Guests: Dr. Todd Callaway, University of Georgia; Dr. Michael Steele, University of Guelph Dr. Callaway presented on this topic in a Real Science Lecture series webinar on June 4, 2024. You can find it at www.balchem.com/realscience. The following podcast takes a deeper dive into the conversation.
Dr. Callaway presented on this topic in a Real Science Lecture series webinar on June 4, 2024. You can find it at www.balchem.com/realscience. The following podcast takes a deeper dive into the conversation.
For years, probiotics were known as direct-fed microbials (DFMs) in livestock and probiotics in humans. Terminology has been updated to reflect different modes of action and composition. (9:07)
A probiotic is defined as a living microorganism that will be beneficial to the health and/or performance of the host. Prebiotics are fermentable substrates that the host can’t use, but the microbes can. Dr. Steele agrees that terminology and definitions keep evolving; he uses “microbial-based solutions” rather than DFM. He believes that the ever-evolving terminology and definitions have led to some of the skepticism about these products in the industry. He recommends to farmers and nutritionists that a product should have a bare minimum of three publications in high-quality peer-reviewed journals showing efficacy before using them on-farm. (10:13)
Every farm is going to have a different set of challenges and goals that will play a role in determining the right choice of microbial-based solution. Weather and climate, water quality, pathogen challenges, ration grind size, and ration ingredients will all factor into the decision. (17:39)
Both guests agree that we don't know enough about the microbiome in cattle to define what a good versus a bad microbiome looks like. Dr. Steele suggests the next steps in research should look more deeply at the host’s physiological mechanisms in how they’re responding to a probiotic to truly understand when it’s going to work and when it’s not. (21:19)
Dr. Ordway asks how much microbial products could improve the absorption of nutrients. Dr. Steele responds that much of the research so far has focused on digestion and absorption has not been studied much. Some studies in calves fed microbials have shown changes in gut structure and the development of villi, and even papillae in the rumen. That gives us some high-level information about absorption, but we are not close to understanding the nitty gritty of the microbial mechanisms at play in absorption. Dr. Callaway adds that hindgut absorption in ruminants is more important than we have previously thought. Dr. Steele suggests the small and large intestines are equally as important as the forestomach, but they are not as well understood as they’re harder to study in ruminants. The conversation goes on to discuss possible modes of action behind increased liver abscesses observed in beef on dairy operations. (30:12)
Both guests share their thoughts regarding working together across disciplines, especially agronomy researchers since the feed base has such an impact on-farm. They discuss soil microbes, forge inoculants, and silage microbes. (43:23)
Dr. Ordway’s take-home message for nutritionists is to not forget to have conversations with your partners - the producer, the end user, the veterinarian, the crop team and the management team on the farm. Coordinated biology is not just within the animal, it’s all the factors coming into play that have been discussed in this episode. (58:32)
Dr. Steele reiterates his earlier advice to only use microbial-based solutions that have a bare minimum of three publications showing efficacy in a high-ranking journal. He also recommends you choose your metric of measurement properly. Focusing on cattle that are experiencing some stress or metabolic or infectious issues may allow you to truly evaluate the return on investment. There are great microbial solutions out there but you need to use a proven solution from a company that’s research-based. (59:48)
Dr. Callaway echoes Dr. Steele’s recommendation to be slightly cynical about companies that come in to sell you things. Ask how their product works, and ask to see the research. A company that tells you when its product works and when it doesn’t might be more trustworthy than one that says their product always works. Lastly, what does success look like for you as a farmer? Have a measurable, bite-size metric for determining if these products impact your bottom line. (1:01:28)
Please subscribe and share with your industry friends to invite more people to join us at the Real Science Exchange virtual pub table.
If you want one of our Real Science Exchange t-shirts, screenshot your rating, review, or subscription, and email a picture to anh.marketing@balchem.com. Include your size and mailing address, and we’ll mail you a shirt.
Scott Sorrell (00:00:07):
Good evening everyone, and welcome to the Real Science Exchange, the podcast we're leading scientists and interstate professionals meet over a few drinks to discuss the latest ideas and trends in animal nutrition. Hi, I'm Scott Rell. I'm gonna be your host tonight here at Real Science Exchange. We're here to welcome Dr. Todd Callaway from the University of Georgia to further discuss probiotics and their impact on animal health and performance. Dr. Callaway joined us for the Real Science Lecture series and presented a great webinar back on June 4th titled Are Probiotics, just Magic Foo Foo Dust. If you'd like to watch that webinar, go to alchem.com/real science and scroll down to June to the June 4th webinar, and you'll be able to click on it and watch it from there. Dr. Callaway, welcome. I believe this is your first time to the pub, and as we like to ask what's in your glass tonight?
