Robin's Nest from American Humane - Revolutionizing Animal Welfare with Temple Grandin

Episode Date: December 15, 2025

On this episode of Robin’s Nest, we sit down with Dr. Temple Grandin, world-renowned animal behaviorist, autism advocate, and Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University. Temple explains how thinking in pictures allowed her to revolutionize livestock handling systems, designing environments that reduce stress and improve animal welfare worldwide. From the invention of her “hug machine” to curved chute systems now used by nearly half of North American cattle, her approach blends science, compassion, and measurable accountability.Temple also shares her personal experiences with autism, offering a unique perspective on how neurodiverse thinking can be a powerful strength. She discusses her memoir Thinking in Pictures, and the Emmy-winning HBO film about her life, as well as a peek at her upcoming book, all highlighting her journey of discovery and advocacy. This is a conversation packed with insight, ingenuity, and a fresh way of seeing the world.

Today we're joined by a true trailblazer, Dr. Temple Grandin. She's not only one of the world's leading voices in animal science, transforming how livestock are treated around the globe, but also a powerful advocate for autism awareness. From best-selling books to an Emmy-winning HBO film about her life, Dr. Grandin has changed how we see both animals and people. Welcome to Robin's Nest. Many of us feel a deep bond with animals, from the pets we cherish at home to the endangered species in nature. Join us for lively informative conversations where together we will build a more humane world.

Temple, welcome to Robin's Nest. We're so excited to have you. We are here on my farm, so this is my greenhouse that you see behind me. And we have about 70 acres here in Marshall, Virginia now. So it's, It's our little slice of heaven and hope to get some more acreage and hope to be able to do some regenerative farming here. So it's going to be a lot of fun. I'm a big fan of that. Just a couple of years ago, I wrote a paper on grazing.

I was sick and tired of cattle being bashed. People don't realize that 20% of the world's land can only be grazed. It's too arid for crops. And we've got to be doing it right. I reviewed a whole lot of studies on pasture rotation. on cover cropping. We need to be getting the animals and the crops back together. Absolutely. And you do the grazing right, you can improve the land. The other problem is if you remove the family ranchers from the land, the woody shrubs are going to take over. And that is going to

fire just terrible. You know, people don't know that temple, and that's what we've been doing here in our farm in Marshall, Virginia's is learning more about regenerative farming, learning more that this brush has to be cleared. We can do that, you know, humanely with goats without pesticides or anything like that. Livestock are part of the land, and grazing is part of using a land correctly. And just to put the methane into perspective,

before Europeans came to the North American continent, the herds of bison were putting out 85% of the methane that cattle put out now. We also have to look at methane coming out of garbage dumps, that's a big amount of methane. Also, poorly maintained oil field equipment is another source. Well, you know, Temple, you know, you talk about something that's a huge topic now, and that's the conversations about what you say is bashing of the cow

because people believe those reports that are false that say cows are causing climate crisis, and that's absolutely not true. Cows do put out methane. And research has been done right here at CSU that shows that when they read, eat forage, they actually put out more methane. But the thing is, is that you have to look at your whole system. 20% of the world's land. The only way you can raise food on it is to graze it.

Yes, yes, absolutely. You know, we've been talking a lot, too, at American Humane, the importance of having these animals graze, the regeneration that occurs with the soil, they're bringing the nitrogen back into the soil. You have to do the grazing right. It's very local. But I'm a big fan of rotational grazing.

There are some people doing an excellent job right now. I've got a paper it's titled grazing, cattle, sheep, and goats is an important part of a sustainable agricultural future. That's beautiful. And that's exactly what we believe in at American Humane. Well, Temple, you have been such an incredible blessing to our program at American Humane Society, or the first ever farm animal certification program. You help lead and create here through American Humane's platform. We're grateful for your...

