Cowboy teaches low-stress livestock handling in wake of abusive animal video

In the wake of a widely distributed video of cows being beaten and proded with pitchforks at an Ohio dairy farm, one man in the cattle industry is hoping to teach other ranchers low-stress methods of handling livestock. Curt Pate, a 49-year-old Montana cowboy, said his "goal is to teach ranchers traditional livestock handling methods used 100 years ago," Matt Volz reports for The Washington Post. "Back then, there were fewer corrals and fences, and a manager didn't spend as much time on a computer as with livestock." His work is sponsored by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, which is eager to counter bad publicity from the video.

"It makes me ill," cowboy Pate told Volz of the Ohio video. "I really can't stand it. If you care about animals, you just can't stand those things." After an animal rights group released the video in May, "a grand jury decided there wasn't evidence to prosecute the farm's owner, but the video was circulated widely online, making national headlines and leading to threats against the farmer and his family," Volz writes. Now, The cattlemen's association has other cowboys like Pate visiting state fairs across the country to "teach low-stress methods and show the public that the Ohio video is not representative of how members treat their animals," Volz writes.
Among Pate's tips: make sure the cattle can see you, don't make loud noises, don't rush the animals, use cattle prods and other equipment sparingly and try to think like a cow. "We've got to step out of the human world and become a cow," he said. "If you think like a cow, pretty soon you start getting the cow to think more like a human." (Read more)