Website: https://www.grandin.com/
Twitter: @DrTempleGrandin
About
Dr. Grandin is a designer of livestock handling facilities and a Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University. Facilities she has designed are located in the United States, Canada, Europe, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries. In North America, almost half of the cattle are handled in a center track restrainer system that she designed for meat plants. Curved chute and race systems she has designed for cattle are used worldwide and her writings on the flight zone and other principles of grazing animal behavior have helped many people to reduce stress on their animals during handling.
She has also developed an objective scoring system for assessing handling of cattle and pigs at meat plants. This scoring system is being used by many large corporations to improve animal welfare. Other areas of research are: cattle temperament, environmental enrichment for pigs, reducing dark cutters and bruises, bull fertility, training procedures, and effective stunning methods for cattle and pigs at meat plants.
She obtained her B.A. at Franklin Pierce College and her M.S. in Animal Science at Arizona State University. Dr. Grandin received her Ph.D in Animal Science from the University of Illinois in 1989. Today she teaches courses on livestock behaviour and facility design at Colorado State University and consults with the livestock industry on facility design, livestock handling, and animal welfare.
Source: https://www.grandin.com/temple.html
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Videos
Video Tour of Beef Plant Featuring Temple Grandin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMqYYXswono
Dr. Grandin on autism:
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Published works
– handling livestock
In 1980 Grandin published her first two scientific articles on beef cattle behavior during handling: “Livestock Behavior as Related to Handling Facilities Design” in the International Journal for the Study of Animal Problems, Vol. 1, pp. 33-52 and “Observations of Cattle Behavior Applied to the Design of Cattle Handling Facilities”, Applied Animal Ethology, Vol. 6, pp. 19-31. She was one of the first scientists to report that animals are sensitive to visual distractions in handling facilities such as shadows, dangling chains, and other environmental details that most people do not notice.
When she was awarded her Ph.D. at the University of Illinois, she studied the effects of environmental enrichment on pigs. The title of her dissertation was “Effect of Rearing Environment and Environmental Enrichment on the Behavior and Neural Development in Young Pigs”. Grandin expanded her theories in her book, Animals Make Us Human.
In 1993, she edited the first edition of Livestock Handling and Transport. Grandin wrote three chapters and included chapters from contributors from around the world. Subsequent editions of the book were published in 2000, 2007, and 2014. In her academic work as a professor at Colorado State University, her graduate student, Bridgett Voisinet, conducted one of the early studies that demonstrated that cattle who remained calm during handling, had higher weight gains. In 1997, when the paper was published, this was a new concept. The paper is entitled, “Feedlot Cattle with Calm Temperaments Have Higher Average Daily Gains Than Cattle with Excitable Temperaments“, published in The Journal of Animal Science, Vol. 75, pp. 892-896.
Another important paper published by Grandin was, “Assessment of Stress During Handling and Transport”, Journal of Animal Science, 1997, Vol. 75, pp. 249-257. This paper presented the concept that an animal’s previous experiences with handling could have an effect on how it will react to being handled in the future, as a new concept in the animal-handling industry.
A major piece of equipment that Grandin developed was a center track (double rail) conveyor restrainer system for holding cattle during stunning at large beef slaughtering plants. The first system was installed in the mid-1980s for calves and a system for large beef cattle was developed in 1990. This equipment is now being used by many large meat companies. It is described in “Double Rail Restrainer Conveyor for Livestock Handling”, first published in the Journal of Agricultural Engineering Research, Vol. 4, pp. 327-338 in 1988, and “Transferring results of behavioral research to industry to improve animal welfare on the farm, ranch, and slaughter plant”, Applied Animal Behavior Science, Vol. 8, pp. 215-228, published in 2003.
Grandin also developed an objective, numerical scoring system for assessing animal welfare at slaughtering plants. The use of this scoring system resulted in significant improvements in animal stunning and handling during slaughter. This work is described in “Objective scoring of animal handling and stunning practices in slaughter plants”, Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, Vol. 212, pp. 36-39, “The feasibility of using vocalization scoring as an indicator of poor welfare during slaughter”, Applied Animal Behavior Science, Vol. 56, pp. 121–128, and “Effect of animal welfare audits of slaughter plants by a major fast food company on cattle handling and stunning practices”, Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, Vol. 216, pp. 848–851.
In 2008, Grandin published Humane Livestock Handling with contributions by Mark Deesing, a long time collaborator with her.
The book contains a review of the main aspects of cattle behavior and provides a visual guide in the form of construction plans and diagrams for the implementation of Grandin’s ideas relating to humane livestock handling.
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Colorado State University: https://source.colostate.edu/temple-grandin/
Graduate Program – Animal Behavior & Welfare
https://ansci.agsci.colostate.edu/graduate/ansci-graduate-academic-programs/grad-behavior/
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Film
Temple Grandin is a 2010 American biographical drama film directed by Mick Jackson and starring Claire Danes as Temple Grandin, an autistic woman whose innovations revolutionized practices for the humane handling of livestock on cattle ranches and slaughterhouses.
The film won several awards including five Primetime Emmy Awards, and Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild prizes for Danes.