25 years of commitment to this program and this effort and your incredible thought leadership, you know, that certification program has been critical. Now we represent well over one billion farm animals, have that seal. Well, that's really, really great. And the initial work that I did in animal welfare assessment was for the American Meat Institute, which is now the Meat Institute, was developed a very simple scoring system for assessing the meat package. And plants. One measure that works really well for finding really bad problems is vocalization. If you've got a lot of cattle moving and bellering in a stunning box, you've got something bad happening like too many electric prods. So I developed a very simple scoring system. A lot of animal

welfare stuff gets way too complicated. You have a two-day workshop to train people in. And if it's complicated, they're not going to get it. And when we started that back in 1999, I taught McDonald's Burger King and Wendy's how to use the scoring system. And I saw more change than I'd seen in my whole career prior to that because now people had to repair and manage the equipment they already had. And I'm very proud that out of 74 large beef and pork plants, only three of them had to build expensive things. Wow. I practiced reverse conflict of interest. One of the mistakes I made was in my 20s and I was just doing equipment, I thought I could build a self-managing cattle handling facility.

That's nonsense. I can build a good cattle handling facility, but you've got to have good management to go along with it. And now we've got artificial intelligence coming in. That's not going to be automatic management. And there's artificial intelligence that can actually audit some of the things. So what are you going to do about somebody just inputting faulty data to it? Yes. You need to be overseeing this thing.

It's not automatic management. Right, right. We also believe that we have to have in our audit systems shadow auditors to audit the auditors. to make sure the auditors are measuring things correctly as well, to the intent of the audit standard. We think that helps increase their robust nature and the integrity of the entire program. Well, sometimes people have questioned me,

how can you do good animal welfare just measuring five simple things? Okay, insensibility on the rail, stunner efficacy, vocalization, fraud, score, and falling down, and then no acts of abuse, because they are the critical control points. And some of the main things that we need to be auditing for breeding animals, body condition score, dairy cows, dirty animals, swollen leg joints on dairy cows.

We've got to prevent suffering, you know, measuring those very obvious things like that. Those are critical drugs. Lainness for all species of animals. That's a very big critical control point. And one study, the fact three studies have shown that a dairy producer will underestimate the percentage of lame cows by half. They get so used to seeing lame cows, they almost don't see the mildly lame ones.

Three studies have shown that. That's why it's so important we get to measure the lameness. And then you can tell, are we getting better or getting worse on lameness? And now there's a lot more emphasis with the five domains on, well, is the cow having any positive time? Well, if you see a cow using one of those grooming brushes, that is a cow having a positive experience.

I'm not supposed to say that cows, love those brushes, but they do. I think they do, too. I've seen them out here in Virginia, and they seem to really enjoy the cattle farms I've been on here in Virginia. They love those brushes. They love those brushes. Yeah, they really, really do.

And so we have to prevent suffering. That's absolutely essential. But we also have to do something, does the animal have a life worth living? Yes. Does it never have any positive experiences? You see, the other thing is, is that it? an assessment tool that we use in a research lab. We have highly trained people.

It's not going to work out in the field when we've got to train auditors on a two-and-a-half day of two-day workshop. You have to be able to go in, give them something usable, practical, that they can incorporate right away and get it done. Exactly. And I like to have pictures, like for scoring swollen leg joints on Derry County House pictures,

body conditions, scoring. There's videos for scoring lengths. You know, Tim, I want to go back for a little bit for our new listeners to our podcast and introduce your work, your revolutionary work with the shoots. So when you first started, you designed this incredible system of shoots for cattle. Can you describe that initial work that was so powerful? You see, I'm a visual thinker. I'm what's called an object visualizer. Everything I think about is a picture.

In fact, I discussed that in my book. of visual thinking and and I think in pictures there's other people that think more in words and people that think more in mathematics and patterns now at the time that I started my work when I was in my 20s I thought everybody thought in pictures yes and people thought it was weird that I would get into the shoots to see what cattle were seeing and I noticed the cattle would stop at a shadow they'd stop at a reflection they'd stop at seeing a truck parked along beside the facility or see a person standing up ahead. Little distractions that we tend to not notice, the cattle would notice. It was obvious to me being a visual thinker. So you have got to take

