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- [00:06]
A
Hi, welcome to BCI Cattle Chat. I'm Brad White. Happy to have you with us today and happy to have our team here in the studio. Good morning, Dustin.
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B
Good morning, Philip.
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C
Hello, guys.
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A
Brian.
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D
Morning, Brian.
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A
Bob.
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E
Hello, everybody.
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A
So we're happy to have you with us because we've got a good listener question today relative to grazing and some lameness issues in adult cows. We're also going to talk a little bit about coccidiosis, which can be an issue. And then I've got some questions for you guys that have come in on a variety of topics. So we'll call that a variety pack as we get toward the end of the episode. So before we get there, I don't know if you guys have ever had this experience where you ask a question and you kind of, you know the answer, but then you're shocked that other people maybe have a different answer to the question. And some questions are really important. And Bob, I actually asked you this and I was surprised by your answer. So I know yours, but. But I want to ask these guys what their answer is. So after a homemade meal Sunday afternoon, it's either your mom or your grandma made it. And you could have either biscuits or rolls. Which would you choose? You can only have one.
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E
It's the biscuit or roll debate.
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C
Well, that's a tough question. Depends. Do I have like, this is what confused me.
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A
It's not a tough question.
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C
Depends on if I have like roast.
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A
Beef, mashed potatoes and.
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C
No, I'm trying to think. Shoot. I just went blank.
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B
Jelly.
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C
Well, it is a condiment. Yes, but it's not jelly. Like molasses to put on my biscuit or something like that.
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A
I'm thinking you don't have it.
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E
Cause you couldn't name it.
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C
Yeah. So then it's gotta be a roll. So then.
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A
Yeah, yeah, Dustin.
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B
Biscuit. That's pretty easy.
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D
I don't care. Either's fine with me.
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E
No, no, I went with biscuit.
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A
Bob is a biscuit guy.
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E
I mean, I like a good roll, but a biscuit, that's way better.
- [01:59]
A
Pick between them. A roll is almost always going to be better.
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E
No, no, you're so wrong on that one.
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A
I guess that's why you ask people questions.
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E
You don't talk about politics, religion, or bread groups.
- [02:10]
A
Or bread groups. Yeah. So I shouldn't have brought that up then, probably. Well, we'll switch topics and we'll talk a little bit. We had a good listener question from Nevada that was asking about a producer had had some cows that got lame and they Were diagnosed with laminitis from grazing some of the st of the grass. So I wanted to. And he wanted to ask you guys, what are some of the things that you can do? And I'm going to maybe back up a step. And Brian, I'm going to ask you to define laminitis. What is laminitis, which is a specific type of lameness.
- [02:43]
D
Yeah, so. So under. So if you think about underneath the outer part of the hoof, right, there's soft tissues and those are the lamina. And so laminitis is just inflammation of those lamina. And obviously that is very painful. And if it's chronic enough, we can see kind of some long term changes as far as the bones within the foot, the hooves might grow out really long or abnormally. But you're right, it is a different lameness. So we think about like foot rot. You know, that's an infection of the tissues kind of above and around the hoof. But this is. You get that inflammation basically inside the hoof. That's probably the best way to describe it.
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A
And it's very painful.
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D
Yes. Right.
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A
So between that bone and the actual hoof wall, that can be a very painful area because anytime they put pressure anywhere on that foot, it's a problem. So Bob, what are some of the we see lameness? Any other signs that we might see with laminitis? And what do we typically think of when we think of laminitis?
- [03:49]
E
When I think of laminitis, I think of like a grain overload, you know, an acidosis grain overload type situation. Horses are particularly sensitive to laminitis and they can get laminitis basically secondary to sickness and illness. So I suppose cattle could too. But I typically think about it as secondary to a grain overload because there.
- [04:10]
A
Are some toxins that are released which cause some of that problem. So have you seen it on grass before?
