Innovative Farming Speakers in the News

Jim Lindsay

Jim gave a seminar on Animal Behaviour and Stock Handling in January 2000. He has appeared on ABC's Landline twice and we have reproduced these stories below.

29/09/2001 - Speak softly to wield a big herd
03/03/2001 - Cattleman takes the rage out of handling stock

Speak softly to wield a big herd
Reporter:Liz Armstrong
Broadcast:29/09/2001
Source:ABC Landline

Cattleman, Jim Lindsay likes to do things the simple way. Not for him the time-honoured tradition of using fear and force to chase stock from behind.

"I suspect that we as predators have a natural way that we want to deal with animals and that seems to govern how we do it and maybe the traditional methods have been so entrenched in our system for so long that that'll take a lot of breaking," Jim Lindsay said.

According to Jim Lindsay, if stock handlers want a calm, slow muster, all it takes is a change of attitude and a willingness to see things from an animal's point of view.

"They are the prey and we are the predator and understanding that and studying how they react to our movements and what we do to them and try and keep it in a way that they/we break down the flight zone between predator and prey without frightening them," he said.

Jim's stock handling skills come from a lifetime on the land. He grew up on a vast and remote property near the Birdsville track, worked as a stockman in the Gulf and ran a contract mustering operation in south-west Queensland.

"Through my father and people I grew up with, I've been fortunate enough to work with some very clever bushmen, very clever stock men and I suppose it's been collective knowledge from a lot of people from a lot of different places."

But some of his best tips have come from studying working dogs.

"They have an ability to work out an animals flight zone and not I think a lot of the traditional methods of working stock have been to put pressure on what we tend to find works a lot better and dogs do too is to take pressure off."

Jim decided to preach what he practiced and started running dog schools about ten years ago. Then people began asking him to do schools on stock handling alone.

"I like imparting knowledge, I think it's great to be able to help people to improve, I get a lot out of it myself personally, I meet some great people, I learn a lot, I probably learn more at each school than any participant does. So it's very rewarding that way and yeah I do feel it would be a great loss for some of this stuff to be not passed on. I mean there's other people that'll come across it, there'll be other people who are capable of teaching it in another format but it hasn't been done yet," he said.

The popularity of schools has grown to the stage where Jim can't keep up with demand, so he's set up a company and is training people to teach at the schools.


"I'm fortunate that there are some people out there with a lot of skill and a lot of qualities and are able to pass on some of these methods and have got a lot to offer," he said.

People like Chris Donohue from Augathella and Chook Kealey and Tony Mott from Richmond.

"Well we've sort of been exposed a fair bit just learning the knowledge I suppose, working the stock and with low stress stock handling the company being set up, I'm sort of going to be a part of that, there'll be a number of us because the demand's there just a few more of us will be able to instruct to keep up with the demand," Chook Kealey said.

Chook and Tony say Jim's principles have helped them understand much of what they instinctively knew.

"A lot of people know, have a funny feeling in their gut about what stresses animals and what doesn't but to me what is really powerful is when you understand what's actually happening, what the animals are reacting to, so then you can minimise what it is that causes the stress," Tony Mott said.

Low stress stock handling means happier animals and happier handlers but there are big financial gains too - unstressed animals produce more meat and better quality meat than stressed animals.

"There's a lot of benefits in that the it's there's scientific evidence to say that animals that are treated with these low stress methods are certainly hanging up in meat works a lot better carcasses. The people in the north that I know about and I have specific figures on that are sending quite some thousands of cattle from north Queensland and that's as far west as Mt Isa to places like Dinmore down in Toowoomba and are having nil bruising in those animals and the carcass quality is actually a lot better and the other benefits that's happening. The weaning process that's taking place that people are actually having weight gains instead of with losses and there's been reports and substantiated reports where people have in a month period have had gains of up to $75 a head in weaners in just by implementing some of these methods," Jim Lindsay said.

Jim and his wife Terry run around three and half thousand head of cattle on two properties near Hughenden in north-west Queensland and at home Jim he puts his methods into practice.

