Research Article Mortality and Morbidity of Beef Calves in Free-Range Farms in Alentejo, Portugal—A Preliminary Study Rute Santos , 1,2 Ana Cachapa, 1 Graça P. Carvalho, 1 Carolina B. Silva , 1,2 Laura Hernández, 1,2 Lina Costa, 1 Luísa S. Pereira, 1 Miguel Minas, 1 and Helena Vala 3,4 1 Polytechnic Institute of Portalegre, Agrarian School of Elvas, 7350-092 Elvas, Portugal 2 VALORIZA—Research Centre for Endogenous Resources Valorization, Polytechnic Institute of Portalegre, 7300-555 Portalegre, Portugal 3 Polytechnic Institute of Viseu, Agrarian School of Viseu, 3500-606 Viseu, Portugal 4 CITAB—Centre for the Research and Technology of Agro-Environmental and Biological Sciences, University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, 5001-801 Vila Real, Portugal Correspondence should be addressed to Rute Santos; rutesantos@ipportalegre.pt Received 14 May 2019; Revised 22 July 2019; Accepted 1 August 2019; Published 16 October 2019 Academic Editor: Annamaria Pratelli Copyright © 2019 Rute Santos et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Extensive cow-calf beef cattle farms play a significant role in Portuguese livestock production, but records of important production variables, such as calf mortality, are scarce. To assess herd-level calf mortality and its potential economic impact, farmers from the Alentejo region were asked to fill a questionnaire regarding herd size, feeding and reproductive management practices, calf mortality (from birth to weaning), and detection of the main morbidity causes, as well as of sudden, unexplained deaths during the previous 12 months. Farmers were also requested to quantitatively assess the economic impact of calf mortality on their annual revenue. In the majority of farms, the herd size was larger than 100 animals. e median stocking rate was 0.41 adult animals/hectare, and 70% of farmers stated their farm was self-sufficient in forage. e percent of live births that resulted in weaned calves averaged 94.3%, which led to the assumption of a 5.7% calf mortality rate from birth to weaning. In the previous 12 months, 78.8% of the farms identified at least one case of calf diarrhea, 60.7% identified at least one case of respiratory disease, and 82.1% had at least one sudden, unexplained calf death. As expected, farmers that assessed a higher impact of calf losses on their annual economic revenue were also those who reported higher incidences of calf diarrhea, respiratory disease, and sudden, unexplained deaths. One-quarter of the farmers were unable to assess the economic impact of calf mortality on the farm’s revenue. Herd size appears to have a predictive value on calf mortality in the first month of life, and from 30 days to weaning. e number of sudden, unexplained calf deaths seems to have a predictive value on overall calf mortality (from birth to weaning), suggesting that the farms’ management practices probably play an important role in calf mortality throughout the suckling period. Further studies are needed to fully understand calf mortality in Portuguese extensive rearing systems. 1. Introduction According to the official economic accounts for agriculture in 2016, the value of livestock production in Portugal was 2630.9 million Euros, corresponding to 37.9% of the total value of agricultural production. Cattle were the second main prod- uct, representing 21.6% of the overall value, and showed a 5.1% increase from 2015 to 2016. Self-sufficiency in beef production in the European Union is close to 102%; however, in Portugal, this value is only 57% [1], making it the country’s meat sector with a greater dependence on imports. Beef cattle farms are mainly located in the south of the country, the Alentejo region, which holds over 65% of the grassland area and around 42% of the cattle stock in Portugal [2]. ese cattle are mostly bred in extensive cow-calf production systems, wherein the farmers’ revenue is highly dependent on productive efficiency, which is aimed at obtaining one calf per cow, per year. is goal relies mainly on adequate breeding strategies and herd health man- agement, with the latter having a significant effect on pre- weaning calf mortality and morbidity. Calf production is the Hindawi Veterinary Medicine International Volume 2019, Article ID 3616284, 8 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/3616284