Think of the last time you saw cattle being worked, either in the corrals or the pasture, and they were rolling their eyes and jumping fences. That situation, says Tom Noffsinger, is not only completely avoidable, but entirely the fault of the people working the cattle.

“It’s really important that we think about stockmanship being an attitude,” he told cattle feeders attending the Merck Cattle Feeders Business Summit this week in Denver. “The caregiver or whoever is in contact with those animals has a responsibility to know that whatever they do when you’re with them is because of you, not them.”

And, if people who handle cattle can understand basic stockmanship principles, they will see a positive shift in disease incidence, performance and safety of both the animals and the people, says Noffsinger, a veterinarian from Benkelman, Neb., and one of the nation’s leading experts on low-stress cattle handling and effective stockmanship.

However, he points out that low-stress cattle handling is not about making cattle go slow. “We want those cattle to move,” he says. But you want them to trust you, have confidence in you and their surroundings and to know that you can communicate with them and ask them to do what you want.

With that in mind, here are the goals Noffsinger would like to see cattle caregivers strive to accomplish in their daily interaction with their cattle:

Noffsinger says cattle want to see their source of guidance and their destination simultaneously, and when you can create that situation, cattle will learn to trust both the caregiver and their surroundings more quickly. To illustrate, he showed a video of a feedyard cowboy unloading newly-arrived feeders. Rather than jab and poke the calves to get them off the truck, he stood quietly where they could see him. The calves came down the ramp of their own accord and every animal looked at him. With just a slight wave of his left hand, he indicated the direction they should go, the calves saw the open gate and put themselves in the pen.

“What we want to do,” Noffsinger says, “when people come to work at the ranch, the feedyard or a growing yard, that they’re dedicated to making sure every time they’re in contact with cattle, it’s a positive experience for both the cattle and the people.”

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