1. Minimizing Stress During Livestock Handling & Transport
By Margie Resendez
Content Area/Grade Level: Agriculture/Grades 9-12
TEKS Objective: The students learns employability characteristics of a successful worker in the modern workplace. The student is expected to:
(A) identify career development and entrepreneurship opportunities in the field of agriculture/agribusiness
(B) apply competencies related to resources, information, interpersonal skills, and systems of operation in agriculture/agribusiness
(C) demonstrate knowledge of personal and occupational safety practices in the workplace
(D) identify employers’ expectations, appropriate work habits, and good citizenship skills
(E) plan supervised agricultural experience programs
ISTE Student Standard: Basic operations and concepts
Students demonstrate a sound understanding of the nature and operation of technology systems.
Students are proficient in the use of technology.

2. What is stress? Two forms: physiological and psychological stress
sum of adverse physical, chemical, and emotional factors that results in physiological tensions within an animal
Physical factors: a novelty or something unusual or new
Chemical factors: hormones
Emotional factors: fear
Stress is the sum of adverse physical, chemical, and emotional factors that results in physiological tensions within an animal. Different species are affected by stress in different ways. Stress can come in two forms, physiological and psychological stress.

3. Stress Decreases Productivity
Causes harmful diseases
Reproductive failure can occur
Psychologically distressed
Decreases growth rate
Stress can cause harmful diseases, such as shipping fever, reproductive failure can occur, and animals can become psychologically distressed. Overall, stress is the number one factor in decreasing an animal’s productivity and harming their health. Common livestock production practices, such as handling and transportation, are known to cause different levels of stress in animals. In order for livestock to remain healthy and productive, it is important to minimize the amount of stress an animal experiences.
Decreased productivity = decreased profit

4. Animal Behavior: What causes stress?
Fear is an emotion & psychological stress.
A novelty is something unusual or new.
Natural Behavior
Herding animals
isolation
Flight Zone
Point of balance
Personal space invaded
Most successful animal handlers understand their livestock to the extent that they anticipate their reactions to many stimuli. Such understanding is helpful when handling animals, designing facilities, and managing grazing, breeding, or other components of production systems. Fear is a emotion that all members of the animal kingdom experience at one time or another. ). Fear is a very strong stressor, and the highly variable results of handling and transportation studies are likely to be due to different levels of psychological stress. Some examples of psychological stress are restraint, contact with people, and exposure to novelty. Along with fear, novelty is also a very strong stressor. Novelties are often considered signs of danger. For example, cattle will balk at shadows, color contrasts, and differences in flooring during movement through handling facilities. Farm animals naturally form herds or flocks, which permit them to be managed in large groups with reasonable efficiency of feeding and management. ). In fact they have such a strong instinct that isolating an animal from its group can be very stressful. Animals can be moved most easily with a minimum of excitement if the handler positions himself on the boundary of the animal’s flight zone or point of balance. When the flight zone‘s boundary, the animal‘s personal space, is penetrated, the animal will move away from the handler.
The “Flight Zone” hyperlink will take the students to a website that will show pictures of the use of the flight zone in moving animals and it shows diagrams of the point of balance on an animal.

5. Handling & Management Techniques
Restraint of Livestock
Branding Livestock
Castration
Dehorning
Tail Docking
Transportation of Livestock
The livestock handling and management techniques used today have been around for generations. There are several ways to perform each technique. It is important to use the technique that will cause the least amount of stress in the animal. Livestock handling and management techniques include:
restraint of livestock
branding livestock
castration
dehorning
tail docking
transportation of livestock

6. Restraint 5 Categories of Restraint Psychological Sensory Diminishment
Chutes, Alleys, and Barriers
Tools & Physical Force
Chemical sedation or immobilization
Dr. Temple Grandin's Web Page
There are five categories of restraint. These categories include: psychological, sensory diminishment, sue of confining chutes, alleys, and barriers, use of tools and physical force, and chemical sedation or immobilization. Psychological restraint depends upon the manager having a thorough working knowledge of the behavior patterns of the species to be restrained. The human voice can sometimes be used as a restraint tool, depending on the previous experiences of the animal. Sensory diminishment usually involves blindfolding an animal or plugging up its ears with cotton. The use of confining alleys, chutes, and barriers is one of the most common ways to restrain domestic livestock, especially cattle and sheep. The use of tools and physical force to restrain animals is as old as man and the domestication of animals. The types of tools that are commonly used are ropes, snares, leg hooks, sheep crooks, nose tongs, nose rings, bull staffs, sorting poles, canes, electric prods, whips, and halters. Chemical restraint is the strongest method of controlling the activity of an animal. With chemicals, it is possible to totally immobilize an animal and have it lie recumbent before you as necessary for surgery.
Dr. Temple Grandin’s Web Page will help show students the proper designs of chutes, alleys, and other restraining systems that minimize the amount of stress an animal feels.

7. Branding Permanent means of identifying an animal Four Methods
Hot iron Branding
Freeze Branding
Tattoos
Electronic Identification
Branding is a permanent means of identifying an animal and ownership. An animal can be branded by four different methods, each having their own advantages and disadvantages. These methods include hot iron branding, freeze branding, tattoos, and electronic identification. Hot iron branding is the most practical and inexpensive method used to identify livestock. Freeze branding is slightly different from hot iron branding. The super cooled branding iron kills the hair pigment producing cells and cause the hair to grow back white. If tattooing is done properly, it can be a very effective branding method. Tattoos are placed in the ears of an animal. The downside of tattoos is that they cannot be seen from far away like hot or freeze branding. Electronic identification is a relatively new method in the livestock industry. In this method, a small microchip that is enclosed with silicon is injected under the animal’s skin along the crest of the neck.

