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
