Montana Beef Quality Assurance Certification Course

• Tutorial Main
• Introduction
  • Education Team
  • Intro to BQA
  • BQA History / Nat. Audits
  • 2005 Nat. Audit
  • Top 10 Industry Goals
  • Defining Quality Beef / Cattle Care
• Regional Curriculum
• Record Keeping
  • Effective Record Keeping
  • Information Recorded
• Care & Handling
  • Producer Attitude
  • Animal Behavior
  • Facilities & Transportation
  • Nutrition
• Feed & Additives
  • Feed
  • Additives
  • Handling / Monitoring
• Animal Health
  • Vaccines
  • Injections
  • Needles
  • Implants
  • Parasite Control
  • Antimicrobials
• Processing
  • Vaccinations
  • Dehorning & Castration
  • Identification
  • Weaning
• Carcass Quality
  • Quality Grade
  • Yield Grade
  • Other Quality Issues
• Marketing
  • Source & Age Verificiation
  • Market Timing
  • Cow Marketing
  • Feeder Calf Grades
  • Shrink
• Breeding & Genetics
  • Uniformity & Consistency
  • EPDs
  • Crossbreeding
• Biosecurity Basics
  • Disease Control
  • Learning Tough Lessons
  • Attention to Zoonotics
  • Agroterrorism
• Certification Process
• MT BQA Directives
• BQA Code
• Certification Exam

Funded, in part, by beef and veal producers and importers through their $1-per-head check off through the Cattlemen's Beef Board and state beef councils by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.

Care & Handling

Principles of Animal Behavior

There are five basic principles of animal behavior for handling:

1. Cattle Vision
   • Cattle have panoramic vision so they can see all around them except directly behind them.
   • Cattle are easily distracted.
   • Cattle have to stop and put their heads down to have depth perception.
   • Cattle will generally move from dimly–lit areas to more brightly–lit areas.
   • Cattle want to see what is pressuring them.
2. Noise
   • Cattle will get excited with excessive noise, so stay quiet to keep them calm.
3. Flight Zone
   • Cattle will turn and face a person if they come inside their flight zone.
   • Cattle will move away from a person to keep their flight zone distance.
   • Step into the flight zone to get movement and step back out to stop movement.
   • Pressuring at the shoulder or behind will generally get animals to move forward in a chute or alleyway.
   • Pressuring ahead of the shoulder will generally cause the animal to turn or stop.
   • Avoid the blind spot directly behind the animal.
4. Natural Circling Behavior
   • Design facilities to take advantage of natural circling behavior to keep cattle moving.
5. Natural Following Behavior
   • Cattle will follow the leader, so use this to move cattle calmly.
   • When animals bunch up, concentrate on moving the leaders.

Culling Management

All beef cattle operations produce some cull animals. Many times these are older cows past their prime producing years. Other culls may result from reproductive failure during the breeding season.

Some current quality issues with culled cattle:

• Cancer eye
• Horns & Excessive brands
• Poor body condition
• Carcass bruises
• Illness
• Birdshot & Buckshot
• Injection site lesions

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Copyright © 2006, Montana Beef Quality Assurance