"We come out every day and check the cattle just for our own peace of mind and make sure there's nothing outside the wire and everything's right because they're relying on only a couple of waters so it's pretty important that everything's right especially with the herd when it gets to be a big mob because any small thing that starts to affect their state of mind which could be nutrition or water it can a big affect on their performance very quickly," he said.

"They can lose weight rapidly if there's anything wrong with the nutrition or the water or even if they're not right in the mind, mentally right in the mind they can. They can just be stressed and not putting on weight."

Jim is always on the look out for ways to run a more efficient, more productive and more personally rewarding business.

"I can see just the change that comes upon us when we make some mental changes in our attitude to what we are doing changes I think that we can look at things on the land and in the industry in a whole different light and that certainly has happened to us in the last few years and it's pretty rewarding when you can work with the land and the animals and the people in harmony," he said.

This year Jim started time controlled grazing. He hopes it will balance stock production with better land management.

"We get the land probably to a state where it's actually better than it's natural state by having implementing the correct grazing principles we can control what the animals graze which is mostly in a continuous system they graze the desirables too heavy but with this type of system we can control how much they graze the desirable species which then lets the desirable plant species become stronger not weaker and the undesirables will eventually die out."

Jim also runs 50 or so camels to control the prickly acacia and parkinsonea and he has another theory that's outside the square.

"They have a bug, because camels are really mostly browsers and eat quite a lot of bush, the bugs in their stomach are more capable of breaking down the tannins in the broughs so if we can get those bugs transferred to our cattle or sheep or whatever it is, they'll be able to break down more tannins in the grasses or broughs that they eat and therefore be able to get the proteins better in the grass," he said.

Jim says his stock handling methods also work well with these animals.

"Some people think they're hard to handle but they're very easy, because of their big flight zone, and if you stay outside of their flight zone they ah they react really well, because they're very slow moving, people get impatient about their reaction and get inside their flight zone too often."

For Jim, achieving a balance between his schools and his cattle enterprise is a challenge.

"I like what I do here and I won't give that up I don't want to give that up but I also have a sense an urge to want to be able to deliver some of this stuff and I would like to see myself involved always at some level because that's where you learn so much by being involved," he said.

But they are also inter-twined - Jim admits he couldn't run his property unless he practiced what he preaches about attitude towards the land and the livestock. According to Jim attitude is everything.

"I have absolutely no doubt that through being able to adjust my attitude by working with animals and that includes dogs as well that it's certainly given me a lot more holistic approach to the way I manage my property or the way we manage the property we've been exposed to some terrific change in the past few years with the new grazing systems and business management systems and even people management systems even livestock management, the whole lot, it's certainly given us a far better attitude towards embracing change - right throughout the whole industry," he said.

"All I can say is that I'm thankful that I've found a vehicle which has been dogs and livestock to be able to make the changes in other areas which has enabled us to like and actually have a passion for what we do."

Cattleman takes the rage out of handling stock
Reporter:Prue Adams
Broadcast:03/03/2001
Source:ABC Landline

On a scorchingly hot, dry and windy February morning, an unlikely mob of students turns up for their first day of school.

The packing shed that will be their classroom is located on the beef and potato property of the Kentish family in the rich south east of South Australia.

Like Nic Kentish, these farmers and stock agents are eager to learn how to do something most of them have spent a lifetime doing - handle stock.

Over the next two days they will be taught a totally different method of moving sheep and cattle, without noise and stress-free.

“We all have problems with stock,” sheep farmer, Frank Nicholls said.

“You get frustrated when stock won’t go through a gate or dogs won’t do the right thing and you end up swearing and cursing.”

The man the farmers have come to hear is Jim Lindsay, and he has an almost evangelical zeal when he delivers his sermon on calming the whole process of moving stock from one place to another - not just cattle, but apparently any herding animals and any number of them.

“The reason I can look after the stock and still look after the property is because the livestock are so easy to look after they are a breeze, it it so simple,” Jim said.

“It's simple simple stuff but it takes commitment and it takes understanding.”

Jim is a cattleman himself in north west Queensland. He was raised on a 800,000 ha property at the top of the Birdsville track .

He learned some of what he knows from his father, but mostly he picked up how to read animals, discipline and patience with them from Aboriginal mentors.

