Understanding Neurologic Cases in Cattle: Diagnosis, Causes, and Prevention

Summary

Podcast Summary: Understanding Neurologic Cases in Cattle – Diagnosis, Causes, and Prevention

Podcast: Cattle Chat – Beef Cattle Institute at Kansas State University
Episode Date: June 12, 2026
Participants: Brad White (Host, “B”), Bob (A), Scott (C)

Episode Overview

In this episode, veterinary professionals from the Beef Cattle Institute (BCI) at Kansas State University focus on understanding neurologic cases in cattle, specifically looking at diagnosis, common causes, and prevention strategies. In addition, the team answers listener questions on bull selection for heifers and discuss water management during summer. The discussion is practical, rooted in clinical and field experience, and aims to help cattle producers tackle real-world challenges.

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Key Discussion Points

Unusual Grilling Ideas (00:09–03:13)

• Opening banter about grilling led to several fun culinary tips:
  • Brad mentions grilling corn on the cob.
  • Bob shares he’s started grilling more vegetables.
  • Scott suggests pizza (“homemade or even frozen”) on a pellet grill for a smoky taste and shares tips about grilling fruit (caramelized peaches).
  • Notable moment:
    • “If you can fix the whole meal on the grill, you’re good to go.” (B, 02:51)

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Understanding Neurologic (Neuro) Cases in Cattle (03:15–13:13)

What Is a Neurologic (Neuro) Case? (03:15–04:35)

• Clinical signs:
  • Bob explains neuro cases as those involving the nervous system, which can present as weakness, stumbling, gait abnormalities, circling, apparent blindness, paddling (uncontrolled running motions when down), and head pressing.
  • The specific sign offers clues as to which part of the nervous system is affected.

“Is it just weakness? Is it staggering? Is it down and paddling? Those actually are pretty important hints to the veterinarian about what might be causing it...”
— Bob, 04:11

Diagnosing a Neurologic Case: Key Questions (04:58–07:34)

• Scott’s approach to case workup:
  • What is the age of the animal? Younger animals are more susceptible to toxins/infections.
  • What is the animal’s environment and has it changed (type of housing, pasture, recent moves, dietary changes)?
  • Bob emphasizes overlap with metabolic diseases (e.g., milk fever, grass tetany) and importance of hands-on exams.

“There’s some overlap with metabolic disease and some other things that can be pretty subtle... those first three questions, I think, narrow a lot of things down.”
— Scott, 05:15

Outbreaks: One Animal or Many? (08:03–09:45)

• Number of affected animals provides clues:
  • Infectious diseases and some toxins usually only affect a few animals, not whole herds.
  • Young animals can access toxins adults cannot (e.g., batteries, old grain).
  • Widespread cases often suggest a toxin.

Categorizing Neurologic Causes (09:45–10:18)

• Big three causes:
  • Toxins, infectious disease, metabolic issues.

Diagnostic Steps and Common Toxins (10:48–12:22)

• Diagnostics:
  • Physical exams, necropsies, sending samples to labs.
• Most common toxins (Scott):
  • Lead (from batteries, paint, etc.)—most common in young cattle
  • Fertilizer exposure can mimic neuro disease (ataxia, paddling).
  • Water deprivation/salt toxicity and dietary sulfur can cause neuro signs.

“Lead is by far the number one… physiologically [young animals] absorb lead at a much higher rate because they’re on a milk diet.”
— Scott, 11:21

Key Reminders (12:22–13:13)

• Rabies should always be considered.
• The importance of tailored management—each cause requires a different approach and preventive action.

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Listener Question: Selecting Bulls for Replacement Heifers (13:13–17:34)

• The trade-off:
  • Balancing birth weight and weaning weight. Lower birth weight reduces calving difficulty but too low may reduce weaning weight and calf viability.
• Bob’s advice:
  • Use below-average birthweight/high calving-ease bulls for heifers, but don’t push extremes (“not necessarily at the extremes”).
  • Risks of going too low: Shorter gestation, small/weaker calves.
• Brad:
  • Emphasizes role of heifer size and management, not just bull selection.
• Scott:
  • Advocates for moderation, leaning toward lower birthweight for heifers to minimize dystocia, even if it means sacrificing some weaning weight.
  • Reminder: Heifer bulls may not be ideal for mature cows and may need to be rotated out.