those things out of the facilities. And then when I first started, I went to every feed yard in Arizona and also in Texas, I went to a bunch of feed yards and I actually worked cattle. There were some curved facilities. And you might have one part that was really good, another part that was not so good. And I kind of took all the good bits and put them together in the new systems. And that's what you developed again, because you saw it differently than the industry saw it. And it made a better experience for those cattle. Yeah. And but then you also have got to have the management. You have to have a manager that wants to do things right. I cannot emphasize how important that is. And if management's not behind doing things right, then you're

going to have bad things. When I first started, I'd go work on training the employees, and the manager would untrain them for me. Very frustrating. Then I started training managers. And where I found, you know, and this is back, you know, like 20 years in the future from when I started, training buyers. And you have big buyers, you enforce standards. But you've got to have clear, simple standards for them to enforce. And the handling now and the meat packing plants is so much better than what it used to be. And we've got some really good people managing things. Now I'm concerned about some of the problems with cattle.

We're breeding so much for rapid gain and carcustrates that we're starting to get problems with heart issues, congestive heart issues, also problems with crossed toes like this, where the animal has a cross-toe. That is a genetic defect. not be breeding that. And just indiscriminate selection. Yes, we want to have efficient animals. You want to have efficient dairy cows that give more milk. That's good from a sustainability standpoint. But then there's a point where the dairy cow is going to be difficult to breed. We have to start looking at what is optimal rather than what is maximum. That's a

hard concept for a lot of people to understand. Well, it's very different. It creeps up slowly and people don't realize it until you have a big problem. I call that bad becoming normal. Right. And it happens slowly so people don't see it until it really gets to be a serious problem. Yes, just like you recognize the lameness in three studies. It would be the same thing. It's bad becoming normal because they just don't see it anymore. They just don't see it.

When we first started the welfare audits, I was horrified. Some of the bad things they would do in front of us in the very beginning, they didn't realize how bad it was. And then once they realized how bad it was, then they knew how to kind of face it. up an audit. It really does go back to the people managing those situations and those people have to be really good intentioned and they have to know. And a lot of the work that you've done has been to train them and to educate them. And the training matters. Research is showing, in fact, I'm just updating my textbook improving animal welfare practical approach. And I looked up quite a few studies that shows that training stock people does make a difference. That is

important. But the other thing is you cannot understaff and overwork. Yes. You understaff and overwork, you just run people into the ground and they burn out. Right. That just doesn't work. You know, Temple, you've seen this industry change, change a lot. And I love the fact you've seen now to train the buyers drives the most significant change. People ask me what welfare thing I'm the most proud of. The thing that made the biggest difference was training those buyers. just in one year. And it was amazing.

We took some places that did not have the best facilities and with repairs and some management, we made them work. There's no way to copy these bad designs. It's amazing what some non-slip flooring does. Right, right. Of course, we're out gradually.

And people don't... As again, it's bad becoming normal. Then you have to measure the falling and then you see, well, you've got more animals falling down. We did a lot of, a lot of non-slip flooring had to go in, but very few plants. had to do complete remodels. Only three out of 74 had to do a complete remodel.

Well, that's a big point right there, too, because a lot of people talk about how expensive it is to become animal welfare friendly. They say that the infrastructure investment is too huge to make. That's the barrier that we hear. Let's take the sow stall issue. If I'm building new construction, I can build electronic cell feeders and open sale housing cheaper than stalls. because I have cut down two-thirds of the shop-fabricated steel. Contractors make a fortune. Shop-fabricated steel. So I can build that group housing on new construction cheaper.

The other thing you have to do is you've got to have the right sow genetics. There are some sow genetics. They are just mean and nasty, and they fight, and they're not working group housing. You see, back in the 80s, they just bred this pig. be lean, rapid growth, thin back fat. And they ended up with a mean, fighting pig, tail bites and does everything else bad. Yeah, those pigs won't work. You have to get the right genetics, too. So when you talk about the whole debate around the open housing systems, you're saying that what could really solve the problems of mortality in those systems is genetics.

