Research Update: Larrison Hicks, Line Breeding, Nutritional Listener Questions

Summary

Episode Overview

This episode of BCI Cattle Chat (April 24, 2026) brings together the hosts—Dr. Brad White, Dr. Bob Larson, Dr. Scott, Dr. Philip—and guest student researcher Larison Hicks. The episode focuses on three main themes: a research update on calf gastrointestinal development and health, listener questions about line breeding and cattle genetics, and practical nutrition topics touching on aflatoxin management, sodium bicarbonate feeding, and dietary fats in grazing cattle. The conversation blends up-to-date research insights with practical, experience-based advice for beef producers.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Larison Hicks’ GI Tract Development in Calves Research

[04:37–09:06]

• Research Focus and Motivation
  • Larison introduced himself and explained his interest in improving calf health outcomes within calf ranch operations.
  • Quote – Larison: “I grew up on a cow calf operation, so the whole calf ranch was a whole different breed out there. But that's what I really enjoy is working with the calves. And I think it's a lot of... It's a big area that we need a lot of improvement in.” [05:14]
• Study Design
  • The project compared beef-dairy cross calves’ GI development between bottle-fed and bucket-fed groups, assessing whether feeding method influences GI permeability (“leaky gut”).
  • Direct-fed microbials were also included as a treatment.
  • Measured outcomes: body weight, average daily gain, fecal scoring, and disease occurrence (scours, respiratory).
• Key Methodologies
  • GI permeability was measured using indigestible sugars and subsequent blood screening.
  • Quote – Larison: “We fed them indigestible sugars and then three hours later we draw the blood. So we see how much sugar is in the blood. And how much sugar is in the blood determines how much of a leaky gut they have...” [08:13]
• Preliminary Results
  • No effect of direct-fed microbials on growth or health in the first three weeks; analysis on feeding methods and total nine-week outcomes forthcoming.
  • Quote – Larison: “We did not find an effect on growth or health outcomes within the first three weeks.” [08:53]
• Broader Significance
  • Team notes the importance: calves raised on calf ranches exhibit double the incidence of liver abscesses compared to native beef calves, prompting a need to understand management influences.

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2. Line Breeding and Cattle Genetics

[09:06–13:33]

• Listener Question:
  • Scenario: Two champion parents are line-bred, but resulting bull is disappointing in phenotype. Does he still have champion genetics and potential?
• Panel Discussion:
  • Bob expresses skepticism about line breeding as a shortcut to superior offspring, citing historical USDA Hereford experiments: “Probably the most famous is in the Hereford breed up in...Miles City, Montana...They attempted to do line breeding of about 14 different lines...one of the lines actually did pretty well. The rest...did not.” [10:01]
  • The unpredictability of gene recombination and increased risk of expressing recessive defects is highlighted.
  • Quote – Brad: “Family trees should have branches.” [13:04]
  • Philip clarifies the probabilities and inbreeding coefficients: increased relatedness raises risk of genetic defects; favorable results are rare and require many generations with strict selection.
  • Summary Consensus: Picking unrelated superior parents is a better strategy for improvement rather than breeding close relatives.

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3. Nutrition Questions: Aflatoxins, Sodium Bicarbonate, and Dietary Fats

[13:33–24:11]

3.1 Managing Aflatoxins in Cattle Feed

[14:05–18:45]

• What are aflatoxins?
  • Mold-produced toxins, commonly present in grains; dangerous at high levels.
• Practical Management:
  • Scott: Only aflatoxin has strict FDA action limits; detection is challenging due to “hot spots” in feed.
  • Bentonite clay (not legally marketed as a “toxin binder” in the US) may reduce absorption, but must be used under other purposes like “anti-caking agents.” [14:05–15:35]
• Testing and Mitigation:
  • Various tests exist (from black light to sophisticated chromatography), but sampling errors and cost make routine feedlot screening tough.
  • Dilution with uncontaminated grain is a viable mitigation if contamination is present.
  • Quote – Scott: “The challenge with any feed associated toxin is heterogenicity...there may be a hot spot in one corner of it that the rest of it is fine.” [15:47]
• Health Effects:
  • Chronic liver disease is the main outcome in cattle, with acute problems being rare due to high lethal dose requirements.
  • Cattle with short exposure (e.g., feedlot animals) are less at risk than breeding animals.