“I’m probably okay giving up some weaning weight on that first one to do the best I can to ensure she doesn’t have dystocia problems because that seems like a much bigger concern…”
— Scott, 16:44

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Managing Water in the Summer – Quantity and Quality (17:34–27:04)

Ensuring Water Quantity (18:26–19:42)

• Ponds:
  • Usually reliable for quantity unless access is a problem (mud, drought).
  • Test: If a person can’t walk to the water and back easily, neither can cattle.
• Automatic waterers:
  • Harder to monitor; need enough capacity for peak herd demand.

“Yes, you’ve got a pond in the pasture, but that doesn’t mean you can just stop worrying about water.”
— Bob, 19:13

Hauling Water: Special Concerns (20:28–21:52)

• Warning: Do NOT use fertilizer tanks for hauling water without proper decontamination—residues can be lethal to cattle.
• Recommendation: Use dedicated “water only” tanks; label them clearly.

“If that’s going to be the case, you need a dedicated water hauler… That’s all it gets used for, period.”
— Scott, 21:52

Pond Quality: Blue-Green Algae and Other Risks (21:55–24:48)

• Algae blooms: Not all surface scums are dangerous, but toxic blue-green algae are a serious risk and hard to distinguish without lab testing.
• Quick test: The “jar test” can help, but lab confirmation is best.
• Best practice: Fence cattle out during blooms, test before reuse.

“Fencing them out and just waiting till it goes away is the easiest and probably honestly the best recommendation. But you should test, you know, before you turn them back in…”
— Scott, 24:23

Preventing Salt Toxicity/Water Deprivation Issues (24:48–27:04)

• If cattle are water-deprived:
  • Do NOT let them gorge on water immediately; can cause fatal salt toxicity.
  • Gradually rehydrate over 24 hours; may need creative approaches (slow delivery or supervised access).
  • Always consult your veterinarian for herd-specific solutions.

“We call it salt toxicity. But they don’t necessarily have to be on a high salt diet to have this problem. They just have to be held away from water… as hard as it sounds, you’ve got to allow them to have just a little bit of water at a time.”
— Bob, 25:34

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Neuro Case Diagnosis:
  • “Those [clinical signs] are pretty important hints to the veterinarian… they’re hitting different parts of the nervous system.” — Bob, 04:11
• On Lead Poisoning:
  • “Lead is by far the number one [toxin]... [calves] absorb lead at a much higher rate because they’re on a milk diet.” — Scott, 11:21
• On Bull Selection for Heifers:
  • “I just want, you know, better than average and then manage the heifers well… I can’t completely select my way out of all risk of calving ease.” — Bob, 15:33
• On Water Quality Management:
  • “If that’s going to be the case, you need a dedicated water hauler… That’s all it gets used for, period.” — Scott, 21:52
  • “You have to monitor access and make sure the cattle can get to it easily where they're not going to get into trouble.” — Bob, 19:13

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Important Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:15] — Introduction to neurologic cases: What does “neuro” mean and key clinical signs
• [05:15] — Scott’s diagnostic questions and approach to neurological cases
• [11:21] — Top toxins causing neurologic signs, especially lead
• [13:13] — Listener question: Bull selection for heifers
• [17:34] — Water management: Ensuring quantity in summer
• [21:55] — Blue-green algae: Identification and management
• [25:29] — Managing water deprivation/salt toxicity events

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Takeaway Messages

• Neurologic cases in cattle require careful observation and detailed case history; many causes overlap, so hands-on exams and lab diagnostics are vital.
• Age group, environment, dietary changes, and number of cases per herd help narrow the list of potential causes—often a toxin, infection, or metabolic problem.
• Lead poisoning remains the most common neurotoxin, especially in young cattle.
• When selecting bulls for heifers, err on the side of lower birthweight but avoid extremes; manage both sire selection and heifer development for best results.
• Water quantity and quality are critical, especially in hot weather. Ponds and water systems must be accessible and safe. Never use fertilizer tanks for drinking water.
• In cases of water deprivation, reintroduce water very slowly to prevent salt toxicity, and always work closely with your veterinarian.

