Abstract
Simple SummaryRumination and activity behavior are important indices for monitoring the welfare and health status of beef cattle. Stress, excitement, and diseases can alter the rumination and activity patterns of beef cattle. Backgrounding allows producers to feed a variety of forages to improve growth performance before the beef calves enter the feedlot. This study was designed to evaluate the influences of sex, breed, and backgrounding diet on rumination, and the activity patterns in Angus and Angus-cross beef calves. Moreover, the daily variations in rumination and activity in Angus and Angus-cross beef calves under different backgrounding systems were studied. Our results demonstrated that the time of the day and backgrounding diet influenced rumination and activity patterns of Angus and Angus-cross beef calves.The objectives of this study were to evaluate the influences of sex, breed, and backgrounding diet on rumination and activity patterns in Angus and Angus-cross beef calves; and the daily variations in rumination and activity in Angus and Angus-cross beef calves under different backgrounding systems. A total of 62 freshly weaned calves were vaccinated and randomly stratified by sex (heifers and steers), breed (Angus and Angus × Simmental cross), and assigned randomly to 3 backgrounding treatments for 55 days. The peak values for rumination and activity in heifers, steers, Angus, and Angus × Simmental cross occurred during the dark and light phases of the dark/light cycle, respectively. Beef calves backgrounded on cover crops had higher (p < 0.05) rumination (45.33 ± 1.57 min) compared with calves backgrounded on a perennial pasture (43.96 ± 1.47 min) diet. Similarly, drylot calves (24.16 ± 0.68 min) had higher (p < 0.05) activity compared to perennial pasture (23.49 ± 0.72 min). The results showed that sex and breed did not influence rumination and activity of Angus and Angus-cross beef calves during the study period. We concluded that the time of the day and backgrounding diet influenced rumination and activity patterns of Angus and Angus-cross beef calves.
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