How to Herd Cattle
Acknowledge how your frame of mind and behaviour will influence animal movement., Understand the difference between human instinct versus bovine instinct., Recognize the possibility that instinctual human behaviour has a significant influence on how...
Step-by-Step Guide
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Step 1: Acknowledge how your frame of mind and behaviour will influence animal movement.
All animals, including cattle, are incredibly sensitive to our attitude and our frame of mind, and will always be a mirror to what we're actually feeling, even when we don't realize it at the time.
If you are excited or tense, they will also be excited and tense.
If you are calm and quiet, they will also be calm and quiet.
When working with cattle, then, it is so very important to be in the right frame of mind because cattle are more likely to respond well versus if you were not in the right frame of mind.
In other words, if you are working cattle in an anything-but-calm emotional state, those animals are surely going to be anything but calm too.
You may find that you can work with cattle--and this goes for any other animal, dogs, cats, goats, horses, or even chickens--if you allow yourself to have a clear head and a calm attitude.
You may find that, by putting yourself in a calm state, you will be able to think more clearly and deliberately communicate your intentions to the animals you are working with.
And the animals are less likely to be confused as well.
Your behaviour has a huge influence on how even an individual cow, not to mention an entire herd, regardless of size, will perceive you.
If your behaviour is such that you don't care or are holding back too much, they'll take advantage of that and not interested in doing as you ask.
On the opposite spectrum, if you're too aggressive and forceful, they also won't be interested in listening to you.
So, to be successful, pick the middle of the road:
Be intentional in your actions, be deliberate, and be assertive, but never to the point of being aggressive and forceful. -
Step 2: Understand the difference between human instinct versus bovine instinct.
Just to give you a taste, humans and cattle sit at the opposite end of the spectrum:
We have humans, which are predatory animals, and cattle, which are prey animals.
Humans, as predatory animals, aren't much different from other predatory animals in how we perceive ourselves and those around us.
When working with animals, not just cattle, our instincts are to:
Slow or stop animals Want animals to face us; give us eye-contact, not turn away (because, to us this means they're "going to run away.") Keep pushing or push from behind, even when animals are already on their way and know where they're going.
Circle around (classic predatory behaviour), to "cut off" or, as already mentioned, stop or slow down animals.
To give chase because we think something is trying to run away. (This goes right back to instinctually wanting to slow or stop an animal.) Not to back up, but rather stay put or just keep pushing forward, or even turn away.
Cows and other prey animals (horses, goats, bison, sheep, chickens, elk, buffalo, and even pigs) think differently from us.
Their instincts are to:
Want to see what is pressuring them.
Move in the direction they are headed (i.e., if they want to go to that patch of woods, that's where they'll go; if they're heading straight they'll go straight).
Follow other animals.
Have very little patience.
In other words, they won't wait around for long if you're trying to figure out how to move them, so they'll just keep going or doing what they were going to do in the first place, or whatever first pops in their heads. , We have to remember that, because cattle are prey animals, they are going to respond as prey animals will, and that is if they find any animal acting as a predator, regardless if it's a wolf or a man, they will act as any prey animal will and choose flight first before stopping and facing said predator as a last-ditch defence.
Cattle instinctually know how to avoid predators; those that have had to live for extended periods without human contact (and there are many of such animals that exist in many parts of the world), have had to tap into those instincts to survive.
Some livestock handling methods recommend to "act like a predator" to successfully move cattle, but these methods may not always work, because it doesn't build trust nor give your animals the means to believe that you are not there to hurt them or cause fear.
Instinctively, predatory actions induce fear into prey animals, which goes hand-in-hand with mistrust.
Just like you'd want your horse to trust you enough to allow you on his back, you should want your cattle to trust that you are going to move them to some place where they feel safe, and also move them in a way that they are all going to willingly go there.
You can easily tell if your animals do not trust you and don't want to do as you are "asking" by the way their heads are held (high up, ears pricked, bodies tense with that "look" like they're ready to flee), and how they are hesitate and resistant to move. , Going back to the second part of step 2 above, the instincts of cattle are basically from that of a one-track mind:
They just want to go where they're headed, see what's pressuring them, and follow others.
Going beyond that, when working closely with cattle, some extra points to realize that livestock like doing:
Livestock like to go by us; They also like to go around us.
Cattle always like to go back the same way they came from; they prefer to go back to the last place they felt safe. , Each individual animal has what is called a "flight bubble" or "flight zone"
which can also be called a "pressure zone"
though arguably the pressure zone is just slightly outside of the true flight zone.