- [04:18]
E
So this is a good question and partly we're here in Kansas and this, this question is coming to us from Nevada. And so one of my first answers is that's enough different that I think you're going to need some more local expertise. But I have and kind of heard of it, seen it, laminitis on grass. And I'm keep looking at Philip because I want him to bail me out here. But you know, the times I've heard about it is kind of lush growing, you know, meadow grass, those types of things. So there's based on my assumption that it has to do with, you know, similar to the grain overload, something about the carbohydrate the starch in those grasses at certain stages of growth when it might be abundant. That's my assumption of what's going on because I don't really expect laminitis on grass, but I have heard of it.
- [05:07]
C
Yeah, well, so I don't know a whole lot of detail about the grasses forages that he's talking about in his question. But you know, we think about some lush growing pastures that yes, we can have subacute acidosis. We can have acid. We don't typically think of acute acidosis, which grain overload would be, have that issue, but you can have some subacute acidosis. And if you think about calves, putting calves on wheat pasture and you can have bloat issues and things like that. So if you get a really highly fermentable forage there, that's got a lot of soluble carbohydrates in it, a lot of sugars are going to ferment really fast. We can have a pretty dramatic drop in rumen ph. But again, I don't know that I would expect it to be as severe as the cow getting into the grain bin kind of situation.
- [05:57]
A
So when you think about this particular situation, there's, there's two parts. One, how do we prevent it in the future? And we've talked about maybe that grass we might need to manage or do something differently. But I want to ask you guys, what do you do with those cows? So as you described it, there's some damage to the hoof inside. Is this a. Probably be better by next week, probably be better by next year, probably never be better.
- [06:22]
D
Yeah, this is a, this is a long term, you probably can get them over the, and especially, and it's a little bit unusual, but the grain overload situation, you get them over the kind of initial and they'll, they'll improve quite a bit, but they won't be maybe 100%. And in a case like this, I would expect, you know, and the question actually says it, you know, they change the feed and they seem to help, but it's really slow. That's exactly what I would expect with laminitis. And if you have one that's really severe, like you said, what you, you can see changes in the hoof growth in some of those animals. And so some of those might require like therapeutic trimming to get them back to 100%. But yeah, this is kind of a long term recovery type issue for affected animals.
- [07:09]
E
And depending on the amount of damage, the recovery may never occur. I mean, if you've really damaged the bones inside the foot, probably never really going to completely recover. You can kind of get them over the most painful, most, you know, the acute problem. What you're hoping is that the damage is pretty mild and that they'll recover most of the way. But if the damage and because I can't really see it, I guess you could take X rays or something like that, but we don't typically do that. But if the damage is pretty severe, probably not going to get a lot better.
- [07:39]
A
Yeah, good points. Because this is a long term issue much different than some of our other diseases we think of like foot rot, in which case you'd say probably 100% recovery is likely unless it gets really severe and into those joints. And this case it's more likely that 100% recovery is not going to to happen. So finding the right diagnosis, making sure that we've got the right thing going on. And they had worked with their veterinarian in this case, which is what we'd recommend to make sure that you have the right diagnosis because very different treatments, preventions for these diseases. We appreciate that. Listener question if you have other questions for us, you can send them to us@bcisu.edu I do want to shift gears and I want to talk a little bit about coccidiosis, which sometimes we'll think of in calves with bloody diarrhea. Post weaning. Bob, I want to turn to you on this one and say, tell us what coccidiosis is and then we'll get into some of the specifics of how we want to manage it.
