Fescue Toxicosis

Tall fescue is a commonly grown forage for cattle, particularly in the southeastern and lower midwest states, as well as the Pacific northwest. This grass originally came from Europe and was discovered growing in a few isolated stands in the U.S. in the early 1930’s. It was recognized as being easy to establish with a long growing season, resistant to drought and insects, and able to grow on many types of soil. However, it was soon discovered that cattle performance was negatively affected by the grass. 

Today, we know that a high percentage of tall fescue pastures are infected with a fungus that grows inside the plant (so it is not visible to the eye) and the fungus produces a number of chemicals that provide both the positive and negative attributes of the grass. Not all fescue pastures are infected with endophyte fungus, and the percentage of plants in a given pasture that are infected will vary from one pasture to another. Generally speaking, the greater the percentage of plants infested with the fungus in a pasture, the greater the negative effects of fescue toxicosis. Although the fungus is found throughout the tall fescue plant, it is found in the highest concentration in the seed head and stems with lesser concentrations in the leaves. The fungus can be spread to un-infected pastures if infected seeds blow or are transported to bare ground where it can become established. 

Cattle grazing heavily infected stands will consume less grass, gain less weight, and have lower pregnancy rates than cattle grazing other types of forage. Cattle with fescue toxicosis syndrome are often recognized by having a rough, long haircoat and being thin. In addition, severely affected cattle will have high body temperature, and they will attempt to cool themselves by standing in water and seeking shade. Blood flow to the feet, tail switch, and ears is reduced, and in cold weather, affected cattle can slough the ends of their tails and the tips of their ears and in some cases, even the hooves can slough. 

Cattlemen with infected tall fescue pastures have a number of options. In many situations, because of fescue’s positive properties, they may choose to live with it and work to reduce the negative effects by inter-seeding legumes into the pasture to dilute the intake of fescue. In addition, if other types of forage are available, cattle can be moved off of infected pastures during the summer months when the effects are most severe. If fescue is grazed heavily so that the plants are kept short, less endophyte fungus will be present in each bite of grass. Grain supplementation also acts to dilute the amount of endophyte consumed. Cows fed grain along with highly infected fescue hay had reduced winter weight loss and improved pregnancy rates compared to cows fed infected hay alone.

Some producers may decide to invest the resources necessary to avoid the endophyte completely by replanting infected stands of tall fescue with non-infected varieties of fescue or other grasses. There are endophyte-free as well as novel-endophyte varieties of tall fescue that can be used to replace the endophyte infested stand. The novel-endophyte varieties are infected with strains of fungus that provide some of the beneficial effects with few of the detrimental effects. 

Attempts to reduce the effects of the endophyte fungus through feed additives or treatments applied to the cattle have not consistently shown benefits. However, it is recommended that cattle grazing infected fescue not be additionally stressed by heavy parasite loads, mineral deficiencies, or other disease. The best approach to managing fescue so that the negative effects of the endophyte are minimized will depend on your local conditions. By working closely with area extension and agronomy specialists, you can develop a plan for coping with this problem.

Listener Question, Brian’s Trip, Research Round Up

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2:23 Listener Question – Dystocia in Heifers 

10:24 Brian’s Trip to Australia for the Antimicrobial Conference

17:07 Research Round-Up

Guests: Lilli Heinen, BCI PhD and Vet Student

For more on BCI Cattle Chat, follow us on Twitter at @The_BCIFacebook, and Instagram at @ksubci. Check out our website, ksubci.org. If you have any comments/questions/topic ideas, please send them to bci@ksu.edu. You can also email us to sign up for our weekly news blast! Don’t forget if you enjoy the show, please go give us a rating!

Herd Health: Front End Loading

Join Dr. Bob Larson and Dr. Brad White as they discuss what front end loading is, why it’s important, and how you can us this knowledge to help your producers.

Find links to discussed tables and calculators here: https://ksubci.org/tools/calculators/

Pre-Weaning BRD, Managing Bottle Calves, Building Immunity to BRD

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2:09 Pre-Weaning BRD

7:07 Managing Bottle Calves

15:48 Building Immunity to BRD

Guests: Amelia Woolums, Professor at Mississippi State University

For more on BCI Cattle Chat, follow us on Twitter at @The_BCIFacebook, and Instagram at @ksubci. Check out our website, ksubci.org. If you have any comments/questions/topic ideas, please send them to bci@ksu.edu. You can also email us to sign up for our weekly news blast! Don’t forget if you enjoy the show, please go give us a rating!

Diving into Diets: Evaluating Forage Quality

How can understanding the nutritional quality of the forages being fed better help you serve your producers? Dr. Phillip Lancaster and Dr. Brad White answer this question, and more, on today’s episode of Diving into Diets.