He maintains stock handlers need to understand the psychology of their charges before they can work them successfully.

One of the most important principles is that of the flight zone - an invisible bubble around each animal which, if penetrated by a person or a dog, will either cause the mob to flee or get it moving in the right direction.

“There's an area. If you get inside that, it’s a flight zone,then the animal will get nervous or move away,” Jim said.

“Remember you're a predator. A predator has eyes in front of its head and prey has eyes at the side of its head. We need to get inside the flight zone sometimes in order to get movement and we need to be outside the flight zone to call it down and not make the animal nervous.

“You must reduce the flight zone without frightening the animal - you won’t write down many things more important that that.”

If you're from the old fashioned school that says you push the sheep or cattle along from behind, Jim Lindsay says in no uncertain terms, it's time to change your ways.

He says that since Animals can't see behind them, if you push from behind they'll flip around to face their predator. Logical!

Jim takes that a step further, dividing the vision of cattle, sheep etc into three sections - the retard, the drift and the push.

If you want to slow the animal down then stand within the retard section, walking alongside will cause the cattle to drift and putting quiet pressure on the push section will push the cattle on.

It sounds complicated on paper, but once the group gets out in the field, it starts to become clear.

Of course there are to be no sticks, or slaps or prods or even harsh words, just the principles of pushing in from the side and allowing the cattle to think they're doing exactly as they please.

Paul O'Kane is a former state footballer and now a national champion sheep dog trialler. He and Lee and Jenni Castine are having a little trouble applying Jim's teachings to the real world.

"I would go as far as to say it was your attitude that was the reason those cattle wouldn’t go through," Jim said.

“Attitude -- it's a theme Jim Lindsay preaches over and over, convincing his congregation it is the only thing they have control over,” Paul said.

“You get to a point where you realise the cattle can’t be trained any further but the human has a lot more to learn, and I think the more we find out the more we find out we don’t know,” Nick Kentish said.

A fourth generation farmer, Nick invited Jim Lindsay to his property because he's recognised times are changing in the sheep and cattle industries.

Complete novices are entering the business -- urban farmers with little or no knowledge of stockhandling.

Also many producers are looking for the edge to better quality meat and fibre.

“Well it was simply drive from behind, push from behind, a little bit of direction, but I dont think you ever get taught really,” Nick said.

“You learn by osmosis. You get your father or your grandfather stand you in a position and say stand there boy, follow me, watch me and you'll pick up a thing or two.

“It probably takes about 30 years, and hopefully he doesn’t die before you learn it all and you learn perfectly all the bad habits as well as the good habits.”

One essential habit Jim Lindsay promotes is that using the T-principle.

In order to put the pressure on a herd of animals in just the right spot to get them moving in the right direction the handlers have to stand to the side or behind in a straight line which forms a rough T with the mob.

The middle person in that line is a pivot of sorts.

“With the methods I'm using there is no room for pushing cattle from behind, they really have to be pressured from the side,” Jim said.

“So when we don’t surround the cattle, as we don’t with the T-principle, we work wider and guide them, the more they relax, go straighter, stay together and all those sorts of things,” Jim said.

Another tip is identify the lead animal. With cattle or sheep, ducks or geese, goats or deer, the mob will always follow a leader.

Jim calls the leader the red cow, a term he's adopted from a colleague.

“There is always three sections, the leaders we call red cow, the middle section of the mob which is the white cow and the back section which is the black cow,” Jim said.

“The red cow is always the one that has potential to be the best or worst in the mob depending on how it is treated.

“It is usually the one with the best ears, nose and eyes and the most intelligent. Treated correctly they will become your true leaders. Treated incorrectly they will always try to escape.”

So how do you find that red cow?

“It's pretty simple if you apply any pressure to that mob the red cow will come to the outside and if you keep applying that pressure, it will lead,” Jim said.

Lee Castine summed up what she and her fellow students gained from Jim’s unusual course.

“The thing that struck me most is the impact the methods have on the cattle,” she said.

“It's not only de-stressing our activity with the cattle, its de-stressing the cattle.”

So In what seems a remarkabley calm and quiet way of drafting cattle, Jim shows his students that when they’re in the yards, they don't have to do the yards hard.