Evaluation of Arrival Health Risk Status of Steer Calves on Individual Animal Performance and Health over a 61-Day Preconditioning Period

Abstract

Bovine respiratory disease (BRD) is the most common disease in calves that enter the feedlot, and may result in large economic losses. Arrival risk status is often used to predict the risk of an animal developing BRD and subsequently which vaccination program to follow. The purpose of this study was to follow two populations of calves with different pre-arrival commingling (ranch direct vs auction derived) over a 61 day preconditioning period, to compare performance data based on individual animal feed intakes using the GrowSafe data collection system (GrowSafe Systems Ltd., Airdrie, Canada).