3.2 Sodium Bicarbonate in Diets

[19:01–21:49]

• Role and Evidence:
  • Sodium bicarb naturally buffers rumen pH; supplementing is frequent in dairy diets to prevent acidosis.
  • Philip: No compelling evidence for performance or health benefits in feedlot beef cattle.
  • Free choice feeding not likely effective; exact timing and intake consistency are problematic.
  • Quote – Philip: “It's not enough to improve animal performance.” [20:19]
  • Panel concurrence: Dairy and beef cattle respond differently; application may not be one-size-fits-all.

3.3 Importance of Fat and Omega Fatty Acids in Grazing Cattle

[22:08–24:11]

• Fat Content
  • Keep dietary fat, especially polyunsaturated fatty acids, low (<5–6%) to avoid negative effects on rumen fiber digestion.
• Omega 3 Fatty Acids
  • Although grass-fed beef contains more omega-3s than grain-finished, the increase is minor compared to fish.
  • Most omega-3s are converted to saturated fat in the rumen, limiting changes in beef’s nutrition profile.
  • Quote – Philip: “You're not eating fish when you're eating grass fed beef. It's not nearly the same level of omega 3 fatty acids.” [22:08]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On research practicality: Larison: “I enjoy that a lot. It does make me angry. But at the end of the day it is a stress reliever to me.” (on playing golf) [04:18]
• On genetics: Brad: “Family trees should have branches.” [13:04]
• On cow diets: Philip: “We do not want very much of those in there. If we get up above like 5 to 6% fat in the diet, we're going to have some negative consequences on forage digestion.” [22:08]
• On practical toxin management: Scott: “There are products out there that are just not called mycotoxin binders.” [15:35]
• On bicarb supplementation: Philip: “It's not something that's going to hang around in the rumen for long periods of time. It's got to be consumed every day...” [20:34]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Larison Hicks Research Introduction: [04:37]
• GI Tract Study Details: [05:43–09:06]
• Line Breeding and Genetics: [09:06–13:33]
• Aflatoxin Management: [13:33–18:45]
• Sodium Bicarbonate Discussion: [19:01–21:49]
• Dietary Fat & Omega Fatty Acid Discussion: [22:08–24:11]

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Tone & Style

The conversation remains deeply practical, research-grounded, and moderately informal—reflecting both the academic and hands-on sensibilities of the speakers. Real-world analogies (“family trees should have branches,” example of mowing lawns and woodworking to relax) keep advice memorable for producers.

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Conclusion

This episode delivers actionable research updates and thorough answers to critical producer questions regarding calf health management, genetic selection strategies, and nutritional best practices. The BCI Cattle Chat team balances scientific evidence with everyday farm experience, offering listeners both guidance and reassurance in managing cattle herds.

Transcript

[A]

Hi, welcome to BCI Cattle Chat. I'm Brad White. Happy to have you with us and happy to have our crew here in the studio. Good morning, Scott.

[B]

Morning guys.

[A]

Bob.

[C]

Good morning.

[A]

Philip.

[D]

Hello everybody.

[A]

And we've got a guest today with us, a student, Larson Hicks. Good morning, Larson.

[E]

Morning. Morning.

[A]

So we're happy to have Larison with us. He's going to share some of his research that he has done in young growing calves especially relative to how their GI tract is developing and pot. And we'll dive into that as well as we've got a couple listener questions. One that's on genetics and phenotype and expressed versus genotype. Also we've got several, I'll lump them together and say nutrition and toxin questions coming up. So we appreciate you sending those. If you have other questions for us, you can send them to us at bcisu Edu and I know this spring there are several meetings going. There's one that you're involved with, Philip, that's relative to grazing. You want to tell us a little bit about that?

[D]

Yeah. So we're working with Noble Research center and putting on some grazing management education courses down around Council Grove area. So it's a series of three courses on soil and health and plant growth and how grazing impacts those and the business of grazing. And then in the last course you sit down and develop a grazing management plan and they, they walk you through that step by step if you've never done one before. And, and so you can sign up for those courses if you Google Noble Flint Hills grazing series it'll pop up and you can find the website for registration there.

[A]

Yeah, excellent. I think that's. It sounds like a lot of good topics and really practical. Take homes. Right. What can we do different today? So you ought to be able to leave that with some.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

New action and there's some hands on stuff in one of those courses where they go out to pasture and actually. Yeah they actually put up some little fence with a few head and try to gauge how much do I need to give these cattle for a day. You know, and you're. Because you're doing an eyeball measurement and so that takes practice of learning. Well, okay, if I'm going to do some intensive rotational grazing, how big of an area, how much grass is really there and, and so that takes a little practice.