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:01:00):
Oh, thank you very much. I appreciate it. See today, literally, 'cause I'm in the office is water. 'cause You know, UGA doesn't allow us to drink on the job. We get in a lot of trouble for that, but normally it is a bourbon like Bulleit.
Scott Sorrell (00:01:18):
Bulleit bourbon. All right. So Dr. Calloway a seat that you've brought a guest with you tonight. Would you mind introducing him and tell us a little bit why you selected Dr. Steele to join us tonight? Okay,
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:01:29):
Yeah. So this is Dr. Michael Steele, who's with us from University of Guelph. And I chose him because we were, we wrote the paper that all this was based on together, and it all started from back, and correct me when I, when I'm wrong, Mike, about being right before the pandemic. We started writing this review. We met at a DSA the year before, kind of hit it off. Mike came and said, let's do something together. Okay. So we started working on this, and then the pandemic hit and it just everyth, you know, how everything was just nightmarish of, oh, we've gotta get this done. There's a million things on fire. And it took us forever to get it written. Mike was so patient with me being behind on things, and he is always like, come on, you can get this done, you know, come on, idiot. You can finish this
Dr. Michael Steele (00:02:40):
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:03:17):
Yeah. And that's been the secret to my career is I find people that are smarter and better than me and I kind of help them and I stand there and go look at what we did
Scott Sorrell (00:03:32):
Mike, what, what's in your glass tonight? I have to ask you that. Yeah,
Dr. Michael Steele (00:03:34):
So I'm calling in from the Netherlands right now, so it's the afternoon. So I thought, why is that? Right? Why not? I have a Belgian beer here a blonde. It's 8% though, so I haven't started drinking it yet. So just be aware that towards the end of this podcast, things might be a little bit more fluid,
Scott Sorrell (00:03:52):
A little spicy, a little
Dr. Michael Steele (00:03:54):
Spicy, but we'll see.
Scott Sorrell (00:03:55):
Yeah.
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:03:56):
Good. Is this one of the trapes ones or just a regular beer?
Dr. Michael Steele (00:04:00):
It's actually this new one from the den area of Belgium. So I've started to drink Belgium beers since moving here just on sabbatical and yeah. Wow.
Scott Sorrell (00:04:12):
Now they got some tasty beers over there. I like duville and Palm. Yeah, too. They're two of my favorites when I go over there, so. All right. And I can't forget my co-host. Tonight we are got Dr. Ryan Ordway joining us. Ryan, good to see you again. Thanks for joining us and gotta ask what's in your glass tonight?
Dr. Ryan Ordway (00:04:33):
Well, I am drinking a of course, I'm, I'm still on the clock here and it's not, not afternoon yet, but
Scott Sorrell (00:04:41):
It's always happy hour. It's a real science exchange. Ryan,
Dr. Ryan Ordway (00:04:44):
I'm, I'm just I've got a glass of water and I actually just got a fresh cup of coffee, so, and you can see that I've got the, I don't know if any listeners have young kids out there, but you know, I've got, I, even though my kids are not as young anymore, I'm still a big fan of Bluey. So I've got the got a b bluey mug of espresso coffee. So,
Scott Sorrell (00:05:10):
Alright. But there you go.
Dr. Ryan Ordway (00:05:11):
I, I'm a big, I've gotten into rum in the last basically during Covid. So I if I had my choice, I would be drinking a diplomatic o rum with a big ice cube. But,
Scott Sorrell (00:05:25):
Well, I am having a, a local whiskey. My wife took me to a farmer's market this weekend in Narrowsburg New York, and there was a local vendor there, and he had a single malt whiskey from Rock Valley Spirits. Had some last night, liked it. I still think I'm more of a bourbon drinker, but we'll see if you know, as I have this, maybe I'll begin to like whiskeys a little bit more. But one of the neat things the other story I had to tell tonight. So I'm drinking this from my glen Karen Glass, and I got this and I, and I've talked about this before in the podcast during a bourbon tasting at the Cavalier Hotel in Virginia Beach, which is an old historic hotel where that existed during prohibition.
