P.PIP.0585 - Oakey Beef Animal Disease and Defect Data Study

Summary

The aim of this project was to enable and support the capture and transfer of disease and defect data from Oakey Beef Exports (OBEX) systems to Livestock Data Link (LDL). This project has allowed OBEX to be a leader in providing disease and defect feedback to suppliers of cattle. The response from suppliers was positive, and OBEX would like to continue to support the use of LDL and explore options to further increase the efficiency and efficacy of carcase feedback.

Objectives

- Demonstrate that individual and lot-based animal disease and defect data can be effectively transferred to producers through OBEX system vendor to LDL.

Key findings

The key conditions seen at OBEX overlap with the key conditions of national interest that are currently reported in LDL which are:
- hydatids
- liver abscesses
- nephritis
- liver fluke.
Pneumonia did also appear to be a prevalent issue for OBEX.

There are opportunities to benchmark and use carcase disease and defect feedback to further engage with suppliers of cattle, to allocate premiums for healthy cattle, and to investigate the effectiveness of live animal health treatments on carcase performance.

Benefits to industry

Efficient and effective transfer of animal disease and defect information to producers assist in ensuring:
- Better informed decisions about prevention and treatment, which will in turn improve livestock performance.
- Greater value in terms of existing investments such as LDL.
- Greatly improved potential to collect more offal from every carcase processed.
- Improve overall carcase performance and therefore total carcase value.
- Information is provided on the future research the industry can focus on to further improve animal husbandry practices (specifically related the health treatment and prevention programs) to boost performance of feedlot cattle and therefore their final value within the supply chain.

MLA action

Utilise the feedback and future research recommendations noted in this final report to inform the scoping of future feedback systems in relation to disease and defect data recording and reporting.

Future research

There are future research opportunities to investigate the efficacy of preventative and prescribed health treatments (e.g. vaccinations and specific medications) through understanding the carcase outcomes resulting from the various treatments. A better understanding of these relationships can help minimise offal losses and increase feedlot performance.
Mapping of disease and defects to the Standards have identified several recommendations, such as inclusion of additional defects and further breakdown of product.

LDL recommendations include:
- Inclusion of more conditions, such as cadmium and non-halal, and recording of differences in the stage of issues (e.g. old scaring vs. recent infection).
- Linkage of animal health reports, carcase weigh-grade data and MSA data. The amalgamation of the data will allow producers to assess how health status can relate to carcase quality. It can also help processes gain more insight into performance across different lots and suppliers of animals.
- Regional benchmarking insights to allow comparison of different lines of livestock.
- Estimates of loss profits offal loss. This can be done by including the price for offal in the system for a breakdown in the potential loss against sales categories.