Practically Ranching
Join Matt Perrier as he visits weekly with interesting, thoughtful, entertaining individuals within the beef community. Conversations will inspire curiosity and creativity while maintaining the independent spirit and practical nature for which ranchers are known.
Practically Ranching
#54 - Temple Grandin, Practical Ways to Make Things Better
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Dr. Temple Grandin is a professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University. She is a livestock industry consultant, offering advice on animal behavior. She is also an autism spokesperson and advocate.
www.grandin.com
Hello, and thanks for joining us for episode 54 of practically ranching. I'm your host, Matt Perrier. As always this week's podcast is sponsored by Dale banks, Angus of Eureka, Kansas. Be sure to stick around at the end of today's show to find out about a super set of bulls and foundation females that we are offering for sale at private treaty right now. Once in a while, I can't help, but to look up and ask the good Lord above. "How in the world that I just get to do this?" As I finished up editing this week's podcast. I said those very words. This week's guest is a special one. You know, I've gotten to host some pretty well-recognized folks over the past couple of years, but none quite like Dr. Temple Grandin. She's become a rock star over the last four or five decades of work within the beef community. I briefly got to meet temple a cup. I asked several years ago at a meeting, but I had never actually gotten to interact with her on a personal level until about a month ago when Amy and I got the opportunity to. Travel down to Austin and be part of a panel discussion during south by Southwest. I presume that she needs no introduction, but if you don't know Temple's story, I suggest that you check out the 2010 film starring Claire Danes appropriately named temple Grandin. Dr. Grandin is a professor of animal science at Colorado state university. She's the livestock industry consultant. She offers advice on animal behavior and animal welfare. She's also an autism spokesperson and an advocate for folks with autism across the globe. As usual, I've included several links to this work in the show notes. Now as you'll notice in our discussion. Temple and I are, are kind of opposites. No we're really opposites. She is a visual thinker. I'm very verbal. Very verbal as anyone who has listened to this podcast going to test, but we do share some similarities. First. She acted out and got into a lot of trouble in school because she was bored. I did too. She majored in psychology. I've. Kind of wished that I did because I'm so fascinated with how people's minds work. You know, through the years, my family is looked at her livestock drawings and even used some equipment that she's had a hand in designing. I've adopted cattle handling techniques that have at least had some assemblance of her advice on flight zones and reading. Cattle. But it's my fascination with interesting minds like hers. That has always made me a fan of Dr. Temple Grandin. I tried to keep this podcast, fairly beef producer centric, but it was all I could do to keep from having an in-depth discussion about neurodivergence in the autism spectrum and how our education system. Needs to be redesigned to better allow for individual talents to be nurtured. W we'll touch on those issues. But I did try to focus on Temple's work in the animal ag segment. Now I had a pretty good idea of her work with animal welfare and handling, but there are several other ag areas managed, grazing cover crops. artificial intelligence and even managing for optimums, not necessarily maximums that I did not realize just how similar our perspectives might be. Now fair warning. Temple did not have a great microphone or any headphones. And so you're going to have to put up with some echoes of my voice coming back through her speakers in the audio. And her active quick mind doesn't allow for wind bags like me to drone on and on trying to get the question out. So there may be a few more interruptions throughout. And finally Dr. Grandin calls a spade, a spade. So be prepared for your ox to get gored every once in a while. And I had to do the same. Regardless. It was an honor to get an hour of her time. And I hope you'll enjoy the opportunity to hear from one of the great minds in the beef industry. So thanks for tuning in God, bless you all. And enjoy this conversation. With temple Grandin.
Track 1Amy and I just loved our opportunity to get to know you a little better in, in Austin a couple weeks ago at South by Southwest.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626That was really wonderful.
Track 1It was, it was, that was an interesting, uh, I'd never been, I knew a little bit about it just from reading and hearing about it, but, uh, you, you're an old pro, right? You've been down there before, I believe. Okay.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626I was down there one time, I think about ten years ago. It was a while back.
Track 1Well, that was a, it was a great event and a great message and we enjoyed every bit of it. So it's been a few years since I saw you on the HBO movie that they wrote about your life. and I think I remember most of the high points, but if you would give me and our listeners a little refresher of how you got into the whole animal handling and cattle facility design space years ago. Thank you.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626Well, it all started with getting introduced to cattle as a teenager. I did not come from an ag background. So this brings up a really important thing. Students get interested in things they get exposed to. And I went out to my aunt's ranch when I was a teenager. And that was my first trip west. And that's where it all started. Um, and I started out writing for our state farm magazine. And there's a scene in the HBO movie where I go up and I get the editor's card. Because I knew if I wrote for that magazine, it would really help my career. Too often, students don't see doors to opportunity. And, uh, writing for that magazine and becoming the livestock editor of it for seven years was really important in getting my career started.
Track 1So you wrote about it first, and then you started actually handling those animals a little bit more and designing,
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626handling animals even before I, um, I got the, um, editor's card. Now one thing that's really nice in the HBO movie is it shows exactly how I think visually. It shows how I think in pictures. All my memories are in pictures. Pictures. And so the very first thing I ever did in cattle handling was to get down in the chutes to see what cattle were seeing. And I noticed that they'd stop at a shadow or they'd stop at a coat on a fence or the, or maybe a vehicle passing by. And if you remove these distractions, they would go through the shoots a lot more easily. That was my very, very first research I ever did.
Track 1Well, that left an indelible mark on me and really all my family. In fact, my dad, who is now, I think he's probably close to your age, a couple years older maybe, And every time we are working cattle and have a little bit of an issue with cattle balking at a certain place, he will get back and look and say, Oh, it's got to be that shadow or it's got to be that, coat hanging on a fence or whatever. And quite often he's right. Um, you know, you make one little adjustment and all of a sudden the rest of the day goes smoother. Until you started pointing some of those things out to the industry decades ago, we just worked harder or we pushed harder or we thought we could, you know, force the cattle to do
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626what you did is he watched for that leader to come up and look right at the thing They did not like They'll actually show it to you about two years ago. I was involved in a big startup for a big huge beef plant They called me up in the night shift. They were just in a panic And they said well the cattle go halfway up the single file and then they just stopped I said, now bring them up there really calm, and watch where the leader looks. And it was a portable construction light. Well, they got rid of that, and it solved the problem. The leader showed them what it was. But if you bring them up there too wild and crazy, they'll just turn back on you. You bring him up nice and calm, that leader will look right at the thing he doesn't like chain hanging down, coat on a fence, uh, metal strip across the floor, whatever it is.
