Long-fed Angus cattle under partial covered housing – and with bedding – have higher feed intake, average daily gain and exit weight.
That’s according to a snapshot of the recent Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) research into partially covered housing systems presented at a recent Australian Lot Feeders’ Association (ALFA) webinar.
Bovine Dynamics’ Dr Melissa George presented the research, conducted at Rangers Valley Feedlot in northern NSW, that studied a total 5178 steers in bedded and earthen pens partially covered by a Ridgeback® and compared them with uncovered, bedded pens.
“To start with, cattle under partially covered housing with bedding had increased feed intake, we had a 0.45kg of dry matter intake per head per day increase for cattle under the shed compared to cattle outside with bedding,” she told the webinar.
“They also had a higher average daily gain of 0.09kg a day and a higher exit weight of 11.1kg.”
The partially covered and bedded group also had a 6.3 kg hot standard carcase weight advantage over the outdoor, bedded pens and were 4.2kg HSCW more than the partially covered group without bedding.
Health data showed the importance of bedding.
“There were significantly higher culls in the sheds (that were) non-bedded compared to the other two treatments,” Dr George said.
“Over two times the number of culls in the shed non-bedded (treatment) compared to others.”
This rise in culls in the group that didn’t have bedding was driven by musculoskeletal issues such as structural incorrectness and abscesses.
The same trend was evident for morbidity.
Bedding is beneficial to musculoskeletal health, Dr George said.
Those with bedding and partial-covering had the highest exit percentage at 98.26 per cent, followed by the group outside with bedding at 96.26 per cent and then the partial-covered group without bedding at 96.23 per cent.
Dr George also told the webinar that research uncovered a difference in average daily gains and feed intake between groups in the study during summer and winter months.
The webinar concentrated on performance, health and carcase results, with Dr George promising a full presentation of the research report – including information about dag score, water intake, washing duration, manure analysis, environmental data and a cost-benefit analysis – at the ALFA BeefEx conference in October.

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Some of the details:

• 5178 black Angus steers were enrolled in the trial, split across 24 pens.
• There were eight “replicates” of pens throughout the trial with cattle entering the research during both summer and winter.
• Each pen housed about 220 steers.
• Steers were HGP free
• Steers entered the feedlot at 465kg and spent 180 days at the feedlot before they started in the randomised trial.
• They spent 110 days – of their total 270 days on feed – in the trial.
• Pens with bedding had wood chips to a depth of 150mm.

Check out Rangers Valley https://theridgeback.com.au/blog/projects/choice-underpins-cattle-comfort-at-rangers-valley/