Alternative Intensive Animal Farming Tactics That Minimize Negative Animal Impact and Improve Profitability

Abstract

Animal agricultural businesses strive to improve efficiencies, reduce input costs, and maintain healthy animals with minimal disease control intervention. Bovine respiratory disease is a disease complex that increases when cattle are reared in confinement costing the North American beef cattle industry three-billion dollars or more annually. Principles of soil health define the need to reduce tillage, keep the soil surface covered, rotate crops and plant cover crops for greater plant diversity, maintain living roots in the soil for as long as possible, and integrate livestock grazing into cropping systems. As beef calves age they experience more viral and microbial challenges which stimulate an immune system response resulting in greater disease resilience and well-being when commingled with unfamiliar cattle for confinement feedlot finishing. Wintering calves after weaning in November for modest growth of 0.59 kg/day (1.30 lbs./day) combined with integrated grazing of a sequence of native range and annual forages grown in a diverse multi-crop rotation is a management mechanism that increases calf age (200+ days), promotes structural growth, and delays feedlot entry. Retaining ownership using a vertically integrated business model from birth to slaughter accounting for all business inputs and outputs has resulted in improved environmental balance and business profitability.