Track 1yeah, I would agree. I've even, In some cattle handling discussions that I've been part of, or even gotten an opportunity to kind of lead on a small basis, I have sometimes equated, maybe this, you may disagree, but I've equated our educational system, and the fact that we've focused for the last several decades on trying to focus at those who are at quote unquote the bottom of the class instead of focusing on those leaders, whether they get great grades or not, focus on those leaders and letting everyone else follow along with them. I know you and I had a really interesting discussion there in the green room in Austin about kids that who think in pictures as you do, sometimes falling through the cracks in our
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626you see the visual thinkers like me can't do higher math. I don't know how I graduated from high school. I still can't do algebra. But then another kind of kid is a math genius kid. And I've been hearing some real horror stories. He says elementary school children where they won't let them do harder math. And they turn into behavior problems. Because they're making them do baby math over and over again, and all you'd have to do is just give them some high school math books, and the kid's gonna have a great time, and the behavior problems would go away. You see, they, there's still not enough evidence on building up the skill area, either. Now, for my kind of thinker, and I talk about different kinds of thinking in my book, Visual Thinking, the hidden gifts of people who think in pictures, patterns, and abstractions, I think completely in pictures, in pictures. But there's other people that think in patterns. They're mathematicians. And then you have people that are word thinkers, and then you've got people that are mixtures of the different kinds of thinking. And they have complementary skills. Yeah,
Track 1Yeah, without a doubt, without a doubt, and so often we miss those opportunities because almost like that animal that was balking, we didn't, we don't step back and give them an opportunity to tell us or show us what it is, why it is that they're hesitating or why it is that they're acting out and yeah, it's unfortunate. So as we see more technology adoption in the beef industry. Do we have more opportunities and more jobs for some of those folks like yourself that, that think in pictures or even in patterns to help us design the next either facility upgrade or program to find better genetics or whatever the case may be, or are there more opportunities going forth?
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626what the visual thinkers can do. Visual thinkers, and I worked with a lot of them when I was designing livestock equipment, can just see how machines work. And we're always going to need these people to fix things like water pumps and elevators, all kinds of mechanical devices. We're going to need the visual thinkers. Now where the mathematician is going to really shine is, um, developing artificial intelligence systems. I just went out to dairy and in New York, about three hours out, uh, uh, outside of a New York city and it was, they've got an AI system that works off some collars that Merck has put out. The dairyman loves it. They were able to download this software onto the, his computer, his old computer. And he can tell which cows are sick and which cows are ready for AI breeding. And it doesn't inundate him with too much stuff, it just gives him a list and it's all artificial intelligence. And there's a collar on the cow with a accelerometer on it, can detect rumination of the movement. Real simple to install. Didn't have to learn how to use it. And then I hear about another person's got another system coming off some milking equipment that's inundating them with information. And it's like useless where this thing tells them you got five cows that are sick today and gives you their numbers. Five cows probably need to breed today and it all works off artificial intelligence. I'm from the cattle's motion. Now, with that kind of system, you have to do your training data set it right. I don't understand the math, but I've reviewed some papers on artificial intelligence. Let me tell you, I rip into how they do the training data because that's got to be done right or the AI isn't going to work. And then it makes stuff up.
Track 1Yeah.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626What this was working just fine and the dairyman absolutely loved it and he didn't have to learn how to use it. You just put the collars on the cows. There was some wiring he had to put up in the ceiling of the barn to talk to the collars and. And it just worked. You didn't have to learn how to use it. And then when I said it was a cow that was sick, he says, Yep, bring her in. She either had a fever or she had mastitis.
Track 1Yes. Yeah, seems like we've, uh, come quite a ways from there in the, what, early 80s when you started first observing the beef industry. What, what progress have we made, whether it be in cattle handling or? design or?
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626handling is so much better. When I started in the 70s, Cattle handling was horrible, absolutely horrible. You know, electric prod five or six times on every animal, screaming and yelling, it's making them crazy. It was absolutely horrible. And it's been all the work the NCBA has done, all the low stress handling workshops being put on. Cattle handling has definitely gotten a whole lot better. But one of the things I'm worried about now is we're selecting so much for meat production and we've got Angus cattle right now getting congestive heart failure and maybe dying a week before. when they're fattened, a week before slaughter, and we're gonna have to back off, I think, on some of these meat traits. I just read a paper, I thought it was pretty hideous, that the first author came out of the Simplot feed yard, and they were putting down late stage congestive heart failure by breed. This was not pretty. I just read this about a week ago. Four percent of the Angus and late stage congestive heart failure, about one point something of the other breeds, and There's a point where you push the genetics too hard. We're also getting problems with leg conformation issues, as we've been pushing for more and more meat. Crossed toes, too straight, collapsed ankles. And then you're going to have problems with lameness. And, and we didn't have that problem 15 years ago.
Track 1Yeah, it
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626what, see what happens with these problems is they creep up slowly. Well, the Angus Association now is getting EPDs for leg conformation and these crossed toes. I saw a picture recently that was of a four month old red angus heifer with hideous crossed toes. And that's genetic. You see, and these things can creep up on us, so our handling's gotten better, but now we're producing some animals that have difficulty walking, which is going to make them harder to handle.
Track 1sure, sure. Yeah, it's amazing when, when we, as any breeds breeders, but I think, uh, Maybe we Angus breeders have, uh, have done it as aggressively as anyone. When, when we are told by the industry, either through markets and value and everything else, or through discussions that there are areas that we need to improve upon, we do it pretty quickly. And
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626do it quickly and,
Track 1we did it with
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626this emphasis. We got a younger animal, heavier at a younger age, marbled. And there's a point where you push that too much, he's likely to drop dead before slaughter.
Track 1and
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626uh, that's not very sustainable.
Track 1no, no, not
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626I have a hundred head of cattle in a pen, and a thousand pound animal drops dead before slaughter, that's ten pounds of gain you have to take off the clothes out of the other cat.
Track 1Right, right. Well, fortunately, as you said, the Angus Association and others as well have adopted some genetic predictions, phenotype evaluation on claw shape and on structural soundness, and even is doing quite a bit of research on the bovine congestive heart failure, working with Colorado State and K State and several others.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626The people that raise beef on dairy, and I think this is a good thing. It's another thing I learned, this dairy, uh, in New York. is he's doing, using sexed Angus semen. And so we, now we have a, a, a male calf that's worth something. A Angus male calf that's worth something. We're a little Bob Veal babies aren't worth anything and they often get horribly mistreated. Slaughtering of Bob Veals is disgusting. And, and so I'm a fan of beef on dairy because that increases the value of that male calf. And, uh, he's going to be treated a whole lot better if he's valuable. So the two things that this dairy was doing was, uh, was the AI system with the collars and sexed semen. Okay, those are two high tech things. I'll tell you what he was not doing. Remodeling his milking parlor.
Track 1Hmm.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626Because that costs a fortune. He also had lovely, tame cows. You could walk right up to them and they didn't run away from you. Um, which shows that he's out there in the pens all the time with his cattle, which is really good.
