The Online Source for Calico Beef Consulting Tim O'Byrne started Calico Beef Consulting in 1994 as a way of offering practical assistance to industry players with a focus on humane livestock issues. We operate on a strong network of industry groups and individuals in Canada. There were others, too, like Temple Grandin, Bud Williams and Dylan Biggs who were encouraging low stress cattle handling.
Today there is a shortage of qualified handlers.
The people that make a living handling livestock need to know so much more about animal welfare, personal safety, food safety and quality assurance than ever before. I fell in with some of the cowboys there and a bunch of us ended up out in British Columbia in the early '80s, cowboying on the big commercial outfits. I was employed by Douglas Lake Cattle Company in 1988 as the foreman at Chapperon Division. The ranch ran 7000 cows and 4000 yearlings. In 1990 I took on the cowboss job at the Gang Ranch, a 4000 head outfit on British Columbia's rugged Fraser River.