This zone is basically an invisible oval bubble surrounding the animal.
Its size varies for each animal, from almost no discernible zone, to a zone that can be least 50 yards (46 m) in size.
For example, bison typically have a larger pressure/flight zone bubble than cattle do.
This "bubble" is used as a means to move animals, done so in a way that it takes advantage of an animal's zone of comfort as well as point of vision.
Thus, when moving an animal, you should always be where the animal can see you.
Cattle have a 330º field of vision.
They don't see very well right in front of their noses and can't see directly behind them, so do not pressure them at either of these points.
Instead, to take advantage of this pressure zone, you must apply pressure from either hip or either shoulder right up to the neck.
A cow will move forward if you continually correct her, from the hip or by crossing in behind, whenever she needs to turn her head to see you.
This is why it's so important to make sure you are where you can be seen!! To turn an animal, go in the opposite direction of where you want the cow to go, just like you would with backing up a trailer.
If an animal is turning to look at you, it's because you're not in a place where they can see you or feel you pressuring them to move.
Either you need to move out farther to the side, or you need to move closer.
Manipulating this bubble so that the animal goes to where you ask it takes patience and knowing how to move on your part.
You will not always be moving forward, you will have to often either stop, move away, walk with the animals, or back up to release pressure off the animal. , Release is a form of reward and a way to remove the stress we put on animals to get them moving in the direction we ask them to.
Release works hand-in-hand with pressure, and should always be kept in conjunction with pressure in order to give animals the sense that they're doing something good and that it's always going to come after pressure is applied.
To apply release is to slow down, stop, move away, walk with the animals, or back up, depending on the location of where animals are being handled and how they are responding to pressure.
Doing these will not only relieve pressure on the animals for us to be able to make necessary adjustments, but also draw animals toward us, or slow down/stop the animals. , The first taste of learning proper herdsmanship or stockmanship of working cattle is going to seem confusing and will require lots of practice and continual learning.
Bud Williams, for instance, was always learning how to best handle cattle up to when he passed away.
Other stockmen like Steve Cote, Richard McConnell and Tina Williams, Dylan Biggs, and Curt Pate are other good people worth looking into and learning more from.
Temple Grandin is also good for a lot of basics with handling cattle. -
Step 3: Recognize the possibility that instinctual human behaviour has a significant influence on how animals are going to respond.
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Step 4: Understand how cattle think and what they like to do.
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Step 5: Familiarize yourself with how cattle move in response to pressure.
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Step 6: Understand why release is important after applying pressure.
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Step 7: Watch some cattle handling videos by stockmanship experts to get a feel of what's involved.
Detailed Guide
All animals, including cattle, are incredibly sensitive to our attitude and our frame of mind, and will always be a mirror to what we're actually feeling, even when we don't realize it at the time.
If you are excited or tense, they will also be excited and tense.
If you are calm and quiet, they will also be calm and quiet.
When working with cattle, then, it is so very important to be in the right frame of mind because cattle are more likely to respond well versus if you were not in the right frame of mind.
In other words, if you are working cattle in an anything-but-calm emotional state, those animals are surely going to be anything but calm too.
You may find that you can work with cattle--and this goes for any other animal, dogs, cats, goats, horses, or even chickens--if you allow yourself to have a clear head and a calm attitude.
You may find that, by putting yourself in a calm state, you will be able to think more clearly and deliberately communicate your intentions to the animals you are working with.
And the animals are less likely to be confused as well.
Your behaviour has a huge influence on how even an individual cow, not to mention an entire herd, regardless of size, will perceive you.
If your behaviour is such that you don't care or are holding back too much, they'll take advantage of that and not interested in doing as you ask.
On the opposite spectrum, if you're too aggressive and forceful, they also won't be interested in listening to you.
So, to be successful, pick the middle of the road:
Be intentional in your actions, be deliberate, and be assertive, but never to the point of being aggressive and forceful.
Just to give you a taste, humans and cattle sit at the opposite end of the spectrum:
We have humans, which are predatory animals, and cattle, which are prey animals.
Humans, as predatory animals, aren't much different from other predatory animals in how we perceive ourselves and those around us.
When working with animals, not just cattle, our instincts are to:
Slow or stop animals Want animals to face us; give us eye-contact, not turn away (because, to us this means they're "going to run away.") Keep pushing or push from behind, even when animals are already on their way and know where they're going.
Circle around (classic predatory behaviour), to "cut off" or, as already mentioned, stop or slow down animals.
