Lets talk about feel. I have been asked many times if feel can be taught. I don’t know, but I see people with quite a bit of feel, so it’s learned by some.
As I stated before, to me feel is applying proper pressure in the proper amount. That seems like such a simple explanation for such an important concept. Simple can be very complicated unless you keep simple, and that is the reason these things are difficult to teach. Those that learn feel keep it simple, those that don’t make it complicated or can’t control emotion.
Pressure is what creates a reaction in an animal. The type of pressure, the amount of pressure, the proximity of the pressure, the awareness of the animal,and how familiar the animal is with the type of pressure effects the reaction of the animal to the pressure.
Pressure creates a stimulus to the brain of the animal from its vision, hearing, or actual physical contact of the body. I also have experienced times when the animal can seem to read the intent of another animal or human, and this is a pressure that should be examined as well.
Here’s my simple cowboy way of looking at how the brain works. It has two sides.
One side is the thinking side of the brain, or if we are talking in terms of livestock we should call it the “gain” part of the brain. The other side is the reaction side of the brain, and we will label it the “shrink” side. When cattle are on the gain they are healthy and much more likely to be profitable. Livestock on the shrink are unsettled, unhealthy, unhappy and usually unprofitable (looks like it should be the “un-side” of the brain).
Animals on the gain think about the kind and amount of feed and water they need and have the space and time to consume it. If other animals are present that make it “think” it is safe and creates social comfort, this will help keep the animal on the gain side of the brain as well.
Animals on the shrink have unfamiliar or excessive pressure put on them which causes the brain to go to the reaction side. If this pressure lasts it can put the animal in another state of the brain which is survival. This is the worst place for an animal to be and it is my goal to always keep any animal from reaching this state of mind.
The environment outside of the body creates the environment inside the body. The main defense grazing animals have is to move away from danger or what we call flight. The amount of fear the pressure creates is what can put the animal into survival mode. If the brain switches to survival mode the animal needs all its energy for flight. “They load ‘er light, bind ‘er tight, and head ’em for the swamps,” as my old friend Steve Mitchell used to say.
The brain sends signals through the body with cortisone and adrenaline to increase blood and oxygen flow to the heart, lungs, and legs to increase the ability to run away from danger. Any thing that takes energy and is not needed is put on stand by or shut down. The immune system takes a bunch of energy (remember how you feel before you get a cold). There is no need to fight off pink-eye or BVD at the moment, if a grizzly bear, or a human that acts like one is trying to get you. This is the danger of excessive pressure too often for too long.
The environment inside the cow also has predators and they are waiting for an opportune time to attack. These are pathogens and bacteria and other things I don’t know the names of. I look at the immune system like a county sheriff. If he has good deputies and they are all on the job, the county has very little crime. If they have a disaster from mother nature, big predators like fire, tornado, earthquakes or flood, they shut down the crime immune system and help people in the survival mode. This is when the pathogens of society attack.
Hopefully this will get you to thinking how important it is to keep an animal on the gain. This is why it is not only important to get the cattle to do what you need from a handling stand point, but also from an economic and ethical point of view as well. The amount of feel you use with your type of pressure affects immediate and future gain.
Every experience the animal has with pressure effects how its brain reacts to pressure. If the animal learns to take pressure he is on the thinking or gain side and will get better to handle over time. Pressure without feel is excessive and creates shrink or survival mode. Over time this will create animals that are hard to handle and, if driven to survival mode, can become very dangerous.
No matter how good you are at handling livestock, the next person that gets to handle it may not be as handy. The situation and area it is being handled in may require an animal that is trained to take pressure and think its way through the situation. If it has been taught to handle with feel, it will be much easier to get it done safely while keeping the animal on the gain.
If we all learn to handle our livestock with FEEL it will solve many problems. That’s what Stockmanship and Stewardship is all about.
So, whatever method you use to get livestock from point to point, make sure you use feel and keep ’em on the gain.
I really enjoy what I call cowboy music. When I was in high school Chris LeDoux was my favorite. Red Steagall was added in my college rodeo days. Ian Tyson, Tom Russell, Dave Stamey, R.W. Hampton, Don Edwards, Wylie and the Wild West to name a few sure helped myself and family enjoy our barn and riding lots of horses.
