The main tranquilizer I am talking about is acepromazine, a member of the phenothiazine tranquilizer family. It is not a prescription product and producers can be trained in its usage and in the way it is delivered.

Since the dosage is pretty low (although effects last a long time) and the cost per dose is minimal, it has many uses in cattle production in my opinion. Whether it’s calving, tie breaking, clipping or simply transportation, if we can get cattle calmer, it always goes better.

Even when using low-stress handling techniques, cattle can get worked up in certain situations and can benefit greatly from tranquilization.

The withdrawal on the 25-milligram product is seven days. This tranquilizer will work on most species on the farm, but I am going to focus only on cattle at this time.

This product will cause a lowered heart rate and blood pressure, and dosage will vary depending on the method of administration. Many give it orally or intra-nasally but I recommend in the tail vein because it goes right into the bloodstream — so the dose can be kept low and it acts fast.

Uses around calving include cows being overly aggressive towards their newborn calves or kicking at their calves when trying to suck as tranquilization may make them passive enough to change this behaviour.

We have all had to try and graft a calf on to a cow. Methods range from using products such as Calf Claim or rubbing placenta on an adoption calf to skinning a dead calf and putting the hide on a substitute calf. These all can be effective ways to get a mother to adopt a calf, but also tranquilizing the cow will improve success rates. The calf will be taken quicker by the new mother and she is unlikely to hurt it from bunting or kicking at it when it is time to nurse.

Bull sale season leads to bulls being clipped or torched to get them all looking good. The first time through the chute, using a slight bit of tranquilizer can make the process easier (on the bull and for the person clipping). If the bulls are calmer, the procedure goes by quicker and they have a good experience setting them up for an easier pass through next time. Showmen may even use this when just halter breaking for the first time.

There is no doubt tranquilizers have a place and what I like about acepromazine is you can visibly see the effects from the sleepy eyes and slightly staggered gait. In bulls we can have a prolapse of the sheath so watch when using it in bitterly cold weather. That is why most veterinarians, if they don’t get protrusion of the penis in semen evaluating, may use tranquilization to visualize the penis and make sure there aren’t other things wrong.

Veterinarians may use acepromazine for anything from settling down cows for C-sections to claw amputations to cancer eye removals. They may also use other products in combination with this tranquilizer as well as a local anesthetic. Younger veterinarians have gotten into using other tranquilization products but as you can see there is still a place on our farms and ranches for products such as this.

I have used this product for anything from marker bull surgery to a rumen fistula. If you titrate the dose properly, they can still ambulate and load well.

If shipping cattle a fair ways away, there is a natural type product that has no withdrawal that can be fed to cattle. It is a product called DeStress which has among other things an amino acid called tryptophan, which has naturally a slight tranquilization effect. It is fed to cattle and can also be used on bison (but at a higher dose) and has a tranquilization or calming effect which owners can visibly see.

This of course makes it easier to load and transport plus shrink is greatly reduced. Not only is there an animal welfare benefit but also an economic one as live weight and carcass weight will be higher on slaughter animals given this product.

Producers with interest should be taught how to give tranquilizer products like acepromazine in the tail vein. Also you can also get blood samples this way if your veterinarian needs them.

I know producers may have other uses for things like acepromazine in livestock production, anything from dehorning to prolapse repairs.

Effects last several hours and only are repeated in rare occasions I would say. Keep this in mind for any of the procedures listed above. It may take some time before we realize how this can fit into your operation.

The post Often a tranquilizer makes things easier for cattle and their owner appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The last two years have produced many hair-raising situations for Alberta’s cattle producers and that’s been the case for feedlot owner Kevin Serfas, who has undertaken a massive feedyard expansion.

Based in Turin, about 50 kilometres north of Lethbridge, he runs Serfas Farms, a sizeable grain farm and feeder cattle business across multiple sites. It’s the cattle side, though, that has seen the most recent and drastic change at the farm.

About two years ago, Serfas decided to undertake a large-scale feedyard expansion for an additional 40,000 head. Before that, he had cattle in six and sometimes seven feedyards from Nanton to Pincher Creek to Vauxhall.

How have things been since the new yard began operations?

