When I first started out in my career,I thought I could fix everything in the industry with engineering and designing a facility. I've now learned that I can only fix about half of things. Because the other half is management. I've been a big advocate of getting out and measuring handling. Then I can look at the numerical scores and ask, “Am I getting better or am I getting worse?”

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Welcome back for the second segment of my interview with Dr. Temple Grandin. What launched your interest in humane treatment of livestock in the first place? You could have become a radical vegetarian or militant animal welfare activist instead.

I don't function very well if I don't eat meat. I also got to thinking, that it's really unnatural to be totally vegan. I agree that you don't need to eat ten pounds of steak a day; I'd agree with that. I feel very strongly that we got to give the animals that we raise for food a good life. And beef cattle, when they're raised right, probably have the best welfare because the cows and the bulls have always been out on pasture. It doesn't matter whether they're raised for Whole Foods or they're raised for Tyson, cows and bulls live out on pasture. They're the mommies and the daddies for the calves and the calves spend half their lives out on pasture and the other half of their lives in feed yards. And then some people raise some pasture-raised beef. But cattle has always been outside and beef done right is actually one of the most humanely raised animals.

Didn't you have a relative who had a ranch?

My aunt had a guest ranch but the next door neighbors all around raised cattle so I was very much exposed to all this.

And they treated their animals humanely?

Most of them did. And the handling of cattle has gotten a lot better. Actually, some of the worst handling of cows is in the dairy cattle. You know you think the dairy industry has a good image but there have been some real problems with pushing dairy cows so much for production they fall apart metabolically. There are lots of dairies that do a good job but there are some dairies that do a bad job. Lameness in dairy cows is up to 25%. That's just terrible.

Are you working with dairies?

Yeah but some people just don't have a very good mentality. It doesn't have anything to do with whether the place is big or small. The most important variable is the attitude of the manager of the place. If the manager cares about handling animals in a good manner and good welfare, you'll have good welfare. If the manager doesn't care, then you're going to have a lot of bad stuff going on.

When I first started out in my career, I thought I could fix everything in the industry with engineering and designing a facility. So, I've now learned that I can only fix about half of things.

Why is that?

Well, because the other half is management. And in the last ten years, I've worked really hard on a numerical scoring system because I'd go out to a place and I'd get their handling really nice and then I'd come back a year later and there'd be hotshots and screaming again. What was happening was that people slowly went back to their old, rough ways. This could happen and they wouldn't even realize it was happening. So I've been a big advocate of getting out and measuring handling. How many cattle were bellowing and vocalizing during handling? How many cattle fell down during handling? How many cattle ran into a fence? How many cattle got poked with an electric prodder? And then I can look at the numerical scores and ask, “Am I getting better or am I getting worse?”

Are the managers and their teams willing to do these measurements?

McDonald's Corporation started enforcing the measurement system I developed ten years ago, in 1999, and that resulted in a lot of improvements. Now, unfortunately, there are still some bad videos around on the Internet, bad stuff going on. But a lot of the plants, especially the big plants, cleaned up their act.

So it's a mixed bag.

That's right. When you have a big customer saying “you're going to have to improve” that can work on putting pressure on the industry to improve.

What incentive do other CEOs of large meat packing plants have in adapting humane treatment for their animals?

Well, the thing that was interesting. I was involved in taking a lot of executives from McDonald's, Wendy's and Burger King out on their very first trips out to farms and meat plants. And you know when the animal welfare issue came up first, they go “Oh, animal welfare. Big hassle. Give it to the lawyers, give it to the public relations department. Make it go away.” Then, when I took them out to the plants and things are going right and they're saying “That's not so bad,” but when things were going bad, oh, eyes got opened up. They were saying “Whoa. There are some things here that we need to change.” In other words, it had gone from being an abstraction that you delegate to the legal department to something real that they needed to do something about. And I was with some of these executives when they had a real shift in their attitude. Like, when they saw half-dead dairy cow headed for their product that really upset them.

So it's the hands-on stuff that makes the difference.

That's right. I took lots of executives - executives from McDonald's, Wendy's and Burger King, many executives from different companies - on their first trips to slaughterhouses and it was very interesting to watch eyes get opened up. They see something to send to the legal department finally becomes something real.

