<font color=Pink>WSJ article - feeding (feedlot) cows at dinnertime is good.
September 14, 2000
TWILIGHT 'GRAZING' may help calm cattle in feedlots and reduce injuries.
Feedlots, where cattle are fattened for market, can be dangerous places at dusk
when the animals tend to get testy and skirmish with each other, says Julie
Morrow-Tesch, an animal behaviorist with the Agriculture Department's
research service in Lubbock, Texas. In nature, cattle graze heavily at sundown,
but that instinct may get redirected into pacing or fighting in a feedlot pen, she
says.
"Cattle are motivated to eat at sundown, but if there is no food there, they
sometimes push each other around," says Ms. Morrow-Tesch, who studied the
behavior of cattle in feedlots. She found that including a sundown feeding can
reduce aggressive incidents by nearly half. That may be significant, since the
dustups can result in added costs for producers.
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