- [08:37]
E
Well, coccidiosis is an internal parasite, although when we typically talk about internal parasites, we're thinking more of the roundworms and worms. It's a single cell organism that'll burrow into the intestinal wall and can cause some damage there. The organism is really, really common. It can survive in dirt pretty well. It can survive in animals at a low level and not cause a lot of problems. So it's kind of one of those issues that because you have cattle, they're at least exposed to it. Now, being exposed to the coccidia organisms and having a disease problem are two different things. And so although it is possible to see coccidiosis in a number of different ages or production settings, probably where I see it most commonly is in recently weaned calves. We've done a number of, we've changed their diet. A lot of times we move them into a dry lot. They've gone through the stress of weaning and those types of things, and those are the types of things that will allow what is normally a small level of coccidia in the animal to kind of get a foothold and cause problems. And then the hallmark sign is that it will cause a bloody diarrhea. And so if you see blood tinged diarrhea in that age of calf, coccidiosis becomes really high on my, my rule out list.
- [09:56]
A
Very few things we would expect bloody diarrhea. Now we can see dietary changes and Philip, I guess maybe help us distinguish as we, as we're getting on to a starter diet with calves post weaning, we may have some looser stools than what we might see when they're out on pasture. But tell me what would maybe distinguish. Okay. As I'm going through dietary changes versus actual disease state, what would you expect to see?
- [10:22]
C
Well, with the dietary change is it's going to be loose, but it should be still should have some consistency to it. You know, diarrhea was going to be much more watery. And I don't have as much experience with you as you guys probably do, but my experience with it is that when you have the coccidiosis, it's a dark stool because you got the blood being digested and whatever in the intestine and so it becomes a very dark, dark stool. And so that you don't normally see when you're transitioning calves to a grain type diet.
- [11:00]
A
Yeah, because it'll be typically a lighter color and maybe even while loose will be a little bit thicker. And there's lots of people that have characterized stools in different ways right before you, whether it's diarrhea or really thick. And I think in coccidia you certainly can see the blood there. You see several calves affected. It's a parasite. So Brian, what do we do for treatment in some of. Assuming I've got a group of calves and there's a handful of them out there that have a problem.
- [11:29]
D
Yeah. So the first step is, I mean, I know we've talked about bloody diarrhea versus diet change versus diarrhea, but probably the first step is just get the diagnosis. It's a really great point. It's an easy diagnosis to make. You take a fecal sample, you send it, they look for coccidia organisms and if you see them, you're probably about as close to 100% diagnosis as you get in veterinary practice. So that would be the very first step in all these things that Bob and Philip have talked about. If you have a group of Calves that are affected and they're at weaning age. I mean that's a pretty high risk, but I'd still confirm it. But there are a couple treatments that are labeled for coccidiosis. So ambrolium would be one and the ionophores would be another one that you could potentially use, just depending on the situation. You've got a couple options there for feed versus water, how you want to manage your cattle or how you can manage those cattle. But those are kind of your typical label treatments. There are some others too.
- [12:30]
A
Yeah, so we, we could do some of those and sometimes we'll talk about ionophores as both treatment and preventative so that I try to avoid a break. And those ionophores have some other benefits that we want to have those in their diets as they start on their, start on their feed. So appreciate you guys sharing information on coccidiosis. So things to watch for potentially bloody diarrhea, as Brian mentioned, work with your veterinarian, get a confirmed diagnosis. And if you've had coccidia in the past, Bob mentioned very hardy in the environment, probably going to have exposure to it again. So have a plan for how you, how you're going to prevent it. So last, last segment and one thing I wanted to go through with you guys was I've just got some questions for you that have, have come up and we've been visiting with different producers, different veterinarians and as things you guys have talked about in the past, I want to dive into a variety of topics and Dustin, I'm going to start. One of the things that we've talked about a lot recently is diseases and their potential implications not only domestically but on international trade. And I know you've done some work in that area. And I guess my question is what makes a disease have bigger implications for international trade than another disease? Are there some characteristics that you think about that are going to cause us problems?
- [13:51]
B
Yeah, I would say a couple things. Number one, if it's highly contagious, such as a foot and mouth disease or a high path AI African swine fever, what I guess I would turn to probably first is the woa, World Organization for Animal Health. They got a disease priority list and you know, a lot of them are based on those kinds of how fast do they transmit, how impactful are they? So yes, those are some of the things I guess I would think about when thinking about international trade implications.
