Ways to minimize shrink when handling cattle

Feb 04, 2026

One of the costs when selling cattle is shrink — pounds lost when cattle are stressed and emptying their bladders and digestive tract. The body weight of individuals may vary. Morning weights, when cattle are relatively empty, are less than mid-day or evening weights when the gut is full, unless they were held off feed before weighing.

There are two kinds of shrink: gut shrink and tissue shrink. Whenever you start moving cattle, gut shrink starts immediately, especially if they are nervous and urinate and defecate more. This kind of shrink is temporary if they have access to feed and water after they are handled, transported, etc.

Tissue shrink is more serious, due to fluid loss within body tissues. This can start at the same time but is more severe when cattle are off feed and water longer, such as a long transport or prolonged handling. An example would be if a rancher gathers cattle, works and sorts them, puts the calves on a truck and sends them to a sale barn and they didn’t have feed or water. If they don’t eat or drink for 24 hours or longer with no way to replenish fluid loss, they become dehydrated with fluid loss from muscles and other body tissues. This type of shrink takes longer to resolve than fill shrink; water in the tissues is harder to replace quickly.

It takes longer for the animal to recover from this type of weight loss, and it can be detrimental to health. One reason why cattle, and especially calves, may have a hard time recovering from tissue shrink is that after 24 hours of being held off feed, some of the important microbes in the rumen die off, making it difficult for the animal to digest feed when it does start eating again.

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Video: Four Star Pork Industry Conf - Back to Basics: Fundamentals drive vaccine performance

At a time when disease pressure continues to challenge pork production systems across the United States, vaccination remains one of the most valuable and heavily debated tools available to veterinarians and producers.

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