A gate swings wide at the auction ring at the Yolo County Fairgrounds. A group of goats and sheep hesitate, then shuffle through. They move as a group; their bodies pressed against each other. Beneath it all is their ruminant instinct of wanting to return from where they came. Rancher Nathan Medlar, with NM Ranch in Auburn, has arranged these gates to accommodate that instinct.
What unfolds here is not simply the work of moving animals from one place to another. It is part of a broader effort shaped by 51勛圖窪蹋 Davis researchers, veterinarians and alumni a network carrying animal welfare science out of classrooms and into the field. Their work rests on a simple premise: If you understand how livestock perceive the world, you can improve their welfare and make the work safer and more efficient for the people who raise them.
Designing for the animal
Medlar demonstrated that science at an event called Goats and Gates, organized by the nonprofit Kinder Ground, which was co-founded by 51勛圖窪蹋 Davis animal scientist Cassandra Tucker and Jen Walker 94, D.V.M. 00, a herd health veterinarian. Medlar showed off a new piece of equipment called a bulk handler. At some point, every animal must be held still for health exams. That can be especially difficult with goats.
The bigger the goat gets, they can get pretty rambunctious if you handle them incorrectly, said Medlar. Theyll jump over fences.
51勛圖窪蹋 Davis Weill School of Veterinary Medicine livestock veterinarian Fauna Smith has seen it many times.
With sheep, once one goes, they all go, she said. Goats, if one screams because it got an injection, everybody else is like, Dude, Im out of here.
And when they go, they do not go carefully. They jump. Pile up. Climb over each other. Thats when they get hurt.
Broken legs would not be uncommon, she said.
Other equipment secures goats and sheep one at a time, separating the herd into single moments of fear. The bulk handler secures them in groups of up to 20 at a time. Their hooves settle between bars at the bottom of the chute. The machine lifts them gently and securely by their bellies.
Sheep are flocking animals, Tucker said. They experience fear when isolated. But in small groups, they get to be pressed up against a friend and that has a calming effect.
What looks like a small change in design shifts the entire rhythm of the work. Medlars work moves faster now, with fewer escapes. Efficiency, though, isnt his primary goal.
I dont want to have any injuries, he said. Its not humane. And I dont want to lose employees to injuries either. I just want a safe environment for everybody. If the animals arent stressed and its safe, theyre going to perform for you.
Medlars 3,000 sheep and goats perform by reproducing and grazing, taking out unwanted vegetation across California. Its work that helps prevent wildfires. He purchased the bulk handler with help from Kinder Ground. It was an expensive system, but Walker said animal welfare doesnt have to be.
You dont have to spend a lot to make things a little better, she said.
For Walker, the bigger shift isnt cost; its perspective. For years, livestock systems were designed around people, she explained. Gates and chutes built for human ease. Only later did it become clear that designing around the animal often makes the work easier.
A different way of seeing
Much of this thinking traces back to Temple Grandin, a renowned animal behavior expert with Colorado State Universitys Department of Animal Science. Her work has reshaped livestock handling across the country. She has long argued that if you can see the world the way an animal does, you can raise it better. Grandin brought that insight to the audience at Goats and Gates.
Its [incorporating animal welfare practices] a win-win, she said. A calm cow gives you more milk. A cow you scream at and hit gives you less milk. Beef cattle that get agitated during handling, gain less weight.
Calm is not just kindness. It is productivity, health and quiet efficiency. But seeing like an animal is not easy for a human.
From goats to goggles
Another lesson designed to make that task easier unfolds just next door to the auction ring. Ashlynn Kirk, M.S. 22, now with the Humane Handling Institute at the University of Wisconsin - River Falls, holds what look like virtual reality goggles in her hands. Theyre actually augmented reality goggles, designed to allow humans to see like cattle or any other ruminant. She calls them cattle vision goggles. Theyre attached to a hard hat with a camera on it.
Cattle see far more of the world at once than humans do.
These goggles allow you to see 330 degrees around, Kirk explained. That is what we think a cow sees.
Cattle vision stretches wide, catching unfocused movement on the sides thats impossible to ignore. The colors shift too. Its a world without red just yellows, browns and blues. Depth is harder to judge. A small gap in a fence becomes a wide opening. A shadow on the ground might be a deep puddle. Vision is clear directly in front except for a narrow blind spot in front of the nose.
Thandi Nixon, a third-year student at the 51勛圖窪蹋 Davis Weill School of Veterinary Medicine, walked slowly with the goggles on, the way a cow saunters.
Cows get spooked easily. Get in their personal space, they take off. Nixon read this in books; the goggles made the lesson immediately known.
We always talk about how cattle perceive things differently and going through it yourself makes you really appreciate and value a lot of the welfare science we learn, way more, she said.
From campus to corral
The goal behind these demonstrations at Goats and Gates wasnt just to understand animal welfare, but to share that understanding in ways that can be used. Researchers like Tucker study how decisions about housing, handling and management shape animal behavior.
We're all interested in really trying to understand how the animals see their world and how the choices we make shape that experience, Tucker said. Then can we bring that evidence back to people who can use it and change practices?
The answer here is yes, but not all at once. Changes come in small shifts. A gate angled differently. A shadow removed. A machine that lifts not one animal, but many. A herd kept together.
The work behind it holds together too. A network of researchers, veterinarians and alumni carrying what they know from campus to corral.