Current feedlot cattle health and well-being program recommendations in the United States and Canada

The 2014 Feedlot Veterinary Consultant Survey

Abstract

Veterinary consultants routinely give recommendations to feedlot employees and managers on all areas of cattle health and well-being. Recommendations are made based on veterinarians’ field experience and review of peer-reviewed literature. However, there is little data available about how the literature is merged with field experience and the actual recommendations given by consulting veterinarians to feedlot employees and managers. A survey conducted by Vasconcelos and Galyean (2007) reported baseline recommendations of select feedlot nutritionists in the United States. This survey is to be repeated every 4 to 5 years, as changes in recommendations can be useful in determining areas in nutritional practices that warrant further research. A similar study was conducted for feedlot veterinary recommendations in 2009 to establish a baseline for recommendations of feedlot veterinary consultants in the United States and Canada. The objective of the current survey was to report specific recommendations currently made by feedlot consulting veterinarians and to compare the current recommended practices to those recommended in the survey conducted 5 years ago.