[A]

There was a guy that Bob and I worked with on intensive grazing at one point and he would, his, one of his techniques was to grab some of the grass and you would chew on it and Decide how stiff it was, how mature it was and you'd

[C]

go through the process, you get some

[A]

information, you get some information from that. But that's being enthusiastic about your grazing process. I enjoyed listening to him. Before we get into our main topics, it's spring, calves are being born, daylight is longer, but there's not enough daylight hours to get everything done. People are planting gardens, you're doing all kinds of other stuff. Graduation coming up, activities with the kids. I wanted to know what do you guys do? What's your stress breaker activity? What do you do to relax, get away from it for a few minutes? What's your secret?

[B]

I like to A, mow the lawn and B, I used to like camping a lawn. It was pretty stress free. And now that I got three young kids and we go camping with a campfire, we still like to do it. Just you gotta be on high alert all the time and you don't want

[C]

to lose a kid.

[B]

I've not had any burn scenarios yet, but it's going to happen at some point. But I think that's part of having a good time.

[C]

Yeah, well, you know, I think several of us would say mowing the lawn is actually kind of not a bad job at all. But I like going to my shop, I like little woodworking and that's always a good way to just have some good hands on creative time.

[D]

I do some woodworking. Not a whole lot right at the moment, I guess probably small kids. Yeah.

[A]

Younger kids. Yeah.

[D]

I've got middle aged kids that are into all kinds of activities. So it's a constant running around. And so the little time I do have is usually probably a working out a little bit or something. So I'll go for a run, do something like that, go play basketball, do something like that. That's. Yeah, just like not work and not focused on in anything and just. Yeah.

[A]

Get your mind, get your mind on something else. Larson.

[E]

Yeah, mine is not mowing the lawn. Believe it or not, I do play a lot of golf. I enjoy that a lot. It does make me angry. But at the end of the day it is a stress reliever to me.

[A]

You get to get outside and I think that's part of it. You get outside and do stuff, especially as it comes through spring. So Larson, tell us a little bit about you.

[E]

So I'm from a small town in Texas outside of Fort Worth called Alvord, Texas. Went to Oklahoma State for my bachelor's, then came up here, joined the BCI this semester and been here ever since.

[A]

Excellent. And we're glad to have you on board because you actually did some work. And before you officially came up here, you did some work last summer and you looked, you worked at a calf ranch or a facility that's raising calves basically from newborns until they're 80 days or 90 days of age when they wean them. And tell us a little bit about what was the impetus for this work. What made you want to look into these factors on calves?

[E]

Well, I grew up on a cow calf operation, so the whole calf ranch was a whole different breed out there. But that's what I really enjoy is working with the calves. And I think it's a lot of. It's a big area that we need a lot of improvement in. And so I thought it'd be a fun project to get in on and work on it.

[A]

Yep. And you gotta visit with a lot

[E]

of calves, visit a lot of calves.

[A]

So. And Philip, you. You had kind of lined up some of the. What was your main research objectives for this particular project?

[D]

So one of the things that we're interested in in these calves that are raised through a calf ranch, whether they're. Doesn't really matter whether they're Holsteins or the beef dairy cross calves. In this project, we use the beef dairy cross calves, but we were interested in their GI tract development and how the management in that calf ranch phase is impacting the way their GI tract responds to nutrients and pathogens later on. In the context of liver abscess, these calves that come through a calf ranch have about twice the prevalence of liver abscesses as our native beef calves do. And so we're trying to understand why. And so what it is, what is it about the management system of those types of calves that is leading to that increased prevalence?

[A]

Excellent. So given those objectives, what did you actually do in this study, Larson?

[E]

So we fed a direct fed microbial. And we also looked at the milk feeding method and to determine the growth rate or health outcomes and then GI permeability, which is that leaky gut.

[A]

So when you say milk feeding method, what do you mean?

[E]

We compared bottle versus bucket milk feeding. A lot of dairies or calf ranches use the bucket feeding just for ease of convenience. And we're seeing if that has an effect on the GI permeability, why would

[A]

the method of them drinking milk, why would that potentially matter with the bottle?

[E]

They'll get their neck extended and more replicate the natural feeding method that calves go through. So we're comparing that to the buck hips, see if that has an effect on it.

[A]

And there's some thought process, and Philip, you can correct me, that may affect where the milk actually lands first.

