Gastrointestinal nematodes remain a major challenge in high-risk stocker cattle, impacting performance, health, and animal welfare. Routine blanket deworming combined with intensive grazing systems has accelerated anthelmintic resistance, threatening long-term parasite control. Sustainable management requires integrating diagnostics, refugia-based strategies, concomitant anthelmintic therapy, and improved nutrition and stress management. Adoption is limited by knowledge gaps and behavioral barriers. Developing cattle health and production data infrastructure, improving stakeholder collaboration, and implementing practical, evidence-based recommendations are essential to preserve anthelmintic efficacy and support long-term productivity in stocker cattle systems.
Bovine respiratory disease complex (BRDC) remains a leading cause of morbidity and economic loss in stocker cattle, particularly during the transition from weaning to feedlot placement. Virus-induced changes promote microbiome imbalance and facilitate secondary bacterial infections, leading to bronchopneumonia. The high transmissibility of these viruses, with basic reproduction numbers ranging from approximately 3 to 36, contributes to rapid spread under feedlot conditions. This article reviews the epidemiology, pathogenesis, transmission, diagnosis, and control of major viral pathogens associated with BRDC and highlights the importance of integrated management strategies, including stress reduction, biosecurity, vaccination, and early diagnostics, for effective disease control.
Bovine respiratory disese (BRD) is the leading cause of morbidity and mortlaity in stocker cattle, a high-risk sector of the beef cattle industry, characterized by stress, commingling, and limited or unknown prior health management. Key bacterial pathogens, including Mannheimia haemolytica, Pateurella multocida, Histophilus somni, and Mycoplasmopsis bovis, act as opportunists when host defenses are compromised. These microbes employ diverse virulence mechanisms, including toxins, adhesins, surface proteins, and immune evasion strategies to colonize the lower respiratory tract and cause disease. Increasing antimicrobial resistance and variable vaccine efficacy complicate control efforts. This review summarizes pathogen-specific characteristics, epidemiology, and current challenges associated with the prevention and control of BRD in stocker cattle systems.
Dry lot stocker growing systems allow precise regulation of feed delivery and close health surveillance, but they require disciplined nutritional oversight and well managed pen and feed bunk conditions. Sufficient crude protein adequacy, calibrated with sufficient energy density while attaining desired feed intake levels, and maintaining trace mineral balance collectively determine lean tissue accretion, biological efficiency, and health stability. This invited review provides practical formulation principles, receiving strategies, limit-feeding considerations, mineral management guidance, and economic context for veterinarians and nutrition consultants advising dry lot stocker operations.
Bovine respiratory disease has historically been, and continues to be, a significant issue facing the beef stocker industry. This single disease syndrome is responsible for nearly 90% of all morbidity and mortality in stocker cattle and has significant effects on animal welfare, animal performance, and overall farm profitability. Multiple antimicrobials in different antimicrobial classes are approved for metaphylaxis and, of those available for use, members of the macrolide class have demonstrated the greatest efficacy. Unfortunately, antimicrobial resistance is an emerging threat to antimicrobial efficacy and the public perception of antimicrobial use in animal agriculture is negative.
Stocker cattle performance in grazing systems is best understood through the lens of interactions among 3 system constraints: forage availability, forage nutritive value, and animal nutrient requirements. This review provides a framework for interpreting these interactions across common North American forage systems. Emphasis is placed on forage allowance, plant maturity, maintenance energy requirements, composition of gain, and practical supplementation strategies to offset forage nutrient limitations. The goal is to help veterinarians diagnose whether system performance is limited by forage availability, forage nutritive value, or management-driven inefficiencies, and to use that distinction to better align forage resources with cattle biology.
The stocker calf industry is critical to North American beef production. The highly dynamic and diverse nature of the stocker industry creates challenges for veterinarians to develop relevant and lasting professional relationships with stocker operations. Applying epidemiologic methods to investigate disease outbreaks and production losses is a foundational skill for practitioners engaged with stocker operations. This article focuses on overcoming common obstacles encountered in stocker medicine, reviewing field-based epidemiologic principles required to perform investigations of disease and decreased production, and integrating Systems Thinking with these epidemiologic principles to improve understanding of factors influencing stocker cattle health and production.
Non respiratory diseases impact stocker cattle health and performance. Frothy bloat arises from high-protein forages and microbial shifts causing stable foam that blocks eructation; mitigation includes lower-risk forages, graze management, and continuous nonionic surfactants such as poloxalene. Interdigital necrobacillosis (foot rot) is a polymicrobial interdigital infection; breach of skin allows bacteria to cause cellulitis, septic arthritis, and lameness; therapy hinges on antibiotics, with prevention centered on environmental hygiene and possibly Fusobacterium necrophorum vaccination. Coccidiosis is the postweaning enteric disease, presenting from subclinical to severe diarrhea and dehydration; immunity develops over time. Prevention uses antiprotozoals and reduces environmental load; group-level strategies favored.
