Notes from the dairy stock-man-ship training seminar:

First two points he made:

"Scientific fact: 30% of what any given expert says will be wrong."

"Science has proven that multi-tasking is inefficient. Do one thing at a time."

He covered three important overviews.

• He said our language should be based on neuroscience rather than vague undefinable terms. (He noted that "stock-man-ship" is undefined. They are working on defining it.) We can not define stress, the emotional state of any animal, nor what animals are thinking. We can only measure biological certainties. We should always speak to the public in terms of the measurable known biology of cows. We will never know if cows are happy. We hope they are happy. We sincerely try to make them happy, but all we can know for sure is if they are eating well, resting well, giving expected amounts of milk, are fertile, have stable temps and rumen sounds, etc.

• He said, when handling cattle, everyone on the farm should use the same techniques. Low stress techniques result in cows who give the most milk. Anything that induces an adrenaline response in dairy cattle will result in lowered milk production---and the amount production is lowered is a lot more than you would think. And lowered production can persist for several days after an adrenaline event. Things that induce adrenaline in cows:  looking them in the eye, speaking too loudly, waving your arms, moving at them with an aggressive attitude, escalating "the energy" of any given situation, tail jacking, pushing, and obviously hitting. He said shouting around a cow is equal to hitting them. He said no one should come out of the pit when working dairy cattle: don't chase them out, train them to go in calmly from a very early age, and be quiet in the pit.  He said to calm and slow everything down on the farm. He literally said to "calm the energy" and "back away from energy." He said that when there are problems you should reduce stimuli and reduce pressure. He said to learn to work cows with the least amount of stimulation.

• Lastly, he discussed and demonstrated a lot of subtle techniques, based on cow biology, for training them and moving them with the lowest possible stress. He pretty much said you don't ever want to see a cow running anywhere, ever. He said you want to stop moving them quickly and start moving them at the cow's pace, which is slower than humans (and bosses) want to go. He said, "The slow way is the fast way." He said that once you get movement, you should stand still. The whole theory is basically teaching calves that have been bottle fed to move like a herd. Calves should have positive novel experiences and get moved around and trained through the parlor (or a fake parlor) from the time they are older than 2 months. Before they are two months old, they see double. Move individuals and herds from behind or on the oblique and always stand on the inside curve of any arc they are traveling--so they can see you. When you walk behind them you should zig zag from one eye to the other. He said working calves once a month, for 15 minutes each, for three days in a row was plenty. He said it doesn't take much time and the payoff is heifers who walk calmly through the parlor and give a lot more milk. 

We got to practice with calves and cows and that was really fascinating. He said a lot more than I can cover here. But he certainly turned my head. I'll be studying low stress handling for the rest of my life working with cattle. He stressed, many times, that no one should ever have their hands in their pants pockets. Coat pockets are fine, pants pockets are very dangerous. He said to hook your thumbs, if you must--especially to keep from waving your arms. He also mentioned to always use a proper 5/8 inch rope with calves, that the thin ropes are not safe for them. The whole point is that dairy stock-man-ship is calmer and more elegant, more cow-centric, than is currently standard in the industry.