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For more in-depth information or specific case discussions, contact your local veterinarian or the BCI team at [e-mail].

Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

BCI Cattle Chat. I'm Brad White. Happy to have you with us and happy to have our crew here in the studio. Morning, Bob.

[A]

Good morning, everybody.

[B]

Scott.

[C]

Morning, guys.

[B]

We've got several good topics to talk about today. We've got a listener question on how to select the right bulls for our heifers, which is a good follow up to our conversation we had a few weeks ago with Dr. Lee Jones from Barringer Ingelheim. Also, we're going to talk about managing water in the summer. But we're going to start out with one of Scott's favorite topics, which is on neurologic cases and how do we work those up? What are some of the things we do and what do we mean when we say a neurologic case? Before we get into those, I wanted to remind you if you have a listener question, we really enjoy getting those. You can reach out to us on social media or you can send us an email at bcisu Edu. And guys, I know you both grill year round, so there's no specific grilling season, but did want to ask you what is one of the most unusual things you put on the grill? I know Dustin before had told me he, he smoked blocks of cheese. So he had smoked cheese. He's done some other things. I like putting corn on the cob on the grill in the summer. Put it in the shock and let it go. What's a, what's some unusual things that you guys grill?

[A]

I don't know if it's unusual or not, but my, my, the number of things that I am grilling has, is increasing over time. And one, and for, for good grillers, this isn't new, but we've, we're just doing a lot more vegetables on the grill. I mean we always did burgers, roasts, steaks, all those kinds of things. But it's kind of fun, kind of learning how to do some of the, the, the side dishes.

[B]

Yeah, I like to have them a crispy black on the outside and uncooked on the inside.

[A]

Well, that is one way to do it.

[C]

Turn your gas down, man.

[A]

Slow it down.

[C]

I've started putting pizza on like a pellet grill.

[B]

Really?

[C]

Smoker. I mean, homemade pizza is the best. But even a frozen pizza, throw it on there. It's surprising what you can do with one.

[B]

And you do it on the smoker. And what temp are you cooking that at?

[C]

Normal like you would the oven? Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Just puts a little smoke flavor into it. And I mean if you're doing homemade like you Made the dough. You probably. You need a stone of some kind. But otherwise, frozen pizza right on the grates works just fine, too.

[A]

I got to try that.

[C]

Yeah, Totally worth it. Yeah, it'll change a change of Tony's pizza and make it something pretty decent.

[A]

Okay, I'm going to. I have learned something already today. I'm going to try that.

[B]

Yeah, we need to start our cooking tips with Scott.

[C]

Yeah, I started, like, doing. If I'm doing ribs, I like to do them on the top rack. And then I'll put beans and corn and catch all the pork fat coming.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[C]

That's the way to do it.

[B]

Yeah, I like doing that. I like and I like what both of you guys are saying. When you fix the. If you can fix the whole meal on the grill, you're good to go. Veggies. All right.

[C]

I've caramelized some peaches on the grill that were pretty hard to beat myself.

[A]

Ooh, see, he's put fruit in there, man. We got him and Dustin to kind of keep us on track on.

[B]

They're the grilling pros.

[A]

Raise our standards a little bit.

[B]

Well, I wanted to get into one of the topics, and we've discussed this a couple times a little bit. But when we talk about neurologic for brainers, I think there's some. Some pretty distinct things that we need to think about. And. And I guess I'd. I'd ask you guys first for when somebody says a neurologic case. Bob, tell me, what kind of clinical signs are you describing? What are you picturing when I say, hey, I've got a neuro case, what are you picturing is going on?

