Arrival weight turns respiratory health into a cattle-procurement variable

Low arrival weight turns respiratory health into a procurement and management variable. APHIS has released the second report from its national 2021 feedlot study. The data, collected in 2020 from U.S. feedlots holding 50 or more cattle, show that 12.2% of cattle were affected by respiratory disease. The difference by arrival weight is substantial: 25.9% of cattle arriving below 400 pounds developed respiratory disease, compared with 9.6% of cattle arriving at 700 pounds or more.

In large feedlots, the gap was even wider, at 31.0% versus 10.4%. This does not establish arrival weight alone as the cause of disease: age, source, preconditioning, transport, commingling and adaptation stress also matter. It does, however, make arrival weight an operational signal that should travel with each lot rather than remain a purely commercial figure.

The report places that signal in a management context. Some 75.9% of operations processed groups of cattle within four weeks of arrival, chiefly through vaccination and parasite-control procedures. Only 30.3% of large feedlots and 5.6% of small ones had a written or electronic biosecurity plan.