Hi, Welcome Bc Couch chat. I'm Brad White.
Happy to have you with us today, and
happy to have our crew here in the
studio. Good morning, Bob. Good morning. Good morning,
Philip. Hello, guys. So Brian and Dustin are
out. We're gonna have Doctor Weiss, join us
here in a little bit, and he's gonna
talk about ultrasound and how we can use
it for
diagnosis. We're also gonna talk about
removing the bulls when you should do that
and why you should do that. And leaky
gut, It's a syndrome that's been discussed a
lot in different types a cattle and Philip
gonna fill us in on some of the
research and what it tells us about that.
Before we get into those topics,
did wanna talk a little bit about our
other podcast is Bo Science with Bc.
We have several more in...
Discussions there on specific topic. A little bit
different format. You can find it at the
same place you find this podcast. And as
always for either that podcast or this 1,
if you wanna have a topic you'd like
us to talk about You can send us
an email at b at KSU dot edu
d.
Guys, I hope you had a great fourth
of July. Stayed safe.
And ate lots of good food, which leads
to our question for the day.
Bet and it's a very specific question. Best
fourth of July
dessert.
Because it has to be something that's not
necessarily gonna melt right away. You can take
it to the fourth of July picnic,
best fourth of July dessert.
But
I'm gonna say something that melts. Ice cream.
We always have ice cream on fourth of
july. And, yes, you're trying to just cutting
the close with melting and not melting and
putting ice around it, so it doesn't melt
So you can take it outside. Homemade ice
gotta
it's gotta.
Yeah. Yeah. And then you need a good
piece of, like, strawberry rhubarb pie. To put
it on. You are so right. You are
sure right. Does sound good. You guys have
good I can't remember what it was called,
but there was 1 thing that was, like,
a sweet, but it also had pretzels on
top. So it was oh Yeah. That strawberry
and then a little bit Strawberry and some...
Yeah. What is that cold? That's strawberry sn.
Strawberry strawberry.
That's not what we call them. I will
now. There you Right. I hope you had
good strawberry sn on fourth of July. So
good Good chance to have some dessert. Let's
talk full removal. So Bob, a lot of
times, I'm a start with you, but we
talk about calvin season,
then go into breeding season
and breeding season may start mid May, meaning
if I want a 60 day calvin season,
I need to pull out the bulls, mid
July, which can be kind of challenging. So
tell me what are your thoughts on how
do I get those bowls out? How do
I make this decision on getting them out
60 days after the start. Alright. Well, I'm
gonna say something that maybe some people would
disagree with me on is. I'm not in
a hurry to take those bulls out, even
though I am a big proponent of a
controlled short calvin season, such as a 60,
you know, anywhere from 50 to 70, 75
days, you know, kind 60 isn't? I... That's
a good number. I like a 60 day
calvin season.
But bread cows
generally are worth enough more than open cows.
I would like to leave the bulls in
there and let those cows that would have
been open and if we'd remove the bulls,
give them a chance to become pregnant
later in the breeding season, but that does
require that I do pray check where I
can identify those light bread cows
and and treat them as a coal. They're
just a value added coal.
They're they're not a part of my a
successful breeding season. So what you're saying is
you like a 60 day calvin season, but
that does not have to mean a 60
day breeding. Absolutely can have a longer breeding
season and you're using Pre check to get
down to your 60 day calvin season. So
I like that because I don't really like
going out mid July and getting the bull
out of the pasture,
but there may be some instances I wanna
do that. Philip I'll turned to you and
say,
what are what are times that you say,
maybe I need to get that bowl out
for 1 reason or another? Well, so, I
mean, it could be the the bulls getting
excessively thin.
Or a young bull that he'll he still
needs to grow. So maybe I wanna go
ahead and get him out of there so
I can put him on a little better
nutrition, especially we're getting into late summer here
forage quality started to decline some, and so
he may need some better nutrition to keep
growing.
Another thing you might wanna think about if
I have multi
bowl pastors,
it is bolts continuing to fight and and
things like that. And so bull injury
is still a risk.
And so maybe if I only have few
cows in there that are still open. Maybe
I wanna pull all the bulls out, but
maybe 1 or 2. How does that fit
with what you were saying about? Yes. We
won't know if they're pregnant at that point?
Correct.
But I really like what Philip said and
that it kind of takes this decision and
adds a little... May maybe a little bit
of complexity to it instead of just a
simple. You should leave the balls in or
you should leave the balls out.
Kinda look at your bowls and and it
particularly in a multi bowl pasture,
maybe remove some of the bowls, and again,
it doesn't have to be right at 60
days after the start of the breeding season.
