Category Archives: Stockmanship

The Town Drunk

There are many different levels of pressure to influence animals with.  We all have a unique style that is our own, and hopefully we are trying to improve this style. I will share a story my grandfather told me several times.

There is a dam just outside of Helena, MT named the Canyon Ferry.  When it was being built there were many freight teams hauling supplies to the construction site.  There was a town drunk who, when he ran out of booze, could stop a team with his mind or something.  He would stop the team and the teamster could not get them to move until they bought this man a bottle. Then he would let the team go.  My grandfather said the fellow’s sister could do the same with birds.  She could put her hand out and birds would land in it.

I got a real nice surprise when we were working on the Horse Whisperer movie.  The Townsend Star, a local newspaper came out with an article talking about the same man my grandfather had told me about.

I have always wondered if this was a gift that this man was born with, or if we can all get to a higher level of communication with animals.

Tom Dorrance recommended a book Kinship With All Life. It is a very interesting book that is along the same lines as the guy who could communicate with the teams.

These are real interesting things to think about.  How far can we go with our communication with animals? How much do they try to communicate with us but we can’t hear them?

There are several things I have heard about that get me to thinking we are missing quite a lot.

The book Seven Experiments That Could Change The World talks about monkeys on different islands changing how they peel a banana to match the style of different monkeys that they could not see or hear.

There is a book that discusses airline pilots’ dogs getting exited when the the pilot lands
and is coming home.  They seem to “feel” when the owner is coming home.

I have heard that the elk in Yellowstone National Park have quit bugling because it alerts the wolves as to where they are.  There must be some type of communication for this to happen.

In Texas there are lots of wild pigs.  I have also heard the rattlesnakes have quit rattling because of the pigs eating them.

They say hardly any wild animals were killed during the huge tsunami that happened a few years ago.  They all went to higher ground before it happened.

So I feel we could go much farther in our communication with animals.  I really want to work on this.  Maybe in the future we will all be able to communicate with animals at another level.

So next year if we have a bull bucking for one half million dollars like we did this year, and you see all the other bulls walk out of the chute and stand there for six seconds and ours goes out and really bucks you will know I am getting somewhere with this.

~ Curt Pate

Stockmanship and Stewardship Christmas

When I was in the 6th grade I had a very good teacher by the name of Mr. Webb. He asked us to write a paper on the meaning of Christmas to us.

I can’t remember the whole writing, but I remember talking about Jesus being born with the animals in the manger and how I always liked to be with and take care of animals on Christmas.  To me back then and still now it seems that the keeper of animals and those that live with and tend the land and animals are real close to God.

I think this is the time of year that it is very special to a keeper of God’s creation.  Don’t forget what Christmas is for.

Have a blessed and meaningful Celebration of Christ’s Birth.

~ Curt Pate

Monitoring stress levels

I was having lunch with some folks from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association a while back and was sitting with Dan McCarty.  He told me of a study he had learned about that was done on some Hawaiian cattle that were shipped on boat to the mainland.

Long story short, they inserted a tube into the vagina of the heifers that could monitor the stress level and document the time of the stress.

From what I recall of the conversation, the only time the cattle showed much sign of excessive stress was loading and unloading.  The cattle are in a special made container with feed and water available at all times.  The trip takes several days.

This is great technology.  I feel it will be used in the future for animals and humans to monitor  the stress level from the environment around us.  This will prove many things.

  • Are animals that are confined under more stress than animals that are housed naturally?
  • Do certain levels of training create excess stress on animals?

I believe it will become an incredible technology to help us regulate and monitor proper handling of livestock and in creating a benchmark for proper livestock management.  It will prove the difference between right and wrong.

I can’t wait to learn more on this. To me this is the answer to the question on the ethics of livestock production and all animal-human relations.  It will show us optimal management of stress levels in livestock for profitable livestock production.  It is going to move us from opinion and emotion to ethics and fact.

I don’t know when this technology will get here, but I hope it is soon.  The things we have been discussing here, like different levels of pressure to get things done will be easier to monitor with this technology.  It may change my opinion on what I believe.

I upset quite a few people in the horse and cow world because I may not do things just like they do.  As of late (it has not always been this way) most of the disagreement is me wanting to put less negative pressure on the animal. That does not fit with the high pressure stockmen. As long as I am getting done what I need to get done and always trying to get it done with less chance of stress on humans and animals and more chance of a safe outcome I will take the criticism.

I have been using a method for myself for a long time that may have a similar result of the stress technology we are discussing.  I have always imagined some of the folks that I have looked up to that have died are watching me.  So in my mind I have a whole committee of people that impressed or influenced me in my life, watching me from up on a hill.  It is real important for me to impress these folks because of how they impressed me.  It helps to keep me doing what I feel is the right thing.

Even when this new technology comes around, I will continue with the committee in my mind, then I will be using both science and common sense, and I believe that is the best.

~ Curt Pate