Well, that's a major, major factor. There are certain pigs that aren't. to live together. And then you also have got to have good stockmanship. That's the other thing that doesn't often get enough credit. And then the other thing is farrowing stalls. And there's some nice designs you can get now where you close up the sow in when the piglets are really small and fragile for three or four days. And then you can open it up like this and the sal can turn around. Well, you know, I want to talk a little bit. Your memoir thinking in pictures is a remarkable story. your story and I'm so grateful that you've shared your story and there's a lot of perspectives and do you hope that an open door brings more understanding especially in

today's times as to autism? I'm very concerned that visual thinkers are getting screened out of our school system. We need visual thinkers to fix things. You see there's two parts of engineering. There's the visual thinking part and these are the people that do the industrial process equipment like invent all the mechanical devices and then your mathematical engineers with university degrees are your new boilers and refrigeration i was just reading an aviation week that's my fun magazine that some of the mechanics that are coming out now are very poor on mechanical aptitude that's being able to visualize for example how the hydraulic system works on a plane and our educational system doesn't recognize mechanical aptitude and people that have super good

mechanical aptitude also tend to be super good with animals too. Wow. And we need all the different kinds of thinkers. And so I do a lot of talks on that now because the person I would want fixing the hydraulics on an airplane, that instantly is how they're airplane steer with hydraulics. Yes. On would be that that old mechanic that can visualize that whole hydraulic system. Right. Absolutely. I have such a fond memory of working with you on an airplane project that we did with American Humane. When we were developing standards for pets to travel, you knew more about the cargo systems and airplanes

than many of the airplane companies we were working with. You knew their fleets? I went through that big white binder that we got from one of the airplane companies. Yes, yes. You've got the bad stuff that happened, like a lot of bloody paws and bloody mouths. And I would guess at least a third of the bad things

that happened were fear. Yes. Think how scary it would be for dog to just be putting this black hole. Exactly right. And nobody else recognized it fright. It's a major problem. That's right. But so many of those incidences were preventable. I see a lot of dogs at the airport, and for the most part, they're absolutely fine. I was on a flight with the St. Bernard and the bulkhead. He just lay there quietly for the whole flight. Yes. We put a lot of pets on dogs on planes to get to various

parts of the country. Our veterans and service dog programs, we train them to fly with the veterans, So the veteran has the ability to travel. It's part of reintegrating back into society after serving our country. Well, for the most part, they're absolutely fine. And then there's a few people that don't clean their dog crap up. That's exactly right. As a pet parent, we have a responsibility to clean up after our pets, for sure, and particularly if we're letting them fly.

Well, Temple, it's been so great to visit with you here in Robin's Nest. You always inspire us. We've learned so much. Do you have any final words for our wonderful listeners today? Well, I want to encourage other people to go in the welfare field. Some of my students have become welfare auditors. And the thing on the good stockmanship and all the team, the farm manager or the plant manager, whatever,

has to get behind doing things right. It's just the same as food safety. You've got to get top management has to insist that we are going to do things. right. That is really important. And that gives animals a much better life. Because you are a visual thinker, you see this in ways that the rest of society doesn't. Well, my big thing that I am working on right now is I'm very concerned that our visual thinkers that we knew to fix things, to keep water systems running, to keep power systems running, are being

screened out of our school system. They recognize the mathematical mind and the verbal mind. They're not recognizing the visual thinking mind. And these different thinkers can work in a complementary manner. You want to have a large food processing plant. You've got to have both kinds of minds. You sure do. We also have to figure out practical ways to fix things in the future. I made my auditing tools for animal welfare very practical and easy. And then I have a book, Improving Animal Welfare Practical Approach. And I'm a shameless book promoter. But I want to get I want to get information out there. And I also have a lot of free stuff on my website, grandin.com.

That's all free stuff. That's wonderful. Grandin.com for our listeners. If you're interested in cattle, that's a good place to go. You've got cattle handling books, autism books, lots of different books. We want everyone on our wonderful podcast today to get thinking and pictures and to get visual thinking. Well, Temple is such a joy to visit with you today. Thank you so much for all you do for animals and for people and for building a moment.

much more humane world. We are so grateful for all you do and all you continue to do for our shared values and our cause. So thank you so very much. Well, thank you for having me. Thank you. I hope you have a great day. We look forward to visiting with you soon. Okay, great. Thank you. Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode of Robins Nest. Please like, subscribe, and follow. And thanks for all you do to build a more humane world. Thank you.