The Moos Room™

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Joe Armstrong: Thanks for tuning into The Moos Room. This is Dr. Joe Armstrong. Just want to make sure you know that we do want to hear from you. If you have anything you want to tell us, comments about the show, things you want to hear, questions, send them to themoosroom@umn.edu. That's T-H-E-M-O-O-S-R-O-O-M@U-M-N.E-D-U. No guests today, just Brad, Emily, and myself. That's all I had for you. Let's get started with this episode. Welcome to The Moos Room, everybody. No guests this week. As you heard on the intro. This week, it is just the OG3, Emily, Brad, and myself. We're wrapping up scours this week.
Many of you probably have realized dairy and beef cows are actually the same species. As much as they act differently, as much as they look different, they're the same species. They're both cows. All the stuff that we've talked about so far really does apply for the most part in a beef system as well. It's a year-round game. We've got all these different variables coming together to produce the health of this calf. When we're talking about importance of health, we're talking about colostrum being number one, dam health and nutrition being number two, calf environment, calf health, all those things add up to whether or not you're going to have a calf scours issue.
The big question when we're talking about this is how is beef different. Well, in a lot of ways, it's not actually all that different, but we need to control all those things in a beef system in slightly different way than on a dairy system, obviously. Colostrum still just about trying to get colostrum in them. You got to make sure those calves get up and drink, and if you don't have a calf get up and drink, you got to have a way to help them to do that. Brad, you have really good working facilities on the dairy and sometimes it's even hard with dairy cows, right?
Brad Heins: Of course. Trying to catch calves sometimes it's not easy,
Joe: If you don't have facilities to control your beef cows while you're trying to get that calf learning how to drink, it's a good way to get hurt. Brad, do you ever use any colostrum replacer on the dairy?
Brad: We have. Once in a while we'll use colostrum replacer if the cow doesn't produce enough colostrum, but we save colostrum from cows that overproduce. That's probably the better way that we do it versus using sometimes expensive colostrum replacer.
Joe: Do you ever have like so much excess that you'd be willing to give some up?
Brad: Well, I wouldn't say that we have a lot of excess colostrum. Probably not that much. We do have some, but not a lot.
Emily Krekelberg: Not enough for the colostrum black market.
Brad: No, not enough for that. Different environment, our cows don't produce as much colostrum and there's a lot of different things that go behind colostrum production.
Joe: It is a good option if you do have somebody that's close on a dairy that has excess that you're friends with, that you can go get actual colostrum from an actual cow if you need to for some of these calves. Otherwise, it's nice to have a couple of replacers on hand at the start of calving season to make sure that you have it there just in case because timing is an issue on this. If you find that calf outside abandoned or that second twin that mom decided wasn't for her getting warm calories in the form of colostrum in that calf is probably the best thing you can do to save it.
Brad: I have a question on that. How do you determine whether the calf got enough antibodies or not, or can you determine that in a beef situation? I've started collecting serum proteins on our dairy calves and can a farmer do that on beef, or do many do that? Or how do you really tell that a calf maybe got colostrum?
Joe: For the most part, you're looking at mom and deciding based on her attitude towards the calf and the state of her udder, and then just where that calf is and all those things. There's no real test to run to see if that calf got colostrum or not. You can run a total protein, but that's more of a herd evaluation tool rather than an individual diagnostic tool. For me, what I always tell people is if you're not sure, or you're 50-50, if you think it's maybe a coin flip, just assume it didn't get it. It's just too important for the life or the health of that calf down the road to not give them some to make sure. If you've got really calm cows in good facilities, you can milk out colostrum from that mom, from the dam. You just got to make sure you do it safely. That's why I like having the replace her on hand.
Emily: With colostrum better safe than sorry, just not quite sure, so going to make sure the calf gets a little more just in case.
Joe: Absolutely. Really having a good-quality replacer out there is key. We have replacers and we have supplements. Supplements are made to be added to colostrum to make it higher quality. Replacers are actually made to be a sole replacement for colostrum, and that's all based on IgG level. We want at least 100 grams of IgG in a quality colostrum replacer. I prefer to see 150 just because better safe to have a little more on that end because I would guess that the specific quality isn't as good as getting it directly from mom so why not have a little more?
Really when we're talking on the beef side, the thing that kills people most is the environment. In Minnesota, we just have too many cows on too little space in a lot of areas. Brad, you grew up in Lake City. I'm sure you saw that growing up down there, right?
Brad: Oh yes. Was lots of cows and lots of farms and small spaces, so yes.
Joe: Em, you probably saw a lot of it too, down where you grew up because it's the same situation down there. There's lots of cows and not a whole lot of space.