“It’s just made everything a lot easier,” he said. “We have better control of processes and things going on. We have been very happy with the way things have gone and we put a good crew together.”

In addition to the new build, Serfas bought a smaller feedyard near Enchant, near his main farmyard. He rebuilt it and created space for another 7,000 cattle. That yard is also fully operational.

Serfas had the humility to know what he didn’t know so he visited other feedyards in southern Alberta and made careful notes about those operations. He made sure to jot down what he liked and thought he could incorporate into his own feedlot. And it took 18 months to go from idea to operation. The new feedlot has been fully stocked since December 2021.

“We hired some people that had some experience in bigger yards in the way things have worked, so again, they kind of bring some of the things they’ve learned, liked and didn’t like. We made a hybrid,” he said.

Serfas took the project as an opportunity to review all practices and procedures that he and his 40 employees follow on a weekly basis. First, the single lunchroom at the main site was eschewed in favour of three different eating areas at three sites. The time saved on coffee breaks alone has created more efficiency.

“Guys don’t have to drive three miles to go to coffee and three miles to go back,” he said.

The animals are being run with a program that puts their welfare front and centre. Low-stress handling is the name of the game for Serfas and as busy as the feedlot is, it’s not a constant din of noise because the cattle are treated calmly.

“That was one of the big things we wanted to make sure of, that there was the least amount of stress put on them,” he said. “There’s not a lot of hootin’ or hollerin’ and it’s really hard to find a cattle prod. It’s very low-stress handling.”

The site is purposefully designed with a three-barn system, each with its own bud box and squeezes that attempt to treat the animals as humanely as possible. The bud boxes are a hit with drivers and the animals respond well too.

“Our cattle load-in and load-out is all done in this bud box style,” Serfas said. “Not a lot of guys got that system in their feedyards, but when truckers show up, they love it, it goes so fast.”

The site also has a new feed mill. Though Serfas admits it is overbuilt, it will be suitable for future growth. The mill has room for 4,000 tonnes of raw storage as well as 600 tonnes of rolled product.

“We wanted to make sure it was big enough so you’re not running out of grain or trucks aren’t getting turned around because there’s not enough room,” he said.

Trucks can roll in, unload within 15 minutes and drive out. These were must-have features for Serfas, who made sure the facility was designed with efficiency above all else.

Although the feedlot is running, Serfas already sees ways to improve.

If money was no object, he said he would have had high-load-tolerant roller compacted concrete (RCC) installed throughout, but that comes with a high price tag. While he did install the surface on the smaller, 7,000-head feedlot next door, he plans to spend the next decade to slowly convert the new lot to RCC, which is easy to clean and maintain.

Serfas is keeping a close eye on crop prices. He is glad they are at all-time highs but knows they will eventually drop.

“What scares me is that this is going to turn around. These record grain prices and fertilizer [prices] are going to drop,” he said. “You just don’t want to be on the wrong side of it when it happens or have expensive grain that could have been sold but you didn’t and the thing tanks on you. There’s a bit of a balancing act there.”

Similarly, he has concerns about the shrinking national cow herd because the feedlot needs incoming feeder cattle. But ultimately, he is focused on things he can control.

“You can’t build a new feedyard and then worry about the next year,” he said.

There’s no slowing down in southern Alberta, and Serfas doesn’t plan to take his foot off the gas simply because his latest project is working well.

“There’s always stuff on the go. We’ve never been ones to be idle. We take pretty calculated looks at different opportunities. If they make sense, we roll with it.”

The post Massive new feedlot working out as planned, says owner appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

That’s what Diego Moya Fernandez is hoping to find out.

“We are not trying to look for happy or sad cows,” said the assistant professor and researcher at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine.

“When I talk about temperament, it’s not their mood. Temperament is a specific set of behaviours that we can monitor and characterize in an objective manner.”

An animal’s temperament is revealed by how it reacts in situations and using some high-tech equipment, Moya Fernandez and his team can measure something like how quickly a cow exits a chute. The five-year project will then tie the assessment of an individual animal’s temperament to see if less calm cattle are more prone to disease in a feedlot.

“It’s moving away from considering all animals the same, and moving towards considering all animals individually,” said Moya Fernandez, who is originally from Spain and has a background in beef cattle welfare and behaviour.

