IMMUNITY through NUTRITION Leveraging an effective nutrition program to improve immunity in your herd. FEATURE BY LAURA HANDKE
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t the 2022 Cattlemen’s College, Dr. Ronald Scott, head of beef cattle technical innovation for Purina, shared on the importance of influencing immunity through nutrition to benefit every piece of the beef valuechain.
many of them as possible, from getting sick to begin with.
The cost of first treatment of respiratory diseases, among the most costly and prevalent illnesses in the industry, is around $30. The cost to re-treat compounds, adding additional weight “Morbidity and mortality are similar to loss of as much as 2.2 pounds per day the where they were when I started in this animal is off feed and water. Final quality industry as a kid,” Scott said. “If you think also suffers from illness, with studies about it, vaccines should be better, we indicating a reduced hot carcass weight to should have fewer knowledge gaps across a tune of 49 pounds and as much as a 28 the industry and fewer mismanaged point reduction in marbling. cattle.” But there’s another cost – one that doesn’t While we are gaining ground on all come back as black and white on the of those fronts, new consumer-driven grading report. challenges are influencing a producer’s access and profitability to treat sick cattle. Consumer perspective isn’t always a The solution, Scott says: Keep them, or as consideration producers keep top of
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mind. However, over the past decade, consumer demand has increasingly favored animal proteins raised without antibiotics. The solution, Scott says, is approaching the problem of illness from a proactive rather than a reactive mindset: How do we prevent disease rather than treat disease?
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NUTRITION AND HERD HEALTH “Is there a relationship between nutrition management and herd health,”