Track 1Yeah, docility and disposition and ability to, to handle animals is, is huge. And I think that I've seen that you've seen it even more, as you said, compared to when you started in the
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626Oh, no, the cattle handling, oh, it's definitely, definitely gotten better. There's no question about that. Um, you know, when I first started in the seventies, I think maybe ten percent of people maybe handled cattle decently. You know, now I would guess it's 70 percent are handling cattle decently, but a recent survey that Lily Edwards, my former student who's now a professor, did on 76 ranches showed that there was about 16 or 17 percent that were like using the electric prod really excessively. Some veterinarians were caught not handling cattle properly. That's scientific talk for abusing cattle. So handling on the whole has gotten better, but you still got a few people out there doing some bad things to them. Well, it's, it's hard to, I talked to a student that last summer, that's 2023, was doing some pickup work on a ranch in an area of the country where there's been a lot of low stress handling workshops. And she was, uh, they were running two month old calves to exhaustion. And she didn't want anything to do with that, so she just quit. So you still got a few people doing some stuff they shouldn't be doing, but on a whole, compared to the 70s,
Track 1Oh my.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626or even compared to, you know, uh, 20 years ago, handling has greatly improved. Well,
Track 1you did and there's, there's a list. It's not extremely lengthy, but, but Williams. And as you said, some of the folks that have, have taken the, the things that you kind of pioneered and gotten them out to the masses through NCBAs, some cattle handling seminars and things like that. It's just, it's, it's, revolutionized it.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626have been really, really good. I mean, I tell people the first thing you've got to do is to calm down and stop yelling at animals. Because if you get an animal all fearful and scared, it takes 20 minutes for them to calm back down. So the first thing is calm down yourself. And then there's all kinds of finer points of cattle handling that you can learn about exactly where to, how to position yourself, flight zone, point of balance. But you're not going to learn those things until you calm down yourself and stop screaming. And it's really important to not scream at cattle because it has intent. They know you're mad at them. They pick up on that.
Track 1And they don't know why, right? I mean, that's the toughest part. With humans, people may be able to connect those dots. Animals, yeah, they don't get it. They just know something's wrong and they don't know why.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626it. They just know something's wrong and they don't know why. It took me 20 minutes to calm down and for the swearing to stop. Oh,
Track 1how to improve their handling skills.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626selling equipment was easy. People always want the thing, the magical thing, more than they want. the management and the handling. And one of the mistakes I made really early on, I thought I could build self managing cattle handling facilities. And I had a lot of equipment out in the meat industry in the 80s and the 90s. Center track restrainer system. Half my clients tore stuff up and wrecked it. Um, that was very disheartening. And then I was hired by McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's to, um, teach their auditors how to assess Handling and stunning practices at slaughter plants. And I had a very simple scoring system. Everything had to be dead and unconscious when you hung it up. 95 percent stunning score or better on the first shot. 1 percent or less falling. Electric prides you had to get down to 25 percent if you wanted to pass. Uh, vocalization. No more than three cattle out of a hundred mooing in a stunning area. And it forced them to manage it. Repair and manage stuff. And I did that back in 1999, and I saw more improvement than I've seen in my whole career. I forced them to manage and repair the stuff they already had, and do simple changes like non slip flooring in the chutes. That's not a capital expense. I'm really proud of the fact that out of the 74 McDonald's suppliers, this is beef and pork slaughterhouses, only three had to put in expensive equipment. I'm Everything else we either fixed expensive equipment they already had or he made some rather old shabby facilities work and The only places I could not make it work was when the equipment was hopelessly overloaded That was what it was beyond its capacity that I couldn't make that work it people want the thing more than they want the management And I was very one of the things I did when I did these McDonald's audits back in 1999 You is I bent over backwards to do reverse conflict of interest. I had expensive things to sell. I bent over backwards not to sell them. To make whatever they had work. And I'm very proud of the fact that only 3 out of 74 had to buy expensive things.
Track 1one more fascinating way that you are significantly different
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626peers. No, I bend over backwards. When I'm in welfare mode, I bend over backwards to make existing facilities work. And, and I've also now been working with Marty Becker on a thing, on a program called Fear Free for Veterinary Clinics. Alright, simple, non slip mat on the exam table. Um, you know, stop just trying to force dogs down and start doing some low stress handling. That's Yes, it's nice to remodel the clinic with the fancy new cages. They are nicer than the old cages. But, you can make the old cages work in an existing clinic. You're building a new clinic, yes, I'm gonna have the nice cages. you know, some of this was headed down, much down a lot of expensive, uh, remodeling. And I now make a very big distinction between new construction, yes, we're gonna build some nice things. And trying to fix an existing facility to get them to handle dogs in a much better way. So they're not being traumatized and hate going to the veterinarian. You see, it's the same sort of thing. And the other thing I emphasized on that, is that once you learn low stress methods of handling, I don't care what the species is, it's gonna be easier, you're gonna have less accidents, okay, on pets, less cat and dog bites. On pets. In cattle handling, ending up getting run over by cattle and going to the hospital. Um, and it's going to be easier and slow is going to be faster. But for both species, there is a learning curve. In the beginning, when you're learning it, it's going to be slower. There's going to be some pain before the gain. There's a learning curve. And the other thing I've learned, and I don't care if it's a vet clinic or it's a ranch, management has to be totally behind it. I wasted a lot of time in the 80s training employees and management untrained them for me. I spent a lot, wasted a lot of time doing that. Management has to be absolutely behind it. I cannot emphasize that enough. And the other thing I learned, and this is not very nice, is that there's a few people that like to be mean, and they should not be working with animals. I know that's not a nice thing to say, But we learned some things in working with all these meat plants, and I've learned some things working with other places, too. Difficult one, especially if
Track 1difficult one, especially if that person is
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626that
Track 1mean, normally.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626person's family, like one of the things we found with the big plants, with the McDonald's supplier list, is we had some medium sized plants where management was the bad person, and, uh, Those were very difficult to change. And the corporate ones, where the manager was bad, uh, they had a managerectomy. There were three plants that were corporate plants, and they fired the plant managers. And then everything changed almost overnight. Management has to get behind doing handling right. It was very interesting taking high up executives on their first trips to farms and slaughterhouses. I'll never forget the day when the McDonald's executive saw a half dead dairy cow go into their product. It was just like that show Undercover Boss. They were horrified and, and, uh, now pressure from animal rights groups and stuff like that forced them to look at it. But you got to get the managers out of the office. They see some stuff. I remember going out with McDonald's. This would be like in 1997. Oh, first broiler farm. Oh, we watched Catching. Man, walk in there and it goes, looks like the Humane Society video. It was terrible. And they thought five and six percent broken wings was normal. Busted cages, chickens all over the highway. Well, let's repair the cages and start managing and scoring it. That very quickly went down to one percent. That's an example of bad becoming normal. And we didn't rebuild anything. We just repaired the equipment they had and started managing it. So those audits, when
Track 1So those audits, when you started those, like
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626beef processing That was back in 1999 when we started it, and I do have five journal articles on this, and in six months I saw more change than I'd ever seen. They were now forced to manage and repair The stuff they had. And, and we did simple changes. A lot of non slip flooring went in, in high traffic areas. Like the unloading ramp, stun box floors. Um, changing lighting. Cattle don't like the dark. Training people. Moving smaller groups of, of cattle and pigs. Real big one. Moving smaller groups. Get the electric prodder out of your hand. It's not your primary driving tool. Get your mouth shut. A whole lot of simple things like that.