Something clicks for them.

That's right.

You've written and spoken about the genetic tinkering that's been done and which has led to some particularly cruel and extreme mutations in the animals that we eat. Could you give some examples?

First of all, the genetic things have been done with old-fashioned breeding; they've not been done with bio-tech. It's just been done with single trait selection for rapid growth in chickens, lots of milk in dairy cows, lots of lean pork in pigs. And they select for rapid growth, lots of lean pork and back fat. And they forgot about the importance of selecting the strong feet and legs. So they ended up with a lot of lame pigs. Or they ended up with pigs that were very aggressive and excitable. No one deliberately wants to have an excitable pig but when you select for that rapid growth and leanness, you tend to select a lean, mean pig.

Because he's always hungry.

Yeah. And chickens had problems with lameness and having what they call flip-over disease, (you know, heart attacks) and this happens when you over-select for a single trait. Look at dogs - they kept selecting for big heads on bull dogs until bull dogs can barely function. I have a next door neighbor who has a bull dog puppy. You just play with him kind of energetically and he gets real tired. And they're saying “Oh, well that's just part of the breed.” And I'm going “Well, I think it's abnormal.” Why was the breed ever allowed to get into that kind of a mess? You look at a bulldog in the ‘50s; it was a much more normal looking animal.

Chickens were once more normal looking too, weren't they?

The broilers have been bred to be rapid growth and big breasts. Layers have been bred to crank out a lot of eggs. And layers that are bred to make a lot of eggs tend to peck each other worse and be more cannibalistic. There's always a price. Now, all of these things so far have been done with old-fashioned breeding. There's been artificial insemination involved, but that's not bio-tech. That's been around as long as I've been in the industry.

But it's not healthy for the animals.

No it's not. But I'm not going to call it genetic tinkering because that implies that you actually manipulated genetic material in a lab somehow. No, this has all been done so far just with breeding.

Thanks for the clarification. You've maximized your gift to accomplish something substantial - now 1/3 of all the meat processed in the US uses systems that you designed.

It's half. Half the cattle in the US and Canada are handled on equipment that I've designed at the large meat plants.

Can you explain a little about the systems that you've designed?

I designed a thing called center track conveyor system that was replaced an older type conveyor system and works better than the older system. The cattle walk up a ramp and they straddle a moving conveyor. There were a lot of visual things that I had to design into it. I had to make sure that when the cattle entered this thing that they couldn't see that the unit was eight feet above the floor because if they saw that visual cliff effect, they wouldn't walk in. And lighting was real critical. If the entrance was too dark, they wouldn't go in.

What did you do about the cliff effect?

You put in a false floor so when they're straddling the conveyor belt and riding it, the false floor is going to be about a foot below where their feet are. And cattle have poor depth perception so they have the illusion that they can walk on the floor but when they get in they find out that they're high-centered and the next thing they know they're just riding along and just following each other. Cattle are great followers for following a leader and they just follow each other. When things are working right, it's very calm. In fact, the pass they audit is scored with a scoring system that I developed called the American Meat Institute Guideline. In order to pass McDonald's audit, for example, they've got to be able to move 100 cattle through this system and get them stunned and have only three animals out of 100 moo and balk. Back in the bad old days, sometimes you'd have half of the animals mooing and bellowing because there woud be so much going on.

That's a huge improvement.

Yes, it's a huge improvement. Things can really be done right. I've taken a lot of non-industry people through a plant and I've had them just watch the cattle go up the chute and they go “Oh, they walk up the chute quietly” and I say “That's the way it should be.” It shouldn't be a great big horrible mess.

That you've been so successful in getting your system adopted by so many American meatpackers must be very satisfying for you.

Yeah, it is.

And you also do this elsewhere around the world?

Yes.

Let's break here, Temple. When we return for the final segment of our interview we'll talk about the HBO movie made about Dr. Grandin's early life and the connection between autism and genius. Please join us.

Continue reading Part Three: Talking with Dr. Temple Grandin, Author of "Animals in Translation"

Link to Part One of article series.

Authors Website: www.OpEdNews.com

Authors Bio:
Joan has been the Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December 2005. She writes on a large range of subjects and does many interviews and reviews.