Risk Factors Associated With Fatal Fibrinous Pneumonia (Shipping Fever) in Feedlot Calves

Abstract

In this paper we pursue the development of a technique to predict which truckloads or pens of calves are at highest risk to FFP by building a series of multivariate models in which we incorporated some of the above mentioned risk factors measured at a feedlot over a period of three years. These predictive models were then used to examine the question of whether FFP acts as a truly contagious disease in the feedlot. If multivariate models containing only non-contagious factors could accurately predict where FFP would cluster, then perhaps only non-contagious factors work on particular feedlot pens or transport trucks to place calves in those groups at increased risk of developing FFP. If, however, models containing exclusively non-contagious factors were not effective at predicting where the disease clusters, this could mean that a "contagious factor"was missing from our models.