Saturday, April 28, 2012

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!




Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Heat Detection Made Easy

Most of us are still calving, but breeding season is just around the corner. If you are running an artificial breeding program, or thinking of starting one, you need to know the best, and easiest way to pen your breeders. Many operations not only make more work out of heat detection than necessary, but also work against themselves and the cattle in doing so. This is evident with all of the stories about how wild cattle are to pen when it is time to breed.
The fact is, that when handled properly, at the proper time, the cattle will almost pen themselves. To understand this, we must first understand the mental and physiological state of cattle when they cycle.
Two to three days before a cow is actually in heat, they become agitated and are starting to think about breeding. They will be in the groups of hot cows, butting heads and riding the cows which are actually hot, as well as others which are close to being in heat. The cows which are actually hot only have breeding on their mind. For the eight to twelve hours they are actually in heat they seldom graze or drink, and ignore their calf in search of a bull. This is the time you need to be penning them, when they are hot and wanting to breed. If you drive or ride through the cattle and mark down the numbers of the cows in heat, then pen them when it is time to breed, you are working against yourself. At this point the cow is tired and interested in relieving that tight bag, eating, drinking, and resting. This makes them harder to find, and because they are tired, it also makes them harder to handle. Penning cattle when they are hot and looking for a bull, or other cattle in heat makes them both easy to find, and pen. The first thing you need to do is to place your breeding pen(s) in an area which is either visible to your cattle, or in an area they will naturally flow to. The pens need to have three sections. One to hold your cattle being bred. A second area to hold hot cows waiting to be bred, and a pen to bring hot cattle into that is large enough to sort off the ones not quite in standing heat.
When you start that group of hot cattle across the pasture they will have a tendency to run off, and of course we have the tendency to try and keep them from doing that. As long as they are moving in the general direction of the pen, don't try to hold them up. They will travel for awhile, then stop and start riding each other again. For this reason you don't want to even try keeping up with them. If you try to slow them down, they will interpret this as being chased and they won't stop. Keep pushing them and it won't be long before they will become irritated and split up. Let them keep riding a couple of minutes after you do catch up. Position yourself so that when you start them, they are headed in the general direction of the pen again. Most of the time they will take off and run to the next group of cattle and start sniffing around. There are many times that this is the stimulus a “silent heat” needs to become visible. Once you are sure there are no more hot cows in that group, start them towards the breeding pens.
When these cattle see the pens, with cattle in them they will make a beeline for the pens. Because of their one track mind at a this point, they will want to get into the pens to see if they can get what they are looking for. As long as you are patient, they will work their way around the pen and actually find their way in the gate. The whole key to making this work is having the patience to let the cattle move at their own pace and letting them go where you want rather than trying to force them. Basically, unless you do something to make them mad and quit thinking about being bred, they will want to go to the breeding pen. One other mistake that people make while penning cattle using this method is trying to get the calf to go with the cow. The cow is not the least bit interested in her calf at this point. Even if left in the pasture, she will not let the calf nurse as she is interested only in breeding and will not think about her tight bag or the calf until she is out of standing heat. As soon as she is let out of the breeding pen she will meet up with the calf at the last spot the calf nursed, or the calf will follow on its own and meet it's mother when she is let out of the breeding box. The only time you need to take the calf with you is if you are in a three cycle breeding season (which will probably happen only on a registered operation.) By the third cycle you won't be finding hot groups, but individual hot cows. At this point your hot cow will stand out because of the number of bull calves mobbing the cow. In this situation the hot cow just wants to get away from the calves. With no company in the pen she will be likely to jump out if her calf shows up. For that reason, you will want to pen her calf with her. Penning while the cattle are actually hot also works better while breeding in a feedlot situation as well. The hot cattle will come off feed earlier than the rest of the cattle and start bulling. At this point it is not only easier to spot them, you will be only working the hot group and the rest of the cattle will be out of your way. It is fairly simple to sort the heifers in standing heat from the bullers at the gate. As you work your way down the alley these hot heifers will actually act as bait to draw the hots in your other pens to the gate. If you follow this procedure and allow the cattle to work themselves you will not only pen cattle easier, you will have higher conception rates from the lack of stress on the cattle. You will also have less stress on yourself and your crew.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

The myth of “breed type disposition”