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A
So we talk about high path AI or hpai. Is that a disease that we should be Thinking about and what has impacted the cattle industry, what are the international trade implications from a cattle perspective? I know there's some on the avian side, but are there any at this point.
- [14:44]
B
Are there. You asked the question, does high path. Are there implications for trade for cattle? I mean, I would say probably not directly now. Are there some indirectly? Yeah, maybe consumers might switch from. Maybe we've seen some, but very minor at most at the consumer level, switching from, substituting from one product, let's say chicken to beef as an example. So maybe some indirect impacts, but they're going to be minor. But thinking about high path, you know, we've talked about the dairy cattle that call it animal influenza. Right. I mean, if that was to become more prominent, let's say in beef, then we could maybe potentially start to see some international trade impacts, which then has implications back home to the producers.
- [15:35]
A
Yeah. So any of those diseases, if they've got. And you mentioned high level of contagiousness, which in this case, we don't know what that's going to look like beyond the dairy herd, still brand new, but in general terms, highly contagious diseases could be a concern in the future.
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B
Yeah, yeah, sure.
- [15:55]
A
Excellent. So switching gears, Brian wanted to ask you one of the things that people will sometimes talk about. And we've been using VFDs Veterinary Feed Directive for years and we'll have different reasons that we do that, that we may put medications in the feed. We need to go get a vfd. If I'm a producer and I have not got a VFD before, what are some of the things I need to think about or if I'm going to renew, what are some of the things I need to think about when going to my veterinarian? Specific procedure wise or indications?
- [16:32]
D
Well, let's start with procedure wise. So first step is you have to have a relationship with a veterinarian. Right. That's the only one that can authorize a veterinary feed directive. And probably the biggest procedural is the difference between a VFD and a prescription. Almost everybody's familiar with a prescription. They get them from their human doctor. They've probably gotten one from their veterinarian. Now, all human medically important antimicrobials fall under one of those two categories and a prescription. A veterinarian, if indicated, can write the prescription for an extra label drug use. So something that isn't specifically on the label for that product. And so as an example, let's say Bob had some cows and he had an outbreak of foot rot and the Products that are labeled for foot rot weren't working and he wanted to use a different antibiotic, his veterinarian could do that under that situation. VFDs are very, very different. Veterinarians cannot authorize them for extra label uses. So the only way you can use a product that falls under VFD regulations is exactly as it says on the lab. Probably the biggest procedural difference.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And so you'd have to have an indication. And then how often do the. Can I get one and say, I've got a VFD and I can go for a year, two years and feed that in the feed or do I have to get it renewed? How do I know how often to get that renewed?
- [18:07]
D
Yeah. So the furthest out of VFD would be six months. So a veterinarian can write a V. And again, depends on how it's written. If you're in a situation where, let's say this is a small feeding operation and they're going to be receiving groups of cattle over the next, let's say, few months, and so they anticipate that these are cattle that may need something in the feed, but it's not going to be all at once, all at the same time. If the veterinarian has an estimate of how many cattle will be received during that period, that veterinarian can write one VFD to cover all those groups of ca. Now, if the veterinarian decides, no, I'm just going to write it for the group of cattle that's experiencing that issue. Now, that's fine, they can do that. But if you get a second group of cattle. So the VFD specifies the total number of animals. And so if you get another group, you have to get a new vfd. But VFD is the longest of VFD order. So what the Veterinarian writes is 6 months or it can be shorter. If the drug label specifically says that, and I'm not aware of, I think there's one that I'm aware of, but it's not something we use in cattle.
- [19:23]
A
So I think the point there and the take home is work with your veterinarian because different situations are going to have different lengths of activity and you want to be sure that it's on label because we can't go off extra label.
- [19:35]
E
Yeah.