To give chase because we think something is trying to run away. (This goes right back to instinctually wanting to slow or stop an animal.) Not to back up, but rather stay put or just keep pushing forward, or even turn away.
Cows and other prey animals (horses, goats, bison, sheep, chickens, elk, buffalo, and even pigs) think differently from us.
Their instincts are to:
Want to see what is pressuring them.
Move in the direction they are headed (i.e., if they want to go to that patch of woods, that's where they'll go; if they're heading straight they'll go straight).
Follow other animals.
Have very little patience.
In other words, they won't wait around for long if you're trying to figure out how to move them, so they'll just keep going or doing what they were going to do in the first place, or whatever first pops in their heads. , We have to remember that, because cattle are prey animals, they are going to respond as prey animals will, and that is if they find any animal acting as a predator, regardless if it's a wolf or a man, they will act as any prey animal will and choose flight first before stopping and facing said predator as a last-ditch defence.
Cattle instinctually know how to avoid predators; those that have had to live for extended periods without human contact (and there are many of such animals that exist in many parts of the world), have had to tap into those instincts to survive.
Some livestock handling methods recommend to "act like a predator" to successfully move cattle, but these methods may not always work, because it doesn't build trust nor give your animals the means to believe that you are not there to hurt them or cause fear.
Instinctively, predatory actions induce fear into prey animals, which goes hand-in-hand with mistrust.
Just like you'd want your horse to trust you enough to allow you on his back, you should want your cattle to trust that you are going to move them to some place where they feel safe, and also move them in a way that they are all going to willingly go there.
You can easily tell if your animals do not trust you and don't want to do as you are "asking" by the way their heads are held (high up, ears pricked, bodies tense with that "look" like they're ready to flee), and how they are hesitate and resistant to move. , Going back to the second part of step 2 above, the instincts of cattle are basically from that of a one-track mind:
They just want to go where they're headed, see what's pressuring them, and follow others.
Going beyond that, when working closely with cattle, some extra points to realize that livestock like doing:
Livestock like to go by us; They also like to go around us.
Cattle always like to go back the same way they came from; they prefer to go back to the last place they felt safe. , Each individual animal has what is called a "flight bubble" or "flight zone"
which can also be called a "pressure zone"
though arguably the pressure zone is just slightly outside of the true flight zone.
This zone is basically an invisible oval bubble surrounding the animal.
Its size varies for each animal, from almost no discernible zone, to a zone that can be least 50 yards (46 m) in size.
For example, bison typically have a larger pressure/flight zone bubble than cattle do.
This "bubble" is used as a means to move animals, done so in a way that it takes advantage of an animal's zone of comfort as well as point of vision.
Thus, when moving an animal, you should always be where the animal can see you.
Cattle have a 330º field of vision.
They don't see very well right in front of their noses and can't see directly behind them, so do not pressure them at either of these points.
Instead, to take advantage of this pressure zone, you must apply pressure from either hip or either shoulder right up to the neck.
A cow will move forward if you continually correct her, from the hip or by crossing in behind, whenever she needs to turn her head to see you.
This is why it's so important to make sure you are where you can be seen!! To turn an animal, go in the opposite direction of where you want the cow to go, just like you would with backing up a trailer.
If an animal is turning to look at you, it's because you're not in a place where they can see you or feel you pressuring them to move.
Either you need to move out farther to the side, or you need to move closer.
Manipulating this bubble so that the animal goes to where you ask it takes patience and knowing how to move on your part.
You will not always be moving forward, you will have to often either stop, move away, walk with the animals, or back up to release pressure off the animal. , Release is a form of reward and a way to remove the stress we put on animals to get them moving in the direction we ask them to.
Release works hand-in-hand with pressure, and should always be kept in conjunction with pressure in order to give animals the sense that they're doing something good and that it's always going to come after pressure is applied.
To apply release is to slow down, stop, move away, walk with the animals, or back up, depending on the location of where animals are being handled and how they are responding to pressure.
Doing these will not only relieve pressure on the animals for us to be able to make necessary adjustments, but also draw animals toward us, or slow down/stop the animals. , The first taste of learning proper herdsmanship or stockmanship of working cattle is going to seem confusing and will require lots of practice and continual learning.
Bud Williams, for instance, was always learning how to best handle cattle up to when he passed away.
Other stockmen like Steve Cote, Richard McConnell and Tina Williams, Dylan Biggs, and Curt Pate are other good people worth looking into and learning more from.
Temple Grandin is also good for a lot of basics with handling cattle.
About the Author
Andrew Nguyen
Dedicated to helping readers learn new skills in pet care and beyond.
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