Farmscape for January 27, 2017

The Director of the Swine Teaching and Research Center with University of Pennsylvania encourages instilling a more positive view of human animal interactions when training new swine barn workers.
"Training for the Transition from Stalls to Pens" was among the topics of discussion as part of the 2017 Banff Pork Seminar.
Dr. Tom Parsons, the Director of the Swine Teaching and Research Center with University of Pennsylvania, says understanding animal behavior, at some level being able to see the world through the animal's eyes or empathize with the animal are part of stockmanship.

Clip-Dr. Tom Parsons-University of Pennsylvania:
I think attitude is always important.
Basically what we understand from some of the human psychology is that ultimately attitude is what is driving behavioral intention which actually shapes the behavior.
It may not be enough just to train a person to do a behavior, how to move a sow or give an injection.
In some cases we have to step back and motivate the person a little bit better, get them to understand why we're doing these things and that's what's going to help shape their attitudes.
If they have the appropriate attitude, the research would suggest, that you're going to get a better behavioral outcome.
I think we're starting to think more about, how do we expand our training programs to make sure that not only are we reinforcing teaching behavioral changes but we're actually able to help with the attitudes as well.

Dr. Parsons says the hope is that instilling a more a more positive view of human animal interactions will translate into positive behaviors which in turn will make the animal more comfortable around the employee, induce less fear and probably allow the employee to do their task more easily.
He says that will hopefully give the employee more job satisfaction and, in turn, further reinforce these attitudes.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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