Herefords are thought of as being gentle, while Brahma, Limousine, and Saler, cattle are thought of by most cattlemen in this country as being harder to handle because of their disposition. The fact that they can be harder to handle has more to do with the frequency and methods used handling them than their actual disposition. Now that half of you are ready to tar and feather me, then run me off the cyber range, I have a couple of simple questions for you to ponder.
Why is it that the above mentioned breeds which many of us consider to have bad attitudes, considered to be gentle breeds in their country of origin? If Hereford cattle are so inherently gentle, then why are there areas with a lot of high headed Herefords that streak off across the pasture with a knot in their tail at the sight of a person on horseback?
I started wondering about those two questions over forty years ago. Twenty years ago I had the unique opportunity to halter break the show calves for a big registered outfit. Part of their show string was several Red Angus embryo transplant calves which were full brother/sister. One would think that the genetically inherent gentle nature of their breeding. Three of the calves were out of recip cows which were raised on the ranch. These mothers had been handled half right all of their lives and were fairly gentle. These three broke to lead fast and enjoyed the brushing and grooming. The recip cow for calf number four was a Hereford purchased from a neighboring ranch which culled her because she was too wild. Despite having identical genetics, she was harder to halter break, kept kicking when a person groomed her and ran away with the herdsman several times at the show. Long story short, she had been trained by her mother to be wild and obnoxious.
On the other end of the spectrum, several years ago I was sent a bunch of smooth mouth Santa Gertrudis cows for the winter. We were to calve them out and ship the mothers to the packers at weaning time. These cows came off a ranch where they gather mainly with helicopters. When they do use cowboys the man to cow ratio is usually around 1 to 20. When they came off the truck, half of them were hunting and ready to run over a man on foot, and would challenge a man on horseback. After working on settling them down a couple of hours we turned them out in a small trap.
When I started to gather the trap a few days later, all the cattle ran to the back corner and wadded up. Thinking it would be better to go out a gate and move them off the fence from the outside, I headed away from the cattle and towards a gate. Before making it to the gate,there was the screeching sound of breaking wire and the cattle were out and running out and running.
After only seven months of being handled with low stress methods, three of us penned over 500 of these cows, sorted the calves off the cows and shipped them. The cattle manager of the ranch owing the cows was amazed as he had never seen the cattle penned that easily or worked that quietly.
The moral of these examples is that how cattle are handled (and the frequency they are handled) affects the disposition and behavior of cattle as much as genetics.After working with tens of thousands of cattle, and watching people work them, it is easy to understand how there can be so much confusion on low stress cattle handling and understanding of cattle behavior. Our knowledge is only the sum of our actual experience combined with what we have learned through educational experiences. Until we observe cattle acting as a herd and without stress, our observations of cattle behavior will not be accurate as our base opinions are based upon faulty information.

For more information and clinics, visit http://www.naturalcattlehandling.com

Monday, February 13, 2012

Doing Away With "Predator/Prey" Thinking


When we hear about new methods, especially when they claim to result in things which run counter intuitive to what we have experienced, we are suspicious. I have to admit that the first time I heard of a low stress cattle handling seminar I thought it was one of the dumbest things I ever heard of. Like most people I felt I'm doing as good a job as can be done and didn't need the “education.” Looking back, I feel that while my reaction was normal, I really wasn't looking at the larger picture. That changed when I was forced to attend a Bud Williams seminar.

What I learned in Bud's seminar was not what one would expect. I was already doing the things he was teaching, and in fact doing some things he was not teaching. I was astounded at how, no matter how he he explained things, people would have a difficult time understanding the most simple concepts. The final day of the seminar, rather than go to lunch with everyone else, I stayed back to talk with Bud. We discussed some of the things I was doing which worked for me, and why people seem to have such a hard time understanding how cattle work. That was in 1992.

Since then I have been reading every article I can just to see how others are trying to teach people how to handle cattle, and writing a few articles myself. Bud liked my views enough he put a link to my main website at the top of his links page. After spending the last twenty years studying how people are trying to teach reduced stress cattle handing I have come to two conclusions.

First, you cannot learn to work cattle by sitting in a classroom or watching someone else demonstrate. Cattle are living, reacting creatures. In order to learn how to work with them you need to learn how to read them. You can only do this with closely supervised work sessions, which work best if you can look at video to see where you made your mistakes, and where you did things correctly.

Secondly, we must quit looking at everything as a prey/predator relationship. I recently read an article by Temple Grandin describing what she called “passive stalking” and how that can force cattle to come together as a herd. While it is true, when predators travel up the outside of a herd, that the herd moves forward, it is totally false that this is a predator specific relationship. In fact this reaction happens among individuals within a herd. This reaction is also common in humans as well as grazing animals, and has more to do with dominance and body language than the predator/prey relationship.

