Shadowing Practice: Lifting the Down Cow | Down Cows Tutorial - Learn English Speaking with Video
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59 sentences
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Lifting the cow is an important part of both the assessment and the nursing of the downer cow.
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When you first got the cow, if you can lift the cow up
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you get a much better idea of what sort of damage there might be
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and how severely affected she is
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when you lift her up to see what she can do on each of her four limbs.
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As well as
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that, a cow that's sitting on the ground for a number
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of days will get pressure to the muscles of the legs and get lack of circulation.
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So lifting her up is important to allow the circulation to occur and that becomes an important part of the healing process.
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Lots of different ways you can lift them.
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The common way is the hip clamp which are readily available and reasonably cheap.
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You can get a variety of slings and you also go to water baths
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which are very good but quite expensive and fairly limited in how they're used.
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So hip clamps are quite common.
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You can buy them for a couple of hundred dollars at most retail stores
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and there's a few things that you have to make sure you do and don't do.
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So when we're putting them on,
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we put them onto the bony part of the pelvis like this and we need to secure it nice and firmly.
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Put it on firmly, if it's a bit too
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loose when you pick her up you might end up fracturing off the point of the pelvis
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and doing more harm than if you put it on tighter.
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I like to put it on firmly but obviously not grossly over tight.
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That secures it from there and then we bring our tractor in and we pick the cow up.
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So when we lift that cow, that cow's stood quite easily and taken her weight quickly, which is fantastic.
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You might have noticed that she knuckled over on this leg, which is a sign of one of the parts of the paralysis that she had.
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So it's important to try and position that to get it back to make her standing weight properly.
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This is excellent because the cow is able to take her full weight.
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We've now taken the slack out of it, and all the clamp is doing is balancing her after lifting her.
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She's not fully supported by that.
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If the cow is not able to stand taking a reasonable percentage of her weight, so she's fully supported on that,
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you're going to get a lot of damage around the hips, and the damage from that can make the cow very sore,
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and after a few days she's in so much pain she won't want to stand, and then she'll give up.
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So if she's not sanding effectively, it's not worth lifting the cow at all.
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You'll do more damage than what you will good.
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Some farmers think that if the cow is up, even if she's fully supported by the clamp,
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so basically she's dangling by the clamp with the clamp taking all of the weight, they think that's good because it's getting circulation here.
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No, it's not.
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It's not doing anything effective at all and it's being counterproductive and making it more of an issue with pain,
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more complications and have less likely of success.
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If a cow can't take a reasonable percentage of her weight and can't stand effectively, don't lift her at all.
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Just continue to roll her a number of times during the day and leave her two or three days before trying again.
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Hopefully in that time she's stronger and will be better able to stand.
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The other key rule with lifting is to make sure that it's supervised.
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Now what I mean by that, I don't mean you have to stand there looking at it the whole time,
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but you need to be able to keep coming back to the cow regularly to see if she is still standing effectively.
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If we get a cow up standing effective like this and then go off for a couple of hours, a lot of cows tire quite quickly,
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and you might find 10 minutes after you've gone, she's got tired, she's then slopped down on the front legs,
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and by that stage she's then fully taking the weight by the clamp, and that's then ineffective lifting,
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and if she's being ineffectively lifted for a period of time, that will cause the damage and is counterproductive.
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The length of time for lifting will depend on how long the cow is able to stand
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and that will vary from each cow.
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As they get stronger they tend to be able to stand for longer and whether you lift once,
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twice or three times a day depends on how long the cow stands for.
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Lifting at three or four times a day can sometimes be worse
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because it causes too much damage to it but
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if they're standing up effectively and only for five
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or ten minutes it probably is good to lift her up two
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or three times a day rather than just once whereas
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if she's lifting and standing effectively for two or three hours once a day is more than adequate.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Lifting the Down Cow”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: cow, lifting, stand, clamp, lift. This video has 59 sentences and 879 words to shadow. The speech runs for 4:13. The speaker talks fast, about 208 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 87% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| firmly adverb | /ˈfɝmli/ | In a firm or definite or strong manner. |
| circulation noun | /ˌsɝkjʊˈleɪʃən/ | The act of moving in a circle, or in a course which brings the moving body to the place where its motion began. |
| percentage noun | /pə(ɹ)ˈsɛntɪd͡ʒ/ | The amount, number or rate of something, regarded as part of a total of 100; a part of a whole. |
| depend verb | /dɪˈpɛnd/ | To be contingent or conditioned; to have something as a necessary condition |
| harm noun | /hɑːm/ | Physical injury; hurt; damage. |
| occur verb | /əˈkɜː/ | To happen or take place. |
| assessment noun | /əˈsɛsmənt/ | The act of assessing or an amount (of tax, levy or duty etc) assessed. |
| hip noun | /hɪp/ | The outward-projecting parts of the pelvis and top of the femur and the overlying tissue. |
| bath noun | /bɑːθ/ | A tub or pool which is used for bathing: bathtub. |
| muscle noun | /ˈmʌs.əl/ | A contractile form of tissue which animals use to effect movement. |
| sand noun | /sænd/ | Rock that is ground more finely than gravel, but is not as fine as silt (more formally, see grain sizes chart), forming beaches and deserts and also used in… |
| whereas | /(h)wɛɹˈæz/ | In contrast; whilst on the contrary; although. |
| nurse noun | /nɝs/ | Anyone performing this role, regardless of training or profession. |
| vary verb | /ˈvɛəɹi/ | To change with time or a similar parameter. |
| farmer noun | /ˈfɑɹ.mɚ/ | A person who works the land and/or who keeps livestock; anyone engaged in agriculture on a farm. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. |
| give up verb | To surrender (someone or something); to inform on (someone). |
| stand up verb | To rise from a lying or sitting position. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | We've now taken · you've gone |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | clamp which are · leg, which is |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 14 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, can't, they're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: circulation /ˌsɝkjʊˈleɪʃən/, complication /ˌkɑm.pləˈkeɪ.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: circulation /ˌsɝkjʊˈleɪʃən/, reasonably /ˈɹiː.zən.ə.bli/, ineffective /ˌɪn.ɪˈfɛk.tɪv/, counterproductive /ˌkaʊntəpɹəˈdʌktɪv/, complication /ˌkɑm.pləˈkeɪ.ʃən/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like firmly, circulation, percentage.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.