Page 230 - The Welfare of Cattle

anIMaL Care Issues In beef CattLe feedLots 207

4. Freedom to express normal behavior: by providing sufficient space, proper facilities and company
of the animal’s own kind.
5. Freedom from fear and distress: by ensuring conditions and treatment which avoid mental suffering.
Hunger and thirst. Cattle feedlots are in the business of selling feed. This generally results in an
abundance of fresh, highly nutritious feed being readily available for cattle during most hours of the
day. Feed intake is highly correlated to water intake. Thus, cattle feedlots make a tremendous effort
to provide clean, fresh water continuously to cattle. It appears as if the industry is largely successful
at providing the freedom from hunger and thirst.
If one considers the entire statement “…a diet to maintain full health and vigor” there is consid-
erable room for improvement concerning this freedom. Cattle are ruminant animals that evolved to
consume forages. Current economic conditions, namely an abundance of inexpensive feed grains
and a large demand for beef, has driven an increase in the feeding of high grain, low forage diets.
Feeding high-grain, low-roughage diets, when taken to extreme, has led to increases in digestive
upsets including feedlot bloat and ruminal acidosis in feedlot cattle. In addition, the feedlot industry
is facing an epidemic of liver abscesses. Historically the industry used a pharmaceutical approach
to control liver abscesses by providing the antibiotic tylosin in the diet at approximately 9.9 mg/kg
dry matter. Concern over the potential development of antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria through
routine feeding of antibiotics to animals has pressured the livestock industry to reduce or eliminate
the feeding of feed grade antibiotics. This pressure is likely to increase in the future. Increasing
the concentration of roughage in feedlot diets can reduce the incidence of digestive upsets and liver
abscesses.
Feeding more roughage in the diet will likely reduce gain efficiency and increase production
costs. Another approach could be to feed the same roughage concentration but increase roughage
particle size in the diet. Increases in roughage particle size result in increased roughage effective-
ness at reducing the rate of feed consumption and stimulating rumination and saliva production,
thus resulting in reductions in rumen acidity. Currently, roughage particle size in many feed-
lots is limited by physical factors associated with the ability of feed to flow through feed mills.
Incorporating roughages with larger particle size into feedlot diets could cause feed milling issues
that likely will require changes to feed mill design.
Discomfort. The freedom from discomfort focusses on providing the animal with an appropri-
ate environment including shelter and a comfortable place to lie down. In order to evaluate how
successful feedlots are at providing this freedom, a discussion of how cattle in an extensive range
situation fair under various environmental conditions is warranted. Cattle respond to heat or cold
stress through various physiological or behavioral mechanisms. If cattle are hot, they seek shade,
cooler ground surface temperatures, or exposure to the wind. If cattle are cold they bunch together,
seek shelter from the wind, and prefer to lie down on warmer ground surface areas. Even under the
best range conditions, cattle are less than 100% successful at completely alleviating discomfort.
In well-managed, properly designed feedlots, most cattle are comfortable most of the time.
Cattle generally have the ability to select a dry place to lay down during most of the year. They
are able to exhibit normal bunching behaviors when they are cold. Bunching reduces the surface
area of the herd that is exposed to cold wind. This reduces body heat loss. During extreme weather,
this bunching behavior can have negative consequences. Most cattle that die in blizzards suffocate
rather than die of cold exposure. In many feedlots, particularly in northern climates, wind breaks
have been constructed to provide cattle with shelter from the wind. Providing cattle with bedding
during severe winter weather can also help maintain cattle comfort. Most large feedlots are reluc-
tant to provide windbreaks and bedding to cattle. During summer months, wind breaks can have
deleterious effects by blocking wind that could help keep cattle cool. With regard to bedding, the
standard operating storm management procedure is to remove snow from feedlot pens as soon as