[A]

Well, that's actually, you know, a lot of times where we start is it's a. It's a brainer or a neurologic case, meaning, you know, something affecting the nervous system, and that can show up. You know, so some of the signs might be just kind of weakness. You can see stumbling, you know, a gait abnormality. You can see circling or apparent blindness. Occasionally you'll see something where they're down and they're paddling. Another one is head pressing. And the interesting thing is, and I'm glad Scott is here, is, you know, there's. There's some overlap of potential causes for each of those, but those you know exactly what you're seeing. Is it just weakness? Is it staggering? Is it down and paddling? Those actually are pretty important hints to the veterinarian about what might be causing it, because all of those are nervous system problems. But they're hitting different parts of the nervous system.

[B]

Well, and we talk about nervous system that affects basically the brain and spinal column or something that's more diffuse. And sometimes they'll show some of those. As you talk about the wobbling, staggering, almost looks like they're walking drunk. If they're up.

[A]

Yeah, exactly.

[B]

Or if they're down. And when you say paddling, it's almost like they're running.

[A]

Right? They're running, but they're on their side.

[B]

On their side not going anywhere.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So, Scott, what are, what are, what are some of the questions? Somebody calls you and they say, hey, and they describe some of this list of signs that Bob mentioned, which we won't see. All the signs in the same animals. And you're going to start asking them some questions. What are some of the things that you're going to want to know?

[C]

That's a good question. So I want to start. There are some of those. There's some overlap with metabolic disease and some other things that can be pretty subtle, like your gait abnormalities. It could just be, you know, maybe their back end turns sideways a little bit when they walk, or maybe their muscles aren't quite firing like they're supposed to, so you get a little of this incoordination. So there's.

[A]

It.

[C]

It sounds really easy when you make a list of things that you see. It's really not that easy. In reality, there's some overlap there. But a lot of the questions. I guess my first question I'm going to ask is what. What type of animal are we talking about? Are we talking about adult animals? Are we talking about baby calves? Are we talking about somewhere in between? You know, not to. Those aren't the only ones. But is it limited to one age group? Are there a certain type of animal affected? And then the next question is, where are they? Like, what time of housing are they in? Are they in a dry lot? Are they out on pasture? And has any of that changed recently? And that, that those first three questions, I think narrow a lot of things down.

[B]

Why does the age of the animal matter?

[C]

So in toxicology, I get to ignore a lot of infectious disease, but I think this holds true too, that there's young animals are typically more susceptible to a lot of toxic exposures and infectious disease in a lot of ways. So that narrows it down. If you have only adults affected and no young animals, my differential list changes substantially immediately on the spot.

[B]

Yeah. And. And there's a few of those signs. The clinical signs or the description that Bob Outlined that as you mentioned, they could be tied to metabolic disease. To think about that from a cow calf standpoint, there are some animals with milk fever or grass tetany that may show some signs that you go, oh, it looks a little bit like neurologic. There are also some young calf diseases and even extreme cases of respiratory disease. They can show some of those signs of walking difficulty or other issues. So we have to do some more in depth tests, which a lot of times is hands on for the veterinarian. They're going to want to do a good thorough physical exam of that animal, figure out exactly what's going on. But you also alluded to type of housing and then you ask a question, has anything changed? And give me more specifics on what you mean by that because my answer is almost always yes, it's a new day today. There's something different. What do you, what do you mean? What are you looking for there?

[C]

I really want to know is the environment changed where they recently moved from one type of housing to another, has the season changed or they, you know, are we talking about 600 pound calves on cows in October that have just been weaned? Are we talking about they went from being managed in a dry lot over the winter to just now turn onto a pasture scenario? Like big management type decisions, what I'm looking at or you know, have you completely changed the cow diet on, you know, cows that are lactating or something along those lines?

[B]

And Bob, when we talk about neurologic cases, sometimes with other diseases, we talk about maybe an outbreak or we've had several of them. What do you think about typically with neurologic cases, Is this a lot of times a one or two animals per herd or is this something that you'd expect if anybody gets it, it's going to be half the herd?

