Temperature, relative humidity, and dew point of 6 commercial trailer compartments during summer transportations of beef calves in the mid-South
Section snippets
INTRODUCTION
Cow-calf producers are located throughout the United States (Feuz and Umberger, 2003), with over 24 million (71.7%) calves born west and 9.7 million (28.3%) born east of the Mississippi River (USDA, 2015). Thus, the cattle industry relies on commercial truck carriers to transport cattle from cow-calf operations to backgrounding facilities or to feedlots, which are concentrated in the Great Plains (Mintert, 2003).
Transporting cattle can affect shrink or BW loss associated with loss of urine,
Experimental Design
Animal used in this study were cared for in accordance to the Arkansas Beef Quality Assurance Program (Troxel and Powell, 2012). The owners of the cattle directly contracted the independent tractor-trailer operator to transport cattle to the destination determined by the cattle owner. At no time did the faculty nor the University of Arkansas own or manage the cattle used in the study.
The trailer used was a 1998 Cattle Drive (Merritt Equipment Company, Henderson, CO) with 6 compartments (Figure 1
Temperature
There was no difference in temperature among trailer compartments (P > 0.01; Table 3). Goldhawk et al. (2014b) reported no difference in temperature among commercial trailer compartments when beef calves were transported in September to November in Alberta. In addition, no differences in temperature were observed at animal or ceiling height within compartment during highway travel in the summer in Canada (Goldhawk et al., 2014a). The average ambient temperature during the summer Canadian study
IMPLICATIONS
Cattle of various BW and age are transported varying distances every day throughout the United States. This study demonstrated a difference in the microenvironment within a commercial cattle trailer’s compartments during the summer in the mid-South as it relates to relative humidity, dew point, percentage of time exposed to greater THI, and hourly variation in climate conditions. These differences in trailer compartment environments could affect the risk of dehydration and quantity of weight
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This project was funded within the University of Arkansas System, Division of Agriculture, Cooperative Extension Service, and through collaboration with Marl Barnes (Barnes Hauling, Hope, AR), who volunteered his hauling services for monitoring trailer compartment climate during normal business activity and donated his time to collect descriptive information for each haul as well as time required for attaching and removing data loggers within trailer compartments. The authors thank Tom Brannon
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