Supporting Materials:

University of Arkansas PDF

AgriFood Lab in Canada PDF

Post Calving Nutrition, Economic Questions, Hardware Disease

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3:20 Post Calving Nutrition

9:28 Economic Questions

16:33 Hardware Disease

For more on BCI Cattle Chat, follow us on Twitter at @The_BCIFacebook, and Instagram at @ksubci. Check out our website, ksubci.org. If you have any comments/questions/topic ideas, please send them to bci@ksu.edu. You can also email us to sign up for our weekly news blast! Don’t forget if you enjoy the show, please go give us a rating!

Tox Talk: 15 Dead in 36 Hours

What would cause 15 head of freshly weaned calves to spontaneously die 36 hours after processing? Dr. Scott Fritz and Dr. Brad White work through this case on Tox Talk to find the answer.

Animal Welfare and Sustainability in Beef Production 

Animal welfare is a hot topic and the most frequent term used when consumers are asked to define sustainable beef. In many instances animal welfare can be associated with clear controversial issues such as swine gestation crates and poultry battery cages but those are not used in the beef industry, so you might think that the beef industry does not have any animal welfare issues or room for improvement. Even though less negative publicity is attribute to beef production compared to other livestock sectors, cattle welfare is still top of mind for consumers who buy beef products. So, what are the animal welfare issues in beef production and how can we address them?  

First, let’s learn how animal behavior and welfare scientists evaluate animal welfare. Many conceptual frameworks exist, but the most basic and well known involves the 5 freedoms (Figure 1) –  

  1. freedom from hunger and thirst,  
  1. freedom from discomfort,  
  1. freedom from pain, injury or disease,  
  1. freedom to express normal behavior, and  
  1. freedom from fear and distress.  

These are assessed using resource-based measurements such as availability of proper nutrition, protection from the elements, and natural environment in which to live, animal-based measures such as expression of normal behavior, availability of veterinary care, and incidence of injuries and disease, and management-based measures such as proper training of personnel in animal husbandry, low-stress animal handling procedures, and characteristics of transportation.  

Good animal welfare is important to sustainable beef production as it is directly associated with animal health and behavior, which can affect cattle performance and profitability. Some of the animal welfare concerns in the beef industry raised by animal welfare specialists comprehend the difficult or failure to identify and treat sick animals in large operations; procedures considered painful such as branding, castration, and dehorning; impacts of heat and cold stress on health; risk for digestive disorder in feedlot cattle; long transportation times, commingling, and feedlot overstocking. 

Research indicates that cattle with poor nutrition, subclinical disease, and stress have reduced growth and reproductive performance. It has long been known that relieving environmental stressors (cold, heat, mud, long transportation times, etc.) improves growth of cattle, and more recently we have learned that lessening psychological stressors such as human handling and weaning improves cattle performance. 

The U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef’s definition of animal health and well-being aligns well with the 5 freedoms and is the cumulative effects of cattle health, nutrition, care, and comfort (https://www.usrsb.org/goals). They indicate that 4 key considerations should be the focus of management decisions and ranch practices: 

  1. Provide adequate feed, water, housing, and care 
  1. Provide disease prevention protocols 
  1. Provide facilities for safe and humane movement and restraint 
  1. Provide personnel with proper training in handling and care 

Applying these principles to the cow-calf sector of the industry indicates that cows should have adequate forage available to meet nutritional requirements, and when necessary, protein, energy, and mineral supplements to alleviate deficiencies. Cutting corners on nutrition obviously has negative implications on animal well-being, but also generally reduces efficiency and profitability.  

Cattle housing should include open pastures, clean wintering areas, and dry places to lie down when conditions dictate. Keeping cattle comfortable improves welfare and performance. Cold, wet, muddy cattle are not comfortable, their maintenance energy requires are 50 to 100% greater, and performance (growth or lactation) is reduced.  

Adequate cattle care involves regular, frequent herd checks to promptly identify diseased or injured animals for immediate treatment. Every ranch should have a veterinary client patient relationship to develop and implement effective herd health programs. Standard health programs such as vaccinating calves at branding and weaning are not always appropriate to manage the health challenges on every ranch. Ranch managers should work with their veterinarian to identify the specific animal health issues for their ranch to best protect the herd from disease. 

Cattle handling facilities should be designed for easy cattle flow and safety of cattle and humans during the process. Handling facilities do not have to be expensive to meet animal welfare standards but should be designed based on normal animal behavior and allow cattle to be moved using flight zone principles rather than frequent prodding. And all personnel, even if they have previous cattle experience, should be trained, or reminded of proper cattle handling and husbandry practices on every ranch, no matter how large or small. 

Training ranch personnel can be time consuming – keeping up with new developments in cattle handling and husbandry and developing training materials. The beef industry already has an effective training and education program, Beef Quality Assurance (BQA), that will cover the basics for every ranch. This program, provided by the state cooperative extension service, can help managers stay abreast of new practices and provide basic training for new employees. Ranch managers should provide additional ranch-specific training and monitor that BQA guidelines are being followed. 

