Elite athletes are elite on purpose, not by accident. There is a genetic component to their ability to perform at a high level. They eat and drink to fuel their bodies for performance. They live in a comfortable environment, and they do as much as possible to avoid interactions that would cause them to get sick and impair performance.
Sound familiar? Think your cows fit that description?
Elite athletes are resilient, and your cows need to be that way too. For them to perform at a high level, they need all barriers to productivity removed so they can devote as much energy as possible to fully expressing their genetic potential.
What are we building resilience against?
There are several factors potentially standing in the way of cow performance. Mycotoxins are one key component. Testing for mycotoxins is important, but it’s the type of mycotoxins we’re looking for. Once we know the type, we can put together a plan to mitigate their impact.
Mycotoxins are prevalent in the environment, and so are harmful pathogens such as E. coli, salmonella, clostridia and others. An animal can tolerate the impact of one of those pathogens, but when they team up, the synergies of the combination are difficult to overcome.
The goal is to minimize opportunities for pathogenic insults while taking action through the diet to encourage a better gut health scenario.
Tighten cell wall junctions
When it comes to building resiliency, we’re talking about improving gut health. And remember, gut health is much more than just rumen function. While what happens in the rumen is critically important, it is also imperative to prevent pathogens from entering the bloodstream. If we can tighten the junctions between cell walls and close the holes that would allow pathogens to enter the bloodstream, we can prevent them from doing damage.
Another pathogen has recently become prolific in dairy herds, and that is bovine avian influenza (BAI). While hygiene is critically important to the prevention of BAI, when we shore up gut health and tighten cell junctions, we free up energy to allow cows to take on other pathogenic insults.
Animals that are on a good gut health program, nutritionally and from a feed hygiene perspective, tend to be more resilient and able to overcome viral challenges. From a nutrition standpoint, the two areas of interest when building resiliency are bacillus technology and refined functional carbohydrates (RFCs).
The first technology is designed to prevent pathogens from impacting the gut. With bacillus technology, a feed additive can be designed specifically to your dairy to impact the pathogens present on your farm. A survey of your farm and surrounding area can give us an idea of the microbial population present. We can then customize a blend of bacillus strains that will be effective at mitigating whatever pathogens are present in the environment.
Other technologies that include RFCs are designed to move pathogens through the digestive tract without harming the cow. These products are developed from the yeast cell wall and the resulting ingredients – mannanoligosaccharides (MOS), beta glucans (BG) and other products – can mimic the gut wall so pathogens adhere to them and pass through the gut without harming the cow. Adding a highly refined source of bentonite to the RFCs can help further target mycotoxins specifically.
Stay on top of feed hygiene
Producers can work with their nutritionist and veterinarian to build resiliency of their herd by adding feed ingredients to optimize nutrition and, ultimately, gut health. Any tool or intervention can get overwhelmed when a population of pathogens soar. When that happens, we stop to take a look at the feeding environment. Here are a few things we look at in a feed hygiene audit:
- Is the feed mixer clean? Next to the milking parlor, the mixer wagon is the most-used piece of equipment on the dairy. When was the last time it was steam cleaned? Are there dead spots where feed can build up? When were the blades last replaced?
- What is the pathogen load in your forages? We will test forages and other stored feed to determine if high levels of pathogens are present. A general rule of thumb is the wetter the ingredient, the higher the chance of pathogen and mold contamination.
- Is your feeding area clean? How often do you clean bunks and feeding pads to remove old feed?
These are just a few items relating to feed hygiene. Additionally, a feed hygiene checklist for producers to review to make sure they are using proper feed hygiene techniques to keep pathogens under control should include points such as strengthening immunity, bolstering gut health and binding mycotoxins.
It takes an investment to build resiliency in your dairy cows. It takes an investment of time to understand the risk factors involved on your dairy. It’s good to do an assessment of feeding practices and feed hygiene to make sure pathogen loads are limited. Today, with the advent of BAI, a renewed look at biosecurity practices is certainly warranted. You’ve already made an investment in building the genetics of your herd through years and generations of careful matings and adherence to a breeding program. Now it is time to evaluate the return on investment of a higher plane of nutrition that can help your cows – your elite athletes – establish resilience against invasive pathogens and mycotoxins.
