Use of homeopathy to control buller steer syndrome in bulls kept in the feedlot

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Buller steer syndrome (BSS) is the intercourse behavior between young or adult bulls that frequently occurs when they are kept together in feedlots. The objectives of this work were to verify the effects of a homeopathic complex composed of Chamomilla 12CH and Absinthium 12CH on BSS in not-castrated male crossbred feedlot cattle by evaluating the average daily live weight gain (ADG), carcass yield, cost, and BSS behavior for seven weeks, by the analysis of incidence of the following registered social interactions: headers, head crash, head-head (H-H), Flehmen reflex, mounts (MT), attempted mounts (AM) and trail rides. When the AM and MT occurred together, they were defined as BSS. The feedlot costs were calculated considering the expenses for the treatment. The choice of homeopathic compounds for the composition of the complex was based on the totality of the symptoms from the Vijnovsky Homeopathic Materia Medica [1] described for behavior characterized by BSS. The animals (n=225, average body mass=384.8 kg, age=24-36 months, fed a patterned diet) were divided into four groups of 100 animals each: control, vehicle, HOM1 (10g/head/day), and HOM2 (20g/head/day). Each of the four treatments (Baseline, Vehicle, HOM1, and HOM2) was administered in calcium carbonate powder mixed in the concentrated food powder and homogenized separately according to each treatment. The concentrate was mixed with the green food at the manger. Animals were kept in a 30m2 area; each bull had access to linear 0.46 m of the whole manger. The Committee of Ethics and Animal Experimentation of the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul, protocol 285/2010, approved the manipulation of the animals during the experimental phase. As a result, H-H and BSS differed between treatments (P<0.05), being H-H: HOM1 (4.68±1.24), HOM2 (4.17±0.96), control (6.11±0.97), and vehicle (7.67±1.16), with no statistical difference between both HOM treatments and both controls. Considering BSS: HOM1 was different from the other groups, being HOM1 (4.00±0.86c) vs Control (9.04±1.16a,b), Vehicle (12.00±3.16a) and HOM2 (6.32±1.91b,c). Considering all the data, in the HOM1 group, BSS was the most reduced, and inversely, the ADG was the most superior. The total costs of the feedlot plus the spending with homeopathy were US$256.49, US$211.67, US$202.90, and US$203.91 for the control, vehicle, HOM1, and HOM2, respectively, that is, for HOM1, there was a savings of US$53.60 in relation to the control. Using the homeopathic complex significantly reduced BSS in not castrated male crossbred cattle feedlots, improving animal welfare with an economically viable strategy by offering only 10g of the homeopathic complex/animal/day. This approach provided a better cost/benefit ratio for a large-scale bovine breeding activity than the conventional one.