Log In


Reset Password
News Education Local News Nation & World New Mexico

For animal scientist Temple Grandin, empathy triumphs

Animal scientist says dealing with behavior beats brute force

Temple Grandin, a renowned animal scientist, showed Fort Lewis College students Wednesday how her inventions help local slaughterhouse workers move animals from the trailer to the stunner.

Grandin, a professor of animal science at Colorado State University, has written several books including Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism, the Common Reading Experience book assigned to all FLC freshmen this semester.

At Sunnyside Meats, Grandin showed the Political Ecology of Food class some of her inventions that help make the operation humane and keep animals calm in the plant.

Her work helped change the industry, and she has designed a third of all livestock-handling facilities in the United States.

Throughout her career, her autism has allowed her to see the world visually and find practical solutions to keep animals calm inside industrial plants.

“You can use behavior rather than force,”she explained.

When the animals are led down the trailer to a chute with solid walls, the animals can’t see distractions around them.

The floor of the plant has a waffle pattern in the cement that keeps cattle from slipping.

Rather than leading to a dead end, the chute curves, another classic principal of her design that helps keep the animals moving forward.

Grandin suggested a window at the end of the chute that would let in light would also help catch the interest of the animals.

Kelly Beym walked the chute, void of bovines, to get a sense of the experience.

At the end of the line, where the animals are stunned in a white, clean room, she appreciated that the animals stay behind solid metal and they can’t see what happens in the room beyond.

Other students noted the cleanliness of the plant that can process about eight cows a day.

“It was cool to see a smaller scale of the process. It made it more appetizing,” said Jack Klim.

Not only are the processes clean and humane, they help keep employees safe. When cattle arrive at meat-packing plants, they are nervous and they can be dangerous.

“They are mainly reacting to the novelty,” Grandin said.

Limiting injuries at packing plants helped Grandin’s ideas gain traction early in her career.

But over time she learned the solution couldn’t be just in the system; management had to believe in the principles.

“What’s important is the attitude of the management to do things right,” she said.

She lauded Sunnyside Meats for its structure, and noted the need for small plants that can process meat locally.

The plant was built on her principals from the beginning, said owner Jerry Zink.

“I needed to get her book, and I needed to use it,” he said.

Grandin still does consulting work, but some of the problems she sees now have more to do with how the animal was raised rather than the environment.

Because animals think in pictures, cattle need to see humans on foot before they leave the farm to make them safe to work with.

“A man on a horse is a totally different picture than a man on the ground,” she said.

Another issue within industrial agriculture that she is concerned about is over-selecting or breeding animals for specific traits at the expense of their health.

For example, some chickens bred specifically to lay eggs develop extremely brittle bones, she said.

She urged those students interested in making change, as she has, to get involved on the ground before going into policy.

“Get out in the field and find out what is actually happening. ... Too much policy is turning into theory,” she said.

mshinn@durangoherald.com

If you go

Author Temple Grandin will be spending most of Thursday on campus at Fort Lewis College in classes, but her schedule includes the Real Food Challenge “Humane-ity” Picnic from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Environmental Center. The session is open to the college and community. It will feature humanely raised meat (on the Old Hesperus Campus). A limited number of tickets is available at http://bit.ly/1OHWi9c for $7.

Oct 8, 2018
Animal scientist Temple Grandin shares insights on animal fear, overbreeding
Sep 30, 2015
Grandin: Everyone has strengths


Reader Comments