[A]

Yeah, it does. It depends on what's causing these neurologic problems. And that's actually some of the clue. There are a couple of infectious diseases that can cause some neurologic damage. And in general, most of those are just one or two animals. For some of the toxins, it's interesting not all animals are equally exposed. So a couple of things you'll find once in a while and Scott's I'm sure seeing these or can correct me if I'm wrong, but you know, there's some places that calves can get to that adult calves can't or adult cows can't. And I've seen a couple of situations where there's a toxin in an old house or a grain bin or something like that that the calves could get into, but the cows just physically couldn't. And so it's not so much that the toxin wouldn't affect cows, but the cows didn't have access. The other thing is, so some of the lead toxicities, things like that, it seems that young cattle are a little more curious. They're more likely to go lick something that's in the pasture or something like that. Cows could, but there's some differences in age there as well. So as far as the number, it's relatively rare for all the cattle in a group to be affected, but sometimes it can be almost all. And that would definitely make me think of a toxin. If it's just a couple, then infectious disease or some of these metabolic problem are still pretty high on my rule

[B]

out list because we get, we can get. And if we lumped these into categories, there could be a toxin that often it's could be oral exposure, could be some other source, but a lot of times something that they ate could be infectious disease, there could be some metabolic issues. And our. Your initial questions will help narrow some of these down. Am I missing any broad categories that we think of relative to typical neurologic cases in cattle?

[C]

Those are my big three.

[B]

Okay, so in those cases you do want to find out the other thing because of the oral exposure, any changes to the actual diet that they're being fed, if there's changes in the diet or if there's changes in their environment that they could have gotten into. When we go to start working some of these things up, we what are some of your first steps that you guys would take? We talked about physical exam on the cattle. Is there anything that you would do specifically?

[A]

Well, I think I'd start with like you said, a good physical exam. And it's differentiate some of these things. Are they circling? Are they staggering? Are they able to stand, not able to stand those types of things. And then if I have a death and oftentimes I do a thorough necropsy and then that's when I turn to someone like Scott and I send him some samples and I'm really interested in him helping me work it up.

[B]

And what are some of the top things that you see, Scott on a neurologic? Knowing that you're seeing some of the toxicology side, but what are some of the top ones?

[C]

Top toxins? You mean individual. This time of year, lead is by far the number one. And to Bob's point, the young animals, they're more curious. They can get places. You know, classic example is the 12 volt battery that runs the electric fencer that got left out. Calves can get under the hot wire, cows can't. But they're also just physiologically more susceptible. They absorb lead at a much higher rate because they're on a milk diet. Lead kind of looks like calcium to the guts and they'll absorb it more efficiently. But that's, that's far and away number one. And then you run in. You know, I'm thinking of, I don't know that you would call fertilizer exposures neurologic disease, but clinically they kind of look like it. They're ataxic, the animals are drunk, they'll go down. The paddling can be kind of tough to sort out because it can just be an agonal death from infectious disease. Also those are the two big ones that come to mind right away. Water deprivation as we get into the summer, kind of salt poisoning. And then depending on the, sometimes the

[A]

sulfur toxicity or something like that on

[C]

the housing or the diet, excessive dietary sulfur can contribute to that.

[B]

So lots of, lots of sulfur. So several things on your list. The other one, and we always keep on the list something like rabies if you have a case or an exposure. So this is a good place. If you see some of those signs, consult with your veterinarian because each of those problems that you just named, the solution is a little bit different. So both what we do with the live animals and how we handle the rest of the herd. And a lot of times, and I think from the discussion, it does not have to be an infectious contagious disease to be a herd level disease because those exposures occur at the herd level. Managing your herd. Contact your veterinarian and figure out which one it is so we can solve the source. Hopefully you don't see those, but if you do, definitely something worth working up and spending some time because there may be more cases coming down the pike. I'd like to switch to our listener question and I think this is a great question. And they talked about replacement heifers. So I'm going to have replacement heifers and am struggling with the trade off between birth weight and weaning weight. So a little bit of background. Birth weight and weaning weight are typically related and positively correlated. So if birth weight is low, weaning weights a little bit lower. If birth weight is high, weaning weights a little bit higher. I sell weaning weight, but I can't, I don't get to sell weaning weight if I had trouble calving. So I'm reading into what they're thinking about this question. So Bob, what are your thoughts? What's the trade off? How do I make that decision?