[D]

Yeah. So if we think that reticulomasal groove doesn't close as much if they're drinking from a bucket, which just would be just like an older animal drinking water. And so a lot more of that milk is actually going into the rumen rather than bypassing the rumen into the abomasum and the lower GI tract.

[A]

Yeah. So that sucking stimulates that groove to close, and then it would. Most of the milk would bypass the rumen is the theory. So that could impact some of the other things that you were studying. And I know you looked at a lot of outcomes through this process, and you don't have all your data summarized, but you mentioned GI permeability. What is your plan to assess GI permeability? How did you do that?

[E]

So we fed them indigestible sugars and then three hours later we draw the blood. So we see how much sugar is in the blood. And how much sugar is in the blood determines how much of a leaky gut they have and how much of that indigestible is crossing through the barrier.

[A]

Okay, so that work is still pending. But you also measured some performance and health outcomes. What did you measure there?

[E]

For growth, we measured body weight and average daily gain. And then for health, we looked at their fecal matter and the scoring system there. And then we looked at the treatments, whether that's scours or respiratory.

[A]

Okay, so you had several assessments of their health process. And do you have any results yet?

[E]

We've already looked at the first three weeks, which does not include the milk feeding method, just the direct fed microbial. And we did not find an effect on growth or health outcomes within the first three weeks.

[A]

But the entirety of your study is

[E]

how long it is a nine week study.

[A]

Okay, so it's a nine week study. So you got the first three weeks as kind of an interim point, but you'll have the final results hopefully relatively soon. And we look forward to hearing those and having you back when you get some further results. So thanks for joining us, Larison. And the next question, and I'll address this to you guys, is from a listener. And he talked about line breeding. So essentially they had two champions, a bull and a heifer, and line bred them, which ended up with a bull that maybe not what they hoped. So he turned out to be not as good a looking bull as what they expected from those two. And the question is he should still have the genetics of These two champion, male and female. So if I breed him, will I end up with all of a sudden I've got champions again?

[B]

Well, does that make sense?

[C]

Bob, I understand what you're asking and I'm going to. I hate to say I know because I don't, because genetics, one of the things about genetics, they resort and you never know what you're going to get. But the concept of line breeding or are breeding relatively closely related individuals, with the idea being that, you know, if they're really good individuals, that you'll end up with a lot of really good individuals, has actually been tried several times. Probably the most famous is in the Hereford breed up in mile at the USDA research station at Miles City, Montana. Starting about 90 years ago in the mid-30s, they attempted to do line breeding of about 14 different lines, 14 different groups of closely related individuals. And what we found from that experience was really one of the lines actually did pretty well. The rest of them did not. They had poor fertility. They did not, you know, poor performance, poor fertility. Just abandoned pretty quickly. With the line that was successful again, it took a lot of years and a lot of generations and they had to be very strict. They had to very strictly call any of these dinks, keep their inbreeding coefficient relatively low. So yes, they were line bred, but pretty low in comparison. So I'm not very much because of that experience that was done, you know, and I appreciate people doing the work. I'm not very sold on attempting to get superior offspring by breeding closely related, superior parents. I think you're a lot better off breeding superior parents that are unrelated to each other. You get some, if you're going outside the breed, you get heterosis, even within a breed. I think a better strategy is yes, pick outstanding adults to be parents. But unrelated.

[A]

Yeah. And maybe does the relation, and maybe I'm reading too much into this, but as you said, you might pick unrelated. Does the relation mean if I. If I have a recessive trait, they both may carry it. And then if I pass, if I go to the offspring, they may get that double recessive, which is then an issue. That's a simplistic understanding of where I'm thinking, Philip.

[D]

Yeah, so I mean, you think about. It's all a probability. So if both parents are carrying it, the probability of getting that genetic mutation that you don't want that genetic defect, I guess a better word is higher. And so the more you're line breeding the same genetics, the higher the probability of getting some of those genetic defects. Which is why we have that inbreeding coefficient that we calculate to try to look at that and you're trying to minimize the probability. So like Bob was saying, they had some pretty high culling criteria as far as getting rid of any genetic defects that showed up phenotypically and they tried to keep that inbreeding coefficient really low so that they minimize the chances of getting those genetic defects.

[A]

Yeah. And I think if I would summarize what you guys are saying is family trees should have branches.

[C]

Family trees should have branches.

[D]

So yeah. So I think, I think to answer his question, the probability of you getting a superior phenotype from breeding that less than desirable bull is pretty low. And it's going to take lots of generations if you ever are able to successfully get superior animals out of that line.

