Stockmanship Dramatically Improved Since the 1990s

An Animal Science Professor with Colorado State University says the handling of livestock and the understanding of animal behavior have improved dramatically since the 1990s."Pig Handling and Welfare" was the focus of the day one keynote address at Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium 2024, held this week in Saskatoon.

Dr. Temple Grandin, an animal science professor with Colorado State University, says there is a much greater awareness of the benefits of superior stockmanship.

Quote-Dr. Temple Grandin-Colorado State University:

One thing that's really good is handling has improved.That's the good news but also attitudes toward welfare have changed.I started out in the 70s and was the livestock chairman for a group called LCI, Livestock Conservation Institute.

It was a livestock organization and they had committees on preventing death losses in pigs, reducing bruises in cattle.It all had to do with economic losses.
Then, when I first started out working with cattle, I emphasized how I could improve the economics.Nobody at that point was even talking about welfare then gradually things got more interested in welfare.

Maybe 20 years ago there was a lot videos put out showing really horrible handling, really bad stuff, pitchfork in the milking parlor, knocking dairy cows over with a forklift, beating pigs with gate rods as hard as they could beat them, just really bad things and that started a lot of the things on handling.
I did work with McDonalds, Burger King and Wendy's in 1999 on inspecting pork and beef slaughter plants and it was very interesting taking high executives out and when they saw something really bad it was a true undercover boss moment.

They realized that there were things that we did have to fix but that kind of stuff's not going on now.It took a long  time for a lot of people to accept that pigs and other animals feel pain.Now the big emphasis has gone from, you've got to prevent suffering.

Dr. Grandin suggests by measuring and scoring handling, including such factors such as slips and falls, electric prod use, body condition score, lameness, vocalization you can tell whether you're getting better or worse.