Bovine Respiratory Disease is the costliest and most welfare-significant disease in beef and dairy cattle, with prevention through biosecurity and management offering the best outcomes.
BRD welfare is shaped by the convergence of pathogen exposure and host susceptibility in animals under stress. The disease causes significant respiratory distress, fever, and systemic illness that is painful and debilitating. Animals that recover often retain permanent lung pathology that reduces their exercise tolerance and quality of life. Prevention through vaccination, stress reduction at high-risk transition points, and biosecurity is the welfare-optimal approach, but implementation across commercial supply chains requires coordination between producers, transporters, and processors that is difficult to achieve without regulatory or market incentives. The economic cost of BRD creates financial alignment between welfare and productivity goals, but this alignment is not always sufficient to drive the management changes needed for genuine prevention rather than reactive treatment.