Track 1So as much progress as we've made since that time in 99, how hard is it for you to hear people And when I say people, consumers, non ag producers, yearning for the quote unquote good old days and wishing we could go back to the way it was back then, sometimes there's a stigma that just because it's a big plant or a big farm or feedlot that it's poorer, not better, than it used to be when mom and pop were doing it. How do you, how do you
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626you respond to that? Well, you can have big, I'll get back to management. Now the big, the thing I've come to the conclusion on big, it's not bad. Big's fragile. It's very fragile. And we saw that during COVID. Um, where a couple of the big plants got shut down and 300, 000 net of pigs had to be basically killed and thrown out. That's just terrible. And they were sometimes killed in ways that were not okay. Um, we have floods and things like that. And, um, big is fragile. And we need to get, you see, the paradox you have is if you get a more distributed supply chain, It will be more expensive, but it won't break as easily. Now, I saw a very interesting thing with this New York dairy, too. Was, uh, they were selling to a thing called Stewart Shops, which is a local chain of gas stations and ice cream stores that are all together at the gas station. And, so the small local dairies can stay in business because they sell to, uh, The Stuart shops, because I've been in other parts of the country where the small dairies are going out of business because the big co op couldn't be bothered to pick up their milk. That just wasn't enough of it. But you have, let's say we have something really go wrong. Uh, we're going to wish we had this more distributed supply chain. And it's, it's, and, and what they're doing is they're selling a niche. These are gas stations. Things are a little more expensive there.
Track 1Yeah.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626and they make very good ice cream, and they have tables where you can sit in the convenience store and, uh, eat ice cream. And I pigged out on two scoops of maple walnut. It was very, very good. Another thing that's happened with the beer industry, we got a giant Budweiser plant here, and they got all the little small craft breweries. They coexist. Because they have the niche. And when COVID hit, they made hand sanitizer. They were repurposed. That's what they did. but I think we need some of these more distributed supply chains. I mean, big works great. Big can work really, really super well. And it can have really high standards. But it's very, very fragile. Very. Look what's going on with shipping right now. Maersk, the biggest container ship line in the world, doesn't want to go through the canal and have missiles shot at their boats. Right. Really messed up the car industry in Europe, big, it's fragile.
Track 1So the beef industry has gotten fairly big, especially at the points of processing. Do you see a similar pattern to beer and to dairy and some of these where a similar model with a big plant and a bunch of either mobile butchers or smaller butchers are around it?
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626power grid. And all I'm going to say is I know some things about the power grid that I'm not going to talk about because I don't want to give people ideas. But I lay awake at night about the power grid. We'll just leave it at that.
Track 1Yeah.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626NASA has a special classification, unclassified but sensitive. I don't discuss my unclassified but sensitive. What do you think will happen to a big plant if the power goes off? They're not going to run that on our generator.
Track 1That's pretty fragile.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626Yeah, it's fragile. Very fragile. We'll just leave it at that. Yeah, we may have to But I was very, I'm very glad I had a chance to visit this dairy. I Was invited up to, to, um, uh, Sara, uh, Saratoga, to go to the local Col SUNY College, uh, to talk about autism. But let me tell you, this dairy, uh, this was super interesting. This is an example of an older dairy. using two very high tech things, but either sexed semen to get the good beef on dairy calves, and then we get rid of the horrid slaughter of baby calves, which I hate.
Track 1Mm hmm.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626And, and the AI programs enabled them to reduce labor requirements. And these things were very easy to implement. And the milking parlor is old. The computer was old. Milking parlor is very expensive to replace.
Track 1Yeah.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626You see, I think this is interesting on how the technology is being used. And very, to make this thing work off these necklaces they had on these cattle, uh, it's going to take an extremely, extremely sophisticated AI program. But the producer doesn't have to learn how to use it. just put a necklace on the cattle, there's an accelerometer that goes right here, it just hangs on them, it's not tight, and, and that can measure rumination, that's easy. The hard part is they're measuring sickness and estrus just by how she moves around.
Track 1Right.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626It's just an accelerometer sensor. See, it's all AI.
Track 1You bet. Yeah. From a size standpoint, how many, how many
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626it's, it's, um, well I just tried to look it up online right now, and they were bragging on their ear tag, and the farmer just said I don't want those ear tags, they just break and the battery breaks. That's where the necklace lasts. I don't know, maybe I walked into a beta test, but this farmer loved this system.
Track 1Yeah.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626He was so happy with it.
Track 1I've heard of, uh, of several dairies and even some beef cow operations that are starting to use those collars and they can be used in a variety of ways. I
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626Well, there's a whole lot of ways. Another thing is, uh, virtual fencing. Because another one of my big areas I'm really interested in is grazing. 20 percent of the world's land can only be grazed. And we have a big piece of it here in eastern Colorado. You go out the back side of the Denver airport east, you go on I 70, about 50 miles and the houses will stop. There's another 100 mile stretch can only be grazed. They tried growing corn on that land last year, and at harvest time, it was no higher than my desk. Yeah. Now, why'd you even bother to plant that? It was, like, useless. And I saw it right at harvest time. It was as high as my desk. So, you've got Sandhills, Nebraska. You can graze that land. So, I've got a paper I wrote. It's called Grazing Cattle, Sheep, and Goats are important parts of a sustainable agricultural future. Where I reviewed some articles on, on rotational grazing. And we do that right, we can improve land. What do we do with 20 percent of the land? It can only be grazed. We need to raise food on it. Very, very definitely. And we need to do it right. And let's put methane in perspective. Latest stuff I've just read, um, uh, leaking oil equipment probably puts out more methane. Uh, there's a new satellite that's just been launched that measures methane. I'm going to be very, very, very, uh, looking into what they find with that. Dumps, wastewater treatment plants haven't even been measured yet. In fact, another interesting statistic that I have to thank an anonymous journal article reviewer for giving it to me is that when herds of bison roamed North America, before Europeans came to North America, they were putting out 85 percent of the methane that cattle are putting out right now.
Track 1hmm.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626Just to put it in perspective. Thank you, anonymous reviewer,
Track 1that's good.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626that gave me that reference.
Track 1And it stands to reason. And and look at the production that we get today out of the beef cattle that are here compared to the amount of meat we were able to feed the world with from
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626world with from bison in the 16 and 1700s. Well, and they, they, you know, the animals, you're getting more milk per cow, more milk, more beef. Now the thing that you have to, there's a point where you push it too hard and the animal's going to fall apart. Your first service conception rate, Holstein dairy cows, is half of beef. Uh, there's a point where you can push it too far. And you're getting things like congestive heart failure. You see, that problem has slowly crept up over about 15 years. Very, very slowly crept up, and now it's getting to where people are really paying attention. The last two papers I read on it were pretty hideous, actually. And there's a score chart. You can, uh, when they slaughter the animal, you can just look at the hearts. And if they're bloated, they are congestive heart failure.