Emily: Yes. I grew up where the land is very good, so there's a lot of competition for it. If you do get your hands on some pasture that isn't converted to tillable cropland, you're going to get as many calls on there as you can. Lots of high-density cattle situations down there.
Brad: Well, I think some of it has to do with a lot of these farmers are calving in the spring and you want to calve them in nice facilities so you're not calving out in snow banks or anything like that. You tend to put a lot of cattle on small spaces and if it gets muddy, environment plays a big role in all of that. It's challenging. It's not easy. It's not easy.
Joe: It's a huge challenge and lack of pasture is key. The first thing I look at is when we're talking beef and environment, we're just trying to control numbers because we've talked about already calves. Calves are going to be exposed to these bugs. There's no way around it.
They're going to see crypto, they're going to see rotavirus, they're going to see coronavirus. It's just about a matter of how much they see. It's trying to keep that dose that they see low. That's all about how much pathogens build up in the environment over time because it does build up in the environment over time and these bugs are really, really hardy. The biggest thing, the first thing I look at when I'm looking at, okay there's a scours issue is where did the cows over winter, and is that the same location that they're calving because that to me is just a huge environmental risk and there's high numbers when that happens.
Emily: When you're dealing with anything like that, when we talk about this sometimes on the side with pesticides and that thing with the crops guys, when we're talking about toxicity of things. There's two factors, and I think this applies here too. You have to think about exposure but also dosage. If you think, yes, this area is clean enough, it's maybe a little dirty, but lower dosage of pathogens, but if that's where they spend their whole lives, that's going to be a bigger buildup versus if they're in a really disgusting, dirty area, that's a high dosage and even if they're there for a day or two, that may be all it takes.
Joe: Absolutely.
Emily: Finding that balance between those two and keeping both of those factors in mind.
Joe: Like we said, space is the limiting factor here and there's a lot of different solutions for what you can do to keep the environment straight as far as pathogen load. I think one of the biggest successful systems that I've seen is they actually build and invest in a calving lot that doesn't get used for anything else all year round. You've got an area that cattle are not in at all all year round for the most part, so that when they go in there to calve, everything is fresh and clean and they're starting from scratch as far as a pathogen load.
There's just not a whole lot of bugs there to begin with. It works great. It really does. It's an upfront cost though and concrete in my opinion is the big key. I don't know if you see this at all, Brad, on the dairy side, but I can pick up exactly what's going on for the most part by looking at the cows and I can know what's going on on the bedding side by looking at how clean the cows are. That can give some insight into where's that scours exposure coming from.
Brad: Yes. Calving environment is so important, especially cleanliness of it. We can tell even just in our dairy world, we do have a separate facility where we do calve all of our cows, but we calf twice a year, but sometimes they'll have some scours outbreak and it's always like, well, we got to go back to that calving area and see, oh, it needs to be bedded more or, the cleanliness just isn't there like it should be. That's one of the things to look at.
If calves are getting scours, it's more often than not, at least in my way of thinking, it tends to be where the calving area is and how clean that is and just cleanliness of environment right at calving, because that's where the calves going to pick up a lot of their bugs right away.
Joe: When I think about the calves experience when they come into this world, especially if you're out on pasture and you're calving pretty early, it's not the easiest environment to be brought into, but their first exposure happens as soon as they hit the ground. They're rolling around and whatever they're there. If that's a big pile of manure, that's an issue. Then the second exposure they get, and I don't know, if you guys have ever watched beef calves try to learn how to nurse, it can be pretty hilarious. They chew on everything except the utter before they find the utter for the most part. They're chewing on elbows and belly and everything else. Every time they do that, if that cow's dirty, they're going to get exposed to --
Emily: I think of those nice little chunks of manure that you see on cow's tails.
Joe: Oh, yes, exactly.
Emily: Great.
Joe: On the beef side, we call that tag, T-A-G. That would be tag.
Emily: Thank you. I didn't know how to spell tag, so I appreciate that, Dr. Joe.
Brad: Ruminate on that.
Joe: Ruminate on that.
Emily: Ruminate on that.
Joe: Thanks.
Brad: What about the environment? I've thought about the environment in a facility before. Is there anything you can use, can you disinfect? Obviously, calves are going to get up, they're going to lick on gates. Like you said, they'll lick on, suck on anything. What about the sides of the building or gates? Should we be disinfecting those too or is that not really what we should worry about?
Joe: If you have a calving facility that's actually in a building rather than out and about and you have a lot of that stuff, yes, you can do that. There's some caveats to it because if you are using that area for the rest of the year, you usually have a pack in there that's frozen solid and it's not coming out. There's limited amount of cleaning that you can get done. Yes, in the ideal world, you would be disinfecting if you could. If you're going to use that multiple times and that multiple times in there, I would disinfect in between if you can. The only thing that I know of that works well for crypto that is somewhat safe for people to be using is chlorine dioxide.
