Calf Comfort for Newly Weaned Calves By: Dr. Dan Thomson, Kansas State University Cattle on range can find natural windbreaks, dry hills and other more comfortable areas during inclement weather. However, animals in intensive rearing operations are dependent on man to help provide animal comfort which is essential to health and performance of food animals. Animal welfare specialists in North America have indicated that environmental stresses such as mud level or heat stress are major concerns for confinement cattle. Providing relief from environmental stress in confinement operations or weaning pens can improve cattle health and performance. Cattle comfort begins immediately after newly weaned calves arrive. Long haul calves want to lie down and rest before rehydrating immediately after arrival at the facility. Wet, muddy pen floors wind up costing us a lot of money and decrease the health status of the calves because cattle can not lie down and rest after their trip. The use of dirt mounds, concrete pads and pen grooming are imperative in fall and winter months for calf and cow comfort. The smaller the animals, the more important the pen comfort becomes. However, mud can increase the cost of production for cattle in all segments of the beef industry. In emergency situations, applying bedding materials like straw or gin trash can provide comfort to cattle to lie down.
Also, in these situations a producer can groom part of the pen instead of the whole pen to decrease the time needed to attend to all cattle at the facility during the time of inclement weather. Stocking density can be very important to animal health areas ranging from biosecurity to management. Higher risk cattle are generally assigned to smaller pens on a per head basis than cattle that are at a lower risk to get sick from respiratory disease. Generally, we will assign them to a pen that is big enough to house the animals from a single truck load to prevent further commingling at the feedlot (85 to 100 head). Also, in these smaller pens it is easier for feedyard personnel to manage cattle health. Large pens are difficult to manage the health of the cattle as we look for individuals that are sick or injured. With the phenotypes, or coat color, of cattle becoming more uniform in the beef industry, it is harder to identify individual cattle that a pen rider might want to follow up on in the pen. We conducted a survey of beef cattle veterinarians in 2009. In this survey, practitioners indicated that they recommend a pen that houses 100 head of high risk cattle for optimum health and performance outcomes. (Terrell et al., 2011). This is smaller than the 200 and 400 head pens that we have been utilizing because of their ease to deliver feed pacdvms.com 13
