather being cold and rainy (had 1 ½ inches over 24 hours). On Monday, October 1^st, I will start putting them back together.The following picture was taken the day before the weather drifted them into the brush.

Next week will be spent re-grouping, changing pastures and adding cattle. I will be posting the procedures and results as well as pictures and hopefully video.

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!

Low Stress Cattle Handling, Hype or Fact?

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

Why The Reluctance?

I have a conundrum which I would like solved. You can help by commenting on this post.

While it has been proven that low stress cattle handling techniques increases profitability in several ways:

1. Results in heavier shipping weights through less shrinkage during handling.
2. Saves money in labor as fewer people can handle more cattle.
3. Saves money in antibiotics as there are fewer calves.
4. Lower morbidity rates result in lower mortality rates increasing the number of animals shipped.

In spite of these (proven) benefits ranchers and feedlot managers do not seem to be interested investing a minimal amount of time and money for their crews to learn them. I would like comments on why you (or cattlemen you know) are reluctant to give low stress cattle handling a try, and what it would take to get you (or them) to give it a try.

I am also going to extend my low risk offer through the month of July. Pay my round trip gas to your ranch and I'll spend a week teaching you and your crew. If you think you have not learned anything at the end of the week, or that your cattle are not handling better I go home empty handed. If you decide your crew did learn and that your cattle are handling better, you owe me an additional $1,800. 

 If you would like to take me up on this offer, give me a call at

 I'm looking forward to your comments and suggestions. For more information my website

Getting Feedlot Cowboys On The Low Stress Bandwagon

There is no doubt that the industry leaders are interested in having low stress cattle handling method being the industry norm rather than the exception. I am no sycophantic elocutionist, all I can do is call things like I see them. Unless there is a direct benefit to the average pen rider , cowboy or ranch hand, they are not going to see the benefit in changing how they work cattle. In order to get the rank and file pen riders and ranch hands wanting to excel in low stress cattle handling we need to do two things. First we need to show that low stress cattle handling is more efficient. Second we need to give them a reason to learn and practice it.

The best way to do this is through a series of competitions in realistic low stress cattle handling to be sponsored by BQA, with a sizable reward (as in cash and prizes) for the winners. This contest would entail riding pens just as if they were riding pens at work, only would be pulling cattle marked with paint balls. A model for the competition wold be;

1. Twenty pens to be ridden by each contestant with fifty marked animals to be pulled.
2. Each contestant starts with two hundred points.
3. A point would be subtracted for each animal that breaks out of a walk.
4. Two points would be subtracted for causing animals other than the one being pulled to move faster than a walk.
5. Each contestant would have one marked animal wearing a heart monitor. The contestant raising the hear rate of this animal the least would have ten points added to their score and the second lowest raise of heart rate would receive five points added to their score.
6. If a rider does not pull all of his marked cattle, they will have two points deducted from their score.
7. Rider will also have two points deducted for every unmarked animal pulled.
8. In case of a tie score, the fastest time wins.

While this would not be a spectator sport, it would give pen riders a reason to get interested in low stress cattle handling. If you were to check the death loss and medical costs in any feedlot, you will find that those numbers correlate directly to how cattle are being handled. The less stress being put on cattle, the lower the death loss and antibiotic costs will be. The more stress put on the cattle the higher those numbers will be. The last feedlot I worked at, I asked the hospital crew to run the numbers on all of the pen riders for a year so I could compare them. Between the person who cause the less stress, and the person who caused the least amount of stress, the cost difference was over $250,000. With that kind of losses going on, it seems as if a little prize money as incentive would be a cheap way to get more cowboys on the low stress band wagon.

To learn about my own intensive program for teaching low stress cattle handling in feedlots, visit my website.