[A]

Well, it's a, it's a classic question that, that cattlemen deal with one of the things, because calving difficulty, particularly in heifers is, is, is a big deal and it's relatively common. It's probably impossible to totally eliminate any risk of difficult calving with heifers. But one of our good tools is low birth weight, high calving ease bulls will reduce that risk of calving difficulty quite substantially. The one caveat I have is though, I think it's possible to go too far in that if you go with really easy calving ease, really low birth weight, yes, you're giving up quite a bit of weaning weight. And I'm not sure you're that the value of the additional reduced calving difficulty is, is worth that for a couple of reasons. One is one of the reasons that they have a low birth weight is their gestational length is less. Particularly if I go several generations of selecting for low birth weight bulls. My, my length of pregnancy gets shorter and some of the, we run into some viability problems if those calves are really small or really young. And so I saved a calf death loss on one hand, but then I caused a calf death loss on the other hand. So my. So to answer your question, I'm selecting relatively low birth weight bulls and relatively high calving ease bulls, but not necessarily at the extremes. I don't need to go out and buy semen or a bull that's just absolutely, you know, the best in the breed for our highest, most extreme in the breed for those traits. I just want, you know, better than average and then manage the heifers well. So they're in good body condition, good skeletal size and I still may have a little bit of dystocia. So I can't completely select my way out of all risk of calving ease. So and it's kind of balance the

[B]

trade offs, not to forget the calving problems and heifers are most often due to fetal dam size mismatch. So if I spend all my time just selecting the bull and not getting the heifer to the right weight, I'm still going to struggle. So you have to have both there to have it. And I think as you, as you said, you may not select the best of both, but you have different selection options if you choose to artificially inseminate your heifers than if you're going to go with a natural service bull. And that's there's some trade offs there as well. Scott, what are your thoughts on this?

[C]

I, I think there's a bell curve for a reason and typically in the moderation camp really when you select any of those things. But that particular question, I think I'm probably more inclined to lean more to. Towards the lower birth weight on a heifer, knowing that it's going to take, you know, as our discussion a couple of weeks ago, two and a half to three calves to pay for her. I'm probably okay giving up some weaning weight on that first one to do the best I can to ensure she doesn't have dystocia problems because that seems like a much bigger concern than, you know, giving up 30 pounds of weaning weight to me.

[B]

And the trick there is now I need to have a heifer bull, which by nature means I probably need to have a big enough group of heifers that I'm using that bull just on heifers. And he doesn't probably graduate from heifers to go breed cows when he gets older. Right?

[A]

Yeah, that's my preference is actually if he's got the traits that make him a good sire for heifers, he may be giving up too much to breed him on mature cows. So and then you run into the problem of, well, eventually he gets too heavy, he gets too big to breed heifers naturally. So sometimes we have producers that will collect that bull if they really like the calves out of him or you end up turning those bulls over a little bit more quickly than you would necessarily a bull that can stay in the mature herd over multiple years.

[B]

Yeah, and I, and I mentioned there's different options out there, AI versus natural. So I think you guys hit the high points on there's trade offs. But as you said, Scott, maybe lean more toward the birth weight. And Bob, you said I don't want the best of either. I want one that will have live calves and they get. So I think you're saying similar to Scott. So great question. Appreciate you sending that in the other topic I wanted to address and I think this really, as we think through all times of year water is important, but really important in the summer, the hot weather months. And we know that the quantity of water as well as the quality are both important. And sometimes that's hard to gauge because I don't really know how much cows are drinking. In many scenarios we're out of A pond or we're out of an automatic water. How do I make sure they have enough quantity? And Scott, I'll ask you first.