Even after many years of research, health issues at the feedlot, such as bovine respiratory disease, acidosis and lameness persist. And so being able to determine which animals are most likely to get sick could lead to improved outcomes.

Looking at behaviour and temperament as an indicator for the possibility of disease is a very different approach from current ones that have a strong focus on treatment, he noted.

“It still causes a lot of costs for the feedlot industry to treat these diseases and try to prevent them,” said Moya Fernandez. “There’s a lot of looking for new vaccines or novel drugs to treat those diseases.”

Most of the research for the $153,000 project (funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council) will take place at the Livestock and Forage Centre of Excellence at the University of Saskatchewan. But researchers will also collaborate with industry partners and commercial feedlots.

In the first stage, Moya Fernandez and his team of students will assess and develop a new chute side test that can be done at a farm to assess cattle behaviour.

“Once those tests have been developed, we will link those tests to health outcomes, whether that is preventing disease, sensitivity to being treated with antimicrobials, performance and all that,” he said.

Cameras and lasers will be used to capture the movement of animals in chutes and how fast they exit the chute. The last stage of the project will include developing health management plans — it’s hoped the findings will lead to more accurate use of antimicrobials and other drugs used in feedlots.

Moya Fernandez can already point to several behaviours that may indicate an animal’s temperament.

One is how fast an animal leaves the chute after being restrained, with the exit speed being connected to levels of cortisol, a hormone that indicates stress.

“We don’t know if the higher level of stress of the animal is connected to worse immune function or making it more prone to diseases such as bovine respiratory disease,” said Moya Fernandez.

Researchers have also observed behaviour at the feed bunk and how it affects feeding patterns.

“There are some animals that are more dominant than others, and this also interferes with how they eat,” he said. “They change their whole feeding pattern depending on how much competition they have at the feed bunk.

“It can also make the animals more prone to acidosis. We’ve found a connection between behaviours we can monitor and the actual health in the short and long term of the feedlot.”

That’s why he has wanted to develop some standardized tests that producers can do when they are handling the animals.

“If we combine these pieces of information, we are confident we can get close to at least characterize the temperament of each individual animal, and that could be linked into how they perform in the feedlot,” he said.

“Some animals in a herd will cope perfectly with a diet and an environment, and some of them will not do so well. It’s a matter of detecting those that will not do so well, so we can handle them.”

The post Being tense and temperamental may not be good for a cow’s health appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

I have trained myself to really watch when cattle balk at certain points of a handling system as there is often a very good reason for this, and one that deserves attention.

In some cases it may point to the need to upgrade handling facilities due to the fact that, over time, cattle have got heavier, and yet are still moderate in height. Carcass weights are steadily increasing and so even feedlot systems may need revamping.

Animals of all age groups and classes should easily be able to make it up to the squeeze area. All new chutes now have some sort of side release mechanism (and both sides are desirable) but older ones (especially the older hydraulic chutes) may not have a side release. If the sides are V-shaped, it’s possible that animals (especially bulls during semen testing) may go down and won’t be able to get up.

I’ve had to sling bulls and lift them up to avoid a downer animal. Even if the outcome is favourable it has taken lots of time and you are on pins and needles the rest of the day hoping another doesn’t get stuck. I have mineral oiled the sides of an alleyway to allow a big, low-slung, heavily pregnant cow to slide through an alley system after getting stuck. Other producers have lifted the system right over them to set them free.

We need to be extra careful with older bulls with large shoulders when semen testing and shorter-statured, heavily pregnant cows when it comes to processing. I like to have the narrowest part of the handling system right at the back of the alleyway directly off of the tub. If they get in the back, you want them to be able to come out the front of the chute. If purchasing a new system it needs to be able to be expanded to 32 inches as virtually every animal should get through it at that width.

We also need the alley systems and the squeeze chutes with breakaway gates on at least one side. Every downer stuck cow/bull in your system can become a huge animal welfare issue and very stressful for you the owner. In some cases, stuck ones have to be cut out of or have systems totally taken apart to free them.

If stuck for a long time nerve/muscle damage leading to a downer or a pregnant one aborting are all potential outcomes. I try and look at everything from footing to measuring the narrowest point to try and come up with a permanent fix to the problem. Some systems are simply in need of huge upgrading, taking into account the size of our cattle these days.

