Dr. Temple Grandin, an associate professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University, recently spoke on agricultural animal welfare issues at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine.

Grandin is known for her unique ability to design livestock handling facilities. Working facilities designed by Grandin can be found in the United States, Canada, Europe, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and several other countries. Curved chute and race systems designed by Grandin for cattle are used worldwide. In North America alone, nearly half of the cattle are handled in a restrainer system that Grandin specifically designed for meat plants.

She has written more than 300 articles in scientific journals and livestock periodicals on animal handling, welfare, and facility design. Her writings focus on the flight zone and other characteristics of grazing animals that have helped producers reduce animal stress during handling. Grandin also is known for developong a scoring system used to assess handling of cattle and pigs at meat plants, which has been adopted by many corporations.

Grandin is currently interested in researching cattle temperament, environmental enrichment for pigs, reducing dark cutters and bruises, bull fertility, training procedures, and effective stunning methods for cattle and pigs in processing plants. She also has authored Thinking in Pictures, Livestock Handling and Transport, and Genetics and the Behavior of Domestic Animals. Grandin has appeared on television shows such as 20/20, 48 Hours, and CNN Larry King Live. She also has been featured in People Magazine, The New York Times, Forbes, U.S. News and World Report, and Time.

For more information on Grandin visit http://www.grandin.com.

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