[A]

Good question. And we don't know the answers to all those, but we're dealing with probabilities, as Philip just said, and the probability seems low. I do want to shift and I've got a kind of a grab bag of questions here. Some, some were from different areas and I sure appreciate you sending these in. And the first one that I'm going to ask about is aflatoxins. And Scott, I'm going to turn to you and the question was what do I do to manage this? How do I reduce them in the feed and improve cattle health?

[B]

It's a great question. So aflatoxins, there are a number of different Mycotoxins, it's a toxin that comes from mold. Mold produces it when typically we're thinking of grain sources as the primary source. Things like ethanol, co products can concentrate. So you keep the physical part of that corn kernel, you can actually concentrate mycotoxin. So some of those sources that you might not think about exist, but reducing them in feed, aflatoxin is the only one that's actually got a legal number to it. FDA has an actionable level in various different production systems on the maximum amount that can be in the diet. So some of those things you need to look at, but reducing it in the feed. There are, there are compounds, Bentonite clay is a great one that is good at binding toxins. They're typically pretty porous type things with a lot of surface area that'll bind certain things so you can't absorb them makes them easier to eliminate. The challenge in the United States is there are no legally marketable toxin binders. So FDA would consider that an adulterated food product, it can't be put in production. That said, those same compounds are sold under other names like anti caking agents or flow agents, some things that are supposed to keep pellets from clumping up and feed, things like that. So those things exist. They may already be in there. It won't say toxin binder, it'll say something else along those lines. But those aflatoxin is really the best one that they've shown some benefit for of actually binding and eliminating exposure to those. So it's kind of a rambling way to get to it. But there are products out there that are just not called mycotoxin binders.

[A]

But do I have to test in the feed? Do I need to test to figure out what to know if there's aflatoxins in there or do I just make some assumptions?

[B]

Yeah, so there's a variety of different tests. There are basic things like black lighting. Grain can show there's a product from the same fungus that will autofluoresce. It's actually kojic acid. It's not the aflatoxin itself. But that might tell you that Aspergillus, which is the mold that makes aflatoxin, was there at one point. There are much more dedicated and expensive methods that get all the way down to quantification, like with a liquid chromatography system. But those get pretty expensive. You're talking a couple hundred dollars every single time you want to do it. And the challenge with any feed associated toxin is heterogenicity. There's, it's not a, it's not widespread. Right. There's hot spots. And if you've got an entire semi load full of corn, there may be a hot spot in one corner of it that the rest of it is fine. And if you don't test that spot, it's tough to do a risk assessment. So it's hard to recommend those in general. I think overall it would get really expensive to do general screening. But that would all depend, I think, on the production system.

[D]

Scott, one of the things that I've read and learned or been told that one of the ways that we could try if you've got a hot feed is through dilution. Okay. So there are recommendations for, okay, what's the tolerable limit of aflatoxin that cattle can handle? And so I can do some math and calculate out a dilution that I can feed this much of the hot feed, but I gotta have some other grains that are not contaminated to blend with it.

[B]

Yeah, I think that's a viable option. Like it's expensive to put those feedstuffs up and harvest them and get ready to use them. So I think there's some ways around it. The weaknesses are what's the actual number? So you got to be really confident in the number that you're using to do the math to make the dilution on. And I guess luckily overall adult cattle are the least susceptible. So that big rumen is pretty protective against most mycotoxins in general. So there's a lot of options out there. I think the best thing to do is to, if you're going to do some screening, get a number. You got to do a pretty good job of getting representative sampling to make those estimations and then work with somebody that's done, done this kind of dilution stuff in the past.

[A]

So I think that's a great answer to the question. And you've got to figure out if you want to test. There are some, there are some binders out there. I may just follow up. Just, just briefly, how big are the health impacts that we're talking about here? What does it actually do to cattle?

[B]

So aflatoxin, for me, it's a chronic liver toxin. So there's a lot of different individual things it does, but ultimately you're going to end up with the, you know, long term exposure over time, chronic liver failure, you're going to have a bunch of a scarred up liver that doesn't work appropriately. And so that can have some implications on production type things, but also health outcomes. But it's months of exposure, the acute dose is so much higher that I don't think you'd ever run into it. But you can get some neurologic disease, I guess, associated with that. But it's, for me, it's much more chronic liver type insult.