With cows that have an abnormal pregnancy and huge abdomens, one simply needs to recognize this and examine and treat them in an area where they can go down. This is the same if bringing up a very weak animal to assess its condition. For instance, if it goes down and struggles and gets its legs out behind it, will there be enough room to roll it over?

With cows woozy from a difficult calving, one has to move them very slowly and always be aware of the traction they have. Avoid the areas with ice or let them take their time and find their own way. At veterinary clinics, if we are aware of a weak, sick or partially paralyzed animal, we may examine it right in the trailer as none of us ever want to create or facilitate causing a downer animal under our care.

If an animal does get stuck in mud or snow, one needs to pull slowly. I will sling if possible or if not, use a good rope halter and ropes on the feet. If mechanical assistance is available then go very slow and if a fractious animal is in danger of hurting itself, heavy sedation may be necessary. Other treatments such as selenium (if there has been a lot of struggling) and NSAIDs may be in order, but involve your veterinarian especially in the followup treatment.

Again, carefully investigate to find out if the situation was preventable so it doesn’t happen again. Many a cow or calf has been lost getting stuck around a dugout or slough attempting to get water. Solar pumps into water troughs have eliminated many of those problems over the years.

Good footing combined with access doors and adequately wide (preferably straight-sided) handling systems will eliminate the proverbial animal-got-stuck scenario we have all been involved in over the years.

Here’s to stress-free and efficient handling of cattle at any time of year regardless of body condition state of pregnancy or body shape. This is definitely another category in which the modern cattleman has improved the animal welfare with his cattle, bison and other large animals on the farm.

The post Cattle can get stuck or go down when being processed appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

But spare a thought for the handlers — whether yourself, employees or your vet.

“Some people will definitely put you in harm’s way, and not even know it,” said Dr. Roy Lewis, who was a large-animal vet for more than three decades.

“You have to know what is safe and what isn’t when working cattle.”

Topping his safety to-do list is regular maintenance of the handling system.

“If something breaks, get it fixed.”

Familiarize yourself with the system — especially if it’s new. Lewis sees this problem frequently when it comes to adjusting certain parts such as the neck opening.

“The manufacturers of the commercial systems have listened to the producer over the years and made changes that I think have all been positive,” he said.

However, most systems don’t come with a user manual. But the company rep or a veterinarian is usually more than happy to help producers learn how to use the features of a system.

Next, use the handling system to your advantage. If there’s access doors, use them.

“Don’t go sticking your hand between the bars,” Lewis added.

This also goes for locks on access doors. Some chutes have latches that lock the access door in place, so it can’t accidentally get bumped, fall down, and hit someone on the head.

“A lot of the safety mechanisms are there on the chutes, some folks just don’t use them.”

And communicate while putting cattle through the system — it can be a lifesaver.

“Whatever we’re doing, we have to trust the person running the chute, that he’s not going to let the animal out prematurely, or the person operating a sliding gate prematurely,” Lewis said.

That starts with training new people on how to use the system.

“Take five minutes to train somebody new. Not only on what you want done, but how that system works.”

That includes pointing out danger points or places to avoid.

And if injuries are happening, the system may not be set up right or something is amiss.

“Usually you know if you’re in a bad situation,” said Lewis. “Whether you’re the handler, the owner or the veterinarian, you know you’re putting yourself in harm’s way and you shouldn’t have to.”

The post Is your setup safe? If so, you’re doing all of these things appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Oftentimes though, cattle balk at something or just don’t flow as smoothly as they should.

That’s the situation Craig Lehr found himself in, even though he had a “very well-built” one-piece, S-alley livestock-handling system with a crowding tub that, in its day, was considered a very good system.

“However, the cattle just didn’t like it,” said the third-generation Medicine Hat-area rancher.

“When you saw the cattle, you knew we were being hard on them.”

It not only required a lot of yelling and prod use to get the cattle to move through the system, he noticed that once they had been through once or twice, they didn’t want to go back through again.

