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Housing: Where Do Beef Cattle live?

Cows and calves spend the spring, summer and fall living and grazing on pasture. Often such pastureland is unsuitable for any other cropping practices. During the winter, various methods of protection are provided such as natural shelter areas or barns. The hardiness of the animals allows them to comfortably adapt to our climate.

Cattle are social animals that do well in herds, where the safety of numbers allows them a natural comfort level. The average herd size of a cow-calf farm in Ontario is approximately 20 to 25 cows, which is relatively small when compared to some of the large breeding operations that exist in some western provinces.

After the calves are weaned, they become known as backgrounders or stockers. These weanling calves will be kept grazing on pasture or in feedlots eating a forage (hay-based) diet until they are moved to specialized feedlots.

Today the majority of cattle in Canada are brought to a finished market weight in feedlots. In these specialized facilities, cattle are able to socialize and have free access to feed and water. Feedlot housing practices are very diverse from farm to farm, ranging from open dry yards, where protection is provided, from inclement weather, to indoor confinement housing. The barns may have any one or a combination of concrete slatted floor systems, straw bedding, or open yards. Ontario feedlots vary in size but have an average capacity of 175 animals.

Modern beef cattle farmers use advanced husbandry practices in accordance with the guidelines set out in the Recommended Code of Practice, developed in 1984 by farmers, government, animal protection groups, researchers, and processors. Copies may be found at www.livestockwelfare.com.

Nutrition: What Do Beef Cattle Eat?

Cattle are herbivores, meaning that their diet consists of plant matter. Like sheep and goats, they are known as ruminants. Instead of having just one stomach like humans, they have four separate stomachs that allow specialized digestion of different components of the feed.

The whole digestive process takes a significant amount of time. A cow will spend approximately six hours a day eating and approximately eight hours a day chewing its cud: regurgitating boluses of feed from the rumen (the first stomach), masticating (chewing) them, and re-swallowing them to be further digested in the next three stomach chambers called the reticulum, omasum and abomasum. This lengthy process allows them to efficiently digest low-grade fibre, turning their feed that would otherwise be unsuitable for human consumption into meat for our tables.

The first meal the calf receives from its mother is thick, sticky milk called colostrum. This milk contains antibodies that provide them with immunity to disease. After two to three days, the colostrum changes to milk. The calf will nurse for about five to six months with its diet gradually changing from about two kg of milk every day to one that includes forages and water as it matures.

From weaning at five months until about 15 months of age, calves will be kept on pasture eating grass, or in feedlots, eating forage diets depending on the season, field conditions and farm facilities. Cattle will also have free access to mineral supplements and fresh water.

Once they are moved to feedlots at fifteen months of age, the cattle are fed a nutritionally balanced mixture of forages such as grasses, alfalfa, or clover, fed either dry or as silage. This silage is supplemented with grain rations that are typically based on corn, barley, wheat or oats. It all looks very similar to your breakfast bowl of granola (without the milk!) with vitamins and minerals added to balance the animal´s nutritional needs.

Each mature beef animal will drink between 35 and 65 litres of water every day depending on their feed source and the outside temperature.

About the Life Cycle of Beef Cattle…

Cows are generally bred in the summer because farmers try to time the birthing of calves for the spring. This is so that the calves can be born outside and both cow and calf benefit from fresh pasture and decent weather.

In Ontario, about 90% of beef farmers use natural breeding methods by letting bulls live in the pasture with the herd of cows. The remaining 10% use artificial insemination. Heifers (young females) are normally bred at 12 to 17 months of age, and ideally they should calve (give birth) for the first time by 24 months of age.

After a gestation (pregnancy) of nine months, the cow (mature female) will usually give birth to one calf that weighs around 40 kg, depending on the breed. Cows may be kept in calving areas during the calving period so that farmers can keep a close watch over cows and calves during this critical period. Cows will remain active in the breeding herd for about seven years.

After the calf is weaned at five to six months of age at a weight of about 227 kg, a significant percentage are then backgrounded for a 10-month period, which means allowing them to graze on pasture and/or feeding them a high forage diet, such as hay, until they reach approximately 400 kg.

For the next stage of the beef production cycle, from fifteen months up to 24 months old, the beef animal will typically be brought to a finished market weight of approximately 550 to 600 kg in specialized feedlots. The feedlot system produces a consistently uniform and high quality beef product for the consumer while allowing the farmer to economically feed and care for the herd.

Farmers work along with their veterinarian to develop herd health programs that ensure that the animals receive proper vaccinations and health care. Calves will be dehorned at birth if necessary to reduce the risk of injury to their herd-mates or handlers, but many breeders will use polled bulls (genetically having no horns) to reduce the need for this procedure. Bulls (intact males) are called steers if they have been castrated, a procedure that is performed at an early age to make the animals safer to work around and actually results in producing a better quality beef.

Breeds

Major breeds of beef cattle in Canada include: Angus, Charolais, Hereford, Simmental, Limousin, Maine-Anjou, Salers, Gelbvieh, and Shorthorn. Some beef farmers raise purebreds, but most have herds consisting of commercial crosses (combinations of more than one breed). These crossbred animals are bred to contain the best qualities of each breed and generally have more vigor, produce calves that grow more quickly, and meat that is both well-marbled and lean.

Off To Market

When the time comes to ship to market, beef cattle are loaded and sent to auction under strict guidelines for transportation, regulated under the Federal Health of Animals Act and the new Recommended Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Livestock.
For more information visit: http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/livestock/animalcare/transportation.html