But at a time when you're moving cows
or you're doing some fly control or something
like that, if I'm gonna gather the cows
evaluate the bulls,
decide if I... And and there should be
many fewer open cows, you know, this late
in the breeding season
that I don't need the power that I
needed. The first. And so you start really
kinda thinking through, well, how many bulls do
I need and which which bulls. So anybody
thin, anybody young probably needs come out,
but then maybe 1 of the older bowls
that looks in good shape, no no indications
of problems with lame or anything like that
and leave him in for a little bit
longer. It just becomes a little bit more
of a... And again, I wanna look at
it as a strategy to add value to
open cows. But then I've got... I... Then
I've still got some of the work of
pulling out some of the bowls, which is
challenging. And I think the labor part of
this is is an issue, especially we're out
on summer grass
euro... Are you okay
if it's a labor issue to leave all
the bulls out until
Break check time. And so we how long
would you leave them out there? I I
would say,
and and thank you for putting me on
the spot. But I would say, yeah. But
then use the the situation that you're dealing
with.
In that, if I've got labor for another
reason. Again, I'm moving past, I'm doing fly
control. I'm doing something like that. At that
point, you can think about anything that you
want to accomplish in that kind of time
frame. But if you're not, if the cows
are still out on pasture and you're not
moving them,
because really, either I am gonna have to
gather the cows or I have to go
to the work where I'm setting up panels
and trying to, you know, hurt a a
bowl into a a catch pan or something
like that, all of which can be
difficult, possibly dangerous. And so I think, yeah.
Maybe the take home is
Although I really like a 60 day calvin
season, I do not think that you have
to have exactly a 60 day breeding season,
and be a little more flexible on if
and when you remove the bulls. I like
that. Flexibility flexibility
is
I think 1 of the important take homes,
and you talked about 60 days
calvin.
That's what we're shooting for. So, Philip, I
I want to
ask you, we've heard a lot about leaky
gut and managing leaky gut. I. I gotta
start out with what is leaky gut? Yeah.
So it's the
kind of
common term for
a
I don't know if you wanna call it
a syndrome. I don't know what exactly I
would call it. But
What happens is that we have in the
gut, we have a
a physical barrier
between the
inside of the digestive tract and then the
rest of the animal. So you got the
food and digestive
You've got bacteria and stuff like that in
that digestive tract. And that physical barrier keeps
that bacteria and other
possible toxins and other things from being absorbed
across the
digestive tract into the bloodstream of the animal.
Well, what happens is certain situations and we're...
This is still very new research, but certain
situations and we don't know all of them.
Tend to cause that physical barrier to be
disrupted, and that allows large
molecules
and we think maybe
bacteria
to be able to get across that digest...
Or that intestinal barrier when they normally wouldn't
be able to, and that's why we call
it Leaky gut because things that normally don't
cross the intestinal barrier
leak across into the bloodstream. And so that's
where the the term comes from. Yeah. Basically,
they're going systemic. So they're going from inside
that got into the bloodstream
which could be, and you you do a
lot of research on liver abs accesses. Right?
A lot of the... As the blood comes
from the guts, it's gonna go to liver,
that could be
a contributing factor to some of our liver
abs accesses. It also could be a contributing
factor to some of our other either disease
or low performance syndromes since we you still
have to deal with those bacteria as they
come across. Bob, this is a relatively
new occurrence. We haven't seen
haven't talked about this for a long time.
What's your perspective? Well, I I would agree.
It's it's interesting in that I I was
certainly not taught, Leaky gut. In either of
my veterinary classes or nutrition classes.
And it is interesting to think about because
I could see, you know, some health issues.
Bacteria are not supposed to be in the
bloodstream. I can see some performance issues as
well. So 1 of my questions, Philip is
Are are there some dietary components? Do we
see this more on a a grain type
diet or can it also occur on a
forage type diet or is it during transitions
or or what's the high... What's the theory
of of
why we see some leaky gut type syndromes?
We don't know. I mean, we're really in
the early stages of this we've got research
out there that that shows that different diet
components in young cab. So a lot of
the work has been done in
young calves,
so, like, dairy type calves where we really
control the nutrition. I mean so some of
the... There's bits some work dietary components different
starch contents of the starter diet, different
formulations of the milk replace
have tended to increase the ability of the
Gi tract in these cab. We know in
some older animals that acidosis
will cause some,
increase in Perm ability,
and then we know that animals being off
feed for several days.
So decrease feed intake for, you know, 3
to 5 days,
severely decreased intake, not just a little bit,
but severely decreased intake for 3 to 5
days.
Will increase the perm ability of that gut.
So
we're still figuring out what factors cause it?
