Simple Changes Go a Long Way

by Jessica Wesson for the Red Angus Magazine

Sometimes ranching is about making big improvements, but sometimes it is about the small things. Low-stress handling and improved animal care can end up making a huge difference in herd health, meat quality and profitability.

Most of the improvements that ranchers can make are already something they are thinking about, says Ron Gill, Ph.D., professor and Extension livestock specialist for Texas A&M AgriLife Extension.

“It’s the way we handle cattle by creating a situation where they can understand what we need them to do,” Gill said. “Hopefully if we do it right, they’ll be willing to do it without us having to put a lot of pressure on them.”

The small things like where someone stands in relation to the animal will significantly reduce the stress.

“Historically on a lot of ranches, we get behind cattle to push them through the processing areas or on the trucks, and the cattle don’t really understand that body position and what you’re asking them to do,” Gill said. “We have to teach cattle to take pressure from the side or use more of a drawing pressure to get cattle to go do things rather than pushing from behind.”

Improving Animal Health

Overall, one of the biggest benefits of low-stress handling and improved animal care is better animal health, and Gill says high-stress environments can be damaging to the immune system.

“If you have a lot of stress in the system, it uses a lot of energy and drains the immune system,” Gill said. “It starts depleting the immune system’s ability to respond to vaccines or to fight off infections that might be occurring during the weaning, transportation or marketing phase of their lives.”

Another beef cattle expert echoed this sentiment, reiterating that transport is a high-stress time that should be carefully monitored.

“Transportation is a stressor that could impact how cattle respond to disease challenges and health risks,” said Lily Edwards-Callaway, Ph.D., associate professor at Colorado State University.

“Sometimes it’s the first time an animal’s been in a trailer, and it’s a new environment with new animals and new people. So, if we do everything we can to reduce that stress, the health of that animal will be improved.

Simple Changes Go a Long Way

“Factoring low-stress handling into everyday management practices should be a top priority for producers,” she added. “Any time we work with animals, we need to make sure we’re doing it in the best way possible. So, making sure that we are working with animals in the most effective way to maximize animal health should be part of our overall herd management plan.”

Improving Meat Quality

Another benefit of low-stress handling is improved meat and carcass quality. An indicator of meat quality is the amount of bruising a carcass has.

“If these cattle are stressed and anxious, we tend to have more bruising in them,” Gill said. “They tend to bump into gates and fences more and jump on one another. Bruising is a real problem because it causes the grade of the meat to be lower.”

Unfortunately, the bruises are not seen until it is too late to fix, so producers should be attentive to how their cattle are handled.

“We can’t see bruising on cattle until removed the hide from the carcasses,” Edwards-Callaway said. “Bruising devalues the product, the bruised meat will go to rendering and depending on where the bruise is or how big it is, other cuts of meat may be devalued with the removal of the bruise.”

Another issue that might occur is what is known as blood splash.

“Blood splash is just a capillary rupture within the rib muscle, which certainly decreases the carcass value,” Gill said. “There’s a high percentage of cattle that have those issues, but it can also be a result of the way they’re handled. We don’t want to be an additional factor for these issues.”

Besides bruising and blood splash, stress prior to slaughter can cause dark cutting meat. This could happen when the weather is changing drastically in the several days before slaughter.

“Dark cutting means that meat is dark, firm and dry, which can lower the value of that carcass,” Edwards-Callaway said. “A variety of weather conditions, can cause the animal to use up its glycogen reserves.” Glycogen is a carbohydrate that is stored in the muscle.

“Pre-slaughter stress can cause glycogen reserves to be reduced to a level that can impact postmortem metabolism,” Edwards-Callaway said.

Oftentimes, producers do not get to see the end result of their ranching practices. Edwards-Callaway said starting a conversation across the supply chain can help increase awareness of some of these quality challenges.

“When calves are weaned and go to the next stop in the supply chain, the impacts on quality are potentially not going to be seen by the rancher,” Edwards-Callaway said. “Communication across the supply chain could help to get feedback back to the ranch.”

Improving Profitability

While ranching is definitely about caring for and improving the lives of animals, ranchers still need to make a living. There are small ways to improve the profitability of raising livestock

Simple Changes Go a Long Way

“One good thing about stockmanship is that it doesn’t cost you anything to become a better stockman,” Gill said. “You just have to change your behavior and the way you approach cattle.”

While both experts agree that it is next to impossible to put an exact number to the profitability of low-stress handling and improved animal care, they both say that it is an obvious way to increase profit.

“I think we’re getting better at putting economics to animal welfare, but it takes a little creativity,” Edwards-Callaway said. “I think it depends on where you are in the supply chain to realize the profitability, and we have to think about it differently depending on where we are in the supply chain.” She said value-added programs might be a huge advantage to ranchers to increase their profitability.

“Programs like Beef Quality Assur

ance, that are essentially no cost to adopt, could add value to your program just for doing the right thing,” Edwards-Callaway said. “I think following best practices is going to improve how you are managing your animals, which will improve their health, welfare and end-product quality.”

Not only will better practices add value to the producer’s cattle, but they could spend less money on repairs.

“We won’t have as many panels, gates or chutes getting torn up, because the cattle are calmer in those situations,” Gill said. “In some cases, they may be spending a lot of money fixing things. That’s something we could benefit from financially if we change the way we handle livestock.”

Fringe Benefits

Outside of animal health, meat quality and profitability, there are several benefits to improved animal care that

might not be so obvious.

“The working relationship between the people working cattle is better if we all understand what we’re doing and how to work cattle,” Gill said. “A lot of people don’t enjoy working cattle, because it’s very stressful on them and the cattle, so they just avoid it and don’t come back to the farm.”

Some ranchers do not handle their cattle as often as others, but that does not mean that those interactions are not important.

“We’ve found that even when animals just have a positive visual impact with their owner, it can have a beneficial result when they’re moved through the chute,” Edwards-Callaway said. “It’s not just physical interaction, but familiarity and visual interaction. So, when ranchers are out there simply checking on their cattle, they can still make a difference.” //