Scott Sorrell (00:06:21):
And I did a, a bourbon tasting there. Well, my son took a job last week and he's working for an ad agency and the Cavalier Hotel, and specifically the the distillery they have there is his primary account. So I thought that was pretty cool. So I had to pull out the Glen Karen today. So anyway, folks, looking forward to a great conversation about probiotics and fufu dust and the like and dispelling those those myths. So let's, let's raise our glass to a great conversation into some great people tonight. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers.
Speaker 5 (00:06:55):
Cheers.
Commercial 1 (00:07:03):
New research is changing everything we thought we knew about Coline's impact on the cow and her calf and top scientists have a lot to say about it. They're presenting new research that supports choline as a required nutrient to optimize milk production choline as a required nutrient to support a healthy transition choline as a required nutrient to improve calf health and growth and choline as a required nutrient to increase colostrum quantity. This new research is solidifying cho's role as a required nutrient for essentially every cow, regardless of health status, milk production level, or body condition score. Learn more about the science that is changing the game and the choline source that is making it happen. Reassure precision release choline from B chem, visit b chem.com/scientists say to learn more.
Scott Sorrell (00:08:06):
So, Dr. Galloway, I'm gonna jump right in. As I mentioned that you participated in the real lecture er, real science lecture series, we had over 220 people register for that webinar. And we've had over 200 so far that's actually watched it, there's quite a bit of interest. You know, people are looking for more information on how to improve the microbiota in in ruminants. You know, and and relative to that, it's been my experience that there's a great deal of confusion and dare I say, skepticism around DFMs or direct fed microbials. You know, you've got probiotics and prebiotics and postbiotics and new biotics and on and on and on. And so, you know, as my first question, can you kind of help clear that up for us? You know, what are the differences in some of these direct fed microbials and, and are they all really relevant for feeding two ruminants?
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:09:07):
Well, yeah, they are. It's, you know, the terminology has kept changing. For years it was direct fed micros and Mike correct me when I hit something wrong, but, you know, we called 'em DFMs just 'cause it was easier. 'cause Humans did probiotics, we did DFMs, and never the twain shall meet. But over time, as we've tried to figure out how you separate out these different modes of actions, we've had to develop terminologies that make more sense and are more related to their modes of action or what we think generally their mode of action or composition is. So the umbrella term that kind of now replaces DFM is ubiotic. And what that means is it's anything that's gonna support animal performance or health. So that can include our traditional DFMs, what are called probiotics, prebiotics, postbiotics, but also phytochemicals, organic acids and essential oils.
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:10:13):
So it kind of covers this whole breadth of things. Then underneath that are probiotics. We've gone back to that old definition of probiotics. That is a living microorganism that is gonna be beneficial to the health performance of the host. So that means it's gotta be a live bacterial yeast or fungal culture usually. So you can have your lactic acid bacteria, you can have aspergillus, any kind of the lactate utilizing bacteria. You can have just about anybody in that cluster as long as it's alive. And that also includes like the bacillus cultures, because those are spores and they are, you know, this is where your definition of what's alive versus not becomes real sketching because the bacillus are typically thought of as being spores, which is like in a spaceship, the space capsule for the DNA, that when it gets to good conditions, it vegetate and starts to grow.
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:11:19):
So those are lumped in there because they're supposed to come back to life to be their mode of action. Then you have prebiotics, which are fermentable substrates that the host can't use, but the microbes can, all the oligosaccharides and all those fun things for oligosaccharides, and they play a role in ruminants, but it's really ch the ruminant makes those really challenging and expensive to use. 'cause Number one, you've got that large room in volume that you've gotta get through concentration to, but also because that rumen population is so biochemically adept at breaking things down, you know, we can throw TNT into our ruminant and it will degrade rocket fuel, you name it, the microbes will eventually eat it. And, you know, you've got animals working at the Aberdeen proving grounds eating the grass. Instead of putting a private on a lawnmower, just turn goats loose.
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:12:23):
If a goat hits a mine and blows up me, it was just a goat. We have barbecue now, but, or if it finds unexploded ordinance, but they're able to cut the grass and the microbes in their rumen can degrade like octal, D-M-G, T-N-T, all these really nasty compounds that are leaching out from a hundred years of explosive testing just fine. So, you know, it's the great power of the ruminant, but the problem is those prebiotics, there's somebody in there that can eat a prebiotic. So unless we can kind of protect it to get to the hind gut and have some more action down there, it's, they're a little bit iffy somewhat. But a lot of our postbiotics, which are yeast and fungal products or products of their fermentation to, and they're non-living, so it can be the cell wall products, cell wall contents, all those things. A lot of those actually contain prebiotic or prebiotic like compounds that work in the room and, and work in behind it. So the line that we like to draw of this is a prebiotic. This is a prebiotic is a little sketchy there between prebiotic and prebiotic. I mean, what do you think, Mike?
