“Animal well-being is the foundation for the performance, health and profitability of cattle raised for beef, and as an industry, we take great pride in our responsibility to properly care for animals,” says Dan Thomson, DVM director of the Beef Cattle Institute at Kansas State University (KSU). “We’re constantly looking for new and innovative ways to build upon existing science to ensure healthy animals and safe, quality products to feed the world’s population.”

That’s the impetus behind the North American Food Animal Well-being Commission Beef (NAFAWC) begun two years ago to serve as the proactive lynchpin for scientifically grounded, practical animal welfare improvement in the cattle business.

“The NAFAWC mission is to be an independent voice to advance evidence-based and practical improvements in the care and well-being of North American beef cattle,” Thomson explains. He is co-chairman of the commission.

Improving animal welfare by building upon existing science is also the focus of the biannual International Symposium on Beef Cattle Welfare Symposium (ISBCW) hosted by KSU. The second symposium was in May and featured presentations from most of the NAFAWC commissioners.

At the first symposium two years ago, Thomson says the focus of participants was external, concentrating on who was out to the get them. This second time around, he says, “We’re talking about the issues, with the confidence and knowledge that we’re doing a great job but we’re always looking to improve.”

Throughout the intensive two-day program there was no doubt about the industry’s confidence in its longstanding ability to provide quality animal welfare or its desire to make quantifiable evidence-based improvements where possible.

Identifying what’s Doable Immediately
Topics for the symposium revolved around beef cattle well-being issues identified by the NAFAWC that can be resolved through more information outreach to producers, and without further research. These include: cattle handling, cattle transportation, preconditioning and weaning methods, pain control and timing to market of culled animals.

This is a smattering of some of the insights shared:

“I wish we could go back and rename shipping fever. It’s not shipping fever, it’s weaning fever,” said Joseph Stookey, from the Western College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan. He explained two-step weaning significantly reduces cow and calf stress, and improves performance, compared to traditionally abrupt-weaned calves that are removed from their dams and moved away from them. The two-step method involves using anti-suckling devices, while leaving calves with their dams. Less stressful than abrupt weaning, but more stressful than the two-step method is fence-line weaning where calves are removed from the dam but allowed nose-to-nose contact with them through the fence.

“Grazing Management is where nutrition starts, it’s where animal welfare starts on a cow-calf operation,” said K.C. Olson, KSU cow-calf nutrition and management specialist. He explained subpar nutrition or malnutrition occur when stocking rates are too heavy or too light, when the production cycle (calving and weaning) are out of tune with seasonal forage quality and when cows’ genetic wherewithal exceed the nutrients the environment can provide.

One of the sources for Failure of Passive Transfer—immunoglobulin passed from dam to calf through colostrum—is calf dystocia, explained Chris Reinhardt, KSU Feedlot Specialist. Dystocia increases with birth weight, which of course is tied to genetic selection. Calves receiving inadequate passive immunity from the dam are significantly more likely to die within the first 28 days of life, get sick or die prior to weaning, get sick once they get to the feedlot.

“Have you ever wondered what happens to the fetus in a cow that must be euthanized?” asked Jan Shearer, professor and extension veterinarian at Iowa State University. He’d wondered and worried about it for years until a peer showed him research explaining that while the fetus is sentient, it does not attain consciousness until after birth.

Low-stress cattle handling—effective stockmanship—is the easiest cattle well-being problem to fix because it’s a people problem said Temple Grandin, internationally known animal behaviorist. It’s something that can be measured and audited. “Auditing prevents bad from becoming normal,” Grandin says. “People can slip back into old, bad practices without realizing it.”

Plus, Ron Gill, Texas AgriLife Extension livestock specialist, pointed out cattle handling, which increases cattle performance and decreases shrink and morbidity, is the one technology producers can apply without financial investment.

“Shirt-sleeve temperature (ambient) for cattle with any kind of hair coat is about 55° F.,” said Dee Griffin, feedlot production management veterinarian at the Great Plains Veterinary Educational Center. “When cattle succumb to heat stress they don’t get sick and die, they get sick and die tomorrow.” According to Griffin, animal factors contributing to heat stress susceptibility include genetics—hair color and temperament —and also temperament resulting from how cattle are handled. What Griffin terms transient factors include hair thickness, age and acclimation, nutritional management and cattle health.

Lily Edwards, a KSU assistant professor of animal behavior and welfare shared an insight from Dave Daley, animal science professor at California State University-Chico. It was regarding how to lose the animal welfare argument as a beef industry:

• Use economics for justification of all of our practices
   
• Assume science will give us all of the answers
   
• Assume you have to defend all agricultural practices, regardless of what they are
   
• Assume we can’t do better at animal welfare
   
• Attack everyone who disagrees with us in a negative, critical manner
   
• Be unwilling to listen because we are busy responding
   
• Assume the lunatic fringe is the general public
   
• Be reactive rather than proactive
   
• Assume that because someone disagrees with us that they are stupid, evil or both
   
• Work too little at building coalitions that include the public (consumers)

More than 800 people from 27 states and six countries attended the conference, either in person or via the internet in real time.

Reflecting on the conference, Thomson said, “Each of these issues is tied to social responsibility,” Thomson says. “But there’s also a social responsibility to our industry’s sustainability. If the industry isn’t profitable, it can’t be sustainable.”