“We looked at updating that system and trying to make some improvements to get some better cattle flow,” said Lehr, who with his family, owns and operates Short Grass Ranches, which backgrounds 7,000 head throughout the year and has a 1,200-head cow-calf operation.

“As we got into things a little further, we decided to upgrade the entire system.”

Lehr sorts a lot of cattle in the feedlot. They’re placed in pens upon arrival. As the cattle grow and they develop a marketing plan, from February to August, Lehr starts size sorting.

“We’re always continuously sorting cattle, getting groups ready to sell.”

So a better way to sort topped the priority list when he started looking at upgrading his system.

“We sort all these cattle in a 16-feet-wide by 80-feet-long alley, and it involved gates getting smashed, people getting hurt, hit by cattle. It was a dangerous thing to do,” he said. “With more employees around all the time, people were getting hurt, and inexperienced people were getting put in positions they shouldn’t be in.

“I was trying to find a better way to sort cattle.”

His research and visits to other feedlots led him to Daniels Manufacturing Co., which uses open sides in its handling system. Lehr liked that as he sorts feedlot cattle not just by weight but also by body type.

“This way we can still visually see the animals.”

Since Lehr is sorting cattle often, he added a hydraulic sort system at the front end of the handling system.

“Now we just feed cattle through the system,” he said. “The person sorting can visually sort and run all the gates off hydraulics. Now, we can sort 300 to 400 head an hour and sort three to four different ways.

“There isn’t one raised voice, there isn’t one person getting hit, no gate smashing, nothing. That was the main aspect I was looking at changing.”

The new system

When the switch from old to new was made in 2016, Lehr changed the direction of the system. The old system faced to the south, which meant cattle were always going towards the sun, a problem exacerbated in wintertime. The new system faces north, and while there are shadows at parts of the day, cattle aren’t forced into bright light.

As well, the crowding tub was swapped out for a Bud Box, allowing the animals to flow more freely into a double-entry alley that narrows down (via a gate the cattle manoeuvre themselves) to a single alley where body condition and type are evaluated. The alley itself is hydraulic adjustable, too, as are the backstops, so calves can’t turn around in the alley.

The cattle exit the alley through the hydraulic chute before they enter the sort system. Lehr purchased a five-way sort system, but can only sort four ways so he fed the hydraulics into the remote and onto the back door of the squeeze. So now the person running the hydraulics can start and stop cattle before they get into the sort system by using the tailgate on the chute. The cattle have no issues going through the chute to exit the alley when they are sorting because they are able to open it wide enough.

Lehr has found many benefits of his new system, the biggest being the calmness of the cattle.

“Their behaviour is so different after compared to the old system,” he said. “They come out of the system, they go into the holding areas, and they just stand there.

“They are calm, they aren’t worked up. It’s really nice to see the change in the cattle.”

The system works well for the handlers, too.

“For me personally, and the employees, we can stand there and process cattle all day. Nobody is miserable and grumpy at the end of the day,” said Lehr.

“With the old system, there was people yelling, things weren’t going well, and nothing went smoothly; the sooner you could get it done, the better. Now it’s a relaxed, calm, quiet atmosphere; nobody minds being there.”

The new system has also reduced the labour component.

“Many jobs — like branding and implanting — require one less person and yet we are still able to process the same or even more head per hour than before.”

However, there’s more staff training now.

“It doesn’t matter what you have for a system, if the cattle aren’t being handled properly then you lose all the advantages of a low-stress system. Productivity goes down and stress goes up,” Lehr said. “It takes some stockmanship skills and training to move cattle through a system in a calm, yet efficient, low-stress manner to get the job done.”

It’s also gratifying to see light bulbs go on — when employees realize that doing the right thing is also easier.

Lehr was able to obtain Growing Forward funds, covering about half the costs. Making the changes to accommodate the new system also required adding some extra pens. The entire project was approximately $80,000.

But you don’t have to spend a lot of money to get better results from your system, he said.

“If you watch your cattle and learn about how they move, there is a lot of things with systems that can be changed.”

That can be as simple as changing the location of a gate or the way cattle come up and enter the handling system.

“Those things don’t cost a lot. It doesn’t have to be huge changes, it’s small things you can change that make a huge difference in the flow of cattle.”

