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Animals
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Evaluating Sustainable Livestock Production Systems—Focus on Animal Welfare, Environmental Impact,...
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Evaluating Sustainable Livestock Production Systems—Focus on Animal Welfare, Environmental Impact, and Economics

A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615). This special issue belongs to the section "Animal Welfare".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2023) | Viewed by 4586

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Lily Nowell Edwards-Callaway

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Agricultural Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Interests: animal welfare; cattle; slaughter; timely euthanasia; well-being
Dr. Sara Place

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Agricultural Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Interests: cattle; greenhouse gas emissions; methane emissions; ruminant nutrition; beef production; climate change

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to submit manuscripts to this Special Issue of Animals titled “Evaluating Sustainable Livestock Production Systems—Focus on Animal Welfare, Environmental Impact, and Economics”.

Sustainability is an increasingly important topic in food animal production. As societal expectations and company commitments related to sustainable livestock production continue to grow across areas of the world, so does the need to evaluate current livestock production practices and management strategies. This Special Issue aims to explore the nexus between animal welfare and other aspects of sustainability in the social, environmental, and economic domains.

Manuscripts need not cover all domains of sustainability but should include a component related to animal health and welfare. In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome.

Dr. Lily Nowell Edwards-Callaway
Dr. Sara Place
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • animal welfare
  • animal well-being
  • sustainability
  • greenhouse gas emissions
  • economics
  • animal health
  • environmental impacts
  • antibiotics
  • stockmanship

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue polices can be found here.

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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20 pages, 306 KiB  
Article
Heat Stress Mitigation Strategies in Feedyards: Use, Perceptions, and Experiences of Industry Stakeholders
by Lauren Dean, Anthony J. Tarpoff, Kirsten Nickles, Sara Place and Lily Edwards-Callaway
Animals 2023, 13(19), 3029; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13193029 - 26 Sep 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1382
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to: (1) understand heat mitigation strategies currently used and recommended by feedyard operators, veterinarians, and nutritionists, (2) understand their perceptions of heat mitigation strategies related to cattle health, performance, welfare, and carcass quality, (3) quantify the frequency [...] Read more.
The purpose of this study was to: (1) understand heat mitigation strategies currently used and recommended by feedyard operators, veterinarians, and nutritionists, (2) understand their perceptions of heat mitigation strategies related to cattle health, performance, welfare, and carcass quality, (3) quantify the frequency of extreme heat events, and (4) understand industry needs associated with heat stress mitigation strategies. An online survey was shared via 11 industry association listservs. Descriptive statistics were performed on 56 responses (n = 22 operators, 26 veterinarians and eight nutritionists). Thematic analysis was performed on free-response questions. Sixteen (72.7%) operators, 23 (88.5%) veterinarians and eight (100%) nutritionists utilized at least one heat mitigation strategy. “Changing processing and shipping hours” (n = 42, 75%) had the most “strongly agree” responses when asked about strategy effectiveness. The majority of respondents agreed that heat stress negatively impacts cattle health, performance, and welfare (Mean ± SD; ≥7.8 ± 2.6 for all roles). Forty-two (75%) respondents experienced cattle death loss from extreme heat events. Thematic analysis indicated that respondents perceived pen infrastructure and water/feed management as important considerations for better mitigating heat stress impacts. When asked what resources would be helpful, respondents indicated research and data regarding the effectiveness of various strategies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Evaluating Sustainable Livestock Production Systems—Focus on Animal Welfare, Environmental Impact, and Economics)

Review

Jump to: Research

10 pages, 294 KiB  
Review
Effects of the Breeding Strategy Beef-on-Dairy at Animal, Farm and Sector Levels
by Rana Hamas Ahmed, Christin Schmidtmann, Julius Mugambe and Georg Thaller
Animals 2023, 13(13), 2182; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13132182 - 3 Jul 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2653
Abstract
The decline in farm revenue due to volatile milk prices has led to an increase in the use of beef semen in dairy herds. While this strategy (“Beef-on-dairy” (BoD)) can have economic benefits, it can also lead to unintended consequences affecting animal welfare. [...] Read more.
The decline in farm revenue due to volatile milk prices has led to an increase in the use of beef semen in dairy herds. While this strategy (“Beef-on-dairy” (BoD)) can have economic benefits, it can also lead to unintended consequences affecting animal welfare. Semen sale trends from breeding organizations depict increasing sales of beef semen across the globe. Calves born from such breeding strategies can perform better when compared to purebred dairy calves, especially in terms of meat quality and growth traits. The Beef-on-dairy strategy can lead to unintentional negative impacts including an increase in gestation length, and increased dystocia and stillbirth rates. Studies in this regard have found the highest gestation length for Limousin crossbred calves followed by calves from the Angus breed. This increase in gestation length can lead to economic losses ranging from 3 to 5 US$ per animal for each additional day. In terms of the growth performance of crossbred animals, literature studies are inconclusive due to the vast differences in farming structure across the regions. But almost all the studies agree regarding improvement in the meat quality in terms of color, fiber type, and intra-muscular fat content for crossbred animals. Utilization of genomic selection, and development of specialized Beef-on-dairy indexes for the sires, can be a viable strategy to make selection easier for the farmers. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Evaluating Sustainable Livestock Production Systems—Focus on Animal Welfare, Environmental Impact, and Economics)
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