Livestock Worker

Job description

Job duties include operating and maintaining a variety of farm equipment such as, but not limited to, loaders, feed trucks, and feeding machinery to support daily livestock and facility operations. Responsibilities include artificially inseminating cattle, checking cows and heifers for signs of heat, putting out and repositioning mineral tubs, and tarping the silage pit, including pulling, spreading, weighting, and securing heavy tarps over stored feed.

Duties involve assisting with all aspects of calving cows and bred heifers, including walking through muddy fields and pastures to monitor for signs of labor and inspect cows in labor, providing support during delivery, and ensuring proper postnatal care. Workers will manually place and pull OB chains and straps, apply significant physical strength to pull calves during difficult deliveries, lift and carry newborn calves — often weighing 70–100 or more pounds — to dry shelter, pens, or warming boxes, and kneel or bend on hard surfaces to milk out cows or bottle-feed weak calves. Duties also include weaning calves from cows, managing the separation process, monitoring calf health and behavior, and providing appropriate nutrition during the transition.

Additional duties include moving and handling livestock in accordance with rotational grazing practices, including relocating cattle between pastures to maintain forage quality and pasture health, monitoring livestock during movements, and ensuring adequate access to water and forage. Workers will monitor, sort, and work cattle, including operating heavy gate latches and swinging gate panels while sorting cows, calves, or bulls, and will work cattle through the chute, operating head gates and chute mechanisms during processing. Workers will also perform fencing duties, including installing, repairing, maintaining, and removing permanent and temporary fencing, setting and moving electric fencing used in grazing systems, and maintaining gates and related livestock containment systems.

Livestock health must be monitored daily, with signs of illness or injury identified and addressed promptly. Workers will administer medications and supplements as needed, including restraining animals — holding heads, securing tails, or roping — for medication administration or branding; filling, handling, and cleaning syringes, drench guns, and dart guns; administering treatments at distance using a dart gun and retrieving spent darts; and stoking, heating, holding, and applying hot irons or safely handling freeze-branding equipment. Workers will lift, carry, and open heavy medicine crates, vaccine coolers, and supply totes, and provide support during veterinary visits by gathering and restraining animals, preparing treatment areas, and recording health information. Fly and pest control measures include regularly spraying cattle with appropriate treatments to reduce the impact of flies and other external parasites, especially during warm months.

Feeding tasks involve mixing and distributing rations based on livestock nutritional requirements, with rations adjusted as needed based on health or seasonal conditions, and ensuring animals have clean, consistent access to feed and water. Workers will shovel, sweep, and scrape feed bunks and feed mixer hoppers by hand; lift and handle heavy bags of minerals and supplements; load and unload mineral tubs on and off truck beds and trailers; move hay bales manually or with equipment, including rolling out round bales by hand and cutting and removing bale wrap, netting, and twine; and carry, move, and position heavy livestock feeders and hay rings. Additional duties include cleaning and maintaining barns, pens, and handling areas; managing bedding and manure; and ensuring a clean, safe environment for animals.

Special Requirements

Job requires having or being able to obtain a drivers license within 30 days of hire. Basic English literacy skills are required. Job will require periods when workers may be exposed to varying weather conditions and extensive pushing, pulling, sitting, walking, stooping, bending, or repetitive movements. Random drug testing and criminal background checks may occur post-hire at the employers expense. These checks may be performed to ensure safe housing and work environments for all workers. Positive drug test results or refusal to comply with testing may result in termination of employment. If the employer discovers a criminal conviction record or status as a registered sex offender that the employer reasonably believes, consistent with current law, will impair the safety and living conditions of other workers, the employer may terminate the worker (foreign and/or domestic) with notification to OFLC and DHS in accordance with 20 CFR 655.122(n).