You can mix it in all sorts of different concentrations for different uses and that's my favorite. It's all about getting clean and just bringing the dose down. If you have just most of the organic material cleaned up, that's going to get you a long [unintelligible 00:13:41]. Then the chlorine dioxide, I would probably say for pretty intensively used areas, like if you have a seed stock producer that has very valuable cattle and they're calving in individual pens, I would spray in between calvings. Yes, that's a good way to do it. Otherwise, it's just about being basically clean, keeping a clean farm when it comes to how much manure is there.
Some of it is just how can you prevent mud. Mud being our biggest enemy just because it's really not a whole lot of dirt in a cattle situation. Manure makes up most of that mud and urine. Just a perfect place for bugs to grow. Concrete is your biggest friend in my opinion. If you can put concrete in a triangle between water, feed, and the bedding area, you can be really set. If those cows can walk on concrete and keep their udder out and their belly out of the mud, it's going to help those calves a ton.
Emily: Then they're going to be members of the Illuminati.
Joe: Yes, I know. I'm putting the triangle up here on the screen.
Emily: The triangle.
Joe: I can't not talk with my hands.
Emily: It's ok. Happens to all of us.
Joe: I know. Emily is trying to be nice to me now because she was making fun of me so hard earlier.
Emily: I would never make fun of you, Joseph.
Joe: Bunch of BS.
Emily: This is nothing but love here. ELE, everybody love everybody.
Joe: That's how our whole dynamic works. The three of us for sure.
Emily: Yes.
Joe: As far as what else to talk about, the only other thing that we have that does work, it's limiting by space is something called the Sandhills Calving System. I don't know if you two have heard of that, but it's out in Nebraska.
Brad: I have not. Enlighten me.
Emily: I have heard of it, but I know nothing about it. This is a great teaching opportunity for you, Dr. Joe.
Joe: The Sandhills Calving System is basically you put everyone in one pen and we do this in confinement too. There's a lot of stuff coming out of Iowa State where they're keeping cow-calf pairs confined year round and they're learning a lot about this kind of thing. You put everyone in one pen and then after a certain time, usually about a week, you move everyone who hasn't calved yet to the next pen. It's all based on this concept of traditionally when a calf used to get sick, we used to pull it out of the group to treat it when it has scours.
Now, we usually don't do that on dairies a whole lot anymore. I don't know if you have a sick pen or anything like that, but we don't usually do that anymore because what we're seeing is that the environment plays such a big role in whether or not pathogens are there and bugs and if calves get sick. Instead of taking the sick calf out who's already made that environment really dirty and has become a virus and parasite factory for everything else, and then taking it out and making another dirty area, you leave it there.
Emily: Just let the whole thing be a Petri dish?
Joe: Yes. Then if you really have a problem, instead of moving that calf out, you would need to move all the healthy animals out. You see what I'm saying? That's how this whole Sandhills system is working. You have everyone in one pen every week, anyone who hasn't caved, you move them to the next pen and you just keep doing that. You have a fresh start every single time and it works really, really, really well. You just need more space to get it done.
That's why in Minnesota for a lot of times I like to find an area to designate as my calving area, have it be clean when we start, and try to keep the cattle out of there, especially over winter. It has its own challenges. It's expensive upfront, but it doesn't take a whole lot of live calves that would've been dead to pay for it.
Brad: Interesting.
Joe: In both Sandhills and in this designated calving area, the big key is having enough bunk space because if you don't have enough bunk space, if you're going to make them confined and you're going to feed them in a bunk, you just have to have enough bunk space or you're just going to ramp up the stress on these cattle.
Emily: Speaking of that, and we're getting there, Joe. We've talked about this in our other scours episodes, the importance of dam health and one of those being enough bunk space, reducing the amount of stress on the animals. What other factors do we need to be aware of when we're thinking of dam health, specifically on the beef side?
Joe: Mostly on the beef side, the real way to tell whether or not your cows are healthy enough and are going to produce colostrum for you and do take care of a calf and produce enough milk and then after doing all that, still get pregnant again, it's all about body condition. That's really where we need to start. Body condition needs to be constant year-round. What you really want in a group is body conditions to be the same across the group. You don't want big wide ranges. I can usually tell that bunk space is an issue when I walk on a farm and I see really, really skinny cows and I see big old Gabi fat cows all in the same group. Mostly because the big old Gabi fat cows outcompete at the bunk because there's limited space, skinny cows stay skinny, fat cows get fatter.
