Testimonials

If we all treat animals with respect for their safety and space, we develop trust and harmony. Then we can handle more animals with less labour than any other way-stress free! Jim has extensive experience with cattle and dogs and has increased our awareness of the animal's plight. Our stockhandling has changed dramatically thanks to Jim's school and is far more enjoyable. Brilliant school.

Every person involved with livestock can reap tangible benefits from a Low Stress Stockhandling school, regardless of their current experience and ability. LSS offers simple explanations of stock behaviour. Exercises at the school teach you how to handle stock confidently and quietly in situations you may have previously found difficult or impossible.

Stock work could become more enjoyable and far less stressful for man and beast! Economic gains can be measured eg. weaners handled with these methods can continue to gain weight, not loose it. Hence higher weaner prices on earlier finished animals.

The principles can be applied beneficially whether you are handling stock on foot, horseback, bike, vehicle or in the air. Applied in the air some amazing results can be achieved with sheep, cattle or goats in large areas of scrub country.

Opportunities for efficiency gains like these for such a small outlay rarely pop up.

I highly recommend this unique school.

I attended the two day Low Stress Stockhandling School in Mudgee in November 2002.

I found the course and knowledge gained from it to be of great benefit in the way I manage livestock with particular benefit observed to date being the improved temperament of cows and calves at weaning and subsequently and feedlot lambs when being handled using the skills learnt.

I was so impressed with the school that I hosted a course in August 2003 on my property so that my own family can attend

I did the Low Stress Stockhandling school at Walcha last year. When my son Peter decided to leave school this year I took him to do the Low Stress Stockhandling school at Mudgee and I did the course again.

I believe the production gains to be made by following the LSS principles will be very significant. I also think that the effect on people handling animals will be just as significant, in that they will have a different attitude which will result in fewer accidents and better long term health for themselves and their animals.

I recently attended a LSS school at Edgeroi. I have been handling stock for thirty years in what I believe to be a stock friendly way. My practices wee never challenged until I did this course. The LSS school has dramatically changed the way my family and I approach the art of stock handling. I believe it will give us a financial advantage and it is the most exciting course I have ever done because the results are immediate.

Some examples of the financial advantage are:

If you stressfully handle a mob of cattle from the paddock to the yards and back again it could cost you $1,000. My mob of 500 steers weighing 400kg are putting on .9 kg/day. I believe it could easily take a day and a half to start putting on weight again if they were not handled correctly. .9 kg @$1.50/kg x 1.5 days x 500 steers is $1,000 lost.

I mustered two paddocks in rough, scrubby, floodout country in five hours. It used to take the chopper two hours to do the same job. The cattle were drawn well over 70 metres to the main mob, that were moving peacefully. My time @$20/hour versus the chopper @$330/hour saved $560 as well as not stressing the cattle.

Implementing the strategies learnt from the LSS course have not only increased the enjoyment of working with stock but has achieved extraordinary efficiencies in doing so. The differences in outcome were not only dramatic but also immediate. With weaner steers currently achieving weight gains of up to 2kgs per day there are financial imperatives to ensure those gains are not interupted by a stressful experience when mustered and yarded. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and skills in one of the more practical courses I have undertaken.