Source: Julie Larson Bricher, MEATINGPLACE, 8/3/18


Eliminating metaphylaxis in the U.S. cattle industry without suitable health management alternatives could cost that industry as much as $1.8 billion annually, according to Kansas State University agricultural economists and veterinary medicine faculty.
According to USDA, metaphylaxis, or the mass treatment of a pen of high health-risk cattle to eliminate or minimize the onset of disease, is used selectively by 59 percent of U.S. feedlots on 20.5 percent of all cattle placed on feed.

“There’s a general sentiment and public policy concern about the use of antibiotics in animal production,” said Ted Schroeder, a livestock economist with K-State Research and Extension and distinguished professor of agricultural economics, in a press release. “Our study assessed the economic impacts on the beef cattle industry and on consumers of using metaphylaxis in the beef cattle industry.”

The K-State economic analysis is based on data from 10 large Midwest feedlots. The researchers analyzed production and health management data from cattle classified as high health-risk and administered an antimicrobial upon entering the feedlot. Their findings indicated that producers would lose, on average, $104 per head by not treating the high health-risk cattle for animals weighing 550 pounds, $99 per head for 700-pound animals and $64 per head for 850-pound animals.

“We know that if metaphylaxis were not available, a reduction in revenue would result from reduced average daily gains, increased feed conversions, higher health costs from treating more sick animals, more deaths primarily for those high health-risk animals,” added Elliott Dennis, a K-State doctoral student who worked on the study.

“We found that if metaphylaxis was not available for high health-risk cattle, it would reduce industry gross revenue by about 1 percent,” Dennis said. “That’s a sizable amount if metaphylaxis was not allowed to be used in feedlots on high health-risk cattle.”

The full article, published in the Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, is available for download here.

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