Knowing how to safely and effectively lead, restrain, and otherwise handle livestock in the field and in farm facilities is critical to being a successful livestock farmer. Renowned animal behaviorist and best-selling author Temple Grandin's guide to livestock handling for small farmers includes her own unique understanding of what motivates the behaviors of cows, pigs, goats, and sheep. She explains herd dynamics, pecking order, and what species are compatible with others in the field. She also explains the distinctive fears, instincts, and memories of each species and then applies this understanding to safe, humane handling practices. Full-colour photographs teach how to "read" an animal's behavioural signals. Illustrations are included for facility layouts that are most appropriate for small farms, including corrals, chutes, crowd pens, loading ramps, head gates, and more. Book Features Best-selling author and animal behaviorist Temple Grandin shares her unique insights into livestock animals. By explaining how herd animals think, what their fears, instincts, and memories are, and which animals make good companions in the field, Dr. Grandin instructs small farmers in the most humane, safe, and efficient ways to handle these animals.
Essential information specially written for small-scale farms. Assuming the reader has no prior knowledge of animal handling, this book explains how to set up the simplest, most efficient facilities for managing a small herd of 3 to 25 cattle or pigs, or 5 to 100 sheep or goats, and how to become skilled at observing animal movement and behavior as part of close daily interaction. Knowing how to move, restrain, and interact safely and calmly with animals is essential knowledge for every owner of farm animals.
Covers best practices for profitability. Humane handling practices result in a safer, calmer environment for both the animals and the farmers and a more economical farm model, as the final result is healthier animals who produce higher-quality meat and dairy products.
About the AuthorTemple Grandin is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Animals in Translation and Animals Make Us Human, as well as Thinking in Pictures, Humane Livestock Handling, Improving Animal Welfare, and The Autistic Brain. Grandin's humane livestock facility designs have been adopted all over the world, and she is a consultant on animal welfare to several segments of the fast food industry. Her work has been featured on NPR, 60 Minutes, and The Today Show and in the New York Times and Time and Discover magazines. The story of her life was made into an Emmy Award-winning HBO movie titled Temple Grandin. Grandin is Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University.
[PDF] Temple Grandin's Guide to Working with Farm Animals: Safe, Humane Livestock Handling Practices
In 2008, Grandin published Humane Livestock Handling[32] with contributions by Mark Deesing, a long time collaborator with her. The book contains a review of the main aspects of cattle behavior and provides a visual guide in the form of construction plans and diagrams for the implementation of Grandin's ideas relating to humane livestock handling. Many of her contributions to the field of handling livestock and the design of livestock handling systems advocated for in her books are available through her website as well.
Grandin has lectured widely about her first-hand experiences of the anxiety of feeling threatened by everything in her surroundings, and of being dismissed and feared, which motivates her work in humane livestock handling processes. She studied the behavior of cattle, how they react to ranchers, movements, objects, and light. Grandin then designed curved corrals she adapted with the intention of reducing stress, panic, and injury in animals being led to slaughter. This has proved to be a further point of criticism and controversy among animal activists who have questioned the congruence of a career built on animal slaughter alongside Grandin's claims of compassion and respect for animals. While her designs are widely used throughout the slaughterhouse industry, her claim of compassion for the animals is that because of her autism she can see the animals' reality from their viewpoint, that when she holds an animal's head in her hands as it is being slaughtered, she feels a deep connection to them.[33]
Corral and working facilities are constructed to confine cattle safely and efficiently for close observation and to perform routine health and management procedures. Good cattle handling systems make working livestock easier with limited manpower. The operation of any cattle facility depends on cattle behavior, corral design, and the skill and technique of the handler.
In animal agriculture, there is a broad range of animal treatment, ranging from CAFOs with the lowest animal welfare standards to confinement operations that have more humane practices, to pasture-based farms, which have a range of practices. 2ff7e9595c