Weekly ramblings: What is “routine” for an animal?

I’ve been asking myself that question regularly. Many farmers have set times for certain farm chores such as feeding. Homesteaders that are looking into keeping animals are often told to keep to a schedule otherwise you might get upset animals. Especially goats can get loud (and keep at it) if you feed them at irregular times.

What I’ve experienced over the years is that animals are more flexible than you might think. The concept of routine seems to be orientated more towards a set of “rules of understanding” then really keeping to set times. For instance, nowadays I start my feeding routine as the sun gets up, not at a certain time (I've never seen a cow wearing a watch anyway).
This means that everyone is quiet as long as it is dark, which is a blessing to our neighbours. Honestly the roosters are up earlier but not “excited noisy” just “regular rooster noisy”.

Another “rule of understanding” is the moving of animals. Most farms with set paddocks or grazing areas have a bit of trouble with moving cows or pigs to a new area. On farms you sometimes have to force them to go in a new direction, often described as going out of their comfort zone. Since we move our animals daily, they’ve quickly learned to follow the netting or wire. “The routine” in this context is a new area, so something new is part of everyday life. They dash out every morning and follow the fence to explore their pasture for the day. Not a single cow, pig or goat ever showed signs of discomfort. Even the chickens know what’s going to happen when I’m wanting to move the poultrynet.

Somehow we’ve developed a set of rules that makes life easier for us. I think the hardest thing is a new herd of anything. Goats can get especially whiney for treats and can cry all day long or everytime you come out. Turning your back on them and walking away is the hardest thing for human emotions to deal with in the beginning.
The rule is: If you whine I’ll leave.
Works like a charm, I can feed treats on pasture and have it quiet as soon as I’m done. Teenager goats might get in a phase where they want to test you and beg for more, just stop the feeding and walk away. You’ll get a well behaved herd in no time. The benefit of a quiet adaptable herd is that they seem to encourage this behaviour in newcomers.
I feel very fortunate with what I have.

The basics start with what you want as the keeper of animals. Prey animals follow the directions of a predator, they are used to letting them be guided. Prey animals are responsive to pressure from you as a being. From this point of view it is only natural that they try to understand whatever it is you want.
No way a herd/prey animal would run into a confined space (barn) at night as a natural behaviour, they do that because you taught them. It’s a predators job to coordinate everyone in their space, including separating out the weak, sick or old ones.
Our human brain seems to fit that function just fine. The benefit of being human is that we can opt to heal an animal instead of killing it. This might be one of the most important differences between a human and other predators.

I genuinely think animals we work with have a better understanding of what we want then most people think. I “voice command” everything. If I teach an animal something I don’t want to explain it to him/her every single time with gestures, it’s easier to just ask.

Can you come?
Can I have your milk?
Can you give me that leg?
Will you walk with me?

Each with their own command, are things they understand just fine. In turn if something is wrong they call for you. I think the image some people have where we force an animal to for instance share their milk, is completely wrong. If I go out in the pasture right now she’ll stand for me, in fact she never kicked me away or anything like she would do if she rejects or weans her baby. Sometimes she already drips milk as soon as my hand goes to her udder, how the heck is that not GIVING?

Anyway this talk was about animal routine, I guess we’ve strayed a bit from that.
Let me know in the comments whether you would like to see more about the all-weather goat we talked about last time.
Cheers everyone, until next time!