New Age Techniques to Herd Cattle Create Mellow Cows, Backers Say

DURANGO, Colo. —  When Tim McGaffic teaches people to herd cattle, he tells a story.

It is based on a fairly straightforward analogy: Cattle are the persecuted, and the cowboys rounding them up are the persecutors.

It is an analogy that helps people empathize with the animals’ state of mind, said McGaffic, an Ignacio ranch consultant and educator on low-stress management techniques.

“How would you feel if you lived in this little town and one day these black helicopters flew over the hill?” McGaffic asked.

“And then these people jumped out who didn’t speak your language and they herded everybody into the local gymnasium, and if you tried to get away they would shoot at you and holler and come after you.

“Then you were separated from your children and they did something to your children, and suddenly they just went away. Then you had to go find your kids, and you really didn’t know what’s going on.

“That is sort of the analogy of what it’s like when the cowboys show up. Suddenly you are jammed in this herd and you’re going somewhere.”

McGaffic said cattle react with anxiety.

“They see the cowboys coming and they push up or run off, because they know something’s happening and it’s not pleasant,” he said.

Temple Grandin, an assistant professor at Colorado State University, said nervous cattle become sickly. They will continue to thrash about at the plant, putting handlers at risk of injury. They also produce a poor-quality meat that is dark and dry, Grandin said.

“It’s a serious quality defect that costs the industry millions of dollars a year,” Grandin said. “When you vacuum-package this dark meat, it doesn’t last as long in the grocer’s case.”

McGaffic says there is a better way to treat cattle, and it requires retraining animals and humans alike. The method: Slow down and be quiet.

“In the traditional method, the cowboys are always behind the cattle, chasing them,” said McGaffic, 49. “They are . . . hollerin’ all the time, hup, hup, ho, all day long.”

Cattle, which hear better than humans, just want quiet, McGaffic said, and they don’t want to be chased.

Grandin said research has shown that yelling stresses cattle. “It will make their heart rate go up more than the sound of a gate slamming.”

Horse-riding cowboys also force cattle to walk at an unnatural pace, McGaffic said. A horse walks at 4 mph, but cattle amble at 2 mph.

Though cattle are a prey species, they also have family groups and a pecking order, McGaffic said. When they are herded, their social order is changed and chaos is created.

“We are making the herd out to be the worst place to be, when it ought to be the best,” McGaffic said.

The cure is a dose of bovine psychology.

The animals always want to see the cowboy, and they want to follow other animals. They have little patience, and if a cowboy gets behind them, they will stop and look.

“It’s like if you had a co-worker in the office walk behind you and push you around a little bit. See what you do,” McGaffic said. “You would keep turning around to see them to see what he’s going to do next.

“Cattle tend to be the same. They don’t like it.”

McGaffic teaches his students to drive cattle from the side, eventually working up to the front of the animal. This removes pressure from the animal, but allows the herder to reapply it if necessary.

Grandin said the techniques are geared to trigger the animals’ instinct to bunch together.

The methods work regardless of herd size, Grandin said.

By reducing stress in the animal, the propensity for sickness is lowered, and there is less wear and tear on the cowboys, horses and dogs, McGaffic said.

McGaffic arrived in Colorado in 1973 and teaches holistic management and horse classes.

He teaches individuals, but mainly groups. In May, he taught the management class for the Quivara Coalition in Santa Fe, a nonprofit group that promotes environmental ranching techniques.

Courtney White, executive director and co-founder of the coalition, said the 25 attendees from four states were enthusiastic about the methods.

“I was sitting in the back of the class and thought, ‘Boy, John Wayne is probably rolling over in his grave right now. They don’t prod and yell at the animals, and they treat the animals humanely.’ ”

In November, the Hawaii Cattlemen’s Assn. hired McGaffic to teach two low-stress stock-handling clinics.

Kevin Mallow, an agent for the La Plata County Extension Office, said McGaffic’s techniques have been used for generations. “Many old-timers did their herding with a feed sack,” Mallow said. “They would feed them for a few days out of a sack, and on the third day tempt them forward.”

But Mallow, who has been working cattle all his life, said the animals don’t care how they are being driven. “If they are being driven, you’re still driving them,” he said.

Mallow said calves experience the most stress during weaning.

Hesperus rancher Davin Montoya said weaning weights and conception rates are important in profitability, but agreed with the low-stress principles only to a point. “If you are running cattle as a business, it usually doesn’t work,” Montoya said.

McGaffic learned the techniques from Bud Williams, who lives in Canada and teaches low-stress techniques at a feedlot.

McGaffic said the first year Williams was at the feedlot the business had a $20,000 reduction in medical costs.

McGaffic, a former ranch manager who has run thousands of head, said that after he started using the techniques, almost no cattle needed medical attention.

McGaffic has used the techniques to run 2,800 yearlings with just one or two people helping.

Grandin said the challenge is changing people’s minds about handling techniques.

“People think they have to rush cattle to get them done fast,” she said. “But in a feed yard, with low-stress methods, I can move 99% into a squeeze chute without an electric prod.

“They say they don’t have time to do these methods, but they have plenty of time to fix all the broken gates, broken fences and chase them all around for two to three hours.

“That doesn’t make much sense.”