Farming solutions company Tal-Tec has designed a circular forcing race for cattle, based on animal behaviour studies to help ensure calmer animals during processes that require cattle to be directed into a single file, such as branding, injecting, weighing or testing.

“The traditional way of doing this was to put the whole herd into a holding pen and then to force them into a funnel that narrows them down into single file. But there are always bottlenecks, which create anxiety in the whole herd. Also, as animals move out of the holding pen, the area becomes larger for animals to mill around, causing handlers to have to chase them into the final section again,” says Tal-Tec CEO Greg Talbot.

A forcing pen or crush is used to keep the animals squeezed together so they can’t mill around. “A forcing gate is pushed forward behind the animals, steadily reducing the size of the pen as the animals move into the funnel. It has a simple brake that prevents the gate from being pushed backwards and it keeps the animals squeezed together while steadily moving them forward,” he explains. “Our unique one-way braking system has been designed so that the harder the cattle push back, the more braking resistance is generated.” 

Talbot explains that the ideas of animal behaviourist and autism spokesperson Dr Temple Grandin helped his thinking on how to incorporate aspects of animal behaviour into forcing race designs. Grandin applies her personal and professional knowledge of autism to animal behaviour.

“She says that animals always like to go back to a place of comfort or calmness. So if they were in a holding pen and you started to chase them out, they will naturally seek to circle around to that place where they felt safe. That is what our new Circular Forcing Race does. It makes the herd believe that they are going back around to where they came from,” says Talbot, explaining that the cattle are pushed away from the safe pen by a pivoting forcing gate that pushes them around in a semi-circle.

Grandin also highlights the comfort animals experience by being in close proximity together, which relates to the calming effect experienced by autistic people when they use a hug box or squeeze machine. “I have also noticed this with our body clamp, which is used to squeeze an individual animal in order to keep them still while being injected or branded,” says Talbot.

Tal-Tec is a local manufacturer of modern animal management solutions that are modular, allowing for smaller systems to be expanded as the need arises. The solutions are also flat packed, to enable self-assembly.

“We try to keep our solutions as simple and cost-effective as possible, so that they can be used anywhere. In South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia, we have very good agents and established networks, so many farmers can walk into their local co-ops to buy Tal-Tec products,” concludes Talbot.