I’ll start this post by getting one thing clear: I am NOT a morning person. I never have been. My family knows this better than anyone, which is why it shocked me so much to receive a 6 a.m. phone call from my father the other day.

He called just to chat – it was 4 a.m. back in Nebraska, and he was out checking heifers. He bought this set of first-calf heifers in the fall, and had been pleasantly surprised with them so far. Things were going so well, in fact, that rather than having to assist any of their calving efforts, he had time to call his youngest daughter to chat oh-so-early in the morning.

“They’re calm, gentle, easy to work with – they just handle well. They take good care of their babies and are all nursing just fine. These ol’ girls are going to make some great cows. Someone really did some fine work with them before they arrived at our place,” he told me.

I got to the office later that morning, still pondering that group of heifers. What had gone so right at the ranch before ours to create such a peaceful condition back home?

I pulled up my notes from a presentation I had heard last fall at our Feeding Quality Forum. Dr. Tom Noffsinger, a veterinarian and animal handling expert from south-central Nebraska, had given a talk about “Caregiver Impact on Cattle Performance and Quality.” I remember him telling a story about how he started at weaning to work with a similarly outstanding group of heifers:

“We asked them to go through the processing facility three times before we ever started weaning. We opened the chute, stood at the front and sent those calves through. We timed how long it took getting those 120 calves through. Then we just kept running them through there until they were going though in half the time it took the first time around. Then we sent our crew off to do something else and two people vaccinated and processed those heifers.

“We just left the flood gate open and they just kept coming through. That changed these animals for the rest of their lives. As long as we are consistent and calm every single time we work them in the future. If you’re going to own those cows for 15 years, it’s really fun to have a group that likes you. Handling them like this changes everything in their behavior, so really work on preparing these animals to do what you expect.”

Sounds like those were the processing standards, or something close to it, at the birth home of dad’s new heifers. He’ll be reaping the benefit for years to come, and he’ll be able to improve upon it each time the crew back home works the cattle and their prodigy.

Research tells us that low-stress, docile animals are healthier and perform better in the feedyard and in carcass traits. That doesn’t even mention the decrease in stress and injury among ranch workers.

I guess that goes to show that building and maintaining good relationships just takes a little time. That might mean getting up a few hours early to familiarize cattle with a processing facility to build a stockman-animal relationship. Or it might mean getting out of bed a couple hours early for a long-overdue phone conversation to maintain a father-daughter relationship.

Either way, we know building those relationships is well worth it in the long run. Stay tuned tomorrow for more of my notes from Dr. Tom.

Until next time,

-Laura