When the subject of livestock abuse comes up, he frowns deeply. “The poor managers, the people who aren’t doing it right, aren’t going to be in business that long.” “In our industry if we were treating the animals bad, we would not be successful,” notes Dave Bohnert, director of the Burns research center. Humane, ethical care is critical to growers’ bottom line. It’s not even just the right thing to do for the animals. For these industries, together worth more than $1 billion, low-stress handling isn’t just a check-off box on the compliance list for animal-care protocols overseen by OSU’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (see “ The Ethic of Care,” Terra, Fall 2012). In Oregon, beef and milk ranked third and fourth, dollar-wise, among farm and ranch commodities for 2011.
Studies show that a stressed animal is more likely to be a sick, scrawny, infertile animal - hardly the formula for business success if you’re a rancher or dairyman.
Handling by humans - vaccination, castration, insemination, supplementation, transportation, especially the long haul from ranch to feedlot - can suppress a cow’s immune system, depress her appetite and disrupt her hormonal balance. That’s why discovering ways to minimize stress in cattle is a research priority in Cooke’s lab. “Some are more prone to stress, which causes problems for health and reproduction.”Įthical skills count as much as finesse with a syringe, a scalpel or a stethoscope. “Cattle have their own temperament, just like people,” says Cooke, who grew up on the rangelands of Brazil. Cooke’s cattle-handling expertise is in demand all over, garnering invitations to speak and consult across the American West and abroad. “You have to remain calm and have patience,” explains Oregon State researcher Reinaldo Cooke, who frequently cites Grandin in his work at the other Eastern Oregon ag research center in Burns. Her innate sensitivity to animals’ feelings and fears has revolutionized livestock handling. It helps that the chute’s design was inspired by Temple Grandin, the internationally renowned animal-behavior expert who gave several lectures at Oregon State in 2010. Instead, Fite and his team gentle their cows into compliance. Cattle prods (“hot shots”) are forbidden here at the Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center in Union. Ranch manager Kenny Fite, wearing hot-pink latex gloves up to his elbows, administers the bull semen, which has been chilling in a giant vat of liquid nitrogen.Ī few of the cows balk, but most endure the process with placid resignation. Over bursts of disgruntled mooing, a second man reads out a number printed on each cow’s ear tag as a research assistant records it in a ledger. One by one, they enter the “squeeze chute,” a hydraulic contraption that closes in around the animal to hold her steady.
Quietly, a cowboy coaxes the cows toward the sorting shed, where they’re about to be artificially inseminated. The Black Baldies cluster inside the holding pen as if glued together, waiting.
Temple Grandin, Animals Make Us Human Oregon State staff and students round up beef cattle on the Zumwalt Prairie near Enterprise. “Frightening and stressing cattle is bad because it’s wrong to treat animals badly, and it’s also bad business.”
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