Heifers in the Alley

A young, anxious heifer standing next to an older, experienced cow.

Working with Youth

Working with youth is the greatest job in the world--maybe the most difficult, but definitely the most rewarding.  Young people and animals are eager and excited, approaching every event with far more energy than adults have left.  Just the other day, we were bringing home a set of 20 young heifers, bucking and kicking all the way down the corral.  The teenagers I work with as a teacher, are comparable in a rambunctiousness that unfortunately can sometimes go awry.  

I’ve noticed that without an appropriate avenue for that zeal, it quickly becomes destructive or even apathetic in both people and animals.  

These aren’t just some kids in some classroom or angry beefalo cattle.  These are kids hired at fast food restaurants or helping with hay.  Kids avoiding questions and ignoring learning opportunities. They turn into adults that don’t submit our insurance claims correctly or lie on their taxes.  We have all been there.  We ask ourselves, “Hasn’t anyone ever taught this person to speak kindly? How could they be so negligent and wasteful? Do they even care about the work they do?"

Perhaps not.  Any accomplished and responsible adult wants to immediately reprimand poor work ethic and shoddy workmanship.  Even talking to other professionals, I want to call them out on carelessness, but what has it done?  I think about how to work with animals, especially young ones and realize yelling and frustration won’t do the trick.

Pushing Them Back

As we were tagging our latest heifers, I was pushing them through our curved alley and up to the chute.  Because they are only 800lbs, they were able to get themselves turned around in the alley.  Of course, pushing an animal into a box is hard enough, and it is even harder when they are going butt first.  I could have easily yelled and screamed, used intimidation, or a hot shot to get them to turn back around or just go into the chute backwards.  Had I done so, we might have finished sooner, but skipping out on an earlier step makes the later step twice as difficult and probably not even on me.  My husband doing the tagging would have been dealing with backwards heifers and had no chance of using the head-catch if needed.  I could have easily brushed it off as, “not my problem” and just done my job without regard to the end result.  These experiences in life with youth and adults that don’t care about the quality of their product or the effect it has on later parties, is what makes us all want to tear out our hair.

Though I might have had five heifers in the alley, if the first one turned back, I would let them all back into the tub.  I went through this about 3 times on only 20 heifers!  It was time-consuming and annoying, but it was best for the heifers to learn how to navigate the facility, best for my husband doing the tags, and best for me to treat both with patience in order to have the best long-term result. Once those heifers were on the field, they settled in nicely, taking cues from the cows around them.

There is Learning Yet to Do

Had these heifers been people, I would be wondering why they couldn’t just do what they were supposed to do.  It would be silly to scold heifers for being obstinate and rude like I would a teenager slacking off in the classroom.  I realized, what I might consider unacceptable behavior is due directly to youth.  

Youth have learning yet to do.  Many of them arrive at adulthood lacking experiences that also help them learn.  Likewise, these heifers have probably only ever been worked once when they were branded as 3 or 4 month-olds.  Being in the working facility was still new to them.  They will become more accustomed to it each time they’re treated, and the more often we treat them with soft pats and quiet whistles, they will learn acceptance rather than fear.  Young people share similar qualities; they haven’t mastered their skills which is why they’re still in the classroom, so why should I assume they’ve accomplished the work ethic I expect from adults?  Instead of a lecture about grit, or flying off the handlebars at an incompetent phone receptionist, I will show them work ethic.  I will have patience.  I will be dedicated to seeing it through.  In the end, we will all be better off giving and receiving kindness and patience in working towards a common goal.