If you stay below 1% I'd say you are keeping your death loss well below average. I don't have numbers specific to backgrounding, but average death loss over the last 10 years for calf feds in the feedlot is 1.8% for steers and 2.1% for heifers (~2,500 pens mostly in Iowa). Due to higher energy rations causing some additional stress, I'd expect backgrounding calves to have a little lower death loss than feedlots. Nobody want dead calves, but as a friend of mine says "if you're going to have livestock, you're going to have dead stock". We just need to do what we can to reduce the numbers through cattle quality, stress reduction, and preventative management and medicine. |