Temple Grandin's Guide to Working with Farm Animals by Temple Grandin

Temple Grandin's Guide to Working with Farm Animals by Temple Grandin

Author:Temple Grandin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: animal behavior;chute;corral;handling livestock;moving livestock;herd;humane treatment of farm animals
Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC
Published: 2017-03-15T15:03:59+00:00


Training Tame Animals

Cattle, pigs, sheep, or goats in small operations often became very tame. They can be easily trained using operant conditioning methods. In her book The Backyard Goat (Storey Publishing, 2011), Sue Weaver has an excellent chapter on clicker training. This method was originally developed by animal behaviorist Karen Pryor.

In clicker training, the animal learns to associate a click sound (from a handheld clicker) with food. To teach the animal, the first step is to feed a treat immediately after a click. Do this about 10 times to solidify the association.

The advantage of the technique is that it enables precise timing of the reward stimulus. It can actually help prevent animals from mobbing a person at feeding time because the animals learn that they do not get the feed until they have heard the click.

Dangerous mobbing of people during feeding or changing pastures can also be prevented by teaching animals that the gate will not be opened or the feed will not be put out until they stand still. You want to reward good, polite behavior. If feed is put out or the gate is opened when animals are mobbing you, you have rewarded bad behavior.

Feeding treats can also be used to train animals to remain still during milking or veterinary procedures. Give the animal a treat when he stays still. If an animal is really unruly, give a treat if he stays still for even two seconds. In the beginning, give a reward to the animal if he does what you want for even an instant. Then gradually increase the time he has to stand still in order to get the treat.



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