Less stress

Three farmers are spreading the wisdom of low-stress stock-handling techniques and presenting a new profitable marketing model for livestock.

Story By Mandy McKeesick

Jim Lindsay straddles the rails of a stockyard in northern Australia and, with microphone slung around his neck, explains the benefits of moving cattle using Low Stress Stock-handling (LSS). To his left, Grahame Rees and Rod Knight stand in the scant shade of a desert tree and discuss an innovative way to market the same animals. Together, the three men are changing traditional thinking on these two critical aspects of the livestock business – handling and marketing – which relate directly to the safety and profitability of all involved.
Jim, who grew up on 800,000 hectares of gibber country on Mount Leonard, in south-west Queensland, has been teaching livestock handling since 1990 and credits much of his success to American Bud Williams. “When Bud came to Australia in 1999 I was that excited I could hardly stay in his class,” Jim says. “He really had a huge influence on me and he awakened Australian producers to the fact they could learn something about handling animals.”