The Meaningfulness of Design Criteria in Relation to the Mortality of Fattening Bulls

Abstract

To prove the meaningfulness of design criteria in relation to the mortality of fattening bulls a cohort analysis was carried out on 50 farms with housing systems with completely slatted floor, deep litter or two area straw yard system. The design criteria of space allowance, feeding space, pen depth and quality of the floor were integrated into a TGI-40 protocol and related to the incidence of early losses. Additionally, claws of the bulls were collected after slaughtering and examined for pathological information. Slatted floor pens were characterised by a low space allowance and a low pen depth. The dimensions of pens with deep litter and two area straw yard were clearly greater but showed a wide and overlapping variation in the different design criteria. The claws of animals from deep litter and two area straw yard were in a worse condition than the claws of animals from completely slatted floors. Early and total animal losses were greater in pens with slatted floors than in litter systems. Taking all the farms into account, it could be seen that the incidence of early losses was negatively correlated with space allowance (r = -0.31; P < 0.01 ) and quality of the floor (r = -0.27; P < 0.05 ). The integration of different design criteria into a TGI-40 protocol did not improve their meaningfulness in relation to early losses. The results indicate that the meaningfulness of design criteria in relation to early losses of fattening losses is low.