One Nation, Under God
One Nation, Under God
By January 1, 2017 a Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD) will be in place by the FDA for all who handle livestock affecting farm/ranch operations and even showmanship.
The FDA is requiring veterinary over sight because our consumers are asking us to. Medically imported ingredients or drugs that cross over to the human side and are used for assuring livestock health fall under a VFD. This way the FDA will know that there’s a veterinarian available for follow up if there is an adverse reaction or issue with a particular case.
The VFD requirements will be determined by each state. If your veterinarian is in another state you can work with them and get the VFD through them.
The producer, the veterinarian and the seller of the product has to keep records for two years and electronically filed but you can also do a one page paper format. The biggest message is you have a lot of resources to help through this.
That is why on Wednesday, January 27 CHS Big Sky sponsored Dr. Jeffery Hall, DVM from Utah State University as a speaker for local livestock producers. Dr. Hall’s studies may be viewed on YouTube if you missed this most informative meeting. Local veterinarians, the extension agent, and sellers of product will also be informative, along with the FDA web site on VFD.
Dr. Jeffery Hall is a full time professor at the Utah State College of Agriculture in animal dairy and veterinary science department, and holds an appointment in the Utah diagnostic lab as Head of Diagnostic Toxicology.
Dr. Hall’s ongoing research is natural toxins and mineral toxicology deficiencies. For the past 19 years he has collected forage diet tissue and fluid samples nationwide for mineral content in order to illuminate deficiencies and poisonings.
The Lab has two ITC’s able to measure trace minerals in very low concentrations on very small samples and has two analytical chemists running samples full time. This last year, the Lab ran just under 5000 samples. There is a huge nationwide data base to work from where data for that area can be pulled, about 195 samples of data are from north central Montana.
The mineral deficiencies for this specific area are; copper, selenium, zinc, manganese, and vitamin A and E. Dr. Hall does not test for Iodine so that statistic is unknown.
The number one deficiency in this area is copper, 72% of cattle liver samples show it so this is not a minor problem. Followed closely by selenium deficiency, this varies across the state of Mt. Further west 65% east of here numbers drop and you start seeing poison cases. In this area on natural pastures labs come back with elevated selenium concentrations often enough that’s considered a toxic risk. Vitamin A and E are more environmental. Less than 1% show low in manganese. Zinc varies 2% to 9% the high value is associated with drought that occur one to two years earlier.
After the year 2008 massive increases in the number of deficiencies shot up. The deficiencies caused most of the health effects in the juvenile population; calves, weanlings and yearlings. What happened in the later part of gestation that caused the calves to be deficient? Dr. Hall looked back to the last trimester because that’s when the majority of the minerals get transferred from mamma to the fetus. Where the calf has enough when born. What happened in the fall of 2008? The economy crashed, fuel prices tripled to quadrupled, hay prices doubled to tripled, and mineral supplement prices doubled in one year. There were a lot of people who started cutting back on things just to stay in business. An easy place to cut back on was mineral supplements.
Cutting back on a mineral supplement plan isn’t visibly seen and the health effects are not immediate and they’re not direct. More disease and more open cows (not pregnant) are seen and more problems of that nature but they are not direct. The producers didn’t relate back to fact that when they quit feeding a mineral program or went out and bought a cheaper bag, and got what they paid for equaled having more problems.
When sellers go to talk to producers the first thing the producer sees is this, “I got somebody else wanting more of my money.” A seller needs to be able to educate the producers on why they need to supplement and why it’s economically important.
Dr. Hall was asked by a producer about ten years ago, “Why are we seeing all these problems now when we didn’t see them 30 years ago?”
Dr. Hall’s first thought was if it’s not tested for, then it won’t be seen.
If a calf dies the first thing a producer wants to know from the veterinarian is why, what is the ‘bug’ and how to treat it. A liver biopsy sample was not taken to check on mineral deficiency.
In USDA data about 40 years ago today, the numbers on the average mature producing cow was 2 to 3 calves every 2 to 3 years. How many producers were preg checking cows 30 to 40 years ago? Most commercial people did not. Often times a cow was given a year to build her system back up. Now every cow is preg checked and if open go to the sales ring.
Now producers ask a cow to produce a calf every year plus the increase body size and weight. Forty years ago a 450/500 weight steer was bragged about. If a producer weans off a 450/500 lb calf now, ‘put him back in the corner of the barn where nobody will see.’
Producers have started altering nature. Most grandfathers were calving out in May. Then Dad’s (sons of the grandfathers) backed calving time up to the end of March or 1st of April. Now everybody is starting out in February.
Wild animals evolved to be the most productive and to produce offspring at the optimum time of year for survival. When do the deer, the elk, the buffalo and the antelope, have their babies? No matter where you live in the United States it is at least 30 to 60 days after spring green. Producers are asking calves to be born 30 to 60 days before they ever have a chance of seeing anything green. The worst possible time of the year to be having babies, that is another reason some of the deficiencies are now seen compared to 40 yrs ago. The producers and the consumers have actually induced some of the problems.
The condition of the cow before the first trimester also weighs in. If the cow was mineral deficient to start with and uses all her energy to send mineral and antibiotics to the calf during pregnancy and after for milk production, then the calf will be mineral deficient at birth. A healthy herd produces a healthier calf. A calf needs even more minerals during the suckling period because they are not foraging.
Another factor in vitamin deficiency is the combination of other minerals. Alkaline soil and molybdenum add sulfur which counter reacts with copper.
A change in diet from summer pasture to winter pasture to stockyard, or the belief that a really good alfalfa hay with more calcium, phosphorus and protein meant there’s no need for mineral supplements, and a change in water. All of these factors can be tested and help to decrease the incidents of; poor conception, open cows, poor breeding, poor weight gain, sudden death (white muscle disease) and other diseases in all livestock not just cattle.
A lab panel test can be ran for all mineral deficiencies through a liver biopsy with a veterinarian and will help to narrow down what mineral program will best suit the producer.
CHS Big Sky is one of our local sellers of mineral product who can help you get set up with the FDA required VFD.
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