As Colder Weather Moves In, Diet Becomes Even More Important

While a late-year run of warmer weather is always delightful for producers and livestock, it’s important to be ready for when that first cold snap hits.  Dr. Nate Haas, DVM at Bio-Vet, said there are things to watch out for when temperatures drop.

“One has to do with parasites. So, we do deal with flies and ectoparasites. Ticks, lice, and things like that," Hass noted.  "Farmers, at this time of year, are really waiting for that hard frost, so they can start to clear their pastures of some of those nasty things. And that's always a problem. My bigger concern that I run into, and I see this in some of our areas of our territories out in the west, is heat stress and long-term heat stress. Anything over the mid-70s constitutes heat stress in these dairy cows.”

If that last run of warm weather before winter is part of extended hot weather, Hass noted it can take a toll on dairy cattle.

“So, what we end up seeing is production losses, and the possibility of issues with gestation and breeding," he said.  "So, we're always on the lookout for that, and it's kind of a trailing indicator, right? We don't always see those acute cases, but we will see that it’s kind of a slump going on and on over weeks. And so, what we try to do is maintain hydration, keep those animals eating, part and parcel for what Bio-Vet does with our direct-fed microbials and our nutritional supplements, and so that's one of the biggest things that I'm going to be looking for.”

Haas added steep temperature swings can cause respiratory issues in cattle.

“They can, and we'll see more respiratory issues in the summer than we see in the wintertime in the veterinary world, and that's kind of counterintuitive, right? But the reason for that is that cows have a horrible time blowing off heat," Hass said.  "They only have so much surface area for these huge masses that they have, so one way they get rid of heat is because they increase respiration. And so, sometimes if you have an animal with a low-level pneumonia or low-level respiratory issue, you won't even see it until they start really exerting that breath, and that oftentimes happens just trying to blow off that heat. So that's always a problem that we see with cattle. It's a little bit different from what we think of in the wintertime. Wintertime, we think of colds from the human standpoint. Their respiratory issues oftentimes manifest themselves with the stress of the heat and over the months of that hot period of time during the summer.”

And Haas added proper nutrition can help cattle with the transition to the bitter cold weather.

“If we can smooth out their gastrointestinal tract, and that's, again, what we do, is trying to keep them consistent," he said.  "You mentioned earlier the ups and downs. You know, we may have 50 degrees tonight and 80 degrees tomorrow. That's really hard on an animal. Well, the same thing happens physiologically inside the animal. So, anything we can keep those animals on a proper plane of nutrition, so they can enter that winter period of time where, honestly, they get a little chance of rest from the heat stress. That's going to benefit those cows in the long run.” 

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