children are riveted by the motion of the blades, or by just about anything thatâs spinning fast. I donât know why this happens, but I think they may be seeing the flicker of the fan blades even at very high speeds. Iâve met a number of dyslexic people who can see the flicker, so I assume many autistic people see it, too. Dyslexics who can see the blade flicker say itâs horribly distracting and fatiguing.
The motion is part of the attraction, too. I donât get hooked on fans myself, but I do get stuck on those geometric screen savers a lot of computers have. I canât stop looking at them, literally, so if Iâm in an office where thereâs a geometric screen saver either I have to sit with my back to the screen, or ask the owner to turn it off.
With fans, what drives an animal crazy is when the fan is turned off, but the blades are rotating slowly in the breeze. You have to put up big pieces of plywood or metal so the animals canât see the fan. Otherwise, forget it. Theyâre going to balk. I went to one ranch where they had a windmill that was messing up the animals. On windy days the animals wouldnât move.
11. S EEING P EOPLE M OVING U P A HEAD
Another case for plywood. I mentioned this one earlier. Cattle are eighteen months old when theyâre slaughtered, and pigs are only five months old, so it doesnât pay to train them to lead. Theyâre not like horses whoâve been trained to accept a halter and a lead rope and walk calmly alongside a human being.
12. S MALL O BJECT ON THE F LOOR
Example: a white Styrofoam coffee cup on a muddy brown floor.
I had a bad experience with this one time when I was up on a catwalk above a cattle chute. An employee at the plant had been storing his white plastic water bottle on the catwalk, and I accidentallykicked it off. The minute it hit the ground, I said a bad word. It landed right at the entrance to the chute, where I knew it was going to cause a problem, and it did. That little plastic water bottle lying harmlessly on the ground was as big a barrier for those 1,200-pound cows as if Iâd dropped a big pile of boulders there.
We had to shut the whole line down, because no animal would walk over it, and it was too dangerous for anyone to go in there and try to pick it up. A crowd pen is a small space, and there were fifteen big animals in it, none of them trained to lead; a human going inside the pen could have been crushed. So the employees had to stand outside and run at the cattle and chase them until finally one of the cows stepped on the bottle and crushed it into the manure so that it turned brown, not white. Then the cattle were fine. They all stepped over it and went on into the alley. That part of the line was shut down for fifteen minutes, and the plant as a whole lost five minutes. At $200 a minute that was a $1,000 delay.
13. C HANGES IN F LOORING AND T EXTURE
Example: cattle or pigs moving from a metal floor to a concrete floor or vice versa.
The problem is contrast.
14. D RAIN G RATE ON THE F LOOR
Same problem again: contrast. The drain grate looks too different from the floor.
15. S UDDEN C HANGES IN THE C OLOR OF E QUIPMENT
High-contrast color changes are the worst. You canât have the gates painted one color and the pens painted another. Iâve also seen problems with gray-painted alleys leading up to shiny metal equipment.
16. C HUTE E NTRANCE T OO D ARK
Another contrast issueâgoing from light to dark.
17. B RIGHT L IGHT S UCH AS B LINDING S UN
If you have the sun coming up over the top of a building just as the cattle are approaching there is nothing you can do. It is a hell of a problemand there isnât any way to fix it except maybe extend the roof out over the yards. Otherwise you just have to suffer through it.
18. O NE -W AY OR A NTI -B ACKUP G ATES
These are two different terms for the same thing. Anti-backup gates donât look like the normal gates the cattle
The motion is part of the attraction, too. I donât get hooked on fans myself, but I do get stuck on those geometric screen savers a lot of computers have. I canât stop looking at them, literally, so if Iâm in an office where thereâs a geometric screen saver either I have to sit with my back to the screen, or ask the owner to turn it off.
With fans, what drives an animal crazy is when the fan is turned off, but the blades are rotating slowly in the breeze. You have to put up big pieces of plywood or metal so the animals canât see the fan. Otherwise, forget it. Theyâre going to balk. I went to one ranch where they had a windmill that was messing up the animals. On windy days the animals wouldnât move.
11. S EEING P EOPLE M OVING U P A HEAD
Another case for plywood. I mentioned this one earlier. Cattle are eighteen months old when theyâre slaughtered, and pigs are only five months old, so it doesnât pay to train them to lead. Theyâre not like horses whoâve been trained to accept a halter and a lead rope and walk calmly alongside a human being.
12. S MALL O BJECT ON THE F LOOR
Example: a white Styrofoam coffee cup on a muddy brown floor.
I had a bad experience with this one time when I was up on a catwalk above a cattle chute. An employee at the plant had been storing his white plastic water bottle on the catwalk, and I accidentallykicked it off. The minute it hit the ground, I said a bad word. It landed right at the entrance to the chute, where I knew it was going to cause a problem, and it did. That little plastic water bottle lying harmlessly on the ground was as big a barrier for those 1,200-pound cows as if Iâd dropped a big pile of boulders there.
We had to shut the whole line down, because no animal would walk over it, and it was too dangerous for anyone to go in there and try to pick it up. A crowd pen is a small space, and there were fifteen big animals in it, none of them trained to lead; a human going inside the pen could have been crushed. So the employees had to stand outside and run at the cattle and chase them until finally one of the cows stepped on the bottle and crushed it into the manure so that it turned brown, not white. Then the cattle were fine. They all stepped over it and went on into the alley. That part of the line was shut down for fifteen minutes, and the plant as a whole lost five minutes. At $200 a minute that was a $1,000 delay.
13. C HANGES IN F LOORING AND T EXTURE
Example: cattle or pigs moving from a metal floor to a concrete floor or vice versa.
The problem is contrast.
14. D RAIN G RATE ON THE F LOOR
Same problem again: contrast. The drain grate looks too different from the floor.
15. S UDDEN C HANGES IN THE C OLOR OF E QUIPMENT
High-contrast color changes are the worst. You canât have the gates painted one color and the pens painted another. Iâve also seen problems with gray-painted alleys leading up to shiny metal equipment.
16. C HUTE E NTRANCE T OO D ARK
Another contrast issueâgoing from light to dark.
17. B RIGHT L IGHT S UCH AS B LINDING S UN
If you have the sun coming up over the top of a building just as the cattle are approaching there is nothing you can do. It is a hell of a problemand there isnât any way to fix it except maybe extend the roof out over the yards. Otherwise you just have to suffer through it.
18. O NE -W AY OR A NTI -B ACKUP G ATES
These are two different terms for the same thing. Anti-backup gates donât look like the normal gates the cattle
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