This song and these images by my friend Stocklein say it all as it pertains to this weeks subject in my blog. Many of the people in the photos helped me or inspired me to improve.
Matt Robertson, a Wyoming boy, with a Canadian wife, is a great new talent in the cowboy world and also writing and singing about it. Corb Lund, Linda Thurston, and Adrian Brannan are some of my new favorites.
I have not put very much “cowboy” music on the Friday feel good music because it is real hard to find cowboy music that fits the theme I am trying to talk about.
I have listened to Marty Robbins for as long as I can remember, probably before I was born.
I used to sing “160 Acres In The Valley” when I was riding my pony Pee Wee, dreaming about my outfit I wanted to have.
Most of the cowboy music is about things that may not go along with what we are discussing here. The songs portray some of the same skills and lifestyles that we are trying to overcome in having the livestock industry fit with modern day production and the consumer of this period in history.
I think this is a very important issue to look at.
First things first. We have to define what we are talking about. Cowboy is the most common word to describe our western tradition of handling cattle horseback, but in some regions they would rather be called a “buckaroo.” I prefer the term “stockman” for myself, because it pertains to not only the handling of, but care of the animal as well.
The cowboy really came from the southwest (Texas and surrounding states). This is harsh country, and after the Civil War times were tough. If you had the skills, it was possible to capture wild cattle and make a living from those skills. These were wild dangerous cattle, in wild dangerous country, and it took wild dangerous men and women to do it. The cattle did not belong to anyone, so you had no ownership to tell you how to do things, and if you could not capture them quickly, and get control of them they would be someone else’s to capture.
This created a cowboy that had the skills to get ‘er done and get it done now with no room for error. They were not concerned too much with style, just getting the animal in their control before someone else did, or the beef learned how to escape them. This created gear that was tough, horses that were tough, and cowboys that were double tough.
The buckaroo name derived from the Spanish word “vaquero.” It meant a cattle driver. This style was developed from the “Californio” region where the Catholic Missions controlled much of the livestock grazing areas. This was paradise for raising and caring for cattle. The vaquero did not have to concern himself with anything other than the skills of horsemanship and handling cattle. The Missions had peons and slaves to do other work. This created real style and finesse in the horsemanship, roping skills, and cattle handling. They were able to take time to create gear that was not only useful, but showed pride in craftsmanship. They had highly trained horses and cattle that were easy to handle because of the owners’ requirements, as well the time to teach them to handle.
This was the two main styles of cattle workers in west. As time went on and cattle ranching expanded the style went with the expansion. My home state of Montana is a perfect example of this. In western Montana the Californio style was more prevalent. Across the continental divide on the eastern side you saw a strong Texas influence, because of the trail herds coming from the south.
This is a modern look at ranching with a great song that I feel shows the “feel” the Texas drovers had for the cattle they were in care of.
We have seen a huge change in the ranch or stock horse in the past decades. This is mainly because of the work of Ray Hunt. He traveled the country showing people how to work with their horses. The so called “old way” of horsemanship has changed so much in the past years and now it is becoming the norm to work with the horse rather than forcing the horse to do what we need of it. I don’t believe this is something new, and I don’t believe only the people doing clinics were or are doing it. I also don’t believe every one who did things the “old way” did things that were abusive to horses.
Ray Hunt was the first and most mentioned person I am aware of to do clinics in this style (Monty Forman also did clinics, but it was more on performance horses). Ray was the pioneer and many have since followed. Next we had video, then television made it possible to get information without actually being with the teacher, and the Internet has been great for getting information. This has been great, and some have even called it the horsemanship “revolution.”
I would say that much of this style of horsemanship came from the Californio tradition, as well as some of the methods of the Calvary.
This goes back to the environments and lifestyles of the time and traditions in California and Texas. The Texans had no choice but to get ‘er done to survive, and survive and thrive they did.
They were the best at what was required of them and really fit the time they were in. I’m not saying the Californian style was all easy, but I do think they had it easier, as far a survival, than the Texas and southwest waddies .
I remember how people used to question, and even criticize Ray Hunt when he would come to town. Many people did not even know what he was doing but still criticized it. As time went on it became more of the norm, as more and more people started doing it. Now it is accepted by most, not all as a good thing.
