Bovine Respiratory Disease (BRD) is the most costly disease in beef cattle and causes significant welfare harm through pain, breathlessness, and chronic illness.
BRD is a genuine welfare emergency when it occurs, causing fever, pain, difficulty breathing, and depression in affected cattle. Rapid identification and treatment with appropriate antibiotics and anti-inflammatories is the critical welfare intervention. Chronic BRD leads to permanent lung scarring causing reduced exercise tolerance, impaired welfare, and poor performance. Prevention through vaccination, good ventilation, low mixing stress, and avoiding unnecessary transport is more effective than treatment alone. BRD represents a major welfare failure in systems that rely on mixing and transporting young calves.