Job Check
Farmworkers, Farm, Ranch, and Aquacultural Animals
Attend to live farm, ranch, open range or aquacultural animals that may include cattle, sheep, swine, goats, horses and other equines, poultry, rabbits, finfish, shellfish, and bees. Attend to animals produced for animal products, such as meat, fur, skins, feathers, eggs, milk, and honey. Duties may include feeding, watering, herding, grazing, milking, castrating, branding, de-beaking, weighing, catching, and loading animals. May maintain records on animals; examine animals to detect diseases and injuries; assist in birth deliveries; and administer medications, vaccinations, or insecticides as appropriate. May clean and maintain animal housing areas. Includes workers who shear wool from sheep and collect eggs in hatcheries.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Feed and water livestock and monitor food and water supplies.Mostly human for now
- 02Herd livestock to pastures for grazing or to scales, trucks, or other enclosures.Mostly human for now
- 03Examine animals to detect illness, injury, or disease, and to check physical characteristics, such as rate of weight gain.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 04Provide medical treatment, such as administering medications and vaccinations, or arrange for veterinarians to provide more extensive treatment.Mostly human for now
- 05Mark livestock to identify ownership and grade, using brands, tags, paint, or tattoos.Mostly human for now
- 06Drive trucks, tractors, and other equipment to distribute feed to animals.Mostly human for now
- 07Segregate animals according to weight, age, color, and physical condition.Mostly human for now
- 08Inspect, maintain, and repair equipment, machinery, buildings, pens, yards, and fences.Mostly human for now
- 09Move equipment, poultry, or livestock from one location to another, manually or using trucks or carts.Mostly human for now
- 10Clean stalls, pens, and equipment, using disinfectant solutions, brushes, shovels, water hoses, or pumps.Mostly human for now
Tasks from O*NET® 31.0 (US Department of Labor, CC BY 4.0, changed by us), most important first. “Already use” comes from Anthropic’s data on real work chats with Claude; “could speed up” from task ratings made with GPT-4 in 2023.
Four studies, side by side
None is a forecast of job lossToo little dataNot enough work use was seen to measure. This does not mean the job is safe from AI.Anthropic, 2026
6%of this job’s tasks an AI model could do in half the time, counting tasks that need extra tools as half (rated in 2023).Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin and Rock, 2023
Above 48% of jobsin how often and how well AI helped with this job’s work in Microsoft Copilot chats (2024 data).Microsoft Research (Tomlinson et al.), 2025
Above 95% of jobsin how much of this job’s physical work robots have been shown to do, from factories to homes (2026).Anthropic, 2026
Your human edge
The main tasks with no real AI use seen and no big speed-up expected. This is where your skill counts most today.
- Feed and water livestock and monitor food and water supplies.
- Herd livestock to pastures for grazing or to scales, trucks, or other enclosures.
- Provide medical treatment, such as administering medications and vaccinations, or arrange for veterinarians to provide more extensive treatment.