When does it happen how
either how extensive
is the effect? Is it the whole Gi
tract? Is it just different segments of the
Gi tract
and so we're still really figuring out a
lot about this condition and,
how we can try to manage it. Is
it associated with anything I can see such
as,
manure consistency or anything like that or is
is that not as simple as that? It
it could be in the case of acidosis,
so we would be able to see some
more runny diarrhea type
manure and then things like that. But some
of these other conditions, No. We we haven't
got any real evidence that says you... There's
any clinical signs that I can see in
the animal. Yeah. I I know we're still
kind of in early phases of trying to
figure this syndrome out, But what are the
ideas as far as trying to prevent it
or control it? Is it is it pretty
much all dietary
interventions or just what exactly do I do
to try to
minimize the chance. Well, right now, yeah, Most
of the stuff I have seen, a research
It has been on the dietary side. So,
like, probiotics.
And then also,
some
b vitamins and some things like that as
trying to at least in the room to
trying to bolster the development and of the
epithelium in the room.
So things like
acid,
because it is a major energy source for
the epithelial lima room and then things like
niacin
or t have been tried and and have
shown some benefit in different situations. But we
do really don't have an answer yet. As
far as as treatments or caused factors.
So
how... This is a... I think interesting from
a standpoint of... Okay. We've got a new
potential issue here. How do we sort that
out? What kind of research do you see
would be the most
beneficial to help answer some of these questions?
Well, I think that
we need to
maybe have a systematic approach to from a
diet being a nutrition, from a dietary perspective,
what types of diets or feed feed ingredients
or
formulations
affect it. So
a systematic approach to to that aspect of
it. And then I think we need to
take us a step back and look at,
okay, what is the...
What's the biological
reason
that this happens? Why would an animal will
allow their
Gi track to be more permeable? Because that
seems like a negative thing
and why why does it even happen at
all?
To better understand then well, maybe, so then
what would be our intervention or our preventative
measures to keep it from happening.
Yeah. Absolutely. And I think it it takes
a little bit of time to figure that
out. And often many of us want to...
You Bob asked how do we manage it,
and you said, well, we've tried x y
and z, and we don't even fully understand
it yet. So it's hard to know that
if those management intervention are there. And I
think this is a also a great example
of
you have to have a clear case definition
or how do I know this animal has
leaky gut or not? Before I can say,
can I get rid of leaky gut or
not? Being able to tell that they have
it. Right now, the the only way that
we can tell the... Or measure it or
determine is, we dose a marker to the
animal orally, and we take blood samples or
urine end samples and we measure the amount
of marker in there. So we know well
that amount... That... This animal had more of
that marker across the Gi tract in this
other animal,
and it shouldn't be crossing the Gi tract
at all,
because it's a large molecule.
That's our... Right now, that's our only way
to determine Yeah. And so we can clearly
document it occurs and it... And... But the
only way to document it is in research
setting. Right. We can't do that in the
field with all the other animals that are
out there. So
interesting
disease process, and you'll keep us updated. You've
got some research ongoing looking at how it's
tied to other disease syndromes.
But wanted to make you aware that that's
kind of an emerging thought process. And I
think could it could enable us enable us
to hopefully,
hope fully work forward with those calves. Mh.
So now we'll get Doctor. Luis to come
in and join us and talk a little
bit about ultrasound. Welcome back to Doctor. Luis
Fat, who's here with us today, and he's
a veterinarian from Brazil that's finishing up his
Phd
and he has done a lot of different
work with
ultrasound. So looking at things that maybe we
don't think about. Because a lot of times
we hear Old Town and Cattle. My first
thought is rep repo, Luis has done a
lot of other evaluation of both liver, lungs,
some other areas. And I wanted to pick
his brain today relative to
what are some of the pros and cons
for places that we put the ultrasound? And
maybe just Louise tell us in general,
what type of information is that ultrasound providing
back to us? First, thanks guys for having
me here.
Well, Ultrasound is a very very powerful tool.
And you can measure anything. You can evaluate
several things, like,
tissue density.
If there's any abnormal normality that you would
look at
like in a liver, for example, If we're
we're talking about liver abs access.
That's something that is quite
when when there's access there, it's quite obvious.
So it's an artifact when you find those,
that we will give you valuable
information there.
There are several
other soft tissues evaluation that we can use
at shoot side with the ultrasound,
everything from muscle skeletal
evaluations, like if an animal have
l or tandem problem,
you if a if you have, like, a
s problem with a bowl, you can go
and look at it and
evaluate if there's is a accumulate
accumulation of liquids,
fluids,
if you have a tandem injury or l
and injury,
which is way more common for horses,
but it is literally the same application for
Bo as well. Yeah. Absolutely. So you can
evaluate some of those mu skeletal areas.