Most of us observe cattle by merely looking for what health problems there may be. Since I was a small child I have always enjoyed just watching cattle for the sake of watching them. What I discovered as a small boy was that when one of the more dominant animals are walking through the herd (whether it is in a pen, or a pasture) will occasionally drop it's head a bit and change it's posture to a slightly aggressive mode while walking past some of the other animals. The reaction of the other animal would be to start up and walk past the more dominant animal. This reaction is not restricted to grazing animals. Humans have this same reaction as well, and it is easy to put to the test.

Next time you are in a crowded environment such as a mall or WalMart, you can try it for yourself. When you see someone coming in your direction, slightly increase your walking speed, twist your shoulders towards the person while shifting your eyes towards them (without actually turning your head). As you approach your “target” person they will actually speed up to get past you.

This concept is probably hard for most people to fathom because it runs counter nearly everything we have been taught in how to work cattle. The fact is that most of what we have been taught is exactly the opposite of what our cattle need to be relaxed and at maximum production. The proof is revealed in one simple question; If cattle are a herd animal, then why do they spread out across the pasture?

By changing our handling methods to ones which cause less stress in our cattle, we are not training them to act as a herd, but removing the stress and allowing them to enjoy herd behavior as nature intended. For more information, visit my natural cattle handling website.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Exports Hurting US Economy


Cattle publications (and too often formal educators) try to convince us that the cattle and beef industries are one and the same. They are not. One difference is in the import export market. While some registered cattle producers may market a few animals to foreign markets, it is not something which the average producer does. On the other hand, every producer of boxed beef is after the premium they can receive from exports to other countries.
While exports can be a good thing for the economy, what is often forgotten is that the economy begins at home. There is a point at which exports benefit a few while making the economy bad for the rest of the economy. This is currently demonstrated by hay exports.
Much of the country has been ravaged by both drought and wildfire. Hay prices are through the roof. Many are paying $300 a ton per hay with it being forecast in some areas to top the $400 mark by the first of February. On the surface this would seem to be a simple matter of supply and demand. Between the drought and fires the demand for hay is higher which would automatically drive up the cost of hay. However there is another factor affecting our hay supply which is driving the cost up. A record amount of hay is being exported to China, partially because it is actually cheaper to ship it to China than to points within the United States.
While economists view this as a good thing for the trade imbalance, it is detrimental to our overall economy. This is driving up the cost of both beef and dairy products for consumers who are suffering enough in this down economy. While it would seem logical that trade agreements and export laws would take our own economy into consideration before allowing either exports or imports. Unfortunately economists too often consider the balance sheets between our country and others without looking at the effects upon our own general population.
That is the difference between the cattle and beef industries. The beef industry can benefit by premiums, either in actual price, or lower shipping costs. The relationship between the cattle industry and beef industry is similar to that between mining companies which supply iron ore and steel manufacturers. As cattle producers we are providing the “beef ore” for packing companies to turn into beef.
We can not depend on them for our individual economic situation to be better, nor can we expect the government to protect our interests. As such, our only formula for success is to keep our outputs low enough that our inputs cover the costs with enough left over for a livable profit. We need to manage our forage so that we are planning ahead for the times of drought an/or low prices. We cannot avoid all outputs, but we need to manage them so that what outputs we do have benefit our output to input ratios. This includes everything from handling our cattle in a way which reduces shrink, to making our infrastructure less costly to maintain to how we manage our household purchases.
This last has been made a bit more simple by the internet. We can now purchase everything from vaccines and tools, to clothing, and even some foods and have it delivered without the expense of driving a couple of hundred miles to town. One such opportunity is provided by Country Outfitters. A few weeks back I was approached by them to do a product review in exchange for whatever I wanted to order. I browsed through their products and was surprised at their variety and prices. As it is winter, I chose the Carthart® arctic lined coat. It had the quality you know is going to be there, including a long lasting brass zipper rather than the cheap plastic ones used by other manufacturers. The prices are comparable to what you find at stores in town, yet you don't have to make the trip. With calving season upon us Country Outfitters an be your own on ranch store if you find yourself in need of extra winter wear or a new hat to wear to the stock show.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Low Stress Cattle Handling/Horsemanship Clinics


You cannot substitute articles and videos on reduced stress cattle handling procedures for real time, hands on experience to become proficient at handling cattle. Few of these articles and videos address the differences involved between handling cattle on foot or on a horse. Fewer still describe how, by simply changing the angle of your horse's body in respect to the cow, you can control the cow's speed and direction.

For a person handling cattle horseback on a ranch, or riding pens in a feedlot, you cannot learn how to handle cattle in a reduced stress manner without including horsemanship. Low stress cattle handling is synonymous with good horsemanship, you can't have one without the other. While those teaching low stress cattle handling on foot concentrate on reading cattle and making small corrections to keep things going, many of those teaching it from horseback are still doing many of the same old things. Keeping a horse parallel to a cow, beating it to the fence and working, prey/predator relationship, and training cattle to drive.