The post Before you can go with the flow, you need to get the flow going appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

For Lacombe-area farmer Colin Rice, preventing these occurrences when they built their feedlot was on their to-do list. Rice, who operates Rice Farms Ltd. with his cousin, decided to start a feedlot when they took over the farm three years ago.

When Rice started the feedlot, he was starting from scratch, so he did his research.

“We travelled around and investigated different operations to see what they had,” he said.

When he went to one operation in particular, he said, they were talking about mats as cattle were being processed. When the cows exited the chute, which was on concrete, they had to turn left because of the way the chute was facing. The producer remarked he had quite a few injuries from the animals exiting the chute too fast.

“After that, we thought, ‘We should put some mats in,’” Rice said. “As we toured around to more operations, the mats seemed to be the best practice.”

He figured since they were starting from scratch, the mats were a minimal expense in the grand scheme of things.

The ones he chose for his chute are a roll-style mat similar to ones used in livestock trailers. The mats are on both the front and back side of the hydraulic chute.

The mats are nice, but just like any farm setup, they still have some issues with them. His chute has a brisket bar built in, so as the cattle exit, they sometimes come out leaning.

“When (the cows) hit the mat, it slides out. When we’re putting 150 head through there, the front mat slides a little bit, every few animals.”

But they have not had any injuries to cattle.

“In three years, we put 1,200 animals through a year, three to four times a year, and we’ve had no injuries at all.”

Mats in the chute area at Rice’s are not just for the cattle. He also has a few smaller “anti-fatigue” mats that he stands on while working the chute.

“It keeps my feet warmer,” he said, adding there’s a noticeable difference compared to standing on the opposite side of the chute where someone must stand on a bare concrete floor.

Having mats to stand on is also easier on joints and knees, he said.

“I’m doing 5,000 steps within two square metres in a day when we’re bringing animals in; it’s way easier on my knees and hips. It seemed like it was a prudent thing to do.”

The post Cattle mats help prevent slips and injuries when processing appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

The late Bud Williams started training producers and feedlot workers in low-stress handling methods three decades ago and today that work is carried on by other trainers, but also by Merck Animal Health.

A program called Creating Connections, developed in the U.S. and launched in Canada in 2016, builds on concepts promoted by Williams, said Amanda Elzinga-Pugh, a Merck account manager in Alberta.

“It’s very innovative,” said Elzinga-Pugh. “The program was designed around establishing confidence and gaining trust in cattle to get them to create better flow and decrease stress versus our traditional view of pushing cattle from behind and moving them that way.

“It’s more of a concept of leading and guiding cattle.”

This fits with the natural behaviour of cattle, which always want to go back to where they came from, always want to move in a half-circle around you, and always want to see their source of guidance.

“For example, if you’re emptying a smaller pen, instead of getting behind the animals in the pen, you try to pick the animals that are focusing in on you and try to get them to pull the rest of the cattle with them,” said Elzinga-Pugh.

Once the front end of the herd is moving, it has almost a magnet effect, pulling the rest of the herd along.

“It’s putting pressure in the right place rather than pushing them all from behind, using pressure and release, which will tend to pull the rest of the herd with them.”

The program refers to the producer as the “caregiver” to emphasize his or her stewardship role.

“It is just more than covering their basic needs — it’s covering their needs to make them as comfortable and stress free as possible,” she said.

There have been some studies that found low-stress handling results in healthier animals and lower incidence of disease. One of the techniques promoted by the program is acclimation — there are three videos alone (out of about two dozen at www.creatingconnections.info) on that practice.

Some of her feedlot clients are using these techniques and seeing results, said Elzinga-Pugh.

“Anecdotally we’ve had a lot of success stories coming out of this from guys whom we’ve worked with,” she said. “So then we start to get some uptake through word of mouth from the success stories from the guys who have tried it and have seen the benefits.”

One of the videos has time-lapse footage of the experience of a timid and slightly weaker — but perfectly healthy — steer at a feedlot. After its first three days at the feedlot, the steer is visibly sick.

The sickness wasn’t because of a viral infection or anything — the steer hadn’t drank any water for two days.

“That really resonated with me,” said Elzinga-Pugh. “You think they’re going to go drink, but they don’t necessarily. It’s our job as caregivers to try to make them more comfortable and confident in their surroundings so they will go drink and they will go eat.”

