Texas Stockmanship Workshop Offers Tools for Improving Animal Performance

These are calm yet responsive cattle at the Dixon Water Foundation. They have consistent and decisive stimulus day in and day out to create this behavior.

On April 4-6 the Dixon Water Foundation hosted and collaborated on a three-day Stockmanship event at the Leo Ranch with Stockmanship expert Dawn Hnatow.

It was an excited group who arrived on a cold and wet day in North Texas to learn how to better handle and move livestock, and how stockmanship and Holistic Management intersect.

To frame the event Hilary Knight, Dixon Water Foundation’s Vice-President of Operations, introduced their foundation’s ranching objectives. She framed how the 3 days of information sharing were relevant to their ranch management objectives and management choices, particularly how appropriate effective livestock handling is to animal performance and adaptive management for forage production and drought mitigation.

HMI's Executive Director and Holistic Management Certified Educator Wayne Knight introduced how the tools of animal impact and grazing are essential for effective ecosystem management. He also explained the links between livestock selection, animal handling and observation of ecosystem function trends, animal performance milestones and economic planning and monitoring, which are all important elements of profitable ranching and improving and grassland management and function.

A grazing exclusion cage shows recovered grass outside the grazing exclusion is ready to be regrazed as it has as much leaf area as the grass inside the enclosure. Outside the exclosure has about 60 days recovery. Inside the exclosure has about 130 days of recovery.

Managers who question the underlying assumptions of production in the ever-changing ranching environment are most likely to succeed at improving their forage production, earning a profit and succeeding in building land resilience by following the management cycle of: Envision – Plan – Monitor- Control – Assess – Adapt – Plan.

Dawn’s presentations on stockmanship started by introducing her mentor’s, Bud William’s, unique ability to observe what was not commonly seen. What was obvious to Bud was hidden from the rest of us. Hidden, not because it isn’t in front of us every day, but hidden because the signals and messages that livestock give us do not fit the paradigms we bring to working with animals.

Many participants participating in Dawn’s training struggled to un-see what they have always seen, and to really observe the animals and their dynamics, to read their responses to even subtle movements and actions humans take.

Dawn demonstrating what to look for in the animals’ response to your movement and how to apply the right amount of pressure and release.

This was particularly evident when participants each took turns in trying out what they had been taught with a group of heifers. Novices struggled with their own body language which showed uncertainty and hesitancy. Other participants were not observant or sensitive enough, leading to overreaction from the herd, nervousness and too much movement, too fast.

The most impactful part of the training was learning that by understanding how animals really respond to our body position, posture and direction of movement we can either set up or inhibit the intended actions or movement we require animals to make.

Dawn coaching some of the participants through practicing appropriate pressure and release to set up the animal interaction so that animals are not stressed.

Also significant was how to get animals comfortable with pressure by releasing the pressure at the correct moment. This is done by applying pressure and then releasing it when animals are acting or moving in the desired way.

Wayne Knight noted that he had in the past incorrectly maintained the pressure on animals. He learned that his behavior elicited a further response from the animals, which was undesirable, because by applying too much pressure. What may have started out as correct movement quickly becomes too much reaction. That repeatedly caused unwanted outcomes, because of his actions and assumptions. Releasing pressure signals that the animals are doing the right thing.

Dawn did a great job of explaining that re-enforcing clear, positive results builds confidence in the animals we are working with. As a result, they are calm and react positively to consistent stimulus during each interaction.

Dawn Hnatow explaining to participants how to prepare to split out portions of this group of cattle to move the animals through the shoot.

There is so much valuable information to learn from Dawn. By learning and applying these principles, not only will handling your animals be more enjoyable, but animal performance will improve, and stress induced sicknesses will decrease.

HMI will team up with Dawn for a follow-on workshop at the Dixon Water Foundation on September 26 & 27, 2025. Go to our Training Programs page to learn more about this opportunity and learn stockmanship and dormant season grazing management essentials.