You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.

—Winston Churchill

Here’s Richard getting the projector set just right before we gave a three hour talk in Monroe City, Missouri. Steve Yates, Adult Ag Leader Teacher, had us come up and speak to his group of interested ranchers and hog farmers.

Before we spoke, we all ate a great meal prepared by JoLynn Yates, Steve’s wife (far right).

“If you look at what you have in life and give thanks for it, you’ll always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life and complain about it, you’ll never have enough.”

—Keith Cook

Richard and I gave a short presentation about Stockmanship at the Spring Forage Conference in Springfield, Missouri. We also had the opportunity to hear Dave Pratt of Ranching for Profit speak. He’s got a lot of great stuff to encourage ranchers to think more about their business.

Richard and I put on a 1.5 day school in Muskogee, Oklahoma for the Four Mile Branch Association starting Friday for 4 hours and finishing with a full day on Saturday.

As always, there were lots of questions at the end!

We will put on a one-day stockmanship school in Greenville, Missouri on March 12. We are really looking forward to meeting folks in the SE corner of the state and spreading the word about stockmanship!

Join us there! Click here for more information

Richard and I gave a short presentation on Stockmanship to the Women in Ag group of Cedar County, Missouri last night. Dinner was super, the audience was lively, and we tried to at least give them some idea of what better stockmanship might do for their operations!

I happened to be reading a website written by another person who teaches and advocates for low-stress stockmanship. In the article, the author described the “Bud Williams method” by saying he approaches the animals as a predator would, circling and putting just enough stress on the animals to cause “anxiety” so they will move away.

I don’t offer criticism of what other people might write or believe or do. That’s up to them. However, if they say the Bud Williams method (which is what we also teach) does or means one thing when it means a totally different thing, then I do have to speak up.

One of the cornerstones of the Bud Williams method of stockmanship is NOT behaving as a predator! One of the main rules of approaching and working animals is NOT circle them in any way. All movement of the handler should be in totally straight lines back and forth so you do not represent yourself as a predator! You are not trying to make the animals anxious so they move off. You are pressuring the animals and teaching them that, as you pressure in a certain way and they move off in a certain way, the pressure is relieved. After consistent use of this, they learn how to move as you pressure, there is absolutely NO anxiety of any sort by either the animals or the handler, and everyone feels the fun of the day rather than runs from the anxiety.

Anxious animals is exactly what we want to avoid. How could you take the stress off newly weaned stocker calves by invoking anxiety?

I was visiting with a fella the other day and he asked about using stock dogs, and didn’t they behave as predators so defeating the anti-predator state? I explained that a good dog doesn’t behave toward the livestock as a predator. Even if the dog nips at the heels of a cow, he’s simply applying pressure and release. The cow wasn’t moving like he’s asked her, he pressures into her (bites), she moves forward, and he stops biting and moves on.

I watched an episode of “The Dog Whisperer” where Cesar Milan was helping a couple with a Bouvier des Flandres. Way back in the history of this breed, they were a livestock herding dog. As with many “city dogs,” they wind up with way too much energy and no way to release it. Cesar took the dog to a place in LA with a flock of sheep where city folks can bring their herding dogs to work sheep (honest, I’m not fooling you on this one!) and turned the dog out with the herd. At first he just chased the sheep, and then after he released some energy and got to remembering the little bits of instinct way back in his brain, he settled into a nice gather. Cesar told the owners to notice the difference, and he specifically said that, first the dog was behaving as a predator, but then he settled down into the herding attitude!

If this fru-fru city dog could pull up the right attitude to herd sheep rather than predate on them, can’t we?

We took a walk out to check on the calves, and I took some photos of the near white-out conditions. Had to combine this with a holiday greeting!

We have been wanting to sell calves for several weeks, but the snow has really made that difficult. We like to sell at a Saturday auction, and it’s been the weather habit to storm heavy on Friday, making a Saturday load-out more difficult. Also, the place in our corral where we usually load-out is difficult to get in and out of if the ground isn’t solid. We got up early yesterday and tried to spot the trailer while the ground was still frozen, but just couldn’t get it and also realized, even if we could spot it right and load it, we probably couldn’t get it out even with the help of the tractor.

So, Richard said, “why don’t we load them in the lane?” And I said, “sure, that’s a great idea!” So we did.

I know, we aren’t posting video of the actual load, so you will just have to take our word for it. We spotted the trailer a ways down our lane, put a little panel on each side, opened the back swinging gate, and loaded them! These photos are taken after we shut the back gate on the 10 calves.

One key point when setting up a load like this is keeping the panels totally flat. Resist the temptation to make a “funnel” which would seem to be perfect to “force” the animals into the back of the trailer. It won’t work nearly as well as a flat back!

Ok, I just had to include one “artsy” photo of Richard heading out with the calves for their scenic tour of Polk County in the snow!

Speaking of snow, it was lovely when we started the loading, not too cold (about 28 degrees) and no wind or snow. However, during the sorting process, I noticed these BIG white things floating around. Then they got thicker and thicker, and it was almost a white-out by the end of the loading!