BEEF HERD HEALTH

BY W.MARK HILTON,K DVM 

 I love having readers of this column reach out to me with questions. I want to share a few with you.

One producer emailed and let me know he had never had a bull breeding soundness examination (BBSE) done before reading my March column. He always purchased yearling bulls that were tested before purchase, but he had never tested them later.

He took his two bulls to his herd health veterinarian to have a BBSE done and the doctor said one of the bull’s sample had poor motility and also failed on the microscopic examination of the morphology. The owner said that last year he had an 86 percent pregnancy rate in his 64-cow herd, down from his usual 95 percent. He initially blamed the poorer conception rate on the drought, but after the test, he wondered if the one bull went bad last summer.

Can you imagine what would have happened if he turned out these two bulls and the one got no cows pregnant? A 40-60 percent pregnancy rate would have been devastating.

The February article on nutrition prompted a few responses, and one was about mineral supplementation. The producer in question asked about various “blocks” he was offering to his cows. Without going into details, here is what I have learned from working with some excellent ruminant nutritionists.

- Cows do not possess nutritional wisdom except for one element. In other words, if a cow is deficient in some mineral like Selenium, she will not seek it out. I always tell people that when our sons were young, we would ask them if they wanted Brussels sprouts or ice cream. They always picked ice cream. Maybe they needed Brussels sprouts, but their taste buds wanted ice cream. The only element where cows do have nutritional wisdom is sodium, which is half of the makeup of salt – Sodium chloride.

- Because cows “know” when they need sodium, we use salt to drive intake of the minerals and vitamins they need. Never feed salt and mineral separately. Always mix them so that the cow seeking salt will also consume the mineral. I love mineral feeders that are low to the ground with the flap over them to keep out the rain. Most of these have two-four compartments. Every compartment should contain the exact same salt-mineral mix. Do not give the cow a choice on what she consumes. She will pick something with salt or something that tastes good to her.

- Salt blocks or mineral blocks will not allow a cow to consume enough salt and/or mineral per day. Always use a loose salt-mineral mix.

- Trace mineral salt has a trace of minerals; not nearly enough to meet the cow’s mineral requirements.

- We know from research that about 15 percent of cows eat very little to no mineral when it is offered free choice. We don’t have another option when cows are grazing, but we do have an option when we start feeding cows in the winter. Look at the directions on the bag. If it says that cows should eat 4oz/head/day and you have 50 cows, that is 200 ounces or 12.5 pounds/day for the group. Top-dress this onto whatever feed you are feeding in the bunk, and remove the free choice option.

Another email was concerning grass tetany. We are in the prime grass tetany season, and having your cows on a high magnesium (Hi-Mag) mineral during the spring grass flush is wise. The perfect storm for grass tetany is when temperatures fluctuate from cold to warm to cold. Of course, that would never happen here in the Midwest.

When it warms up, the plant grows quickly and absorbs potassium faster than magnesium. Nitrogen in the plant also increases and this reduces magnesium absorption.

Talk to your nutritionist or feed supplier to get the correct Hi-Mmag mineral for your cows and start feeding it about a month before grass turn-out.

Feeding distillers’ grains with solubles (wet or dry DGS) or corn gluten feed is another way to add magnesium to your cow’s diet. These are excellent feeds that also provide added energy and protein to a hay-based diet.

I had a question about vaccines recently. This call was from a producer who said her veterinarian was afraid to use modified-live vaccine (MLV) in her calves when they processed their spring-born calves in early June. The label on the vaccine states that it should not be given to calves nursing pregnant cows unless the cows were previously vaccinated with this vaccine. In her case, the cows were not previously vaccinated with this vaccine. I informed her that, since I am not her herd health veterinarian, I cannot recommend anything that differs from what the label says. I did ask her to have her veterinarian call me so I could learn more about the herd and the doctor’s concerns. After a short conversation, the doctor was ready to discuss the pros and cons of using the MLV vaccine on her calves.

I am always happy to speak to your herd health veterinarian on questions like these.

I was recently at a beef conference, and one of the speakers was the winner of that region’s National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) Environmental Stewardship Award. This producer was passionate about the beef business and showed pictures of their farm. He said that he wished he had “before” pictures from when they purchased the farm because it looks nothing like it did then. Pastures were overgrazed, and weeds were everywhere. He started reading all he could about Management-intensive Grazing and soil health. He said the smartest thing he ever did was to contact a forage and grazing expert to walk with him across the fields, and they made a plan to improve.

He took soil samples, applied the correct nutrients, frost-seeded red clover, and divided the single pasture into paddocks using electrified poly wire.

His farm now has more cows than ever, and they feed less hay than ever because the soil and grass provide so much more for the cows.

I remember when we bought a different farm when I was 10 years old. Many of the neighbors called it “the county dump” because people would sneak up the back lane and dump their trash. The fields looked horrible, and the fences were in disrepair. I asked my father why we were going to buy such a poor farm. He responded that it was all he and Mom could afford and that they had three children available to help get it on track.

After many years, we did get it in shape, and to this day, my father will say one of the smartest things we ever did was to have our county extension educator come out and help us improve our pastures. Just like the winner of the NCBA Environmental Stewardship Contest, we soil tested, added nutrients, frost-seeded red clover, divided our pastures into smaller paddocks, and started rotational grazing. Adding more cows and feeding less hay were the benefits that made us money and saved us money. Please call your extension educator or NRCS office to help you improve your pastures. Wouldn’t it be nice to have more cows in the coming years?

If you or your herd health veterinarian has questions, please contact me at MBCCBeefTeam@gmail.com