Curt Pate is a new breed of cowboy. He is one who knows about the animals he is working with beyond just breed and purpose. He knows about how they act and what their natural signals are. Curt realizes that there are brains in those big head and behind those big eyes. Curt respects the animals he is working with. Curt is a Cow Whisperer. He is one of a growing number of new style farmers.
Many of the techniques used by animal whisperers’ are traditional methods of animal husbandry that comes from both book knowledge and, most importantly time spent with animals directly observing them. Spending time with an animals can teach much more than an entire book on behaviour. Often the biggest challenge for farmers is having tine to really stop and watch their animals. Not only is time an issue, but in large scale factory farms animals are not given the chance to exhibit natural behaviours.
Temple Grandin is a pioneer in livestock behaviour and using an animals natural tendencies to make their farm lives a better experience from birth to death.
This Aug. 4, 2010 photo shows cowboy Curt Pate demonstrating stress-free handling of cattle on the Siben Ranch outside of Helena, Monana. Man at right is employee, Jon Selby. (AP Photo/Janie Osborne)
It is now official…Moog is gone. She has been gone almost a week and there is no sign of her. Last Wednesday she was in her pond for the day. I checked on her about six o’clock in the evening and she was fine. When I went back a couple of hours later she was gone. She had left a vague trail to follow by means of a broken catnip stem, and a hole that looks as though she would have laid eggs, but after that it went cold. A Moog hunt went on until 10:30pm or so until there was just no point any more. We have been looking for the last few days but still to no avail.