It’s often said of leaders that they “reshaped” their field. In Dr. Temple Grandin’s case, this is literally true. Over a third of all the cattle and hogs processed in the country are handled through facilities Grandin designed.
According to her own descriptions, she created these designs from the animals’ eye view. She has credited her autism with giving her unique insight into how particularly visual, but also auditory and tactile, stimuli impact livestock behavior, and has designed handling systems with these things in mind.
Few people have had such wide-reaching physical impacts on the livestock industry, let alone women who began when, where, and how she did. Grandin began working in the livestock industry in the early 1970s, when being a woman working in and around livestock at feedyards and packing plants was “a big, really big problem.”
“They just didn’t think a girl should be out there working cattle,” she said of the cowboy foremen, a group she said gave her the most trouble early on.
In talking to WLJ about her experiences as a woman, she briefly mentioned being poorly treated and encountering flabbergasting double-standards. However, she also framed it as motivating.
“I had to be three times better than the guys. One of the things that motivated me back in the early ‘70s, when I did those dip vat projects, was I wanted to prove I wasn’t stupid and could actually do it. That was a big motivator for me.”
Grandin was also quick to note that there were many good people in the industry who helped and encouraged her in those early years, specifically naming Sam McElhaney, Gary Oden, and Jim Uhl. She also excitedly reported that she has seen things change drastically for women entering ag today.
“That is the good news!”
Good and bad news on management
Grandin’s focus has always been on livestock handling, so she did not dwell long on her experiences as a woman in the industry. Instead, she talked at length about the changes she’s seen in livestock handling and management. She counted improvements in animal handling as more very good news.
“We’ve gotten rid of a lot of rough handling and have really improved livestock handling. That is good. We’ve done a lot on things like reducing bruising and injection site damage in cattle and pigs both. That is good.”
She also added that slaughtering livestock has changed “100 percent” from what it was back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, a time she will often call “the bad old days.”
However, Grandin said those successes were “the easy part” and that she’s starting to see new issues, particularly creeping problems related to lameness and liver abscesses which she generally blamed on genetics and being fed “too hot.”
“One of the benefits of having been around for 44 years is I can tell you what used to not happen,” she said.
Something that didn’t used to happen in the past, according to Grandin, was fed cattle showing up lame at packing plants.
“We had the occasional injured animal, but we never had stiff cattle coming in. That just never happened.”
She attributed this rise in lameness in fed cattle mostly to genetics.
“Twenty years ago, when the pig industry blindly selected for three economically-important traits—rapid growth, thin backfat, and a big loin—they got horrendous feet and leg conformation issues. I think we’ve got to not repeat these mistakes in cattle.”
Grandin urged that lameness needs to be measured so that it can be managed, but also outlined an easy way to observe lameness in the feedlot.
“The normal way that cattle sleep when they’re lying on their chest, is they fold both front legs under their body. If they’ve got one leg sticking out and the other leg tucked, that leg extended straight out is sore. They don’t want to bend that joint. That’s an abnormal posture. If you see that in a feedyard, people need to start doing something about it.”
Another thing that Grandin says people in the industry need to start doing something about is what she calls “nasty inside.” She defined this in cattle as liver abscesses, sometimes extreme to the point of rupturing and spilling pus into the body cavity, and liver adhesions to the body wall.
“To put it real simply, some people are feeding them too hot,” she said. “They’re not putting enough roughage in the ration. If you put more roughage in the ration, you could prevent the liver abscesses. It gets back to pushing the system too hard.”
Grandin acknowledged that producers can be resistant to change or take recommendations of problems as personal attacks. However, her perspective on the current problems is a pragmatic one: Measure the problems and “get after it.”
“If you’re bringing cattle into the plant and they’re lame or they have piles of liver abscesses, then let’s fix it,” she said. “We have to optimize the whole system.” — Kerry Halladay, WLJ editor
