STOCKMANSHIP

By Courtney Daigle, Assistant Professor of Animal Welfare, Texas A&M University

Finding good help can be difficult in any industry, however, labor continues to be one of the top issues in agriculture. Labor shortages put substantial pressure on livestock owners and their employees, can affect the ability to provide a safe workplace environment and can cause animal welfare issues. Working cattle is a hard job where employees operate in difficult environmental conditions, experience long hours and often get dirty. So how do you make that sound like a glamourous job that someone wants?

It is time to make stockmanship appealing and rebrand the occupation. We aren’t just looking for pen riders and cowboys, but animal husbandry technicians and behavior experts who can work with animals and technology and make a difference.

A surplus of job opportunities exists in today’s market, and the H-2A Temporary Agricultural Program often doesn’t work well for animal agriculture since livestock operators have year-round labor needs. Another factor impacting agriculture labor is the increasing urbanization of society in the U.S. Job seekers are at least two to three generations removed from a farm or ranch and don’t know that jobs and careers are available in rural communities. There are fewer people working in agriculture and there is a general lack of awareness that stockmanship is a potential occupation. Social media has also played a role in poorly portraying occupations in agriculture. Even though instances are rare, pictures posted of employees abusing animals gives applicants a bad opinion of stockmanship and doesn’t inspire others to apply.

Limited pre-employment training impacts recruiting as well. Producers require new employees to be proficient in certain animal handling skills when they start. Many stockpeople are provided in-house training or go through programs such as Beef Quality Assurance, however, this training is provided only after the candidate is hired. According to Daigle, an opportunity exists for technical schools to offer animal husbandry and animal handling training programs to better prepare people for jobs at livestock operations.

The initial challenge is finding and recruiting the right people, but another is retaining them. Stockmanship jobs often require hard work for low pay. Many pen riders work more than 50 hours per week, making $10-$15 per hour. The pay strategy also has an effect, when paid by the hour and not by the head, employees may work more quickly than carefully. In addition, many employees are responsible for monitoring too many animals which causes exhaustion, increasing the possibility of overlooking problems. It also impedes the ability to develop the human-animal relationship, which can cause “compassion fatigue” where employees no longer have the emotional bandwidth to handle the job.

Technological advancements have proven to be both a retention challenge as well as a recruiting strategy. Although requiring employees to continually learn and use multiple monitoring systems may challenge older generations, it can be an opportunity to attract millennial workers interested in working with animals as well as technology.

The “zookeeper-stockperson” conundrum is an interesting example of two careers seeking similar applicants, but that have varying levels of hiring success. Both positions have similar work duties and pay, but unlike stockperson positions, there is fierce competition for zookeeping positions. For every entry level zookeeper position open, 150 people apply compared to one person applying for two available stockperson positions. In addition, the turnover rate for zookeepers is 14.5 percent compared to the 35 percent turnover rate for stockpeople.1

Zookeepers consider their profession a “calling” with applicants citing an attraction and need to be around nature and animals which influences professional goals. They are often well educated, holding a bachelor’s degree or higher and have around five years zoo volunteer experience, unlike stockperson positions which usually do not require advanced education or previous experience. Cost of living can be a point of differentiation for agriculture careers. Although pay may be similar between zookeepers and stockpeople, the cost to live in rural communities is much less than large cities, and zookeepers often have a second job to make ends meet.

There is opporunity for livestock producers to develop relationships with local zoos to potentially tap into their applicant pool. If a producer can find one qualified applicant for a stockperson job out of the 100 that didn’t get the zookeeper position, it is worth the effort.

Livestock operators may be so desperate for help but it’s important to remember that a good stockperson is worth their weight in gold and a bad stockperson can break the bank.

Stockpeople are the physical manifestation of animal welfare. The occupation is complex and dynamic and requires speciesspecific knowledge as well as a wide range of well-developed husbandry and management skills. These abilities result in effective care and management of farm animals and directly impact animal welfare and productivity.

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Animals have memories and can perceive human interaction as negative, neutral or positive. The nature, and frequency, of these interactions can have lifelong impacts on productivity. Research has shown that increased positive exposure to humans results in reduced mortality, increased efficiency and greater body weights in poultry and higher pregnancy rates in beef heifers.2 Farms that had more negative human-animal interactions with dairy cattle resulted in cows producing milk with lower yield, protein and fat, and higher milk cortisol concentrations. The animals were also more fearful of approaching humans and had lower conception rates to first insemination.3

People tend to be the wildcard when it comes to animal welfare. Attitudes and behaviors of the stockperson, as well as animal behavior, can impact job satisfaction as well as work motivation, to learn and overall work performance, which can influence animal welfare and productivity.

Personnel changes impact employees and disrupt the humananimal relationship. When an employee leaves, there is a loss of institutional knowledge which can result in inconsistent animal care. Training and retention of animal husbandry workers is of the utmost importance to maintain a profitable and sustainable agricultural system.

Ultimately, hiring the right person comes down to the personality of the stockperson and matching people to the profession. There is limited evidence that these factors are

used in agriculture. Daigle’s advice to livestock operators is to critically evaluate potential candidates, increase salaries, adjust pay structure and encourage urban dwellers to move to rural communities by providing incentives. As more women find careers in stockmanship, providing flexible schedules also proves beneficial when recruiting and retaining workers.

Even offering basic services such as concessions, a convenience store and laundry facilities make a difference. Instead of driving 30 minutes for a beverage, if stockpeople can access basic services on site, it would benefit both the producer and the employees. Employees are working in remote locations often under harsh conditions and providing additional services promotes a good work environment. These positions serve as stewards of food animals, which is appealing to applicants. This is important work and hiring the right person initially can directly affect your herd’s welfare, productivity and your bottom line.

1 Thompson & Bunderson. 2005 AAZK survey of animal care professionals, report to the American Association of Zoo Keepers, Inc.

2 Edwards et al., 2007; Hemsworth et al., 1993; Barnett et al., 1994; Cooke et al., 2009

3 Hemsworth et al., 2000