Data were collected from 15 Arkansas livestock auctions to determine factors affecting selling price. Data included how calves were sold (single or groups), sex, breed or breed type, color, muscle thickness, horn status, frame score, fill, body condition, age, health, BW, and price. Data were randomly collected on 52,401 lots consisting of 105,542 calves. Selling prices for steers ($124.20 +/- ...

Livestock production and trade are critical for the food security and welfare of rural households in sub-Saharan Africa. In Cameroon, animal trade consists mainly of live cattle commercialized through livestock markets. Identifying the factors contributing to cattle price formation is critical for designing effective policies for sustainable production and for increasing food availability. In t...

BACKGROUND Ontario provincial abattoirs have the potential to be important sources of syndromic surveillance data for emerging diseases of concern to animal health, public health and food safety. The objectives of this study were to: (1) describe provincially inspected abattoirs processing cattle in Ontario in terms of the number of abattoirs, the number of weeks abattoirs process cattle, geogr...

Water is an essential nutrient for feedlot cattle. Drinking water may contain a variety of compounds. The important question is to what degree these substances impact water palatability and cattle health. The NRC in 1974 published limits for some potential problem causing substances in drinking water. Recommended safe upper limits for nitrate, sulfate, and total dissolved solids (TDS) were 440,...

Disease recording of cattle is compulsory in Sweden and Norway. Sweden and Denmark also have mandatory disease recording for swine, whereas Finland and Norway only have compulsory recording of infectious diseases. Both compulsory and voluntary systems are data based, the first ones developed in the 1970's. Disease recording at pig slaughtering is somewhat older. The veterinary practitioner, and...

While many cattle feeding areas in the United States have long dealt with high sulfate water, increased feeding of ethanol coproducts such as distillers grains with solubles to beef cattle has led to a corresponding increase in dietary sulfur. As a result, sulfur metabolism in the ruminant has been the focus of many research studies over the past 10 yr, and advances in our knowledge have been m...

The usual means of assessing the health of newly received beef cattle susceptible to bovine respiratory disease (BRD) are subjective, typically involving visual evaluation aided by minimal clinical measurements. Recent evidence based on the occurrence of pneumonic lung lesions at slaughter indicates a need for more accurate methods of diagnosing BRD. Inadequate passive immune transfer at birth ...

Supplements and growth promotants containing steroid hormones are routinely administered to beef cattle to improve feeding efficiency, reduce behavioral problems, and enhance production. As a result, beef cattle manure will contain both synthetic steroids as well as a range of endogenous steroids including androgens, estrogens, and progestogens. A two-year controlled study was conducted in whic...

Since cattle are a major source of food and the cattle industry engages people from farms to processing plants and meat markets, it is conceivable that beef-products contaminated with Campylobacter spp. would pose a significant public health concern. To better understand the epidemiology of cattle-associated Campylobacter spp. in the USA, we characterized the prevalence, genotypic and phenotypi...