Track 1Yeah, and there's a lot more work being done on that and, and I really think as much attention as we've given that over the last really year to two years. I mean, we've been seeing this a slow burn getting worse over the last decade or so, but I think this is something that with enough attention and like you said, scoring those hearts at the plant and looking into heritability estimates on the genetic side and management that we can do in the feed yard. And like you said, it may, it may very well just be less days on feed and, and harvesting them at a,
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626a, at a lighter weight. Or, or if you get rid of the sires, they have the problem. There's a bunch of beef on dairy people tell me, see they've got good records going back to sires. Tell me that they got, they had some, you know, big steers drop them dead like a week before slaughter. They tracked it back to a single Angus Sire and he was bye bye very quickly. And the research is showing that too. Yeah, we'll
Track 1we'll get enough research through that. can identify those. If there is that, that high of a heritability estimate, I, I feel pretty confident that hopefully that's one of those
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626challenges that can be solved. Not only can be solved, I think we have to start looking at what is optimal instead of maximum. You can push an animal to produce, the same thing with broiler chickens, you can push that chicken to grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, and then there's a point where it just drops dead. You know, what is optimal? Going back to the old fashioned chickens, I don't think it would be a good idea, because they take, uh, 15 to 20 percent more feed. From a sustainability standpoint, that's horrible. But what you probably have to do is back off just a little tiny bit.
Track 1Well, that is a theme that
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626that
Track 1I have adopted over the last probably 10 to 15 years in cattle breeding. Um, and it's something that seems to, and maybe it's because I'm the one picking the guests. I don't intend to necessarily beat that drum over this podcast, but I think you're about the second or third guests that I've had in a row that. Unprompted brought that exact theme up. And so, yeah, I, I think that we're starting to
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626to see that as an industry. There We're going to have to do some of the feet and legs too, because I, uh, some of it's really bad. You see, I kind of like to look at genetics, sort of like a national budget. You've got the economy, your meat, your milk, your eggs. You've got your infrastructure, that's going to be your skeleton, heart, reproduction, and then you get your military, immune. Everything takes energy. Nothing is free. So we put everything into the economy. There's a point where we're probably short changing the other two things. Everything takes energy. a trade off. So for
Track 1for the listeners sake, I have to tell, and maybe for yours, cause you may not have seen me do it, but. a couple weeks ago in Austin, we're sitting there on a big panel at the South by Southwest,. And you said that, a very thing, and I'm supposed to be there talking and I grabbed my note cards and wrote that down because I'd never heard that analogy, but I love it because it just, it makes, it puts things into perspective. That's
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626exactly right It takes energy to build Bone. It takes energy to run Repro. There's always going to be a trade off. Nothing's free.
Track 1Yep, I, I would agree wholeheartedly and that's something that we've, that holistic approach to everything we do, breeding cattle, managing cattle, feeding cattle, even marketing cattle. Um, quite often we get fixated on the one thing that is either making us the most money or is our pet project. And that's all we can think about. We get fixated on that one and forget all
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626all the other unintended consequences And then you, and then you don't see it until you really get into trouble.
Track 1Yeah. Yep.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626Also there's a thing I call bad becoming normal. You see, I saw this congestive heart failure thing coming about 10 years ago and people thought I was just crazy. You know, I'm in the leg confirmation thing started a little in pigs. It was back in the eighties. really bad leg conformation. Then I started seeing the same defects and collapsed ankles, twisted. Same thing the pigs were getting. The pigs got it when they were breeding for, this is of, when they did the first hybrids, they were breeding for rapid gain, the giant loin and thin, thin back fat.
Track 1Mm hmm.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626And there are certain boars that just have horrible feet and legs. And you can have, I remember 20 years ago, standing at a loading ramp at a pork plant and half the market hogs were lame. And this is before beta agonists. There were no beta agonists. This was before that time. Half the market hogs were lame and it was strictly leg conformation. Horrible.
Track 1Have they improved that?
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626Well, what's happened is, is, um, yeah, they have, but there's still certain boar lines that have it. I remember going to a plant 10 years ago. Brand new plant opened up. And they had five or six full time people handling downer pigs. It was just disgusting, all the downer pigs they had. And we did three changes to fix it. Because I couldn't fix this at the plant. We got rid of the boar line with the horrible feet and legs. Ractopamine dose was halved, that was not banned. Cut the ractopamine dose in half. And the other thing we started is having the grower walk through the pens to get the pigs used to people walking through them and just quietly getting up and moving away. And we made those three changes. And they went from five or six full time people handling downers to one half time person handling downers. And when we had a PACO training there, I had somebody ask me what the downer hoist was for.
Track 1Hmm.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626I can assure you, That back when I first started with them, they wouldn't have been asking what it was for
Track 1Ha, ha. ha. ha.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626being used.
Track 1All too often.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626Yeah, all too often. So we know handling
Track 1cattle, handling animals in the
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626in the right
Track 1them is the right thing to do. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. has there been any work by an economist to show just how much value we've added to the protein segments from a consumer standpoint by doing things better and by doing things
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626right? Because they're
Track 1a lot of questions
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626bruises, well, bruises got way down. The other big thing was workman's comp accidents.
Track 1Yeah.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626That was a big thing. And right now in the veterinary community working on what they call fear free handling of pets, one of the big things has been dog and cat bites, way down. And, and so, of course, right there, that's an immediate payback for doing it. Cat bites are nasty. How about some IV antibiotics?
Track 1Immediately.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626Yeah. Like, real nasty.
Track 1You, you mentioned that dog always being fearful of going into the vet clinic after they've had a bad experience. And I know every species is different because of their memory retention and things like that. But how long does it take? Let's use, these are, we're
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626we're talking to cow
Track 1here. How long does it take for a cow to forget if she's had a bad experience in a working facility or
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626she doesn't
Track 1or whatever?
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626the problem. Never. Okay. and, and let's make first experiences with new things. All right? Let's say you just build a new cattle handling facility. Let's feed them in it as a first experience. Maybe just walk them through the chute and feed them in a, okay, you buy a new four wheeler. Don't chase them with it. You have a horse trailer. You're trying to get the colt to go in the horse trailer. Let's make sure it's not a horrible experience. First experiences with new people, equipment, or places need to be good first experiences. I did a little study one time where I kept track of which cattle got clunked on the head of you with a squeeze shoe. And when they came back a year later, They remembered. No, no, a month later. Excuse me, it wasn't a year later. It was a month later. They were going like this, and they didn't want to put their head in the head gate. Because they remembered getting clunked by it. No, they, they don't forget. Uh, and they'll remember bad people. Uh, when I worked with, uh, with a zoo on training, uh, antelopes to cooperate with blood draws and vaccinations, the veterinarian who'd shot them with a dart gun could never handle our trained animals. And I'm not happy about what's come out in the beef report. On the beef audit report, way too much buckshot, shot at animals. Um, darts found stuck in animals. This is stuff they're finding at the plant. Oh, you know, somebody, a 75 headed cattle, I just heard this just recently, um, doesn't have any handling facilities, so he just darts all 75 of them.
