Case Study
Case Study: Effect of exercise programs during receiving in a commercial feedlot on behavior and productivity of Brahman crossbred calves: Results from a commercial environment and a comparison to the research environment

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ABSTRACT

Exercising receiving cattle is hypothesized to be a management strategy that could mitigate receiving stress in cattle. Little empirical research has been published on the quantifiable (productivity, health, behavior) effects of this strategy in a commercial feedyard setting. In a single Texas feedyard case study, high-risk Brahman-crossbred receiving calves (n = 688; 184 ± 5 kg) were exercised during the receiving period in the fall. Upon arrival, calves were sorted into single-sex pens (n = 6 pens: n = 3 pens heifers, n = 3 pens steers) and randomly assigned to 1 of 3 treatments within sex blocks: (1) programmatic exercise (PRO; cattle moved to drive alley and encouraged to maintain movement for 20 min), (2) free exercise (FRE; cattle moved to drive alley and allowed free movement without access to the pen for 60 min), or (3) no exercise (CON). Treatments were applied (n = 12 sessions; 3 sessions per week) across a 30-d period, between 0800 and 1000 h at least 1 h after feed delivery. Gain-to-feed ratio and mortality rate were similar among treatments. Cattle assigned to CON had greater ADG than did those assigned to FRE or PRO (1.52, 1.39, and 1.44 kg/d). Percentage of calves treated for respiratory disease was greater in FRE and PRO compared with CON. The proportion of the pen lying and resting simultaneously increased and the proportion of the pen feeding, drinking, ruminating, and walking decreased over time. Exercise treatments did not compromise gain efficiency or behavior; however, exercised cattle had smaller ADG. These results suggest that exercise reduces receiving-period gains without improving animal health or altering behaviors.

Section snippets

INTRODUCTION

High-risk receiving calves, upon arrival at the feedlot, experience a cacophony of simultaneous stressors that include, but are not limited to, social and environmental stress (weaning, commingling, establishing new social structures, transportation, familiarization with a new climate, new environment, and new humans), nutritional stress (diet change, reduction in time spent grazing, acidosis, bloat, change in time ruminating), and physiological stress (pathogen exposure, vaccination, abortion,

Animal Husbandry and Housing

All procedures for this study were approved by the Texas A&M University Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC 2016-0259). Brahman cross cattle (n = 688) purchased from sale barns in east Texas and Mississippi were used in this study. Upon arrival at the feedyard, cattle were sorted by sex into 2 receiving pens and allowed to rest for 4 d before placement in their home pen. When placed into their home pen, they were then sorted into pens (n = 6; 3 pens of steers and 3 pens of

Productivity and Health

Calf ADG differed between the research and commercial settings, with commercially housed receiving calves having greater ADG than research-housed weanling calves (Figure 1a; P < 0.0001); however, this is to be expected based on differences in calf age and development (weanlings vs. receiving calves). Enforced exercise treatments (FRE and PRO) negatively affected receiving-calf ADG in the commercial case study (Table 5). These results are consistent with observations from a research setting (

IMPLICATIONS

There are 2 primary implications from this research. First, this is the first evidence that behavior and husbandry research conducted on drylot-housed calves in the research environment can be representative of cattle behavior and responsivity to these husbandry practices in the commercial environment, because the results from both the commercial and research environments yielded similar results. Therefore, the results yielded from controlled research studies can translate to the commercial

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research was supported by Texas A&M AgriLife Research (College Station).

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