Dr. Michael Steele (00:13:39):
Yeah, I would agree. I think you have some really good analogies, but we're very good at making these definitions change constantly.
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:14:48):
Well, that's where we came up with that title of Foo Dust in the first place, because so many products out there are just, you know, it, you give this to your cows, they're gonna drive your tractor, they're gonna shovel the pens for you, they'll date your daughter
Dr. Michael Steele (00:15:21):
Yeah. And it's easy to register some of these products without any research too. And I think that's, over the last couple decades has been detrimental to the reputation of some of the more proven direct fed microbials or probiotic, prebiotic, prebiotic technologies that are out and available for the dairy industry.
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:15:42):
There's some companies that they'll have 10 times the marketing budget that they do for r and d and they wonder why nobody believes us. You know, they take our free stuff, but they don't believe our product. Huh. I can't imagine why.
Dr. Michael Steele (00:15:56):
Yeah. I always tell farmers and nutritionists that you need minimum, and this is like bare minimum three publications in a peer reviewed journal showing efficacy, and it has to be a really high quality journal. Otherwise, I, I'd really be skeptical of what's on the market. But luckily, I think more and more companies are moving this direction, publishing and peer reviewed journals and, and even publishing when it doesn't work, because guess what, most of the time it doesn't really elicit a response because there's not enough of a stress challenge. So I think that's really important to also show that under certain conditions or in certain environments, it works better and it's not gonna be a silver bullet.
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:16:38):
Yeah. And that's been one of the big things that, you know, griswold's hammered for years about, you know, what's more important than which one works, but why don't they work every time? Why don't they work in every cow? And you know, your point exactly where they're stressed, either through production stress or environmental stress or health challenge or whatever. You know, what's going to affect those cattle and why doesn't it always work? And, you know, you're down to looking at the bulk tank, or you're trying to figure out an effect from 150 cows outta your a thousand cow herd. It's hard to see a difference in your bulk tank level milk production.
Scott Sorrell (00:17:20):
That's one of the takeaways I had Todd, when, when you were going through your presentation, is that you were talking about that maybe every dairy is going to require a custom blend or, or, or solution, which can be complicated, but maybe you could talk through that just a little bit.
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:17:39):
Yeah. 'cause you're gonna have to understand what the challenges on each farm are, or what's the diet. 'cause I mean, down here what we're feeding is very different than what they're feeding on Mike's farm up in the northeast, you know, well, way northeast. But, you know you got different, different problems on each farm. Our animals are struggling right now. We're, yesterday we were at 95 degrees, but the humidity, temperature was 110. So our cattle are struggling. It never gets below about a 90, feels like temperature here this time of year. 'cause The humidity is so thick. So our animals are under a completely different stress environment than cattle in Guelph or out in Montana or Wisconsin. So you're gonna have to look at those, you know, kind of regional level issues, but down to, you know, where's your water coming from? Is your water cleaned?
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:18:37):
Is it not a very clean water supplier? You're pulling water out of a river that you have problems. So you've got some pathogens coming in. Do you have a lot of birds coming in bringing salmonella into your herb? Do you have, you know, what kinda level of challenge do you have with those pathogens? You know, what's your grind size? We made a in, or my grad student made that great discovery this year that grinding corn causes more acidosis than not grinding corn. What is the, you know, what's your ration look like? So there's a lot of things that go into looking on a farm as to what's gonna help. If you're on a primarily forage diet, using a lactate utilizing bacteria is gonna be pointless. You're not gonna get enough lactate production for that to work. Mm-Hmm.
