Bovine respiratory disease (BRD) is a complex, multifactorial syndrome and one of the major welfare and economical concerns for the cattle industry. This 1-year cross-sectional study was aimed at documenting the prevalence of BRD-related pathogens and clinical signs before and after a long journey and at identifying possible predisposition factors. Male Limousine beef steers (n = 169) traveling from France to Italy were health checked and sampled with Deep Nasopharyngeal Swabs (DNS) at loading (T0) and 4 days after arrival (T1). Real-time quantitative PCR was used to quantify the presence of bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV), bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV), bovine alphaherpesvirus 1 (BoHV-1), bovine coronavirus (BCoV), bovine adenovirus (BAdV), bovine parainfluenza virus 3 (BPIV-3), Histophilus somni, Mannheimia haemolytica, Mycoplasma bovis, and Pasteurella multocida. Weather conditions at departure and arrival were recorded, and the travel conditions were taken from the travel documentation. At T0, even if no animals displayed clinical signs, some of them were already positive for one or more pathogens. At T1, the number of animals displaying clinical signs and positive for BCoV, BAdV, BRSV, H. somni, M. haemolytica, M. bovis, and P. multocida increased dramatically (p < 0.001). Transport also significantly increased co-infection passing from 16.0% at T0 to 82.8% at T1 (p < 0.001). An extra stop during the journey seemed to favor BRSV, M. haemolytica, and P. multocida (p < 0.05). Weather conditions, in particular sudden climate changes from departure to arrival and daily temperature variance, were found to be predisposing factors for many of the pathogens. The farm of arrival also played a role for BRSV, BAdV, and H. somni (p < 0.05). BCoV increased dramatically, but no associations were found confirming that it spreads easily during transport phases. Our findings increased our understanding of factors increasing the likelihood of BRD-related pathogens shedding and can be useful to minimize the incidence of BRD and to implement animal transport regulations.

Slaughtering plants approved by the European Union have specific processes to guarantee that beef carcasses or halfcarcasses, of no less than eight months of age, are provided with health mark and then classified and identified according to the EU carcass classification grid. This classification is based on three criteria: i) Category, ii) Conformation (SEUROP) and iii) Fat Cover (FC). At the end of the classification process each carcass is given a code, consisting of two letters and a number: this operation is called Identification. The aim of our study was to evaluate how the European beef carcass quality classification is determined according to the experience of the personnel involved, then comparing the results with those yielded by the Android platform application. West Systems, through its West- Zootech division, has developed an Android platform application (SEUROP APP) that allows SEUROP and FC classification with a smart-phone. The photo taken with the smart-phone will yield the necessary angular parameters to determine the conformation class depending on the animal’s muscular mass and based on the convexity of some areas on the half-carcass. It also evaluates the ratio between surface of lean tissue and total carcass surface in order to determine the fat cover and complete the classification. The SEUROP APP was able to obtain objective measurements for as much as 84% of the assessments made during the research and development phase.