La Candelaria: Working in the Corral (La Manga)

After two months of working with beef cattle, I still look forward to working with the animals every day. Having no animal husbandry skills previously, I was unsure if I would take to the work or be put off by the idea of treating living creatures as products that are thought of in terms of gains and losses. I can report that today, when I see a cow/steer with well developed muscles, I see asado meat or I see assets.

One of the reasons I have come to love working with cattle is that the work is very involved and constantly changing. For example, generally the work in the feedlot can be grouped into a few categories: 1) receiving calves; 2) tagging and vaccinating calves; 3) sorting animals by weight; 4) separating ill or injured animals for better care; 5) herding animals - herds or escaped animals - into their corrals; 6) tracking and determining the cause of deaths; and 7) advising on nutritional needs for feed.

Though the work in the feedlot is essentially a constant rotation of these categories, the animals, the weather, and the logistics of making the work happen provide enough variation to make the hours pass quickly.

The first day at La Candelaria, I was working with the veterinary interns, Christian and Roberto, and the feedlot gauchos. The first job was for the interns to organize the quantities of vaccinations required for the calves that had just been received. La Candelaria is large enough that they have an extensive stock of the vaccinations, medications and veterinary instruments needed throughout the cattle rearing season - I would refer to it as the veterinary pharmacy.
The pharmacy, for example, has a currnet stock of about $100,000 US of the vaccine Micotil 300, a vaccine that is fatal to humans (which is why I was not allowed to handle its injection), but that is administered to all entering animals, because of its success in preventing respiratory disease in feedlot calves. 

The pharmacy also has a fully stocked walk-in fridge for the antibiotics and vaccinations that need to be kept in cooler conditions.

Like the ethical debates surrounding the use of genetically engineered seeds to maximize production, there too is a debate about the use of antibiotics and vaccinations to maintain the health of animals in feedlots.

All new animals receive about five different vaccinations upon entry. Actually, when the young calves arrive, they are first put into paddocks for five days to recover from the stress of travel. This gives them a chance to build up their immunity in preparation for receiving their vaccinations. The vaccinations depress the animals immunity as well, which is why an immediate application directly after arrival would compromise their health greatly.

I don't know the scientific discourse on the effects of the universal application of vaccination and antibiotics on the long term health of the cattle industry - by this I mean I don't know if vaccinations are constantly having to change to meet increasingly stronger diseases - nor do I know the discourse on the intensification of the antibiotics or vaccinations in humans in societies that consume a lot of beef.

What I do know is that the vaccinations are applied efficiently, universally, and with care. They are applied according to the directions and they are effective at maintaining the health of the animals. I know too that it is difficult to see sick animals and the immediate reaction to seeing a sick animal is to give it something to make it healthy. The point is, that it is not possibly to produce this much meat at competitive market prices without using pharmaceutical support systems to prevent disease. I can report too, that despite the use of pharmaceuticals, there is still a loss of about 2-3% of the animals. This may seem like a low loss rate, but at 50,000 animals approximately 1250 animals will die which translates to about  $1,350,000 lost revenue should the animals have made it to harvest weight. (My calculations are done using the currently live animal sale price of 10 - 15 pesos per kilo, animals weighing about 350 kilos, and an exchange rate of 4 pesos to 1 dollar.)

To be closer to reality, it is important to remember most animals don't die weighing 350 kg.  Most die because of the cold, they are unable to adjust to the eating regimes of the feedlot, weak immune systems and disease. This happens most often when they are young and closer to 120 kg. The animals that do die are tracked and photographed in order to be able to recognize trends in the losses. As well, the veterinarians sometimes do autopsies on the bodies when they are unable to determine the cause of death in a seemingly healthy animal.

Tagging is quite important for traceability. The animals for which numbered tags are drawn up - one of my main duties in the corral - are traceable all the way through production. These animals are the ones that will be exported to Europe for consumption, where traceability is required in order to ship the animals beyond the Argentinian border. The animals that stay in Argentina, are not tagged for traceability, as there is no reason to put in the extra work.

When calves are being received in quantities of 500, 1000 or 1500 per day, it takes a strong team that knows what they are doing to prep the animals for their lives in the feedlot. These men also need to make sure they are making their lives easier and safer in the long run. One of the most common dangers dealing with steers and cows are their horns, which is why those that arrive with horns quickly have them cut off. Though there is a lot of blood, the horns come off pretty easily. We  made sure to restrain the animals securely when I gave it a try.



When calves arrive, they are not used to being caged-in, since most come from extensive ranches where they roamed freely with their mothers. For this reason, dozens of animals escape from their paddocks daily, which then need to be returned to their proper location by the gauchos. With 150 paddocks and growing, it is a job that requires time and precision to ensure the animals are exactly where they need to be. I quickly learned, that keeping the animals caged and neatly ordered is never a reality. Here are a couple of the guys that make it happen!