A Book Review: Temple Grandin’s
Humane Livestock Handling
Becky Crabtree
There is much to know about the handling of
livestock. Enough textbooks, encyclopedias, idiot’s
guides, and how-to volumes have been written to fill
a library. If you only have time and inclination to
read one book, Temple Grandin’s slender paperback
Humane Livestock Handling is the one.
The book can be divided roughly into two
sections. The first half, Parts I and II, covers the
psychology of grazing animals, that is, cattle, sheep,
horses, bison, goats and llamas, plus gives information
22 West Virginia Farm Bureau News
on how to handle them. The author explains the
sensibilities of animals with specific examples:
Animals “watch” things with their ears. They
remember smells and tastes and distinguish between
different tones of voice. Yelling and whistling can
cause a cow’s heartbeat to race faster than the sound of
a slamming gate.
Grandin explains that both genetics and learned
behavior play a role in the temperament of animals.
She says that some cattle breeds are calm and some are