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Welcome back to the Better Beef Podcast. Just ahead, join host Kaid Panek as he sits down and chats with Dr. Temple Grandin, professor of animal science at Colorado State University and a pioneering figure in livestock handling and animal welfare.
Dr. Temple Grandin recounts starting her career in Arizona feedyards in the 1970s, where cattle handling was extremely rough despite generally good living conditions. Early on, she believed equipment design alone could solve welfare problems, but experience taught her that management commitment is equally essential. She emphasizes that top leadership at plants, feedyards, and ranches must fully back low-stress handling or poor practices will persist.
A major turning point came when Temple trained corporate buyers from McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s to use a simple, objective scoring system to audit meatpacking plants. With clear, attainable metrics for stunning efficacy, slipping and falling, use of electric prods, and incidents of abuse, plants understood exactly what was required to remain approved suppliers. Most facilities improved rapidly with basic changes such as non-slip flooring, documented maintenance on stunning equipment, and better supervision. Temple notes she deliberately avoided pushing expensive new equipment, instead focusing on repairing and optimizing existing systems to avoid conflicts of interest.
She describes publishing her guidelines, diagrams, and handling principles openly on her website and in books to accelerate change across the industry. Temple stresses foundational concepts like flight zone and point of balance, and the importance of correct group sizes in handling systems, along with ongoing monitoring so standards do not erode over time.
Later in the conversation, Temple shifts to emerging concerns about genetics, including hoof defects and congestive heart failure linked to indiscriminate selection for rapid weight gain. She highlights the need to cull problematic genetics and points to tools such as Angus hoof scoring charts as practical ways to refocus breeding on soundness and long-term animal well-being. Overall, Temple sees cattle handling as vastly improved but warns that continuous training, maintenance, and genetic responsibility are now critical priorities.
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