Horses for most people are a source of pride and pleasure, even if they use them for their livelihood. This type of horsemanship is popular all over, even in Texas. Times have changed. The way we do things can change for the better.
I want you to know I was not friends with Ray Hunt (he really made me nervous and afraid I would do the wrong thing) but I was fascinated by his skills in working with a horse. Ray Hunt dressed like a cowboy or buckaroo, had all the skills it took to be a top hand. He seemed to be in perfect balance with a horse no matter if it was standing still, bucking, or any thing in between, and was an excellent roper. He could get a horse to perform at the top of its athletic ability, had a wealth of experience, and could read livestock well. He had the skills to be just as tough and rough on horses as anyone going. He could have roped and choked, tied horses down and thrown a tarp over them, tied their heads around for hours, or many other things that have been done to horses in the name of western training methods. But he did not do these things. Instead, he worked with what he spoke of as “feel, timing, and balance.” Other horseman had the same style of gear, same clothes, the same physical skills, but not the same feel, timing, and balance. This makes the difference.
When we talk about cattle handling in the western tradition, it is much the same as western-style horse handling. You must have skills. You can not read a book or watch a video, and simply walk out of the house and start a colt or rope a bull, and you would probably have a hard time even moving cattle if you had no previous experience. It is a learning process. The more you work at improving the skill the better you should get at it. The physical skills must be there, but how you use them is the important part. I think this is where feel, timing and balance become important.
The main motivation for livestock to do anything is pressure.
Feel is applying the proper pressure to get the animal to do what you would like it to do.
Timing is applying pressure when the animal has the ability to respond first with the mind, then with the body, and reducing or taking pressure off after the animal responds to pressure.
Balance is combining feel and timing of pressure to keep the animal in a thinking state, rather than in a survival state. This creates trust and acceptance of the pressure, and allows the animal to learn or think its way out of the pressure.
The reason I think the type of horsemanship Ray Hunt brought us has become so popular is because first of all it is real. If you develop skill and use feel, timing and balance to use those skills, you will get better results in a much better way, for the animal and the human. The other thing that has been so great, is that when people start using feel, timing and balance with the horsemanship, they learn to use it in their human relationships as well, and that is when quality of life really goes up.
If you are a horseman and you have not experienced the feeling of working with the horse to get what you want, I feel you are missing out on great personal satisfaction. To me there is an added satisfaction in taking responsibility to not expose the horse to unnecessary pressure simply for human pleasure, or what seems to be pleasure, but for many turns to frustration.
In the cattle business we must handle cattle. No matter what type of operation at some point we must control the movement and placement of the cattle. This handling will cause some amount of stress to the animal. If it is excessive it can cause problems that effect production and therefore profit, quality of life for animals and humans, and could create a negative desire for the consumer of beef.
Much of the cattle handling that is done in modern age is done in the horseback traditions. If we really want to improve cattle handling, this is the most important and most difficult place to make change. The reason are similar to the reasons Ray Hunt created some animosity at first.
Let me list some reasons I think cowboys and buckaroos are skeptical.
To force and fight animals takes talent and skill that is exclusive to a certain group, and if you make it so everyone can do it cowboys and buckaroos loose some status.
It is exciting and fun to do the high pressure types of cattle handling.
There is much honor in being a good cow fighter. It is easy to see the skills it takes to rope a wild cow, or cut a animal out of a bunch with a athletic cutting horse, or make a hard run to turn a steer. We show case these skills in cutting horse contests, team penning, ranch roping, ranch horse competition, and ranch rodeo.
The majority of the cowboys and buckaroos are young with a need to live on the edge and be wild and free.
You must have control of you emotions.
I know these reasons are true because I have lived it. I am so thankful I have had the opportunity to work around some great hands. I developed my cow fighting skills and feel I was very good at it. The lucky thing for me is that I got to experience how real and effective horsemanship can be with skill and feel, timing, and balance and was able to see this would also improve the way I worked with cattle.
I feel the late Ray Hunt did so much to help horses and people have a better deal. In the cattle business we can benefit greatly from this style.
