Browsing by Subject "average daily gain"

Animal transport has been causing public debate during the last few years. Almost all production animals are transported at least once during their lifetime. It is well known that transport can be detrimental to animal welfare in many ways and cause increased morbidity and mortality. A longer transport time is often associated with decreased welfare more than a shorter transport time. However, shorter transport time does not necessarily guarantee better welfare of animals. Bovine respiratory disease (BRD) is common in cattle and a usual cause for antimicrobial treatment. It is often transmitted from one animal to another in situations where animals from different origins are commingled. Especially animals that are young or have poor immunity are likely to get ill. That is why calves, that often are collected from different farms and transported to rearing units or to abattoirs, are at risk of getting respiratory infections. The aim of this study was to find out how transport time affects average daily gain and the likelihood of getting a BRD diagnosis among calves that were transported. There were 334 bull calves that were transported to a rearing unit in Western Finland in 2017. Transport time, diagnoses and given antimicrobial treatments as well as daily gain of the calves were recorded. The age of the calves at transport varied between 10 and 45 days. According to the results, longer transport time shortened the time until the first antimicrobial treatment (p = 0.044, coeff. = -0.942). Transport time was not associated with BRD diagnosis at the first clinical examination (p = 0.529, OR = 1.029) but it was positively associated with increased daily gain (p = 0.024, coeff. 0.007). These results might partly be explained by which areas the calves originated from and indicate that transport time did not necessarily play a big role in welfare of the transported calves in this study.