[C]

I think it's probably easier with a pond. I mean, if the pond has water in it, it's probably adequate quantity.

[B]

They have enough.

[C]

Automatic water is a little bit tougher because the demand on that system is going to change, you know, hour by hour. Probably there's going to be certain times where the entire herd wants to go up and get a drink. You may not have the full flow to accomplish that, and that's going to be tough. Unless you're monitoring it visually or with a camera setup of some kind. It's going to be hard to gauge that, I think.

[B]

Yeah, and one of the things is they will tend to hang out by the water, especially if the water is in a shaded source. But they shouldn't be hanging out there 100% of the time. So that's one of the concerns that I see is if they're all hanging out in the water or if they're hanging out the water at unusual times. Bob, what are some of the things you watch for?

[A]

Yeah, you know, the one. The other caveat. I mean, I love a good. A good pond as a water source, but access is important, and there are parts of the time, parts of the year, particularly if we run into a drought situation and the ponds get really low, access can actually be a problem because there's. There's mud around that pond or something like that where cows can't get to or get into trouble if they are. And so I think, yes, you've got a pond in the pasture, but that doesn't mean you can just stop worrying about water. I think you have to monitor the access and make sure the cattle can get to it easily where they're not going to get into trouble.

[B]

Pretty, pretty scientific tests you can do to do that is you walk all the way down to the.

[A]

See if you can make it.

[B]

And if you, if you. Only if you.

[A]

If you come back with one boot.

[B]

One boot, then it's a little bit tricky.

[A]

Yeah. And then you start having to think about, well, I've got to provide another source. So that might be hauling water, you know, with a big tank, something like that, to provide a second source. And if. If it's a bad enough situation, you may even have to fence the. The cows out of the pond to force them to use the other water source. If I'm really concerned about access to

[B]

that pond or force them to have an access lane and I've seen some ponds where they have an access lane, they have graveled and they've tried that stuff will sink. But you've got a specific area that you're having them go in.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

And I think that leads to, if I, if I'm not having enough of those, I may end up hauling water. And Scott, I know you have some, some tips there. If I'm thinking about hauling water, what

[C]

are some considerations stresses me out. I just, I run into too many cases where you know, emergency situation, gotta haul water. And the easiest thing to do is the fertilizer tanks on a trailer because they're mobile and that's their purpose. But those, those are agricultural fertilizers that are typically really concentrated, meant to be applied to, usually diluted and applied to thousands of acres. And so you got to think about how concentrated those products are. It does not take very much residual product even if you diluted over a thousand gallons to still cause a problem with cows. And I see, I bet I see 15 cases every year where somebody wipes out a significant portion of the herd doing just that. And you know, best intentions. Right. I would do the exact same thing. But if that's going to be the case, you need a dedicated water hauler. I've even run into cases where the six foot discharge tube coming out of the tank wasn't cleaned. There's enough residual product in there, it tipped over some adult cows.

[B]

It doesn't take much. And I think anybody that's used a tank of any sort knows you never get that thing completely empty. There's always a little bit of something sloshing around there in the bottom. And so your recommendation is if I'm going to haul water, it needs to be a water only tank. You'd probably label it in some way. Big sharpie, big marker paint on it. This is only our water tank.

[C]

That's it. That's all it gets used for, period.

[B]

Yeah, and I think we want to. Hopefully you don't have to haul a bunch of water, but sometimes you do the other. I'm going to flip back to ponds because the other thing that we'll get questions on is blue green algae. Give us what, what are we. There's a lot of times that ponds will have an algae or a scum on top. Do I need to worry about all that? Do I need to limit access to the pond if I see any algae buildup?