Acclimation also works for calves.

This concept is called imprinting when used with newborn foals, and it allows animals to get used to humans and makes them easier to train. For example, when it’s time to tag a calf, instead of going out there and jumping and mugging it, it’s recommended to catch the animal gently and then to wait until it calms down before putting on the tag.

“We talk about your first interaction with the calf is something that they could remember for the rest of their life,” said Elzinga-Pugh.

“The desensitizing the calf concept is based on trying to have a good, first positive interaction with that calf because it will make it a lot easier the second time.”

Elzinga-Pugh has applied some of the acclimation and desensitizing concepts on her cattle operation. She and her husband were curious about the recommendation to put cattle through the chute when it’s wide open, allowing them to just walk through. While some would argue it’s not worth the time and effort, they decided to try it.

“We brought the group of heifers in to process, opened up the chute and let the heifers walk through the handling system,” she said. “The second time we brought them in, they walked in like nothing because they had just been through it.”

Creating Connections covers different sectors (cow-calf, stocker, feedlot, and dairy) and online modules sequentially cover all aspects of handling cattle, including stockmanship, transportation, acclimation, worker safety, weaning, and heat stress management.

“There’s also a human safety component,” said Elzinga-Pugh. “We have new feedlots and farms that are getting new workers in or new workers who maybe aren’t familiar with cattle.

“Even for ourselves, (working cattle) can be dangerous. Anything we do to help bring that risk down is a good thing.”

The program’s website has free videos and material, but some of the online content requires a login, so she suggests getting in touch with your Merck rep to obtain access. The company also runs clinics in conjunction with organizations such as Saskatchewan’s Verified Beef Production Plus program. Merck donated a cattle-handling clinic for 20 people for a silent auction at the recent Alberta Beef Industry Conference.

The post Building a little trust with bovines can produce big dividends appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Being prepared for the day can also make things go smoother for both the operators and the cattle.

Focusing on “just the basic repairs and maintenance” can make all the difference, said Peggy Johnson, a former rancher and 2W Livestock Equipment dealer from Fairview.

• Read more: Your facilities don’t have to be fancy to be good

While it may seem obvious, keeping the handling facility properly maintained makes working cattle through it easier.

Johnson’s checklist starts with “greasing everything and making sure all the slider doors are working (and) checking for frayed ropes.”

In addition to the slider doors, make sure all the latches and moving parts on your chute are working properly. This way if you get an animal that is smaller or larger than average, it’s easy to adjust the chute accordingly.

“And make sure the manure is cleared out,” added Johnson.

Manure can literally plug up the system and also freeze in place in the wintertime and cause mechanisms on the chute and in alleyways to not function properly. Too much manure can also cause alleyways and squeeze chute bases to be slippery.

Before working cattle, Johnson always walked through her corral system.

“We just walk through and make sure all the gates leading up to the crowding tub and alleyway are cleared and working.”

This also helps you see what the cattle see. New animals in your herd or ones that haven’t been through a handling system may stop moving if they spot a jacket flapping on a gate adjacent to the chute or a rope that is dangling in the alleyway. Also check on gates that are supposed to be latched to keep cattle out of an area.

Both the weather and time of day can impact on how well the cattle move through both the handling system and corral area.

“In summer, you want to handle them early,” said Johnson, as avoiding the heat of the day keeps from stressing out the animals.

In the winter, the afternoon presents a different problem.

“If it’s a bright, sunny day, the shadows are definitely going to affect (the animals).”

This can cause cattle to not want to move down alleyways smoothly or enter the squeeze chute.

Many ranchers, including Johnson, plan days or weeks ahead based on when they can get extra help. Of course, Mother Nature may not be co-operative, so having a backup or alternate day is a good idea. This is also helpful if cattle require topical treatments, such as a pour-on, as many brands advise not using them if rain is expected within a specific time frame.

If you get outside help, people management is something else that needs to be taken into consideration.

“If you do have somebody else there, then No. 1, you need to know if they know anything about cattle,” said Johnson, who gave an example from her ranch.

One of the people she hired knew how to run a squeeze chute.

