Effects of Pre-shipping Management on the Performance of Florida Beef Calves in the Receiving Feedlot

The 2002 USDA Consensus of Agriculture reported a total of 160 beef cow/calf ranches in the US with greater than 2,500 cows. Of these 160 ranches, 60% reside in just four states with Florida, Texas, Nebraska and New Mexico possessing 38, 28, 19, and 10, respectively. These results illustrate a significant anomaly when considering the fate of weaned feeder calves from these major calf producing states. Texas, Nebraska, and New Mexico each have a developed feedlot industry as well as being located to neighboring states also with significant feedlot resources. Florida, on the other hand, has no commercial feedlot industry. All the weaned feeder calves are transported out of Florida for further feeding and marketing. The primary receiving state for Florida-born beef calves is Texas, a distance of over 2,400 km. The vast majority of these feeder calves are born and raised on ranches in south Florida, with other 70% of Florida’s 1 million cows residing in counties within 175 km of UF-IFAS, Range Cattle REC. This isolation in Florida’s peninsular region creates a unique experience for both environmental and transportation stress considerations impacting weaned calves.