No matter if you are of the “Texas” or “California” tradition or a mix of both, if you add feel, timing, and balance to the tradition of cattle handling you will add to and improve the tradition, as well as improve quality of life for every one involved.
I have spent many years working on this and hope with my sharing of ideas through print and live demonstrations, it will help you on the journey to become better at working with animals. I take it very seriously and hope you do as well. It is important to improve.
I feel it is very hard to teach someone better cattle handling skills, but it is very easy to learn better cattle handling skills. All you need is the desire and the time and you will get better. Learn as much as you can, figure out what will work for you, put effort into it and you will be on your way to improvement.
As a tribute to Ray Hunt and all the other great livestock handlers before us lets not forget.
I recently read a book titled Entering the Shift Age by David Houle. It really got me thinking about the shift age as it pertains to the livestock industry.
What I took away from this book was that we have gone from agricultural revolution to industrial revolution to technology revolution and we are now in a time when the combination of all three of these revolutions is causing us to create a shift age to a new way of life which we are just beginning to realize. Some are embracing this shift, some are fighting it.
One thing I am certain of is that there will be change and I have a feeling some of these changes may be unlike any we have seen ever before.
I have been watching how people deal with change for a long time. It is very difficult to change habits or traditions even though we know it is the best thing to do.
The first time I met Temple Grandin she told me about a new knife handle developed to be ergonomically correct. They presented these proven better knives to all the employees in a slaughter plant. If the worker had only been on the job for a short time, they used the knife and productivity went up; injury and fatigue went down. However, the worker that had been on the job for long enough to get comfortable in the habit of using the traditional square handled knife (even though they were told the new design was better) soon went back to what they were used to.
Several years ago, I discovered what was then called “intensive grazing.” As a young man wanting to get into the business of ranching, but having no money and no land I really felt this was the way to be able to make it work. I figured anyone that learned about it would be jumping on the band wagon. I was raised on a small place with lots of small pastures so we were already sort of doing this, I just did not recognize it. I was real exited about this grazing style but when I would talk to experienced ranchers that grazed traditionally they would have lots of reasons why they did what they did, and why what I was talking about would not work.
I read Holistic Resource Management by Allan Savory and subscribed to The Stockman Grass Farmer magazine that at the time was all about grazing and livestock management on pasture. One of the real big game changers in my ranch philosophies was going to “Ranching For Profit” with Stan Parsons and Dave Pratt. The reason I think all these things were real easy for me to want to do, is because my grandfather was already doing most of what I was learning about, I just did not yet have the ability to see it clearly.
Most of the folks subscribing to the new teachings (of old methods) were new into the business, or were being forced to change from either from financial reasons or personal reasons, like the wife being tired of being broke (that’s very personal, not financial).
My point in all this is it very hard to change our habits and traditions. It may be caused by pride, a psychological reason, or even seem to be a financial issue. Whatever the reason, if you have been doing things a certain way for any lengthy amount of time it is almost impossible to change too much too quick.
Now lets look at the public and what they want and believe …
The big shift in the world may seem to be technology. I think that technology certainly has shifted the world. We now have ideas or images that go viral. What I say in this moment can offend or please someone on another continent in a moment. Just ten years ago this was not possible.
Every moment people are being influenced by others. It is easy to get information on anything, anytime. The challenge is making sure it’s fact and much of the emotion is lost without physical contact.
As the general public gets farther and farther away from physically being involved with agriculture, the more they feel the need to control and influence the decisions being made.
It feels good to stand up for what you think is right, and it is easy to become so passionate about the cause. I just wish folks would make sure all the info they get is fact and are willing to put forth effort and sacrifices to help the cause that fuels the passion.
We had some folks over to supper several years ago. The husband was real interested in horses and had moved from California to Montana. His wife did not share his passion for horses and in conversation told me she was an “environmentalist.”
We were invited to dinner at their home about a year later. I reminded her of our conversation about her being an environmentalist, and asked her what she had done to improve the environment in the last year. She told me she had been very busy and did not actually do anything, but did give some money to a group. She did not even think to ask me what I had done, so I told her about all the grazing projects I had going, how I was actually encouraging the beavers to build dams to help with my sub irrigation, and let her know that most ranchers work with Mother Nature instead of against her.
