The Last Word (For Now) on Rest Stops During Long-Distance Transport 🎙️

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This article written by Dr. Reynold Bergen, BCRC Science Director, originally appeared in the September 2025 issue of Canadian Cattlemen magazine and is reprinted on BeefResearch.ca with permission of the publisher.

When the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) began to muse about requiring that cattle be unloaded and provided with a rest stop after 36 hours of transportation, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and Canada’s beef industry funded a series of research projects led by Karen Schwartzkopf-Genswein’s team at AAFC’s Lethbridge Research Station to determine whether a rest stop would benefit weaned calves. The research began before the regulations were revised, but the regulations were revised before the research could be completed.

What They Did

This report presented the results of the last two long-distance rest-stop transportation trials conducted by AAFC Lethbridge in 2019 and 2020. To recap, in the fall of 2019, 320 newly weaned crossbred steer calves from one ranch were delivered to the research station. They were processed and adapted to the feedlot diet and environment for four weeks to ensure that the effects of weaning stress had passed and would not interfere with their response to transportation. After four weeks they were loaded, transported for 36 hours, and unloaded. Half of the calves were immediately reloaded and hauled four more hours to the research facility. The other half were rested in pens with bedding, feed and water for 12 hours, reloaded and hauled the final four hours to the research facility.

In the 2020 trial, 328 freshly weaned crossbred steer calves from two ranches were processed at the research station but not allowed to acclimate to the feedlot environment. They were loaded and hauled for 20 hours (roughly corresponding to a trip from Lethbridge to Thunder Bay) and unloaded. Half of the steers from each ranch were immediately reloaded and hauled for another 15 hours (roughly the time from Thunder Bay to Kincardin, Ontario) to the research facility. The other half were rested in pens with bedding, feed and water for 8 hours before being reloaded and hauled the final 15 hours to the research facility.

During both the 2019 and 2020 trials, deep nasopharyngeal swabs were collected from 12 rested and 12 unrested steers before they were loaded the first time, when they were unloaded after the first leg of the trip, before they were reloaded after the rest period, after the final unloading at the research station, and at several subsequent points over the following four weeks. The research team identified the relative proportions of different bacteria in these samples and assessed whether providing a rest stop affected the prevalence of different respiratory bacteria.

What They Learned

The most abundant bacteria identified in all nasopharyngeal samples included Mannheimia, Pasteurella, Histophilus, Mycoplasma (all of which are known to be involved in bovine respiratory disease, or BRD), Moraxella (which is sometimes identified in BRD cases) and Streptococcus (which may predispose calves to BRD by producing an enzyme that breaks down the mucus that protects the lining of the respiratory tract from disease-causing pathogens). All of these bacteria except Pasteurella were more abundant in samples collected from rested calves than in samples collected from unrested calves.

What Does This Mean to You?

None of the three transport trials showed that providing a rest stop during long distance transport provided any clear or consistent benefits for the health or welfare of feeder calves. The three microbiome studies now provide consistent evidence that rest stops may pose a risk to the respiratory health of calves. The experimental groups were too small to measure statistically meaningful differences in actual illness due to BRD, but more rested calves were treated for BRD than unrested calves in both 2019 (11 rested vs. 7 unrested) and 2020 (17 rested vs. 8 unrested).

The Bottom Line

Canada’s beef industry and AAFC funded these studies to generate the information the Canadian Food Inspection Agency would need to formulate science-based updates to the regulations governing cattle transport in Canada. Unfortunately, the CFIA imposed the requirement to provide a minimum 8-hour rest stop after 36 hours of transport before the research could be completed. We remain hopeful that the CFIA will take this science into consideration and rethink the rest stop requirement. It’s not too late to do the right thing.

The Beef Cattle Research Council is a not-for-profit industry organization funded by the Canadian Beef Cattle Check-Off. The BCRC partners with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, provincial beef industry groups and governments to advance research and technology transfer supporting the Canadian beef industry’s vision to be recognized as a preferred supplier of healthy, high-quality beef, cattle, and genetics. Learn more about the BCRC at www.beefresearch.ca.

References

• Regulations Amending the Health of Animals Regulations. (2019) Canada Gazette, Part II, Volume 153, Number 4. Page 47. https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2019/gazette/SP2-2-153-4.pdf
• Scwartzkopf-Genswein, K.S., Moggy, M., Diether, N., Windeyer, C., Heuston, C. (2018). Compromised Cattle Benchmarking Project.
• Melendez, D.M., Marti, S., Gellaty, D., Nordi, W., Haley, D.B., Schwinghamer, T.D., Scwartzkopf-Genswein, K.S. (2019). Effects of transport time and rest stop duration on welfare indicators of beef cattle travelling by road. Journal of Animal Science 97(3), 9-10, https://doi.org/10.1093/jas/skz258.016.
• Melendez, D.M., Marti, S., Haley, D.B., Schwinghamer, T.D., Scwartzkopf-Genswein, K.S. (2020). Effect of transport and rest stop duration on the welfare of conditioned cattle transported by road. PLoS ONE 15(3): e0228492. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0228492
• Melendez, D.M., Marti, S., Haley, D.B., Schwinghamer, T.D., Scwartzkopf-Genswein, K.S. (2021). Effects of conditioning, source, and rest on indicators of stress in beef cattle transported by road. PLoS ONE 16(1): e0244854. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244854
• Uddin, M., Scwartzkopf-Genswein, K.S., Waldner, M., Melendez, D.M., Niu, Y.D., Alexander, T.W. (2023). Auction Market Placement and Rest Stop During Transportation Affect the Respiratory Bacterial Microbiota of Beef Cattle. Frontiers in Microbiology, Vol. 14, 2023. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2023.1192763.
• Uddin, M.S., Bumunang, E.W., Waldner, M., Scwartzkopf-Genswein, K.S., Melendez, D.M., Niu, Y.D., Alexander, T.W. (2025). Providing a rest stop during transportation affects the respiratory microbiota of beef cattle. Front. Dell. Infect. Microbiol., Vol. 15, 2025. doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2025.1622241.

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