Dr. Michael Steele (00:19:43):
Yeah, I think just adding and building upon what you're saying, Todd, is you need a somewhat of a challenge. I'll, I'll walk back to my first study I ever did looking at probiotics was 10 years ago as an academic. And we did it on a wonderful farm with hardly any diarrhea or respiratory disease. The level of cleanliness was outstanding, and we found no differences whatsoever, even on the microbial communities. And we're wondering, wow, I guess this particular probiotic doesn't work, but no, it's because we didn't have a stress challenge. And then we immediately moved to a calf rearing facility where diarrhea is always well over 50% of them, if not closer to 100%. And that's where the same probiotic was actually showing differences with respect to incidents of diarrhea, resolution of diarrhea. So I, I think that it doesn't work in every single environment in every single farm, but it, you know, specific ones have to be tailored to the challenge on that farm. And
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:20:50):
And sometimes those challenges can appear out of nowhere too, like birds carrying HPAI onto farms. Mm-Hmm.
Scott Sorrell (00:20:59):
How, you know, kind of pursuing that, that, that this, this line of discussion, right? Are, are nutritionists out there today are, are very well schooled in customizing diets for nutrition. But where do they go to get the information they need to customize, you know, their, their diets for let's say the, the microbiome?
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:21:19):
Well, that's, you know, number one, you use the magic word that everybody's gonna take a drink to. When you say microbiome, everybody's gotta kind of take a shot because, you know, that's the word that everybody uses right now. And there's this idea that, oh, we can, and I hear this a lot of, oh, this will make your microbiome good. I literally, we did the first microbiome studies on cattle back in like 2005, first ones ever done in the world. I can't tell you right now, what's a good microbiome and what's a bad one after doing this for almost 20 years now? Because we don't know what we don't know. And there's so much going on. And I use an analogy a lot of during World War ii, and I know, Mike, you're gonna roll your eyes at this one, 'cause I've used this one with you before.
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:22:09):
But, you know, we'd send our bombers over from England, they'd go over drop bombs, come back, and afterwards they'd do battle damage assessments on each bomber, where each plane was hit, how much damage it was, whether it was flack or fighter or what. So they would do these great maps on each aircraft, and they fed it into the first computer systems to develop this map of where the b seventeens were hit most often. So they'd have hotspots. So the idea was, all right, let's have a meeting and let's talk about it. Let's up arm these regions that are hit most often. So everybody's like, okay, that's a great idea. Let's up arm these wing tips in the tail and some, and they're like, all right, everybody, let's, we are doing this. Let's go forward. And somebody puts their hand up and says, no, it's a terrible idea.
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:22:57):
It's because what you're looking at is the planes are hit there most often, but those are the planes that make it home. Those are the parts that are least important. The planes that never come back, that don't come back where they're hit is what's important. So they looked, they kind of did the reverse of where are some planes where spots on these planes that are never hit. And they found out that, you know, you were looking at this selection bias. Your native selection was stopping your ability to tell what's really driving this problem. So when we start trying to understand the microbiome, that's orders of magnitude more complicated than that simple problem. So what we try to use our logical teleological approach doesn't work the way it we think it should. So we're still trying to figure out who are the big players, who are the good players, who are the bad ones, and how much control does that animal genetics have on that microbiome before we can say, here's a good one. So there's not a handbook of what works and what doesn't. And I mean, the companies, a lot of companies will tell you, oh, our stuff works. Nobody else's does. But there's really, to me at this point, I've got a handful of companies that I trust with what they do. And, you know, you can kind of get a feel for those companies over time. I mean, how about you, Michael?
Dr. Michael Steele (00:24:27):
Yeah, I totally agree. With everything you've been saying, Todd we talk about a healthy microbiome. I don't think that we've defined that whatsoever. I think it's very naive to say that we know that in a calf, you know, for example, is that the digesta? Is it the epi neural microbes or the microbes that are attaching the digestive tract? I don't think we really know. And the way that we've been characterizing it is, you know, still at em genera like levels sometimes family, but not a lot of depth to a lot of the work that has been done over the last 10 to 20 years in this field. So I still think that that definition is still not truly defined. And I, I kind of got frustrated with it doing microbial work, and then you start profiling. And I am lucky enough to work with some excellent microbiologists that can help me with that.