She told me she was embarrassed by the fact that she just assumed all ranchers were bad for the environment, and that she had not really done anything to help what she believed. Hopefully, she had a shift in her thinking.
The shift we have seen in the consumer in the last ten years has been from thinking food came from the supermarket to wanting to know why, when, what and especially how the food they are eating is raised.
These are the shifts I am seeing.
Demographics are a big influencer. The baby boomers are a huge part of our population. We have lived hard, spent hard, had a lifestyle that did not always have health at the front of the priorities. Now we are playing catch up on the health scene and are very concerned about what and how we eat. The millennial group are much more into health and are very willing to spend more on food and sacrifice other wants for a healthy meaningful lifestyle. We still have plenty of folks that don’t really even think about how they eat and this brings on the next shift I am seeing.
Obesity is now a large problem. Changing the way we eat is going to be the next big push.
Look at what has happened over the past 15 years in the tobacco industry. We will see similar changes in laws and trends in the food industry in the near future, whether we like it or not. I am not comparing food with tobacco, but looking at the facts of a changing world and as we become less involved with the actual process of creating food, it creates the desire to become more influential in the regulation of the production of food.
Then there is the power of social media. People have a need to be heard and want others to share the same thoughts and philosophy as they do. As technology leads us to quicker and easier communication on a global basis, trends will happen much faster and become more widespread than ever before.
I have learned the hard way to not “know” what will happen in the future. From my observations, successful enterprises in any business must create a desire for a product, or produce a product for an existing desire. Maintaining and increasing this desire is the challenge. As you create desire you also create competition, and animosity to the product from those who don’t desire the product. Just think of the tobacco industry.
For me in the world I live in, I get to see many different types of people and have the opportunity to observe very different lifestyles from my own. I feel I have trained myself to see things from others point of view and try to see things in a way that is factual, not just the way I want it to be.
So here are things I see coming with what I call “the foodies” …
Humane animal treatment becoming more important
Environmentally friendly foods
Less processed foods
More natural type foods
A shift away from certified organic to local
Seasonal eating
More grass-fed
More small livestock operations
More home gardens
Food being a social uniter
Choosing products based on the way it was raised
Spending more for feel-good food
Less trust in science based research
I am not judging if this is bad or good, just pointing out what I think is happening.
My problem is I don’t know for fact how big and how strong the foodie movement is. In the circles I travel in I feel it is very strong and gaining momentum, but it may be my circle is not the big picture.
Many of the desires of the foodies listed above are very difficult for agriculture on a large scale to meet. This is a real problem that we need to address from an honest, factual point of view. In my opinion the future will see more and more small operations, especially in the pork and poultry side.
For those of us in the grazing animal side, we will see some growth in small operations that finish animals on the farm or ranch with somewhat of a custom finish. If you are willing to meet the needs of the customer, and if they can afford it, there will be great opportunity for smaller outfits to do well.
I am nervous about the future of large scale finishing operations. With the rising costs to manage, more regulations, the uncertainty of weather patterns, and the huge numbers it takes both monetarily and in animals, as well as challenges with the labor force, it is more challenging than ever before to make it work. When competition for commodities from the fuel industry, as well as foreign markets are all added in the risk is even higher.
The latest technology I have been reading about is 3D printing and I believe it will have a big impact in the future. I also have visions of our implants going from a consumer fear to a confidence builder by implanting healthy omega 3 s, vitamins and minerals and health promoting properties into our animals.
The use of drones to monitor health of livestock, check fence and water on ranches and maybe even help to manage livestock on the range to better use and create sustainable environments.
Farming has benefited so much from technology, I don’t see why livestock production can’t do the same. The thing we should be very careful of is spending to much money on infrastructure until we know what direction we are headed.
Nothing is certain, but I would be willing to bet quite a bit on the fact that the consumer of the future is going to become more informed about the products they consume, and will only purchase foods that meet that criteria.
Food safety, nutrition content, animal welfare, sustainability, and environmentally friendly are going to become more and more important to the consumer in the future. Are you going to love or hate these phrases?
In the future of my blog rants I am going to focus on two things that I am passionate about, animal husbandry and stewardship of our resources.
Curt Pate Stockmanship 