Track 1Wow.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626Well, I think that's just awful. And, And, I'm not suggesting banning these dart guns, but they ought to be reserved for, okay, you've got something sick, way, way far out somewhere, get it back to a crowd, then you use a dart gun. But just routinely use it, no.
Track 1Yeah.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626And they're finding, uh, it's pretty disgusting, uh, you can look at it on the NCBA website under Beef Quality Assurance, but every region they were finding bird shot and buck shot in meat. It's disgusting.
Track 1I remember the first time I heard Dr. Gary Smith at Texas A& M talk about that in one of those very initial beef quality audits back in the
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626in the 90s. Well, this is the recent one.
Track 1I, I realize, and I, I can't believe because I was told we'd
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626we've made a lot of progress
Track 1regard. And now here we are again seeing it. And I remember him slamming his
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626his fist down on the paper. Yep, I remember when he did that.
Track 1and said, people, you've got to stop gathering
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626got to stop gathering your cattle with a shotgun. It wasn't just in one region. No, it wasn't It wasn't. That's one of the things I looked at. And that's absolutely not okay.
Track 1No, I agree. I agree. There, there are too many other options.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626Now, there's a lot of bruises on the backs, but that's because the cattle are getting, the Holstein steers are getting too tall to fit in the trailers.
Track 1Yeah.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626And I think some of these cattle are getting too big, because, uh, what's wrong, we changed the truck, we already made six inches of changes in the truck, and and we're stuck with our 13. 6 height limitation, especially in the east, eastern U. S., well, maybe breed them smaller. Because the problem you got with a big, huge steer is a big, huge steer has a great big, huge sister that these ranchers are not going to be able to feed on these ranches. They're going to go broke trying to feed that huge cow in the wintertime.
Track 1I'm afraid you're right.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626Yeah. And, you know, a more moderate sized cow is what you want on these extensive ranches.
Track 1Yeah, and I
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626And I think we're figuring that out. So maybe if she does, maybe if it doesn't, let's say it gets bruised down the back, maybe you breed it so it will fit in the trailer. I think we have to be looking a lot more at what we put on the trailer. There's still too many skinny old, half dead dairy cows going on the trailer that's showed up in the beef audit. That's not okay.
Track 1There's always those, those last few percent that we still, still have to improve.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626There's still way too many skinny dairy cows and I'm, I couldn't believe it. One time I was at a plant and there was a, they just had unloaded a pen of Holstein steers. They were not beef on dairy, they were just pure Holsteins and there was one steer and he was six, eight inches taller at the back than all the other Holstein steers. Well, he's going to tear us back up on the trailer. So, in looking at the bruises, if they're down the back, and I think that's where most of them are, breed an animal that will fit in that trailer. Optimums, not maximums. Exactly. Exactly.
Track 1So changing gears just a
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626a bit here,
Track 1Most of the conversations that I have heard you have and the one or two that I've had with you, we've talked about two main things and that is animal handling
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626and autism.
Track 1How have those two passions in your
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626life,
Track 1how have those intertwined and I guess which one, if you had to say one, gives you even more satisfaction of progress than the other? Is there one over
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626over the other or do they
Track 1go
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626both important because I, when I was working in construction putting in all the fancy facilities that was 70s, 80s halfway up through the 90s I was living on construction sites and I worked with very skilled trades people who built equipment like the center track restrainer that had 20 patents and they were very autistic very autistic but the people I've worked with they've retired out now they're not getting replaced Look at all this stuff that's been going on with Boeing. Maybe if they had a few more people, they'd make sure to put the bolts in the door. I was just reading the other day that a pilot was coming in for a landing on a brand new airplane, and the rudder pedals didn't work for steering the plane after he landed. Yeah, you see, and those are mechanical devices.
Track 1Mm hmm. Visual
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626thinkers. visual thinking. Exactly. And then the engineer's going, well, a bolt migrated on it. I can see a bolt rattling around, and then when you take off, it's on one side of the compartment where the linkage is. Then when the plane lands, it's on the other side of the compartment, then it jams it, and that's why the rudder pedals didn't work. Yeah, we're getting too much of that kind of stuff. You see, this is where we need our visual thinkers. They aren't very good at math, but they're brilliant with visual things. And then you need the degreed engineer to make the shape of the wings so the plane will fly efficiently. You see, you need to have both. Same thing with food factories. Degreed engineers do the refrigeration and the boilers. But we, we're importing equipment now from Europe for poultry and pork, but we're not making it anymore. You know, how about a hundred shipping containers from Europe to build a poultry processing plant? We're high wage countries. You know, we took out the shop classes, we shut down the in house engineering. It was a gigantic mistake, and I talk about that in my book on visual thinking. We need our visual thinkers.
Track 1Where have those visual
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626I can tell you exactly where they're at. They're in the basement playing video games, autism diagnosis, when they ought to be out there fixing airplanes and making sure rudder pedals work. There's a relationship here. Well, it's education. Because, like some states, like Texas and stuff, are putting a lot of the hands on stuff back in. But there's other states where we've got kids growing up that get to college that never used a tape measure. And I, a lot of these kids, they do really good mechanical things, they never take a shop class, they don't have them. No, taking out shop classes, worst thing we ever did.
Track 1There'd be
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626thing we ever did. And, and, but the thing is, kids have to be exposed to tools. I'm seeing too many kids brilliant with Legos, never graduating to tools. Now you're hearing stuff I talk about in my autism talks. Now I work with a lot of people, I'm going to estimate 20 percent of the people I work with own shops with Autistic, Dyslexic, or ADHD and they're not getting replaced. That's the problem.
Track 1So if, if that gap is largely
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626to the education system, Oh, it's
Track 1Even if we fix it today, which most aren't going to, at least that quickly,
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626Uh, how do we
Track 1how do we bridge that gap for the next couple of decades of
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626coming out? Well, like some, um, um, and you see you have an extreme visual thinker like me, who can't, you see I couldn't even graduate from high school in some states. I failed the SAT in algebra. I majored in psychology to dodge the math classes. That's why I majored in psychology. And then I did have to take one class in statistics and I had to be tutored, tutored, tutored, tutored, tutored. Got a C in that. But you need us visual thinkers. Visual thinkers see how stuff works. That's why I noticed what the cattle are looking at. That's visual thinking. A visual thinker sees something that might be at risk. They also see a way to fix things. Like, okay, let's go back to the veterinary clinic. Okay. I was with Marty Becker. We went to an old, but well maintained veterinary clinic. And their lobby floor was a skating rink. Uh, but a very nice lobby floor. And I just visualized one of these plastic runners that's textured on the floor for the dogs to walk on. I just saw it. In my mind. That seeing a solution to a problem, a real simple one.
Track 1when you say, hey, there's a simple solution for
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626for this, Just do it.
Track 1I would guess that that's significantly different than it was in the 80s. How did you overcome all of the, no, we can't do
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626do it that way. We've never done it that way? Well, what I found back in the 70s, I had got equipment out there in the 70s. Selling equipment was easy compared to getting people to run it correctly.
