Page 231 - The Welfare of Cattle

208 the WeLfare of CattLe

possible following a storm. Feedlot managers fear that the placement of bedding in pens prior to and
during a storm will slow the snow removal process from the pen once the storm subsides.
Many desert climate feedlots employ shade structures to help cattle remain cool. Most feedlots
in other areas of the country are reluctant to build shade structures. Another procedure to help keep
cattle cool is the use of sprinkler systems. Application of water to cattle increases evaporative cool-
ing form the cattle body surface. However, continuous excessive water application can increase the
relative humidity within the micro environment of cattle. A more desirable approach is to provide
intermittent watering to the pen and animal surface area. Timing of the water application is also
important. Nebraska research has shown that providing water to the pen surface early in the day,
prior to the accumulation of a large heat load is more efficient than trying to cool the pen surface or
cattle once they have become hot.
Most research in the use of shade, windbreaks, bedding, and sprinkler systems have focused
on cattle performance attributes. In the short term, use of these interventions tends to improve
animal performance. However, cattle are remarkable in their ability to compensate for times of
stress-induced poorer performance by exhibiting tremendous rates of gain when the stressors are
eliminated. Due to this compensatory performance, the use of environmental interventions has
not been proven cost-effective over the long term. Whether an environmental intervention is cost-
effective over the long term or not should not be the criterion to establish comfort and well-being of
feedlot cattle. As demonstrated in other industries, maximum performance can be achieved using
marginal living conditions such as gestation stalls and laying hen cages. Research using objective
measures establishing the degree of cattle discomfort under various environmental stressors or
interventions is needed. It is very likely that animals cannot be made 100% comfortable, 100% of
the time. However, objective measures can be used to establish acceptable industry tolerances for
environmental stress. A similar approach has been used by animal-handling specialists to improve
cattle handling during processing and harvest.
Pain, injury, or disease. Advances in veterinary care and adoption of quiet cattle handling and
beef quality assurance procedures have generally improved the health and well-being of most cattle
in modern feedlots. Cattle in most feedlots are observed daily by trained animal health evaluators,
generally removed from the pen in a timely fashion, and treated with the appropriate treatment
protocol by trained feedlot veterinary technicians in a timely fashion. Frequently cattle treated for
various maladies are housed in a hospital pen and allowed a chance to recover. In some feedlots,
there is room for improvement. Sometimes the hospital area is crowded with too many cattle, not
bedded, and less comfortable for the cattle than what their home pen would be. In addition, fre-
quently one the normal feedlot step-up diets are used for the hospital diet. It may be advanta-
geous to formulate a specific diet for the hospital program that provides additional nutrients and
accommodates low feed intake by sick cattle.
An additional area of concern that warrants mention is the increase in “Production Diseases”
experienced by cattle. Production diseases are either induced or exacerbated by certain types
of management practices. Production diseases are often metabolic or nutritional in nature, and
although unintended, production diseases are often an outcome of the deliberate methods used in
livestock management and production. For example, cattle are ruminant animals that evolved to
efficiently graze and utilize forages; however, current diets commonly fed to feedlot cattle contain
low- roughage and high-feed grain concentrations. Providing high-grain diets to cattle can poten-
tially create a biologically challenging nutritional environment that can result in subclinical or
clinical rumen acidosis and lead to liver abscesses as described above.
Despite all of the advances seen in veterinary care and the millions of dollars spent on vaccine
and antibiotic effectiveness and trace mineral supplementation research, the incidence of respira-
tory disease in feedlot cattle has increased over the past several years. Additional research is war-
ranted to discover why this trend continues. Should bovine respiratory disease in feedlot cattle
be considered a “Production Disease” that is strongly correlated to the use of high grain, lower