A focus on achieving good animal welfare will improve sustainability of beef in the eyes of the consumer, and will increase the efficiency and profitability for the rancher. 

Figure 1. The basic 5 freedoms of good animal welfare. 

Cattle Abortions, Listener Question, Supplement Post Calving

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2:29 Cattle Abortions: Diagnostic Workup

11:18 Listener Question – Following Up On Data After Selling Calves

18:39 Supplement Post Calving

For more on BCI Cattle Chat, follow us on Twitter at @The_BCIFacebook, and Instagram at @ksubci. Check out our website, ksubci.org. If you have any comments/questions/topic ideas, please send them to bci@ksu.edu. You can also email us to sign up for our weekly news blast! Don’t forget if you enjoy the show, please go give us a rating!

After the Abstract: Impacts of Veterinary Feed Directives

Join Dr. Brain Lubbers and Dr. Brad White for this week’s episode of Bovine Science with BCI, as they walk through the paper titled: Impact of the veterinary feed directive on Ohio cattle operations.

If you have a paper you would like to hear discussed send the BCI team an email at bci@ksu.edu.

After the Abstract is recorded with the goal of assisting veterinarians in the interpretation of scientific literature.  This podcast is not an endorsement of specific practices and medical decisions should only be made in consultation with your veterinarian. 

Learning More About Antibiotics, Cattle Cycle, Research Round-Up

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2:37 Listener Question – Learning More About Antibiotics

8:11 Cattle Cycle

15:33 Research Round-Up

Guests: Maddie Mancke, BCI Graduate Student

For more on BCI Cattle Chat, follow us on Twitter at @The_BCIFacebook, and Instagram at @ksubci. Check out our website, ksubci.org. If you have any comments/questions/topic ideas, please send them to bci@ksu.edu. You can also email us to sign up for our weekly news blast! Don’t forget if you enjoy the show, please go give us a rating!

Mastitis in Beef Cows

Although mastitis (infection of the udder) is often considered a dairy cow problem rather than a beef cow problem, the disease does affect many beef herds. Most cases of mastitis only involve one quarter (one teat) of a cow’s udder and the other three quarters remain normal. Even though most cases of mastitis do not result in the complete loss of milk production, calves from affected cows have lighter weaning weights than if their dam had a normal udder. Occasionally, mastitis causes severe illness in the cow, but in most situations, the cow is not greatly affected other than having reduced milk production. Mastitis can occur at any stage of lactation or even when the cow is dry, but most commonly becomes a problem early in lactation shortly after a cow calves.  

Most cases of mastitis are caused by germs that are very common in the environment and on a cow’s skin. Occasionally, mastitis is caused by injury to the udder.  Lactating cows are by far the most commonly affected, but heifers and even bulls or steers can have infected udders. Severe cases of mastitis, when the udder becomes reddened, swollen, and hot to the touch and the cow shows signs of illness such as being off-feed and inactive, will result in severe weight loss in the calf and cow and occasionally the death of either the cow or calf. Often, a beef producer or veterinarian will not notice a cow with mastitis because beef cattle are not typically observed daily from a short distance and many cases do not result in visible swelling or other signs of udder infection. In situations when cases of mastitis are not detected, the cow is likely to remain infected throughout the lactation and possibly for the rest of her life.  

If mastitis is diagnosed, cows can be treated with special formulations of antibiotics that can be infused into the udder itself through the end of the teat. The veterinarian may also choose to treat cows with mastitis with antibiotics injected under the skin of the neck that then travel through the blood stream to the udder. Many cases of mastitis respond well to treatment, but some quarters never return to full milk production. If a cow with mastitis is severely ill, the veterinarian may recommend aggressive therapy with frequent milking out of the affected quarter, the use of anti-inflammatory drugs, and antibiotic therapy.  

Because beef cows are not handled frequently, the most common time to check cows for mastitis is when they are gathered for purposes of vaccination, fly control, or breeding early in lactation, or at the end of lactation when the cows are checked for pregnancy status and/or the calves are weaned. Some herds routinely check udders and treat any affected cows at the time the calves are weaned.  

Although it is probably not possible to prevent all cases of mastitis, heavy fly populations, calving in a drylot, and poor teat and udder confirmation are linked with situations with multiple cows being affected in the same herd. Older cows, particularly those with larger, low-slung udders and large teats are considered to be at greater risk for mastitis. Therefore, prevention focuses on calving cows on clean pasture and avoiding calving in wet or muddy environments, culling potential replacement heifers if their dam has poor udder or teat confirmation, and controlling flies by focusing on sanitation and appropriate use of insecticides.