“I still think back to that day. Everything went so quick because he knew exactly what to do and how to handle cattle.”

However, on that same day, she had some help who wasn’t so savvy around cattle.

“We had to really, really watch him because we were afraid he was going to get kicked, or ran over. He didn’t have a clue!”

Even if your outside help is familiar with cattle and handling equipment, each brand is designed differently. It’s a good idea to go over how everything works, she said. For example, showing the chute operator how all the moving parts on your chute work.

Once everyone arrives to help work the cattle, make sure everyone knows their specific job and match the right person to the right job, said Johnson, who gave the example of filling syringes.

“If you don’t know how to do it, the wrong person could lose a lot of vaccine out on the ground.”

Also take into consideration the temperament of cattle in your herd and how they act around outsiders. Some cattle may not mind having strangers around while others might see them as a threat.

Having a game plan before the work begins will make the day go a lot smoother, she said, and so will paying attention to what’s happening once the day begins.

The key is “just simply being aware,” she said.

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That was demonstrated by Dr. Kip Lukasiewicz during a live animal-handling session at the Canadian Beef Industry Conference.

“People create the interaction and the guidance,” said the Nebraska veterinarian and consultant who often works with feedlots on animal handling and facility design.

What’s important is always using a positive manner, he told his audience at the Agrium Western Event Centre.

“When we arrive cattle at the feedlot, we always have people to greet the cattle off the truck,” he said. “That’s their first impression of the coyote on the place.”

Coyotes is Lukasiewicz’s term for humans — or rather his description of how cattle view people.

Cattle’s instinctive mistrust of people is why it’s important not to use prods or sticks.

“When you greet cattle, they can see that, right off the bat,” said Lukasiewicz, who teaches handlers to use only their voice and arm movements.

He tries to work on the left side of cattle because they will typically move to the left and therefore watch you from their left eye.

In his demonstration, he moved 15 head through a set of chutes and a squeeze, using a bud box.

“We’ll bring them in, as if they are coming in the truck,” he said. “I’ll put them in the calving pen over there and then I’ll bring them out and I’ll do a dry run through the bud box in the chute and the squeeze.

“The whole time, when I take them out onstage again, what you’ll notice about me on that left eye — I will teach them to stay in single file, coming by me.”

This is all preparation for what happens next. Everything that is done with cattle is about preparing them for the next stage of life, he said.

The cattle, that had never seen the veterinarian before, were just like feedlot cattle and were “pretty workable.”

A good dog can also be a benefit when working cattle.

“I’m not as good as a collie or a keltie that can get out under the fences and come through. If you watch a good cattle dog work, they’re not nipping at heels, per se, they’re just back and forth.”

If Lukasiewicz finds cattle in an arrival pen are skittish, he works with them before they go through processing. He focuses on an animal that has its head up and is looking at him.

“If this was a bigger pen, I’d start here and I’ll put all the pressure I could on that red baldy face,” he said as he moved that animal off of the other ones, and pulled him out.

“I can put pressure down on them and if I need to get it off, I just pull it off,” he said.

All of this is preparation to send them through the bud box or tub system.

Lukasiewicz said that cattle always signal with their ears first, and then their eyes.

“See his ear, he just turned and gave me his eye,” said Lukasiewicz, who studied with the late Bud Williams.

“It’s going to be a challenge, when these cattle came before, they didn’t see all the coyotes up in the stands,” he said, referring to his audience. “So this is what I mean by, just get off their eyes.

“Sometimes cattle will turn back on their handlers in an alley, which is a sign that the handler needs to change focus. Draw back, don’t make a commotion.”

Cattle should be given space and taught they can move past people in a calm manner, he said.

However, some pressure is sometimes needed.

“If the cattle start turning and trying to find me, then I’m too far off. I have to get right over on his eye, slow the pressure on his eye,” he said.

The secret is not about working very hard — just being with the cattle and teaching them that humans are OK.

“Just teaching these cattle that everything we’re doing to them is just to settle them down,” he said.

Reducing stress while handling livestock can result in better cattle health, and fewer treatments when the cattle enter the feedlot pen, he said. It can also improve respiratory health, and reduce lameness and toe abscesses.

The post Keep calm — and stay on the left — when working cattle appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.