Behavior—and its implications in everyday handling of animals—also relates to moving cattle. It is important to examine the behavior of the animals and how they respond to us.

First and foremost, it is important to understand how cattle perceive us. Cattle are prey animals and therefore have higher fight or flight reactions. Also, because they are prey animals and have eyes set to the side of their head instead of forward facing, their perception of the world is a lot different than ours. It is also why we can encounter problems when it comes to handling cattle.

I have spoken to breeders from around the country and am surprised by the amount of variation in how producers view the importance of handling their stock. On one hand, there are producers that want their cattle hot all the time. There is a belief that if rodeo bulls are more excited when they are handled, they will be hotter in the arena and perform better. There are producers in the Thoroughbred racehorse industry that also follow this line of thinking when they’re handling their horses. Conversely, there are breeders that feel that handling their cattle with calmness is beneficial to their programs.

I personally believe the more a producer can do to alleviate the stress of his/her animals the more they will profit from it. Here are three different examples in the rodeo industry that illustrate my reasoning for that statement.

3 Reasons to Handling Cattle

First: Breeding Females
If you are gathering females for artificial insemination or embryo transfer, it is critical to reduce the stress the females are under. When females are under high levels of stress, they are more likely to fail to conceive. Stress raises the body temperature and can have adverse effects on the reproductive system. This is money down the drain both from the cost of labor and the cost of semen. When females are calm prior to being inseminated, your conception rates will increase.

Second: Performing Bulls
Bulls go through an incredible amount of stress when they are hauled to events. Even after a brief period of transportation, the immune system can take up to 12 days to recover. Combine shipping stress with the stress from handling at an event and you can compound the immune response—which will lead to decreased bucking performance. Some producers might argue that a bull should just learn to cope with this kind of stress; however, even learned behavior cannot turn off physiological functions in the animals.

Third: At Rodeo Events
Anyone who has sat through a bull riding knows one of the most time-consuming aspects is getting bulls out of the arena after a ride. If the bulls are handled based on their behavior, this excessive time delay can be decreased.

What is the Flight Zone?

Dr. Temple Grandin of Colorado State University has done extensive research on livestock behavior and handling. The flight zone is used to refer to the area around a cow that essentially violates their comfort zone or their personal space. When you enter into this flight zone, the animal will try to flee from you. Dr. Grandin explains that the flight zone is different for every animal. Each animal has a flight zone but the size of that zone is influenced by the tameness of the animal. Tame animals have next to no flight zone and you can walk up to them and handle them. Wild animals have larger flight zones and are more difficult to approach and handle.

The flight zone also takes into consideration the perception of the animal and how it sees you. Cattle have a blind spot directly behind them. When you enter this area you trigger anti-predation responses in the cattle and they will turn to face you. This makes moving cattle from the rear next to impossible. From the perspective of a human, this seems logical, you get behind an animal and you should be able to drive it forward. Unfortunately, cattle and other ruminants do not respond to this type of thinking. The fact is, cattle tend to move in the opposite direction of the handler when he/she enters the flight zone. So our thinking that we can herd cattle forward is flawed because when we try moving them one way, they want to go the other way. As counter intuitive as this seems, when you move the opposite direction of the area you are trying to move your cattle to—the easier it is for you to get your cattle to go where you want them to!

The Point of Balance

The point of balance is the shoulder. Livestock will move forward if you stand behind the shoulder and they will stop when you get in front of it. For those of you familiar with horses, this point of balance is seen when lunging a horse. When you’re lunging a horse, you position yourself behind the shoulder and the horse moves in the direction you want it to go. A common mistake many handlers make is that they stand in front of the shoulder when they want their cattle to move forward. This almost guarantees the animal will refuse to move any further.

Utilizing the point of balance and the concepts of the flight zone, cattle handlers can more effectively move cattle with less stress. This will also decrease the stress of the handlers and reduce the risk of injury to the handlers.

Acting like a Predator: Pros and Cons

Cattle have evolved to react to predation and their movements are indicative of this evolutionary process. So when you’re handling your animals, keep this fact in mind. You have two courses of action when handling your stock. First, you can use this predation response to your advantage or conversely, you can aggravate this response in a negative way. When you remain on the outer flight zone of an animal, you can engage the desired responses and prevent the animal from becoming highly stressed. If you invade their flight zone or act like too much of a predator by yelling, throwing your arms up and making other threatening gestures, you are likely to make the process of moving cattle more dangerous, less efficient and more stressful to the animals.

I am not writing this article to say that all rough stock should be pampered pets. But the bottom line is that the more stress you alleviate from your animals, the more beneficial it will be to you. Alleviating stress does not have to involve having tame bucking bulls. As a cattle handler you have to remember that there are consequences for how you treat your animals. Stress has many negative effects on cattle that include, but are not limited to, decreased feed intake, reproductive problems, increased risk of injury (both to the cattle and the handler), decreased immune responses that can lead to health problems and more. Part of managing your operation should focus on the well being of your animals. If you treat them right you will reap the rewards.