Creature comfort: bedding instead of mud
As the seasons begin to change from winter to spring, the snow melts and spring rains lead to mud.
Mud pies were made as a child and are a mixture of soil and water. Add in some fiber for firmer mud or funky characteristics and the result might be creative art!
Unfortunately, mud in cattle pens is not a fun situation.
Mud in cattle pens is a mixture of soil, water, manure, bedding, and sometimes feed. Cattle hoof action can stir up mud and can increase the depth of mud to four or six inches or more rather quickly.
Energetically speaking, mud increases a beef animal’s effort needed to move and therefore reduces feedlot rate of gain. Mud reduces the insulating ability of the hair by creating tags. Mud can also reduce the desire of the beef animal to wander to a feed bunk and eat. Average daily gain is driven by feed intake. Reduced intake will depress average daily gain and will require more feed per pound of body gain.
Feedlot cattle performance influence due to mud (Mader, 2011):
| 120-day precip., inches | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 6 | 6 |
| mud depth, inches | 0 | 0.41 | 2.01 | 2.52 | 2.38 | 6.63 | 7.52 |
| No bedding: ADG, lb | 3.31 | 3.37 | 3.10 | 2.91 | 3.18 | 2.47 | 2.12 |
| No bedding: % change | 0 | 1.8 | -6.4 | -12.1 | -4.0 | -25.6 | -35.9 |
| No bedding: Feed/gain | 6.64 | 6.52 | 7.10 | 7.55 | 6.91 | 8.92 | 10.36 |
| With bedding: ADG, lb | 3.31 | 3.41 | 3.31 | 3.22 | 3.41 | 3.31 | 3.22 |
| With bedding: % change | 0 | 2.9 | 0 | -2.9 | 2.9 | 0 | -2.9 |
| With bedding: Feed/gain | 6.64 | 6.45 | 6.64 | 6.83 | 5.45 | 6.64 | 6.83 |
| % change in cost of gain bedding vs no bedding | 0 | -2.1 | 3.7 | 7.4 | 1.5 | 12.3 | 17.3 |
As mud depth increases, cattle performance is drastically reduced. Bedding can be very effective in offsetting the effects of excess mud.
When the cost of bedding is included in an economic analysis, the benefits of bedding is still positive. Bedding cost includes the cost of bedding, scraping, and hauling. With six inches of mud, after the cost of bedding was included in cost of gain, cost of gain was 17.3% less that not using bedding.
An alternative option is to use concrete or other hard surfacing for cattle pens. The initial cost is high but as the data shows, mud is detrimental to cattle cost of gain.
Karl Hoppe, Ph. D
Karl.Hoppe@ndsu.edu
Extension Livestock Systems Specialist
