Sales and Transport

Stress and Bovine Respiratory Disease

Bovine Respiratory Disease (BRD) is the most costly disease of North American cattle, costing the American feedlot industry $800 000 000 to $900 000 000 USD annually [1],[2]. BRD can affect cattle at any stage of life, but stressors introduced by weaning, sales, and transport significantly increase the risk of the disease [3]-[5]. Having stress reduction and immune support techniques in place throughout these activities is critical to helping reduce illness.

Sales

The majority of beef cattle sales occur at auction markets, where cattle from many different farms are brought together to be sold. The commingling of so many stressed animals is a large risk factor in the development of disease and illness, but it is still an efficient and traditional way for buyers and sellers to conduct a mutually beneficial exchange. Sellers have access to many potential buyers, and buyers have access to many animals. For large feedlot operations, the ability to buy large quantities of similar animals is crucial. Feedlot pens are filled with animals that are uniform in size, weight, age, and sex so that they can receive optimal nutrition and care for their stage of growth. Often calves from several cow/calf farms must be combined to fill one feedlot pen.

Access to clean water, food, and shelter is critical to helping the animals maintain their health. Animals that have been pre-weaned tend to eat more and pace less and hold up better to the transportation journeys before and after auction.

Some auction markets now facilitate online auctions, where the human participants can watch the proceedings and bid online. Other innovators are helping to facilitate direct sales, in which videos of cattle on their home ranch are used to showcase the animal, eliminating the need to transport them to the auction yard at all.

Transport

The welfare of cattle during transportation is important to Canadians, and is a highly regulated process. For a comprehensive look at transport considerations, the Beef Cattle Research Council has compiled a webpage that can be viewed here:

System Elements

The visual below is based on a framework proposed by Davis et al [6]. to investigate complex systems. Click on each of the icons to learn more about each system element.

For a text-only version of the visual, you can use this page.

^{Photo “Livestock Transport” by Charles Henry. H. Texas – Parmer – Friona – 2009.}

References

[1]         Beef Cattle Research Council, ‘Bovine Respiratory Disease – BeefResearch.ca’, Beef Research, Jul. 25, 2022. https://www.beefresearch.ca/topics/bovine-respiratory-disease/ (accessed Aug. 17, 2022).

[2]       ‘Preview: Economic Effects of Bovine Respiratory Disease’, J. Anim. Sci., vol. 98, no. 2, Feb. 2020, doi: 10.1093/jas/skaa042.

[3]         J. D. Taylor, R. W. Fulton, T. W. Lehenbauer, D. L. Step, and A. W. Confer, ‘The epidemiology of bovine respiratory disease: What is the evidence for predisposing factors?’, Can. Vet. J., vol. 51, no. 10, pp. 1095–1102, Oct. 2010.

[4]         P. Griebel, K. Hill, and J. Stookey, ‘How stress alters immune responses during respiratory infection’, Anim. Health Res. Rev., vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 161–165, Dec. 2014, doi: 10.1017/S1466252314000280.

[5]         P. D. Hodgson et al., ‘Effect of stress on viral-bacterial synergy in bovine respiratory disease: novel mechanisms to regulate inflammation’, Comp. Funct. Genomics, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 244–250, 2005, doi: 10.1002/cfg.474.

[6]         M. C. Davis, R. Challenger, D. N. W. Jayewardene, and C. W. Clegg, ‘Advancing socio-technical systems thinking: A call for bravery’, Appl. Ergon., vol. 45, no. 2, Part A, pp. 171–180, Mar. 2014, doi: 10.1016/j.apergo.2013.02.009.