The stocker phase represents a critical period in beef cattle development, during which young animals exhibit heightened reactivity to handling and environmental stressors. Experiences during this stage have a lasting impact on behavior, welfare, and performance. Handler skill should be considered alongside facility design and management protocols as a key determinant of behavioral development. Acclimation involving positive human contact reduces physiologic stress indicators, improves temperament, and can positively impact performance. Veterinary practitioners can support positive welfare outcomes by evaluating handling practices during this formative stage and encouraging evidence-based strategies that promote health, reduce fear responses, and improve long-term productivity.
Inflammation and immunity in stocker cattle are active areas of research, but much remains poorly defined. Evidence to date indicates stocker cattle undergo rapid immunological transitions during stressful events such as weaning, moving through marketing channels, transport, commingling, and nutritional adaptation. These events appear to activate neuroendocrine stress pathways and systemic inflammatory responses while simultaneously depressing protective functions, especially those mediated by innate immune cells. This leads to a short, high-risk period where viral exposure, bacterial colonization, and dysregulated host responses converge to influence bovine respiratory disease and other disease outcomes.
Congestive heart failure in feedlot cattle, once linked mainly to high-altitude brisket disease, is now increasingly recognized at moderate elevations as a distinct concern. It is diagnosed by excluding other causes like infections or toxins. The condition involves cardiovascular impairment, compensatory hypertrophy, and eventual decompensation. Three primary phenotyping methods-pulmonary arterial pressure measurement, heart scoring, and postmortem examination-vary in cost, accuracy, and bias. Despite advances in genetic research, key gaps remain regarding disease onset timing and environmental factors. Addressing these is crucial for developing predictive tools and management strategies to protect cattle health and economic value.
Southeastern stocker production takes many forms. It has many similarities to stocker production across the United States, but it also differs in a few ways. The differences in stocker production across the Southeast compared to other regions provide both opportunities and challenges. The challenges are often associated with stocker producers taking on increased health and financial risk while the opportunities often present a lower cost of gain than many other regions. It is imperative producers consider the expected margin between buying and selling cattle as they navigate production decisions.
Please note that the synopsis will appear in PubMed: This article explores the application of cattle health and production records (CHPR) in the stocker cattle segment of the beef industry. Evidence is provided to demonstrate the significant lack of data infrastructure currently plaguing the segment. The structural and non-structural basis for the lack of robust information systems regarding CHPR are discussed. Additionally, overcoming the hidden psychological and emotional frictions for adoption are presented for consideration. The article concludes by suggesting CHPR should become part of the practice model and professional ecosystem and is a needed adaptation for veterinarians practicing stocker production medicine.
The primary goals of cattle production are to enhance economic gains and operational margins through sound nutrition, health, stewardship, and business management. Anabolic growth implants improve beef production efficiency by reducing resource inputs such as feed, water, and land, thus lowering environmental impact. These implants contain hormones like estrogens, androgens, or progestins, which are naturally produced in mammals. Administered via subcutaneous implants in the ear, they release hormones gradually into the bloodstream, promoting growth. Supported by FDA approval since the 1950s, these implants have helped the U.S. cattle industry produce safe, high-quality, abundant beef efficiently for global consumption.
Across decades of research, implants consistently improve growth: suckling calves gain roughly 6% to 15% more ADG and wean about 10.4 kg heavier, while backgrounded cattle commonly realize 14% to 16% greater ADG. Administering a single calfhood implant to a replacement heifer within the recommended 1 to 4 month window does not depress fertility; problems arise chiefly with very early, late, or multiple implants. Marketing calves into an all-natural or non-hormone treated cattle program are the main reason to forgo implants; however, market data show no price penalty at auction for implanted lots.
Feedlot implants consistently increase growth, improve feed efficiency, and add carcass weight when aligned with genetics, dietary energy, and marketing endpoints. Across studies summarized in this article, average responses to implants are 10% to 30% greater average daily gain and 5% to 15% improved G:F, with the greatest biological response early in the payout period. Steers generally respond greater to implants than heifers; heifer responses are directionally similar but smaller. Coated (extended-release) implants lengthen payout and may reduce reimplant labor, whereas reimplant programs can capture higher peaks in gain but sometimes transiently depress dry matter intake.
