Temple Grandin – a Woman with Autism Who Has Made a Change

Autism is something many people have as a factor in their lives. Whether it is they themselves who have it, or someone they know, it makes a difference. Temple Grandin, a lady who has grown up with autism, utilized her own to better animal welfare in the livestock industry through the connection it made between her and animals and has made numerous differences for them in the industry. In Boston, Massachusets, on August 29, 1947, she was born. From a young age she displayed signs of impairment by refraining to interact with others and started speaking late. Still, she and her family worked through it, and she flourished through teachers that encouraged her overall curiosity and her interest in animals.

Grandin’s autism enabled her to make unique connections with animals. In an interview, she herself said “Well I could really visualize what that piece of equipment's going to feel like on the cattle. You know, what if I had the cattle's body, what would that feel like? That's very easy for me”. She very easily could visualize the perspective of the animals, which gave her a unique view most others do not possess. Empathy seems to be a major link her autism helped her achieve with the animals. She describes how this works differently for her than for others: “Well, you see in the design for livestock the very first work I ever did with cattle, people thought I was crazy. I went out into the feed area and I'd get down in the chutes to see what cattle were seeing. I'd see that the cattle would balk at a little shadow, they would balk at a chain hanging down, they would balk if there was a hose laying on the floor and nobody noticed these things before”. Her autism helped her visualize things others normally would not, and could really feel with the animals and what they go through. It allowed her a link to them that no one else really has and allowed her to make a change for the animals over things most everyone looks over. Through this she has made many progressive changes for these animals in the livestock industry.

One of the major changes she created was how cattle were corralled. After taking note of their natural behaviors, she invented a conveyer restrainer system that utilized the “cattle's natural tendency to walk in circles and thus reduced their anxiety level as they proceeded down a ramp to slaughter. This system also yielded a higher-quality meat product because the release of stress hormones in the moments prior to the animal's death tends to make its meat tough.” This system is used in plants all over and has greatly aided the reduction of stress, the increase in meat quality, and better welfare for the cattle through creating a curved path for them to walk through. Cattle do not like to walk into dead ends or areas they cannot see clearly, and corners inhibit that. With open curves they will progress more smoothly through, and will a substantial amount of less stress. Decreasing stress is one of the main items she aimed to address.

Grandin, as a way to aid decreasing livestock stress and welfare, was tasked by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to “survey a total of 24 federally inspected beef, veal, work and sheep slaughter plants. They instructed her to develop a more objective method to evaluate stunning and handling practices than observing and giving her opinion”. She developed a numerical percentage system to help analyze animal behaviors and determine what malpractices and issues should be addressed. The five main points are “percentage of animals stunned correctly on the first attempt, percentage rendered completely insensible prior to hoisting must be 100% to pass the audit, percentage that vocalize (moo, bellow, or squeal) during movement up the race and in the stunning box. Each animal is scored as either silent or as a vocalizer. Vocalizations in the lairage are not counted; percentage that slip and fall down during unloading, driving and restraint, percentage moved with an electric goad”. Through her analyses and results, “all but two of a total of 112 cattle vocalizations were associated with an observable aversive event such as electric goads, slipping on the stun box floor, missed captive bolt stuns or excessive pressure applied to the animal by a restraining device”. She created an analysis method that allows conditions and issues to be better visualized and addressed. She helped analyze behavior of workers and animals and how environment and workers affect animals for slaughter; overall helping cause great decrease in mistreatment and stress of animals and improved facilities’ welfare greatly. The percentage of noticeable responses and issues dramatically decreased through her efforts, as is shown by how “the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the USDA has now adopted the use of the numerical scoring system that was developed by Grandin...The use of animal based scoring systems has resulted in great improvements in handling and stunning when it was used by restaurant companies to audit slaughter plants”. Her efforts in this method have created quite a widespread change and have made a major difference.

A final main difference she has caused is the reduction of electric cattle prod use. These items are used to keep a cow moving then they show resistance, but “electric goads are very stressful for both cattle and pigs”, as “large amounts of vocalizations resulted in part from electric goad use”. Increased stress causes faulty meat as well as worse conditions for the animals. Her efforts have greatly changed how much it is utilized, however, which causes much more humane circumstances for the animals. Temple Grandin herself has “ physically taken the electric prod out of some workers’ hands, sometimes leaving the hand still moving. She calls this the ‘automatic prod reflex’”. Workers had developed the habit of using it, which also contributed to overuse and overly stressing the animals. Her work has diminished their usage and habit of use immensely. Overall, she decreased the utilization of electric prods, created a numerical percentage system to analyze the welfare of animals much more proficiently, and created a circular conveyer restrainer system to aid ease of cattle maneuvering. These changes created a massive difference for the welfare of these animals and helped businesses become more humane and efficient.