Types Of Records To Be Kept

Production Records

Production records, including those for animal health, are used in feedlots: to keep track of current practices, monitor processes, decide where and when problems occur, and verify that corrective procedures are beneficial to the operation.

What types of information should feedlot managers keep? When should they be reviewed? How can they compare their data with other feedlots' data? Some suggestions include:

• Cost of gain and breakeven should be continually monitored. Feedlots should work with projected breakeven and marketing date/weight.
• Employees should be trained and should make decisions based on management input provided weekly.
• Inventory analysis should be conducted daily or weekly.
• Feed mixing and weighing of ingredients should be monitored.
• Cattle intake should be evaluated daily, and ration bunk samples should be analysed frequently.
• Feed waste should be measured, and adjustments should be made.
• Cattle gain and performance should be estimated with the use of the software. Previous closeouts and records on cattle from a specific source could be used to estimate future performance.
• Feed purchases and waste should be monitored monthly for billing or cost of feed adjustments.
• Health management program effectiveness should be evaluated annually.
• Non-feed costs should be monitored and adjusted annually using feedlot figures.
• The charge of feed costs should be based on updated fixed and variable costs.
• Databases should be maintained and reviewed regularly.
• It is important to evaluate the database of grid premiums by the type of cattle and feeding programs.
• It is helpful for feedlots to belong to a benchmarking program.

Animal Health Records

Animal health records are used to monitor health, disease occurrence, and the effectiveness of treatment, preventive and control procedures, inventory management and accounting/billing. Processing, treatment, necropsy, transaction and closeout records are fundamental to a record-keeping system.

Animal health records monitor the occurrence and severity of disease, the effectiveness and cost of processing, treatment and vaccination programs, and production performance. Records can be kept manually on cards or in binders. However, to increase the likelihood that the information is used to its fullest, the records should be computerized. There are many computer programs available that include animal health records. Information recorded should include:

• Lot descriptions with purchase and sale information.
• Processing records with predefined processing and implant schedules.
• Drug inventories with cost analysis.
• Treatment records with predefined treatments and withdrawal dates.
• Dead analysis.
• Pulls reports.
• Cattle’s transfers and movements and
• Closeout summaries.

Processing Records

Processing records are usually kept on a pen or lot basis and should show the date that animals were uniquely identified (tag), branded, vaccinated, implanted, and injected with prophylactic antimicrobials, de-wormers and vitamins. Any other procedures such as dehorning, castrating, aborting, re-implanting and revaccinating should also be recorded. Additionally, the crew responsible for processing the cattle should be identified and an injection site map should be kept. An injection site map simply shows where on the animal’s body products and procedures were given. This information is important to ensure that the best practices are followed, and it also provides an information database for subsequent buyers.

Processing records should be standardized for certain types/groups of cattle to avoid waste, errors in procedures and guesswork, and to allow the evaluation of the effectiveness of processing regimes. Most computer programs allow the entry of predefined processing schedules for specific types of cattle that also record associated costs of procedures.

Treatment Records

Treatment records should be kept for each animal so that the treatment history of an animal and group of animals can be summarized to evaluate disease occurrence and treatment response. The records should include:

• The lot and pen number
• Animals’ unique identification number
• Date(s) pulled and treated
• Disease suspected
• Rectal temperature
• Bodyweight
• Drugs used and dose, route of administration and site of injection
• Movement of the animal (home pen, sick pen, recovery pen, chronic pen, Buller pen)
• The outcome of treatment (recovery or death)
• The crew who pulled and treated the animal, and
• Withdrawal dates

Most computerized programs have withdrawal dates built-in by animal and/or lot following any treatments to avoid shipping animals to slaughter before the recommended withdrawal period. This helps prevent drug residue problems in beef.

Standard treatment protocols should be established by your consulting veterinarian to reduce guesswork and the use of inappropriate and useless pharmaceuticals and to ease the evaluation of the success or failure of treatment regimes. Most computerized treatment records allow for the entry of predefined treatment protocols, costs of each treatment, and entry of individual animal treatment. From this information, one can decide the occurrence of disease by lot, pen, specific disease, cattle weight, arrival month, and days on feed. Additionally, one can figure out treatment response by disease, drug, individual, lot, pen, and feedlot. Most computer programs will also summarize the costs of treatment. This information can be used by the feedlot crew, management, and consulting veterinarian to monitor events, decide on actions to take when problems occur, and verify the health program is cost-efficient. Additionally, this information is used for accounting and billing purposes in custom feedlots.

Death Records

The veterinarian who does necropsies should fill out feedlot records on the results of the necropsy and include the date the animal died, its identification, lot number, pen number, cause of death, explanatory comments, and outcome of any further laboratory analyses. From this information, one can summarize the number of deaths by disease, treatment regimes, lot, owner, age and type of cattle, days on feed, and feedlot. Death records can be used to monitor events, decide on actions to take when excess losses occur, and verify the health management program is working.

Another important record is a case summary record on an animal in the feedlot. The case summary includes the processing, treatment and death records of that animal. This information, along with production data, such as arrival weight, final weight, days on feed, average daily gain, feed conversion, and costs of production are summarized by lot, cattle weight, or arrival dates in closeouts to provide the feedlot with a record of its performance. This information is required by most custom feedlots for their clients.