The word natural is over used and often misconstrued. The way your cattle act right now is only their natural reaction to what you are doing. The key to low stress cattle handling is to do things in a manner which naturally gets cattle to doing what we want in a calm manner.

If we are driving a cow and keeping our horse parallel to the cow and decide we need to turn it, we start putting pressure on their eye to get them to turn away from us. When we do this we turn our horse towards the cow and they speed up and try go around us. We blame the cow for speeding up and trying to go around us, but we are the one who turned on that switch in the cow to get that reaction.

In the same situation if we are tracking the cow with a slight amount of lateral movement on our horse we can actually ask the cow to turn by taking pressure off the cow. We do this by asking our horse to speed up slightly while moving laterally away from the cow. When we do this, we are taking away both the instinct of the cow to speed up and to go around us. Instead the cow feels as if its opportunity to go around us is taken away. At this point, rather than being excited and wanting to get around us, the cow's reaction is to turn slowly (without stress) away from us and in the direction we want.

In order to take advantage of the above natural instinct of cattle, we need to develop our horsemanship to a higher level. At times we can slow a cow by simply changing the angle of our horse in relationship to a cow. Essentially, the better our horsemanship is, the more we can master low stress cattle handling. This isn't to say our horses have to be perfect, as there is no true perfection. However if we master our horsemanship enough we can take advantage of methods to handle cattle with lower amounts of stress, not only on the cattle, but on our horses and ultimately on ourselves. The easier you make things on the cow, the easier it is on your horse, and the easier it is on you.

The answer to the conundrum of how to learn both the horsemanship techniques and the lower stress reactions of cattle is to learn them both at the same time. After years of thought on the matter I have designed a clinic program which addresses both the horsemanship and low stress instincts of cattle. As learning all of this is intensive, hands on clinic sizes will be limited to a total of seven participants, including crew or owners of sponsoring ranches. To learn more of my methods and all these clinics cover visit my main website.

I am now accepting host ranches for 2012 clinics. If you are going to be running yearlings, coinciding a clinic when you receive cattle, they will be calm and easy to handle when you turn them out with no additional labor costs. If you are running an AI breeding program I can also include training on how and when to pen your cattle for minimum stress and optimum conception. If you would like to host a clinic, email me me and we will make arrangements.

Friday, December 16, 2011

Are You Managing Wildlife, Livestock, Or Forage ?

Look at nearly any help wanted ad looking for ranch management and it is fairly obvious that every ranch has it's management priorities. The problem in developing management programs which focus on a certain species of animal is that they are so focused on developing a program for your particular niche that we develop tunnel vision. When we hire a manager with a specific degree to manage for our specific management niche we are often focusing our tunnel vision even more. More often than not we are like a drug addict too stoned to notice we are shooting ourselves in the foot. This is especially true in wildlife managers who have been taught that livestock competing for forage is detrimental to wildlife populations.


The tunnel vision developed by an educational system which focuses on niche management tends to overlook the bigger picture. Environmentalists and wildlife managers want to remove livestock from the land to protect it. However this is often counter productive to forage development and diversity. Many of us have, for one reason or another, come to the conclusion that if we leave the land to nature, that nature will heal the land on it's own. The only problem with this theory is that nature today is not what nature was even a hundred years ago. We  have removed the tool nature used to develop forage and plant diversity. This tool of nature was large herds of free roaming grazers that grazed through an area and were gone for a period of time, letting the land and plants rest. This grazing pattern loosened the top of the soil allowing rain to soak into the ground rather than run off, removed the top two thirds of plants allowing light to reach the base of plants speeding up photosynthesis while fertilizing the ground from feces and urine.

 When we took away the tools nature has provided to take care of itself, we minimized our chances of real improvement or even sustaining what forage we have. The only way we can viably sustain and improve the forage and environment for wildlife is to find a substitution for the tools of nature which are no longer available. 

The substitution for the large herds of grazing animals is controlled rotational grazing of  livestock. The most effective method is by training a herd of stock to act as a herd and place them in a different area to graze on a daily basis. This does not mean having a person with the herd all day, but simply training your stock to act as a herd and place them on a daily, or near daily basis. To find out more of how easy it is to train livestock to act as a herd, and how this kind of grazing system can improve conditions for your game animals and birds, visit the following websites:

By using these methods you will not only be helping improve the ecology of your ranch, but also providing food for the world.