Track 1see.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626Easy. The magical thing. All right, you can go back to the AI system in that dairy. Well, you have to have, okay, it flags five cows, um, you got to bring them in and farmer has to figure out what's wrong with them. The computer just says they're sick. And you check them for mastitis and fever. Farmers still got to bring them in and do that.
Track 1So it's a balance between the technology
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626But I
Track 1the people that can critically analyze it.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626And, and I know something about AI, and that program's got to be sophisticated as heck to um, uh, to do the, well rumination is one thing it measures, that's easy, but all the other movement stuff it was measuring, that's top of the line AI. But they've also made the interface on the computer simple. It just flags the cows and tells you to bring them in. And it's not overloading a farmer with information, where there's other milking machine stuff, giving you all this data. Ugh, what do you even do with it all? So they don't look at any of it. You know, some of the new milking machines, and then they don't talk to the other programs, and that's a big problem. Oh,
Track 1I've seen that in all industries. The healthcare industry is,
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626it's just terrible. One software won't talk to another one. It's just awful. Yep.
Track 1Yep. Well, I read one time, and I don't even remember, and I actually wrote this down because I liked it so much, but this was a quote that some article that I saw online, so if it was on the internet it had to be true, that quoted you saying the skills that people with autism bring to the table should be nurtured for their benefit and society's. And if a cure for autism were found, I would choose to stay just
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626just the way I am. Yeah, I would that, yeah, that's true. That's true, and I don't think we'd have any They're, they're they're they're they're the you know the that, that, that, that, that are able to make a computer to talk on right now if it wasn't for some autism. Yeah, where, where do you think this stuff came from?
Track 1yep.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626That would be your mathematical autistic thinkers. But then the simple interface that that farmer can use without having to learn how to use it. The visual thinker makes that. That's the reason why the iPhone took over. An artist made the interface. Steve Jobs was not a programmer. He was an artist. And the engineers, the mathematicians, had to make it work.
Track 1right.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626No, and there was a lot of autism in making an iPhone. You see, the problem we got with autism is at one end of it you got people that are geniuses, other end of it you've got people with uncontrollable epilepsy, can't talk, all kinds of stuff wrong with the nervous system where it's an absolute disability. See, this is the problem. And it all has the same name.
Track 1we as society, whether it be the autism spectrum or whether it be anything that makes an individual an individual, It seems like we're constantly trying to bring everyone back to the mean, or back to the average, and make everyone the same, and
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626that's that's,
Track 1that's that's not the way, that's not
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626way we were created. Well, you've got a lot of kids where the sort of average education, I think, is going to work, and then you've got the outliers where you need to develop the strengths. I mean, I've heard four horror stories in the last month on elementary school math genius kids turning into gigantic behavior problems because they kept forced to do this little baby math instead of giving them just more advanced math books they could use at their desk. All you have to do is give that kid the algebra book. He's going to think that's a lot of fun. You know, and I just see it. I just see the book. And one of the kids, um, broke into the school's computer system and messed it all up. And so, yeah, I'm not going to let him do it on a laptop. I see an old algebra book on his desk and the kid's having a great time with it. They turn into behavior problems because they're bored stiff.
Track 1They're bored. Yep.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626Bored stiff. You move that kid ahead. Don't give me, I'm not suggesting putting this kid in high school. I'm just suggesting giving him high school materials to work on in the fourth grade classroom. What,
Track 1because he was bored in grade school. And so
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626what got you bored in grade school?
Track 1My, and I would be on the other end, not necessarily of the spectrum, but on the other end of the social thing
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626and I guess I
Track 1I have a podcast now, but not being able to talk and discuss and get everybody talking and discussing with me is what got me into trouble the most. I was that curious kid who wanted to be very social as we were learning and I didn't understand why we had to work for an hour and then take
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626take a 30
Track 1and have a milk break and I thought that was
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626thought that was a waste of time. that are different. And I'm now, you know, I travel, I've been going on some very questionable elevators. I know we're not getting serviced. And that's something that the visual thinking autistic kid's gonna like. Um, we need people to fix airplanes and, you know, Make sure they're put together correctly. You know, they, they, cause there's some people who say, Well, stupid kids take shop. Let me tell you, they're not the stupid kids. It's a different kind of problem solving. I spent 25 years out on big construction projects, these people, and saw the things they figured out and did. Well,
Track 1it takes, it takes all those different
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626you need, well, you need everybody. Because you can take what the food processing plant Shop people never touch the boilers or refrigeration. And these shop people were inventing equipment and patenting it. Not just building it. Patenting it.
Track 1is what makes the system work. And if
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626that's why I talk about my new book on visual thinking.
Track 1Yeah, my wife just ordered that.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626I think she will.
Track 1I think she will. She wanted to have it before we got to Austin so she could get you to sign it. But, uh, maybe we'll
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626she could get you to sign it. But, uh, maybe we'll run into you again sometime. Good. Good for you. On
Track 1Well, I remember back on cattle handling, I remember one time and I didn't see this one on the internet, so I hope it's still accurate. But as you were talking about beef production and harvesting an animal and that animal having to be, you know, knocked unconscious and then bled out and the process that we have to do to harvest that animal, I think your quote something like every living thing has to die. And dying with a purpose gives meaning to its life.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626life. Well, I think I've said, uh, uh, You know, the movie says nature's cruel, we don't have to be. Yeah, that's something I would say. Um, the, uh, everything does die in nature. And, you know, a slaughterhouse, uh, does it very painlessly compared to a hyena. Rips out your guts while you're still alive and eats your live guts. The way animals die in nature is often not very nice.
Track 1Yeah, well I That's the other quote that I have used from your work because I think, again, your ability to think in pictures and to see that perspective, thanks to the beautiful mind that you have, helps us in the beef industry. Whether we would have been able to see that as producers or not, helps us communicate that to our consumers. And let's face it, quite often, farmers and ranchers, we are terrible at communicating with our consumers. You have an innate ability, whether you know it or not, you're kind of a rock star with those folks who are buying beef. And when you are able to put that into perspective, I think it does us all a favor. And I
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626One question I always get asked is, are the cattle, are they afraid of getting slaughtered? And I did a paper back in 1997 called Assessment of Stress During Handling and Transport. And I looked up the stress levels, cortisol levels, of handling cattle on a ranch, just in the squeeze chute, not branding them or anything like that, just putting them in the squeeze chute and taking blood samples, versus getting that blood sample at a plant. The range went from high to low, depending on how good their handling was, it was the same range. The other thing is, if you get rid of these distractions They walk right in. The worst cattle I ever have seen for refusing to go into a chute were ones where too many students had done rectal palpation too many times. And those cattle absolutely refused to go into the chute. I never saw refusal that bad in a slaughter plant. Usually you make sure you get rid of the distractions, make sure no air's blowing out the door at them, they'll go right in.
