Bovine respiratory disease is the most common and costly disease of beef cattle, causing significant pain and mortality, and is linked to stressful management practices including weaning and transport.
Cattle with respiratory disease experience fever, laboured breathing, reduced appetite and lethargy that constitutes significant suffering. The stressful management sequences that predispose cattle to respiratory disease — sudden weaning, transport, mixing, housing change — represent preventable welfare costs even before disease develops. Prevention through low-stress management and vaccination is welfare-superior to metaphylactic treatment.