JBS commentary on Angus feeder steers and mandatory vaccination

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Transcript

00:00One of the specialties that JBS Branding is renowned for is the quality of the product

00:09in the carton. So we're obviously chasing cattle that match that quality out the other end.

00:13We've got five feed lots spread across Queensland and New South Wales. Where we are today is

00:19Beef City. We feed 26,000 head here. So the feeder cattle we buy and feed really targeted

00:28towards your high performing, high yielding, high marbling carcasses. So predominantly Angus

00:34and your British bred cattle and your cross bred cattle that are going to meet those

00:38requirements of our customers globally around the world. Look we look for the best cattle that we

00:42possibly can buy. We've got a lot of data in our network to tell us which cattle they are on

00:48performance. So we've got a team of analytical people that tell us what cattle we should be

00:54buying and the cattle that feed the best within our group. So here at our JBS yards it's really

01:00important that we look after the best management practices and health practices of our cattle.

01:05So I guess one of the main challenges of feedlot systems is bovine respiratory disease. Bovine

01:11respiratory disease is a significant contributor to performance reduction in our feedlots and our

01:18cattle on feed. It not only affects the performance of the cattle on daily basis, their ADGs, their feed

01:26conversion and obviously indicates mortality occurrences in our business. The best way to tackle BRD which

01:34we've experienced with our southern feedlots is a pre-vaccination program prior to entry. So going forward

01:40here at our JBS feedlots we will be requiring all of our Angus supplies to be pre-vaccinating with

01:46bovilus MH plus IBR. It's a really simple one dose administrative on farm, minimum 14 days out to six

01:54months prior to feedlot delivery. That's really going to help the health and minimise the risk of BRD

01:59that we see through the supply chain. The benefit is to reduce mortality and morbidity across all our

02:05sites. We can decrease the mortality by 50% and morbidity by 10 to 30% across all our sites. So it's really

02:14important to us as a JBS feedlot business to ensure the best animal health practices and best management

02:20practices going forwards. So we're really looking to utilise this pre-vaccination of bovilus MH plus

02:26IBR on farm. It's really going to allow us to close the gate on BRD and you know open the gate to our

02:32Angus programs going forward.