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The image of the “boi de boiada”, raised extensively, is being replaced by precision models. That is what the study carried out by MFG Agropecuária in partnership with ICC Nutrição Animal suggests: the scientific results of the natural protocol used showed benefits for animal welfare in the feedlot confinement of cattle.
Completed in 2025, the study followed 2,777 animals from the finishing period through slaughter. Within that sample, 1,440 were fed the traditional diet, while the remaining 1,377 received the same ingredients but with an additive called RumenYeast, which is 100% natural.
Those that consumed RumenYeast presented an Average Carcass Gain (ACG) of 1.661 kg/day, and a gain efficiency of 67.2%. Those fed only the traditional method showed an ACG of 1.585 kg/day and a gain efficiency of 66.2%. Over 110 days on feed, there was a carcass gain of 7.26 kg per animal. According to ICC’s ruminant business manager Marcelo Pedrosa, in an interview with the DBO portal, the additive helps improve digestibility, enhances gastrointestinal health, boosts the immune response and regulates the animals’ intestinal pH.
Animal welfare goes beyond ethics in the industry
This superior performance reflects an animal that can express its maximum genetic potential. When the environment and diet are optimized, the bovine’s body stops wasting energy fighting inflammatory processes or heat stress and redirects those resources toward depositing muscle and fat tissue.
For the producer, this increased weight gain efficiency means delivering to the market a heavier animal with better fat cover in the same timeframe. In practical terms, it represents an increase of nearly half an arroba per animal, which directly affects the profitability of the commercial transaction.
Sustainability and quality form the market’s new frontier
The impacts of this movement go beyond feedlot fences: they position livestock farming at a new level of global demand. The adoption of organic additives, such as those based on yeasts and essential oils, directly addresses increasing international market restrictions on the use of synthetic additives and antibiotic growth promoters, according to research published in Animal Science Journal.
Beyond the environmental factor, meat quality benefits from lower physiological stress. Animals that maintain consistent rumination and avoid disorders such as ruminal acidosis tend to develop more uniformly. Additionally, cattle consume more dry matter and convert it to weight more efficiently, there is refined metabolic control and cycles are shortened, reaching the perfect equation of efficiency, the famous “more with less”. In this case, more kilograms of meat in less time.
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