Emily: It's like when you look at the three of us, I won't say who's the skinny one and who's the Gabi fat one though?
Joe: Well, we'll leave that for our listeners to decide, I guess.
Emily: Yes, indeed.
Joe: Indeed. Bunk space is huge and the number we use is straight from the dairy. We know what fresh cows and what milking cows need for bunk space and we're stealing that number, just straight up stealing it from the dairy. We use two feet per head as our bunk space that we need. Then body conditions need to be constant. I like heifers to calve in between five and a half and six and I like cows to calve in between five and five and a half. If you're a dairy guy listening to this, you're probably like, "That's crazy. That's even past our scale." [laughs] On the [crosstalk]--
Emily: That's an obese.
Brad: Yes, that is.
Joe: On the beef side we use a one through nine system with half points and on the dairy side, obviously we use a one through five system with quarter points usually, so just a little different. It's all about body condition, making sure they get the things they need, which includes mineral. I don't think we have time to get down that rabbit hole because I got all sorts of soapbox issues around feeding cows mineral, just make sure you have a mineral,
Emily: We'll save that for another day.
Joe: That's a whole another topic it's got me in trouble in the past before, we'll just leave it alone. After that, it's the same thing that we talked about the dairy. Vaccines work and they are a valuable tool, but potentially not necessary if you're taking care of the other things that you need to take care of in terms of colostrum, dam health and nutrition, environment, and then calf health as well.
Emily: Right. Of course, our favorite management strategy, feed your calves raw eggs.
Joe: Oh, yes, I forgot we need to cover raw eggs.
Brad: You got to look at that. I'm telling you guys, you got to look at that and I'm sure I am not the crazy one. I know lots of producers that have done it. You should look it up.
Joe: We might have to do a special release episode on eggs, raw--
Brad: Yes, we can do it on alternative treatments. That's what we should call, alternative treatments--
Joe: Cayenne pepper.
Brad: That's right.
Emily: Yes boluses of cayenne pepper, apple cider vinegar.
Joe: Apple cider vinegar, eggs. All right, well I'm going to write that down. No joke. We're going to do [crosstalk] an episode on alternative treatments and I will actually try to find data.
Emily: It'll be like the voodoo episode.
Brad: There's some, yes. Look at garlic. We won't get into that today, but, yes.
Joe: Yes. Oregano oil.
Brad: What about vaccines?
Emily: Joe hates them and thinks no one should--
Joe: That's not true.
Emily: Joe hates vaccines. I'm going to say it enough so you can't cut them all out. Joe hates vaccines.
Joe: I love vaccines.
Emily: [unintelligible 00:22:14] first folks.
Joe: I am a veterinarian. I love vaccines. They work, there's just certain situations where I prioritize other things first.
Brad: Vaccine is not going to cure your bad management.
Joe: Exactly. That is the key. The key message is that vaccines are a valuable tool that work, but they are not a solution for poor management. If I was given a choice between the two, I would take great management over vaccines that if I had to choose, we don't have to choose, you should use vaccines. Now on the beef specifically, the vaccines we worry about for scours the most in my opinion, are those vaccines that we give to the cows to improve colostrum quality.
Those are key. We're talking about Scour Bos and Guardian. There are situations where you would use a different product based on timing. Because timing with these products is the biggest key. When we're using Scour Bos or Guardian, your window of when you'd need to use them to get good quality colostrum is pretty tight actually. Because we start laying colostrum down quite a long ways out. If you're not getting it into them at the correct time and it's a killed product, so we need to get it boostered. If they have never seen it before, they need to see it twice. That's a challenge to have happen on the beef side sometimes, that's a challenge to have happen on the dairy side sometimes. Timing is key. Work with your reps, work with your veterinarian to follow the label and get that done on the vaccine side.
Management is first and then yes, if you do have to put a Band-Aid on something with something that you give at birth, you can, but I would prefer to fix the management and use the money that I would've spent on that to fix the management rather than spending the money on that vaccine. Okay. We've covered a lot. I think that's close to enough. We've even decided on a future topic with alternative treatment and eggs.
Emily: I'm so sad to be done talking about scours.
Joe: Emily is ready to move on and that's okay. That's good.
Emily: No, I'm not, come on.
Joe: All right, we'll cut it there. As, always, if you have questions for us, anything you want to ask us, comments about the show, things you want to hear, send them to themoosroom@umn.edu. That's T-H-E-M-O-O-S-R-O-O-M@umn.edu. If you have anything that you want to reference or you want to check out the website to find more information about all of this, go to extension.umn.edu. Thank you for listening. Bye.
Emily: Bye.
Joe: Wow.
Emily: It's foolproof.
Joe: I'll have to cut that out.
Emily: Well, yes.
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