The Beige Cowboy
by Baxter Black, DVM

Robert Earl Keene, Texas songwriter, wrote one about an old timers reunion called "Painting the Town Beige."

Attention is finally being paid to livestock behaviorists who have long known that tan is a color that is soothing to livestock. Does this mean the trademark bright green, red, dark blue and shiny silver colors used on squeeze chutes, panels and gates actually make any difference? Remember when you took your army physical in the institutional lime green government building with yellow lines on the floor? In a practical sense this was not a very soothing atmosphere to a teenager holding his clothes in his arms, "Last name first, First name last, Follow the yellow line."

What about the idea that a red cape infuriates a bull? It might be the flapping and the taunts, more than the color that instigates the charge. Would a matador feel safer wearing earth-colored bed slippers and waving a beige bathrobe? Probably not.The behavioralists point out that tan creates less shadow and no reflection, which has a calming effect on beasts. This may explain why milking generations of dairy cows in glaring antiseptic white barns has created the nervous prima donnas we now milk. I once suggested that the spic and span walls of veal barns could be decorated with painted-on flowers, vines, teddy bears and stars. Obviously I was on the wrong track. By the same token, does this mean that children's nursery rooms should be redesigned eliminating the balloons and duck wall paper and curtains made from Confederate flags?

If application of this "calming by color" technique is more widely accepted, the livestock business may soon be finding itself in a bland world. Jersey cows would make a come back. We'd see a lot more Mexican, Indian and Italian cowboys. Norwegians would be discriminated against for cattle work, since they are either stark white or sunburned. Paint horses would be disallowed in cutting or team penning competition. Buckaroos would be discouraged from wearing bright scarves, and black hats would be a thing of the past. No tattoos or smiley faces painted on sorting gates or rodeo arenas. Our world would look like the backside of Iraq...but...it would be calm. And more livestock friendly.

But my biggest regret would be the effect this color adaptation would have on my cowboy poet attire. Though I've always thought of myself as a trend setter, I have been described otherwise. One particularly beige observer noted, "With that shirt and moustache and his hat down over his ears, the poor bugger looks like a cross between Porter Wagner and Dennis Rodman."