8. Castration Surgical Method Non-surgical Methods
use of a scalpel to cut the scrotum and remove the testicles
Non-surgical Methods
Banding
rubber band is tightly wrapped around the animal’s scrotum
it will cut off the circulation of blood to the testicles.
After several days, the scrotum will fall off
Burdizzo
crushes and crimps the spermatic cord
Castration is the removal of the testicles, of a male livestock species, by either surgical or nonsurgical methods. Removing the testicles reduces the aggressiveness in male animals as they mature. Cattle, swine, goats, and sheep are castrated because of consumer preference at the market place, for economic reasons, and for better animal disposition.

9. Method &Timing of Castration Influences Performance of Bull Calves
experiment done by the Oklahoma Agriculture Experiment Station
Bulls randomly assigned to different treatment
Banding
Surgical
Left intact
Banded bulls (2 to 3 months old) had >ADG than bulls surgically castrated or left intact
The earlier an animal is castrated, the less stress the will experience. Scientist in the Livestock Behavior Research Unit at West Lafayette, Indiana, found that calves castrated shortly after birth suffered less stress and recovered faster than those castrated around weaning time. Both surgical and banding (one nonsurgical method) were used in this study. Surgically castrated calves showed higher levels of heptaglobin, meaning that surgical castration is more stressful than banding.

10. Dehorning Six Methods Caustic Stick or Paste Bell-Shaped Dehorners
Spoon, Tube, or Knife
Barnes-Type Dehorner
Dehorning Clippers & Saws
Genetically Dehorning
. The objective of dehorning is to reduce the possibility of injury and bruising of animals as well as the handler. Any animal with horns can severely cut and bruise other animals in the herd and reduce carcass value in beef and milk production in dairy. Animals with horns require more shed and feeding space, and they are harder and more dangerous to handle during routine management practices. The caustic stick or paste method, which is a chemical method, is designed to dehorn very young calves of the age of about one or two weeks. This technique involves applying a caustic paste or stick to the horn button. The bell-shaped electric dehorner or hot iron is an excellent method for removing the horns from a calf at any age when the horn button is less than 3/4 inch in length. The spoon, tube, or knife method involves the actual cutting out and removal of the small horn button. The Barnes-type dehorner lifts the horn out by the roots and crushes the blood vessels so that only a small amount of bleeding occurs. The handler must be sure that the horny tissue of the horn is removed completely because if it isn’t, a horn stump or scar can grow back. Dehorning saws can be used to tip horns or remove the entire horn when the horn base is too large for clippers and when abnormal horn growth prevents the use of clippers. Genetically dehorning livestock is a worldwide idea.

11. Tail Docking Removal of the Majority of the Tail
Performed on Pigs and Sheep
Reasons for Docking
Improved Sanitation
Breeding
Appearance of Animal
Market Value Increased
Tail docking is a procedure that is done on sheep and pigs. On occasion, the pig will chew on another pig’s tail, sometimes caused by irritability that may be caused by stress. Tail docking is the best procedure known for solving the tail biting problem in pigs. This process is necessary for sheep for the following reasons:
Sanitation is improved because the wool on the tail will not become saturated with feces and urine and become a target for fly strikes or screw worm infestations.
The tail may interfere with breeding, therefore docking helps increase the productivity of ewes.
The appearance of the animal is improved for exhibition in the show ring.

12. Transportation Preparation for Transporting Animals Loading
During Shipment
Diseases During Transport
Unloading
The livestock industry requires animals to be moved from one location to another at different periods of the animal’s life. This may be movement to and from a pasture, a ranch or farm, a livestock show, a terminal market, or an auction. The transportation of livestock is very expensive. In addition to the actual shipping costs, there may be hidden cost due to shrinkage, bruising, disease, and the possible death of an animal. Much of these losses can be minimized if the proper skills are used in handling and transporting of the livestock. In preparation of transporting animals, the handler should check the weather and plan to transport the animals during early morning or late evening. To load livestock properly with the least amount of stress possible, there are several things a handler should do before and during loading of livestock: (talk about the steps). During shipment, it is important for the driver to make sure he does not make sudden stops or starts and slows down on sharp turns. There are different diseases that can form during transport. The Porcine Stress Syndrome is the leading cause of death among pigs during transport. Shipping fever is a respiratory disease common n cattle during transport. To prevent shipping fever as much as possible, the handler should:
Make sure all animals are vaccinated against respiratory diseases.
Avoid transporting animals in extremely hot weather.
Make sure the animals have clean air space.
The same procedures as loading animals should be followed when unloading them.
is a website that the teacher can use to purchase a video on swine or beef handling and transportation. This video will show the students how to effectively handle and transport animals while minimizing stress.

13. Minimizing Stress Restraint: Chutes, Alleys, & Barriers
Branding: Electronic Identification
Castration: Burdizzo
Dehorning: Gentically
Tail Docking: Young Age
Overall, it is important to lower stress of livestock, as much as possible, during handling and transport. Injuries, bad handling, fear, food and water deprivation, novelties, weather, and shipping are all causes of stress in livestock. Stress lowers livestock productivity.
Every handling and management technique has its advantages and disadvantages, but there is always one technique that causes less stress in the animals. The following techniques are known to cause less stress in animals:
Restraint - chutes, alleys, and barriers
Branding - electronic identification
Castration - using a burdizzo
Dehorning - genetically dehorning
Tail docking - tail docking at the youngest age possible.
Assessment of Students: Through out the lesson, the students will be randomly called on to answer questions. At the end of the lesson, the students will take a test over the material presented. The test will mainly consist of multiple choice questions, so that a scantron can be used, and 2 essay questions.