Track 1we can, we can have positive influences on that. And obviously you've proven that. And, um, Great work for our industry over the decades. And we just, yeah, we, we are indebted to you for it.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626decades, and we just, yeah, we, we are indebted to you for it. I think all an important part of a sustainable future to raise food on land that cannot be cropped. There's not enough water in the ground for sprinklers, and there's not enough water coming out of the sky as rain. What do you do with a hundred miles of eastern Colorado? Now all these places where in the U. S. where you have to graze, I've been to those places. Been there. what they look like.
Track 1Yeah. And I think that that's going to be an increasingly prevalent, situation as we go
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626we're gonna have to solve, but I can't see, having land like eastern Colorado and not raising food on that land. And a grazing animal is the only way to raise food on that land.
Track 1And when we talk about sustainability from an environmental standpoint, carbon sequestration, the whole nine yards.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626sustainability from an environmental standpoint, carbon sequestration Exactly. It's been something that has excited
Track 1Yep. I'm, that's been something that has excited me for the last two or three years since I've heard
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626have not yet. I went to
Track 1we have not yet. I went to a field day here in Kansas about a year ago of a, uh, of a red Angus herd who is using it. And, um, I, it's exciting. It's not without its challenges that it's not
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626without its challenges. Yes. regular fence in a pasture they're already familiar with. And you have to take time to train them. I saw something on a website about moving cattle around with a phone app. That's the kind of nonsense that shouldn't be on a website. Because when everybody I've talked to has actually used it, really emphasized, you're going to take two, three weeks a month to train these animals. And you've got to do it right. I
Track 1Yeah, I, I think from a rotational grazing standpoint, that's, that's, where the most value is going to come and being able to mob
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626going to be. You may be able to march them closer, paddock by paddock, to
Track 1to march them closer paddock by paddock to where they're close enough that you can then go gather them into the pen. Yeah. Yes, well
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626But, uh, you've got to use it right. You know, that's the thing. And the thing is, it's not automatic management. None of this stuff is automatic management.
Track 1But if we keep our eyes open to those opportunities from technology and match that with kind
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626I liked about the AI collars I saw in New York Here's a dairy, uh, older. He also did another really clever thing. Those old barns are really dark and dreary. Well, he went and ripped the roof off on one side and replaced it with greenhouse, uh, trans, uh, transparent material, and then he took the sidewall off and put in a white translucent curtain. Now you're getting lots of light in there, and it's helping to dry it out. And you don't, you don't straight change the structure of the building, you just tore out the, uh, boards off the roof and replaced it with a greenhouse roofing material. And that's not that expensive. You see, these are things that making, okay, the semen and the AI collars are very high tech, but you can easily implement them in an older dairy. Where remodeling is milking parlor, all that's going to do is break the bank and
Track 1Right.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626inundate them with data you can't use. See, I thought it was very interesting thing. It's sort of like how the tech was used. I'm really glad I had visited this dairy.
Track 1Yep.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626I'm always out learning things. I don't even think they realized how high tech the AI would have to be to do what it was doing. You know, there's all these squiggly graphs of how the cow moved around and Well, that's the magic of AI.
Track 1Yep. And that's
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626When it's used right. When it's used right.
Track 1Right. And that's the magic of adaptation, of recognizing a challenge and finding a practical solution for it.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626But you see the other thing and they lease the equipment and uh, they're paying the leasing of feedback three or four times. He says it's saving him so much money, it's almost like it's free. But then the company better not jack the price up. 'cause there's other innovative things where they're just too expensive.
Track 1Right.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626I was just talking to a veterinarian the other day about a stethoscope, an electronic stethoscope thing. Uh, it's, they're charging too much for it. That's not gonna work.
Track 1So if you were to see, and we'll wrap up with this one, if you were to see two or three major changes to the beef industry in the next ten years,
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626Well, we need to be Okay. We need to be developing a grazing systems, really developing a rotational grazing systems. You know, so we're utilizing this land that cannot be cropped. And a grazing animal is the only way to do it. Also, I'd like to see more cover crops grazed. Then we can reduce artificial fertilizer. We do crop rotations better, reduce chemical use, not ban it. I see in the future. It's a hybrid approach, mostly organic, with a, some, with a bit of regular, but then with things like this AI program, which is very, very high tech, you look at the collars, they, they don't, they just look like cow collars with,
Track 1hmm.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626nothing sticks into the cow or anything. There's a little plastic box here and another dangle down here with the battery and, you know, we need to be. be doing that, utilizing this land, and getting, and getting the crops and the livestock back together. Grazing to cover crops. Then you use less artificial fertilizer, you're going to need less herbicides and that kind of stuff. Again, you don't ban these things. It's sort of like a hybrid approach, mostly organic, maybe 10 20 percent regular. I had a very smart farmer that was doing some really innovative stuff on his farm. And, you know, I was talking about the organic people. Don't be too pure. These, those were his exact words. The sensible thing to do is to, is to cut the chemical use way, way back. But you don't ban it.
Track 1of all these things. Genetic selection, technologies, chemicals, whatever the case may be, you know, there's, all or nothing is not usually
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626Well, it was that one country that tried to, overnight, make everything organic, and that was a complete disaster. People about starved.
Track 1Yes, yeah, it's,
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626crazy.
Track 1you get the politicians making the
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626Well, you see, the problem is, you've got people where you It's all theory. Okay, this sounds good on paper, but they hadn't really looked into it to see whether it would work or not. If things get too theor too theoretical. You know, I tell people that are activists, I say, make sure you don't activate or something is gonna end up causing a problem.
Track 1How
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626How does that go over when you tell them that? Well, I've told that to a lot of students. Make sure something isn't going to backfire and have unintended bad consequences. That's why you've got to get out in the field and talk to a lot of people in the field so you don't make policy that doesn't work. Well, I think up our
Track 1Well, I think that's a good spot to, uh, to finish up our discussion and, and gosh, I, again, I can't thank you enough for being on here. This is going to be, I know one of the, one of the favorites of our listeners, but, again, thank you for everything you've done for us in the beef industry and for, um, really all of society. It's, it's a beautiful thing to watch how your mind works and, and put into practical applications. So many things that, uh, that you've seen benefit us.
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626No, we've got to, um, start figuring out practical to make things better.
Track 1I agree. I agree. Well, thanks, Dr. Grandin, and, uh,
temple-grandin_4_03-23-2024_130626to talk to you.
Track 1it. has been. Thank you, and keep up the great work, and we'll hope to see you again soon.
Microphone (Yeti Stereo Microphone)-2Thanks again for listening to practically ranching brought to you by Dalebanks Angus. In addition to the great group of yearling bulls we currently have for sale. We also have two super sets of foundation females for sale at private treaty. One, a set of fall, calving bred, heifers, the other. A set of yearlings spring, open heifers. They all stem from foundation, cow families developed for decades right here at Dale banks in the Flint Hills of Kansas. And then make a great set of registered or top end commercial females. For information about either the heifers or the spring yearling bulls email, Matt perrier@dalebanks.com. Or text or call 6 2 0 5 8 3 43 0 5. Thanks for listening. God bless. And we'll be back again in two weeks.