[C]

That's a great question. So there's a lot of aquatic vegetation that grows that is not blue green algae. And it's, it's really hard to tell grossly, honestly. You need a microscope to really sort it out. There are some, they call it a jar test. You take up a, you know, a scoop of the water, set it on a counter, walk away for a half an hour. Most of the toxic blue green algaes are buoyant, so they will float to the top. You'll have a rim of green, looks like green paint or pea soup at the top. That's bad. Usually the aquatic vegetation, other than a plant called duckweed, usually the aquatic green algaes, will at least suspend somewhat in the water. Now, duckweed, you should be able to see individual leaves and roots, but it can look the same. It'll cover the entire surface of the pond. It floats on the surface, it's blown by the wind. And so a lot of times with blue green algae and duckweed, they look the same. They'll get blown to one corner of the pond. You really need a microscope to sort it out. And so blue green algae, it's a nitrogen phosphorus accumulation with hot still weather is kind of what we run into, risk factor wise. So, you know, this time of year we've had positive samples already and will continue probably through the month of October.

[B]

And so if I think I have that or I'm concerned about it, I could take a water sample and send that in.

[C]

Yeah, most diagnostic labs can do some sort of testing. There's. So that's the hard part too. Just because the algae's there doesn't mean they're making toxins. But for me, those toxins are so potent. If the algae are there, I just assume it's probably shouldn't be used until the bloom's gone. And I think an important part is those blue green algae are normal components of basically every water system. It's just we get these proliferations at certain times, which we call blooms. And a lot of times it seems like that follows some big rainfall. So you get like this influx of nutrients that come in. It's hot, the water still. And then the algae just go nuts and you get a bloom, is what we call it. You'll see it called harmful algal blooms, you know, depending where you look. But that's, it's really when they just go nuts that they're a problem.

[B]

And the solution is, do I have to do some sort of pond treatment or do I just fence them out of there and wait till it goes away?

[C]

Fencing them out and just waiting till it goes away is the easiest and probably honestly the best recommendation. But you should test, you know, before you turn them back in when the bloom is gone and you think it's okay, have it tested. You can measure the toxins in there. The testing is kind of expensive, but not as expensive as having a pretty dangerous outcome. And then there's a lot of ways that you can try to manage it, which I don't think we have time for today. But there's. There are some options out there, but they all take some labor.

[B]

Yeah, but making sure that the cattle have access to the appropriate quantity and quality of water. We've talked about a couple of caveats is important as you go through the summer and the three of us have seen cases where water access or limitation can become a problem. So just briefly, if I find a scenario and for whatever reason, let's say the well went out and it was out for a day and I go out the next day, the cattle are around the empty water and I've got to handle that situation. My inclination is get them as much water as fast as possible. But you guys would say what?

[A]

Actually, that's a bad idea.

[B]

In that I appreciate you being around to tell me that on my idea.

[A]

Don't do that. So we call it salt toxicity. But they don't necessarily have to be on a high salt diet to have this problem. They just have to be held away from water. And then when they. If they're given too much access to water, I mean, so picture a cow that's really dehydrated and then all of a sudden she's got access to all the water she wants. You can run into salt toxicity, which causes a brain lesion and oftentimes death. And so as hard as it sounds, you've got to allow them to have just a little bit of water at a time. And it. So you can't just turn on the water and leave. You're going to have to spend some time. If you get into one of those scenarios where cattle have been away from water for a couple of days, you've got the next couple of days work cut out for you.

[C]

Yeah. I mean, so the best recommendation is to replace the dehydration over 24 hours, which is really hard to do in a group scenario. You know, we've got creative in certain situations where you just run water on the ground so they have to slurp little bits at a time. And you may have to come back and do that several times. You know, and even in swine barns, we've just run it on plywood on the floor because, you know, they've got slatted floors, give them access to a little bit at a time for a lot of times to replace that fluid deficit. But it's going to going to depend on what you've got, you know, access wise, what kind of water sources, what kind of scenario you're in. That's a great place to work with your veterinarian. And you're going to have to probably get creative.

[B]

Yep. And if you'd like to learn more about salt toxicosis or salt toxicity, Scott and I did a bovine science with BCI a couple weeks ago that was focused just on a case just like this. So appreciate you guys joining today and answering some of those listener questions. If you have a listener question for us, you can send us an [e-mail].