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Feeding Facts

The Right Feed for High Heat and Humidity

As summer bears down and temperatures continue to rise, there are several products on the market that will help our livestock deal with the stress brought about by high heat and humidity. Livestock, especially those that graze endophyte-infected fescue, need help to maintain a body temperature, which in turn allows them to graze for longer periods and spend less time lounging in a pond.

One of the first and easiest things to do as temperatures heat up is to make sure that the mineral you feed is top-notch. The enhanced vitamin and trace mineral levels in minerals like AFC Breeder Gold should help your cattle maintain their body temperature and will in most cases help your overall pregnancy rates and shorten breed back time by a few days.

Another option that has been out for several years is Tasco. Tasco is a supplement made from brown seaweed. Decades of research has shown that it improves cattle health in many ways. One of the more significant is that it typically will lower body temperature about a half a degree, which does not sound like much, but is enough to produce some very profitable results. It has also been shown to tighten up the calving interval. Many studies have repeatedly shown a 3-5% improvement in conception rates overall and a significant shortening of the calving season.

Tasco is also a great fit for producers who market breeding-age bulls. Semen quality can be significantly improved with a lowered body temperature and several producers have seen a much lower incidence of young

bulls failing breeding soundness exams when feeding Tasco or some other product to mitigate heat stress.

Tasco has also shown to be effective in getting better gains on growing animals throughout the summer. It is generally cheap to feed and is an extremely cost-effective way to get a few extra pounds on growing livestock. Many of the higher-end show feeds contain Tasco, including most of Purina’s Honor Show Chow line. Animals tend to stay on feed better, eat more and grow faster if they can maintain their body temperatures within an optimum range.

Tasco has proven in many research trials across several states to be very effective at addressing a wide range of issues that plague livestock production, but none of that matters if you cannot get it. Fortunately, it is not hard to find. It has been available for years in our STIMU-LYX low moisture tubs and could be added to many of our minerals if demand were high enough. It is also available in some of the Purina Wind and Rain Minerals that can be purchased through your local Coop stores.

Tasco seems to be an old standby, but where heat stress and fescue toxicity mitigation are concerned, there are several new products that may soon find their way into feeds that we use routinely. Most are not as readily available as Tasco, but could be added to some of our mineral options in larger quantities required for a custom product.

Of these, a capsaicin product seems to be gaining the most traction and seems to work very well. Industry wide you see capsaicin mixed with many other essential oils. Combinations with eugenol, cinnamaldehyde, vitamin E or CinnaGar are reported to do many of the same things that Tasco does and sometimes more. The CinnaGar and capsicum extract is thought to add a bit of natural fly control to the heat stress/fescue toxicity mitigation. Most of these products have not been as widely used in this area as the Tasco but show promise as an alternative, and I expect we will see more research with these products in various combinations.

Tasco, capsaicum, eugenol and cinnamaldehyde all offer some intriguing advantages while growing cattle and other livestock in the Southeast. Anything we can do to keep our animals cool without adding significant cost makes sense. The cost of these products varies a good bit and, as mentioned earlier, Tasco is the one that we have gone to most often. It provides good time- and research-tested results in many ways that change your bottom line in a positive direction. There is room for some of the other products, and as researchers take a deeper look into the newer products, they may become more available and we may see them in as many or more places than Tasco. Either way it seems to be in your best interest to take a long hard look at the cost of adding one of these options to your feeding program as temperatures rise. Keep in mind that most livestock are in some form of mild to heavy heat stress anytime the ambient temperature gets into the mid-80s or higher with our normal Alabama humidity.

Animals tend to stay on feed better, eat more and grow faster if they can maintain their body temperatures within an optimum range.

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