So, Brian and Bob, what what do you
guys see beyond our typical
rep repo? What are some of the potential
things you'd like to know that you think
ultrasound may help you figure out if you're
trying to diagnose something. 1 of the things
is that the equipment for ultrasound is
becoming... It's still expensive, but it's becoming more
accessible and more common in veterinary practices. And,
you know, so I'm gonna go back to
the Rep repo. Yes. We
spend anything but. I know, but I'm gonna
go there. So rather than just diagnosing pregnancy,
some of the... Particularly some of the
doppler ultrasound that looks at blood flow and
things like that. We were looking at O
and getting some good information about o.
We can put it on testicles and look
for
abnormalities of testicles as well. So yes, Rep
pro, but beyond just diagnostic
beyond 10 Really need things we're learning. And
and I think that you're right because we've
talked with some of our of other colleagues
about what they're doing looking at test and
being able to determine not just if there's
damage but the extent damage, which helps with
your prognosis. Yeah. Exactly.
I think Bob kinda cheated. I mean, he
did rep repo without being repo. Right? Like,
and all add, and, Bob said, it's cheaper
and more accessible. It's also becoming a lot
more portable. And so 1 of the things
is it's it's moving from an in clinic
diagnostic tool to an in the field diagnostic
tool. And I know
that was not the case when I was
in practice, and there are times where I
wish it would have been because, you know,
you you show up at a farm
and somebody's got a bull or a cow
or a calf with a weird mass, and
you don't know what it is. And you've
got basically a couple options.
You can stick a scalpel in it and
open it up completely,
which sometimes that's... If it's a thing like
a hernia, that's really bad.
Not a good idea. Right? Yeah. You can
stick a needle in it and
if p comes rolling out. Okay, well, you're
pretty sure it was an abs access. But
sometimes you don't get much fluid. And so...
And and you... Sometimes you wonder we'll it
could still be an ab. I just didn't
get the right part. It didn't get deep
enough or whatever.
Now I've got this portable ultrasound where I
can put the probe right there, and I
can use the probe to guide my needle
and collect a sample. I can use the
probe to say, hey, this is this mass
on the underside of this bull. Is not
a hernia. It just looks like a fluid
pocket. So, you know, I... So I look
at it as really kind of a another
diagnostic
tool because now the portability,
it's a it's another field diagnostic tool that
we can use, essentially for in on, Louise
mentioned it, but really, anything that is soft
tissue. Right? If it's muscle fluid, all of
that. It doesn't do bone, But if it's
any of those and we have access to
it, it's it's a great tool. So, Luis,
what what else as you think about some
of the soft tissue. It makes me think
of
the abdomen, the intestines, if there's any Gi
issues that you like to know, are there
any limitations that we should be concerned about?
Well, the greatest
limitation for
pornography is air. The presence of air
the ultrasound waves, they are not able to
go through air.
So anything that would... Like, if you think
about the rum. Right? Half of the room
is filled with air.
So the... Ultra sound waves would not be
able to go through those.
So
when we were looking at Gi tractor, are
some things that we can evaluate. And 1
thing is,
hardware disease.
When we were looking at,
an animal that we are... We have a
suspicious of hardware disease, and we place the
probe at that fifth inter cost space,
by the heart and re reticulum.
We can see... We can evaluate for adhesion
and and things like that.
The other limitation is that,
bow lines are quite
big animals,
Ultrasound
with today's technology,
they usually don't go over 30 to 35
centimeters deep.
So when you think about
an adult animal, you won't be able to
see much with that,
depth, But there are,
some things that you can look with the
Gi, like the hardware diseases it's a pretty
good 1,
when you were evaluating that,
re reticulum, diaphragm and heart
wendell. Yeah. And I think there's some opportunities
in some of the probes and Brian alluded
to this.
Not just the the probe, but the probe
and the machine
have greatly increased portability
because
At the start,
ultrasound were a cart only device. You had
a big cart that had your ultrasound machine
on it and a little screen
And now you have a big screen and
probably no cart on many of those. Some
some people wear the goggles for the Reaper
Ultrasound.
But lots of different applications. The ones most
commonly would be
reproductive pregnancy detection and also Car
evaluation. So there are people that are certified
to do that. But as you mentioned, maybe
some real opportunities to start thinking about what
are some of the other things that it
could provide us some information and you guys
came up with some great ideas even though
Bob's stuck on reach. Stuck on Reg. Yep.
So thanks, Louise. Appreciate you joining us today.
Thanks for having me.