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D
And the other party that's involved with this is the feed mill. So you need to work with them too, because there are some electronic forms out there, there are some product specific forms out there, there's a generic form that the FDA kind of promoted. So you might want to work with them and see which form they are able to manage the documentation for. So they may request that the VFDs be submitted in a certain way. And obviously they're going to be manufacturing and probably delivering or have something to do with the actual product. So I would get them involved early as well too.
- [20:11]
A
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's, that's important as we talk about feeding and changing diets and Philip, I'll, I'll turn to you. We have cows that are going to post weaning go on to sometimes grazing residual crops like corn stalks or other type of crop residual or they're going on to a hay diet. Do I need to adjust my mineral program when we get to this time of year? Because with green growing grass I'm pretty happy they're getting some minerals out there. Vitamins. What do I need to think about as we go into dormant forages or am I fine with the same mineral?
- [20:51]
C
Well, you probably need to make an adjustment. We go into dormant forage because your, your mineral pack also has vitamins in it. So dormant forages and particularly like crop residues are going to be very low in vitamin A. So that'd be one thing that we need to pay attention to and make sure boost up the amount of vitamin A that we have available. Probably one of the biggest things is intake may change. So we need to pay attention to how much they're actually consuming because the base diet is changing so their base salt intake is changing and so they're going to look for alternative forms of salt which mainly is going to be your mineral. So you need to probably adjust for intake or pay attention to intake and how it's changing and whether I need to put mineral out more often, I need to add some white salt to it to balance out how much much actual mineral is being consumed. Those types of things.
- [21:49]
E
Well, another thing that I think about is basically lactation. So where are we on the cows? And the reason I say that is calcium and phosphorus in that compared to green growing grass, the calcium and phosphorus levels in dormant forage is lower, particularly phosphorus. But as you said the other thing is the intake is lower too. And so you kind of get a double whammy. And you know, for a cow that's in, that's dry, her calcium and phosphorus requirement is lower. But if she's approaching lactation or if this is a fall calving cow and she's in the middle of lactation, those are things to consider is yeah, in my dormant forages calcium and phosphorus intake is going to be lower both through it's lower in the forage and they eat less. So it's something to consider.
- [22:35]
A
Yeah, very much so. And you talked about monitoring that intake or monitoring that changing intake. What are the, what are the easy ways to do that? Because it's really hard to monitor intake mineral and cows.
- [22:49]
C
So to me the, the main thing to do is know how many cows you put out there and record how when you put a bag of mineral out and then record when the mineral feeder gets empty and then just do the math to figure out, okay, they ate 50 pounds in two weeks and there were 100 cows out there, how much, what's that intake come out to and know whether that meets the target or not and then make adjustments.
- [23:19]
E
I think in my experience there's a couple things. I love it when a producer actually has those records and a lot of times it's just a handwritten note in their pocket notebook of we delivered this many pounds of mineral on these dates and you can back calculate that out pretty easy. So it's just getting in that habit. But the other thing is particularly for my cattle producers that are also busy with corn and soybeans sometimes this is a busy time of year and the mineral feeder gets ignored, the cows get ignored. And so I think there are, there is the opportunity for a number of negative impacts to occur. And it's not just minerals, it is also energy and protein levels as well. If you're not paying attention to the cows. So even though you're busy and the cows, we've weaned the calves, if this spring calving cows, we've weaned the calves kind of. I'm tempted to ignore them because they should be able to take care of themselves, but not completely. You still need to monitor body condition, need to monitor mineral intake, those types of things.
- [24:16]
C
Yeah, and they'll be okay for a little while. I mean a couple of weeks or whatever, if you forgot to put mineral out or whatever. And they'll get. Because they've got body stores that they can pull from for a while. So it's not super critical that, oh, I forgot I'm gonna have a bunch of open cows or something. But. But yeah, just make sure you do check on it.
- [24:38]
A
Absolutely. Good, good topics, good discussion there guys. And appreciate you sharing your insight on those. And our other listener question, if you have a listener question you'd like to send us, you can send it to us at bci ksu Edu.