7. Beef cattle behaviour and welfare Flashcards
Changes to normal beef cattle behaviour
- Vigilance behaviour (reduced scanning of the environment for predatory threats): 6,000 to 9,000 years of artificial selection for docility / reduced fear of humans
- Maternal behaviour: Some selection against cows that are aggressive towards humans after calving
- Reproductive behaviour: Seasonal breeding replaced by ability to breed year-round. Mostly natural breeding.
- Feeding behaviour: Diet during the feedlot finishing phase affects natural feeding behaviour, especially duration
Behaviour problems: beef cattle
- Problem behaviour during handling
- Mis-mothering, and maternal aggression
- Buller-steer syndrome
Problem behaviours during handling
- Balking (stopping - refusing to move forward)
* Shadows and stark transitions in flooring
* Entering / moving through handling chutes - Rearing in the chute, attempts to escape
- Charging the handler
Problem behaviour during handling significance
- Risk of injury to the cattle (slips, falls, but especially bruising on market-weight animals $)
- Increases handling time, which may be inefficient
- Risk of injury to handlers (farmers, vets)
- Welfare implications: cattle (e.g., fear, pain, distress)
- Welfare implications: humans (e.g., frustration, negative reciprocal effects)
Problem behavior during handling prevention and treatment
- Habituate cattle to humans, and good handling
- Follow natural behaviour principles:
- Flight zone (compare beef vs dairy cattle)
- Point of balance
- Following behaviour
- Habituate cattle to the facilities (free access)
- Provide good facilities:
- Well-lit
- Limit novel stimuli
- Move cattle in small groups
- Keep quiet as much as possible, during handling
what is mismothering
- Rejecting their newborn calf
- Calf “stealing” by cows close to giving birth
mis-mothering significance
- Affects efficiency: Time and labour to care for orphaned calves, or to try and fix the problem
- Risk to future calf health: affects the timely consumption of colostrum
- Risk of injury to the newborn calf if dam is aggressive
Prevention & treatments, mis-mothering:
- Enough space for cows to spread out / seek isolation at calving
- Avoid disturbing close-up cows (e.g., video monitoring), especially primiparous cows
- Dystocia cases and c-section deliveries have a higher prevalence of calf rejections, for different reasons:
- Pain and stress of dystocia and / or intervention
- Time shift of hormonal profile for normal maternal behaviour
(delays in the progression of delivery) - Possible interference of drugs administered for surgery
- Facilitate licking the newborn to trigger normal maternal behaviour (e.g., smear birth fluids on the dam’s nose / tongue, putting feed on the calf)
- Work to get the calf to nurse; Release of oxytocin during milk let-down may facilitate bonding. Pen the pair together and restraint the cow, if necessary for the calf to suckle a few times/day
- “Stealing” cows need to be separated from the main calving group to avoid interference
Prevention & treatments, aggression:
- Protect yourself at all times around new momma cows (knowing your escape route is the best defense)
- Encourage producers to use protective barriers when handling / processing newborn calves
- Culling aggressive cows
Buller steer syndrome: what is it, how to identify, how common?
- Repeated mounting of an individual animal (the “buller”) in feedlots by one or more penmates (“riders”)
- Muddy flanks, tail-head, and / or hair loss on these areas.
- Survey from western Canada found the syndrome affects 3% of cattle on feed
significance of buller steer syndrome
- Efficiency RE time and labour to intervene, remove and examine buller, treat them (if necessary), return after recovery
- Possible injury or even death of the buller
- Costs RE treatment costs, negative impact on ADG
- Negative welfare implications: bullers are persistently pursued, attempt to avoid mounting (aversive), but often cannot, fatigue/exhaustion, pain
Prevention & treatments: of buller steer syndrome
-Avoid large groups; prevalence is higher in feedlot pens of > 300 animals
-Remove buller from the home pen for recovery, however, currently no science-based guidelines about how long is required for recovery (very difficult to study in the field)
-Some repeat bullers can learn to effectively use hiding structures / anti- mounting bars
Welfare problems: beef cattle
- Handling *
- Pain caused by routine practices (dehorning, castration, branding)
- Weaning stress
- Transportation
Painful routine procedures in beef cattle, and rationale
Dehorning, castration, dehorning and branding all cause pain - both acute and after the procedure
- Dehorning reduces carcass bruising, and injuries to cattle, farmers, and veterinarians
- Castration reduces aggression between unfamiliar males, and DFD / dark cutter meat quality problems
- Branding provides permanent herd-level ownership identification (only practiced in western Canada)
castration code requirements
- Castrate as young as possible, pain mitigation required for calves > 6 mo
dehorn code requirements
- Dehorn as young as possible, pain mitigation required if horn bud has implanted
- Canadian Beef Quality Audit results suggest a steady increase in the use of polled genetics in the purebred sector of the industry
branding occurence in canada
- Branding is declining in Canada (National Beef Quality Audit)
- Branding sometimes required by law
what is weaning stress and when does it occur?
Weaning imposed when calf is 6 to 8 months old.
Conventional method is remote, physical separation of the cow and calf
Behaviour response suggests significant distress for up to 4 days (increased vocalizing and walking, reduced eating, and resting / lying down)
how is weaning stress measured?
vocalizations per hour for cow and calf
time spent walking for calf
rationale for weaning
Allows for the specialized feeding and finishing process
Dams have a recovery period before giving birth to the next calf
problems related to weaning stress
- Calves go off feed for several days
- Calves get sick
- Costs associated with calves sick calves off feed
- Behavioural signs indicative of distress (welfare impact)
- Maternal separation is a “welfare” issue for the public
- Metaphylaxis to dealing with weaning stress is likely unsustainable due to concerns RE antibiotic resistance
strategies for addressing the issue of weaning stress
- Natural weaning (practiced by some, but unlikely to be widely adopted)
- Fenceline weaning
- Two-stage weaning
what is fenceline weaning
- Instead of remote separation, separate cows and calves by a fence
- Fields or pens must be immediately adjacent to one another; even a fairly short distance apart will actually exacerbate their distress response (i.e., worse than remote separation)
what is two stage weaning
- Two-stage or “Quietweaning”
- Nursing prevented by a nose-flap (stage 1)
- Pairs are separated 4 to 7 days later (stage 2)
is two stage weaning effective at reducing weaning stress?
-looks to be effective as measured by vocalizations per calf and cow per hour, and based on time spent walking by calves
issue with beef cattle transportation
Weaned cattle could be without feed, water or rest for 36 h
So what:
* A very public issue as transportation is a very public practice
* Legal transport times are among the longest anywhere in the world
* Canada & US transport legislation is not harmonized / seamless
* Issues for the animals are hunger, thirst, fatigue, and discomfort – but to what extent?
how can we address beef cattle transport issues?
- Industry support for transport research; Benchmark long- distance transport practices, and their impacts on animals
- New regulations propose to reduce maximum transport times to 36 h for weaned cattle
- Driver training initiatives
