Originally Published: February 5, 2010.

Dr. Temple Grandin, Associate Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University talks about her approach to helping livestock handling facilities provide more humane treatment of farm animals. This is an excerpt from her talk delivered at the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Sustainable Foods Institute in Monterey, California, in May of 2009. Her understanding of farm animals has led to a revolution in their care and handling, and has helped the entire industry improve their handling facilities, and provide more consistent humane treatment to livestock.

The clip below was taken at the Texas Tech Agricultural Research facility where Temple Grandin helped with the design of the cattle chute seen in the video. As part of a large water conservation project, the cattle were being weighed to evaluate different grazing methods, and the chute was designed to minimize the stress to the animals when they went through the gate to be individually weighed.

For those who may have an interest, here’s a link to the documentary that we did about the water scarcity in the region: Water Scarcity on the Texas High Plains: The Ogallala Aquifer

Most of the videos featured on Cooking Up a Story were produced, filmed, and edited by Rebecca Gerendasy. Fred Gerendasy contributed as a writer to many of the posts and occasionally as the interviewer. Visit Rebecca Gerendasy Clay – Art and Fred Gerendasy Photography to see their current work.