[A]

So really more concerned about if we're feeding that over time, long period of

[B]

time, which again is why feedlot animals are the least sensitive because the exposure window is so much shorter than an adult cow would be.

[A]

Yeah, excellent. Thank you. So the next, next question we got was, and I don't have a lot of context for this, but the question was what are the advantages and disadvantages of feeding sodium bicarbonate to cattle and calves? Philip, that sounds like a question for you.

[D]

So sodium bicarb is a basic compound and so it's actually produced naturally in the animal as a buffer to metabolic acids in lots of different tissues in the body. But in the rumen, it's produced a lot in saliva and it's actually produced in the rumen epithelium and it works as a buffer to try to modulate rumen Ph so those animals don't get as acidic. And so in from a feeding standpoint, there's been studies that tried to, well, let's add it to the feed and we can help manage that rumen acidosis even better. And dairies will do this a lot. Dairies will use a buffer like the sodium bicarb. There's some other ones and it's the. It seems to be effective in dairy cattle diets and in modulating rumen ph and things like that. The research I've seen in feedlot cattle diets is that it doesn't work. It does not modulate ph enough to see any kind of improvements in animal performance or animal health outcomes. There might be some differences if you're measuring ph, but it's not enough to improve animal performance.

[B]

I've seen some recommendations of, I guess it'd be free choice sodium bicarb for weaned calves. So you wean them, put them in the lot and then put a pile of it at the end of the bunk and they're supposed to know when they need it and it's supposed to prevent bloat. So for me, I don't know that they'd eat it that well but. Curious your thoughts on that?

[D]

Yeah, I'm not sure that strategy would be effective. I would not recommend it. They might eat on it some from curiosity and. But I'm not sure that the right animal is going to be eating it at the right time. I mean it's not something that's going to hang around in the rumen for long periods of time. It's got to be something that's consumed every day and probably at the same time the animal is consuming the high grain diet that's going to cause the acidosis. So they got to be consumed together like temporally, like the same time of day to be effective.

[A]

Bob, thoughts?

[C]

Yeah, I think I've seen some of the same research that Philip has and I think because of the promising benefits in dairy cattle, we'd like it to work as far as controlling acidosis in cattle feedlot cattle on a high grain diet, but haven't seen the same consistent positive results.

[A]

Yeah, that's one of the challenges with feeding something like that is you have to think about when am I going to have the problems and have the right quantity in there at the right time and hard to manage on the diet. And Scott, to your point, I don't think cattle are that good at picking up this is what I should eat or when I should eat it.

[B]

I think the Same thing holds true for loose mineral, but that's another same

[A]

thing holds true for loose mineral. And the same thing holds true with people. Right? We don't have that where, oh, I'm like, I gotta have a vegetable today. Today might be the day. I'm gonna have one last, last question, Philip, and this one was on what's the importance of fat in, in the diet of grazing cattle?

[D]

Okay, so there's two, there's two parts to this question. They ask about grazing cattle, fat content of the diet, and then they ask about omega fatty acids. And so those are two kind of different things in my brain. The amount of fat content in the diet of grazing cattle is that we want to keep it relatively low because particularly polyunsaturated fatty acids, so like oils that are going to be liquid at room temperature are going to have a negative effect on the bacteria in the rumen that digest forage. And so we do not want very much of those in there. If we get up above like 5 to 6% fat in the diet, we're going to have some negative consequences on forage digestion. And so we need to think about that as far as we're going to think about adding fat to a diet. Obviously grass naturally has some level of fat, but it's about 2% of the grass or so. On the omega fatty acid side of things, there's been a lot of research done looking at grazing cattle and the change in the fatty acid profile of the meat as a way to increase the omega 3 fatty acid consumption by humans eating beef. We can measure an increase in omega 3 fatty acids in grass finished cattle compared to grain finished cattle. But the amount of change is pretty small, like really small. It's measurable, but it's really small. And so the change in consumption of omega 3 fatty acids by people eating grass fed beef versus grain fed beef is very small. You're not eating fish when you're eating grass fed beef. It's not nearly the same level of omega 3 fatty acids. And so just from that standpoint, again, the, the ability to change that fatty acid profile comes back to the rumen. And those microbes in the rumen are going to take those polyunsaturated omega 3s and actually convert them to saturated fats. And so we can't change that profile all that much because of the way the rumen works.

[A]

So great answer to that question. And we appreciate everybody that sent in questions. If you have other questions for us, you can send them to us at bcisu Edu Sam.