Dr. Michael Steele (00:25:17):
But I found more information on looking at the host. And, you know, of course you have to characterize the microbial profiling and do that to the best of your abilities with the samples that you have. However, I think we need to look more deeply at the host and the physiological mechanisms of the host and how they're responding to the probiotic or the microbial based solution of any sort to truly understand when it's gonna work and when it's not. And I think that's probably the next step of research, and that's what we're all trying to figure out now. Yeah,
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:25:52):
I agree. And you know, about 10 years ago, I just said, that's a stupid thought. But you know, that paper, and I've used it a lot, the REMA paper from like 2017 where they look, and this is a great paper, they were looking at lactating cows, and instead of looking at the microbes, they were looking at the gene expression by that dairy cow. So they gave one group of them a probiotic, one group didn't get it, and they looked at gene expression in those cows over about a 60 day period, and they found there were 11 that the youth feeding a probiotic, and it was a live probiotic. It affected the regulation of 11,000 different cattle genes. So nothing about the microbes, they don't have any microbial real information there. But that was, those 11,000 genes were in 87 different pathways. A lot of 'em related to growth hormone, inflammatory response, and systemic inflammation, which starts to make sense, you know, 'cause some of the work that you and I and Lance Bomgar have been playing with, looking at that influe widespread inflammation, you know, again, it's, there's more smoke to it. We, you know, we've been trying for years to get that answer, but we haven't been able to do it yet. But just seeing how those microbes directly affect the animal population and the animal genes and and expression is amazing. So you've converted me in the past few years to looking more at that physiology effect of it, rather than just the microbe effect.
Dr. Michael Steele (00:27:35):
Yeah. I think it might reflect the way that we actually characterize the microbiome in our research. But I've also, I was really surprised too, and the first studies that we were doing were showing responses on the host when we were probing certain mechanisms and not a lot of difference from a microbial standpoint and digesta or tissue attached microbes. But the actual host itself and their immune system and their physiology was changing and actually a little bit more reliable to characterize at least with the numbers that we're using in our research.
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:28:10):
Yeah. And I think that's gonna come down to what are the end products, so that fermentation more than who's there. So, I mean, you know, your work has really convinced me, and I think you'll see it in our data, in our papers in the next few years that we're starting to try to shift that way a little more, that we'll get that general microbiome. But I think we're trying to split the hair finer than what we can read the difference in, because we can't really measure strain differences. And those strains are important. So I think we need to look more at those biochemical endpoints and things like this hormone signaling, a lot of the quorum sensing molecules, microbes use also work at the animal level. And that affects that physiology. And, and if you've got a lot of acid and low pH, that's gonna give us leaky gut. So there's more room for those chemicals to cross that barrier and cause impact than the coast physiology.
Dr. Ryan Ordway (00:29:09):
So, so one thing I think this is getting towards, one of the questions I have is, and, and we've just started as, as a company getting into this space as well. And part of the reason for at least myself and, and Dr. Sanderson, one of our colleagues at Alchem, has been really the nutrient absorption side of the equation, right? So we're, you know, at Alchem, for example, we're a nutrient delivery company. To us, the next step is that great, you've delivered the nutrients in a better package. How do you get those nutrients absorbed? Whether that's a ruminant or a monogastric, doesn't really matter. And you know, that, that I think is where we're, we need to really push that envelope and, and have a better understanding is how can we get, how can we really unlock that biology of, of the animal through that microbial population and increase the absorption.
Dr. Ryan Ordway (00:30:12):
So having said that, how, how much further do you think we can go? I mean, can, if we really get this locked down, so we're at fairly low efficiency of use of nutrients from a ruminant perspective, right? Whatever number is 30, 35%, I think sometimes. But could we get that to 50? Could we get it to 60 percent utilization if we really start dialing this in? I mean, it, I I think there's so much of a benefit here that we're just scratching the surface on. So just curious, your, curious, your thoughts and feel free one of those thoughts could be you're completely off base, Ryan, and go, go do something else. So
Dr. Michael Steele (00:30:52):
Dr. Michael Steele (00:30:56):
Yeah, I'll, I'll speak from a calf standpoint. I don't think absorption has really been studied that much. And same within a cow. I think we've been really mainly focused on digestion and then the inflammatory response of the animal. There have been some studies in calves using yeast and lactobacillus showing changes in gut structure and the development of vili, even papillae in the rumen two. So I think that's one, you know, somewhat high level way of looking at how some of these microbial based solutions can actually improve overall absorption of these nutrients, at least from a surface area standpoint. But I think the nitty gritty of the molecular mechanisms, I, I think that we're really far away from truly understanding how it can affect absorption. I think digestion, we're getting pretty advanced in that, of course, with especially fiber digestion and different starch digestion. But I think from an absorption standpoint, I think that's somewhat lacking. But I think Todd knows a lot more than I do in this area.
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:32:00):
Well, the absorption, no, you know, more than I do on that. I'm, you know, I am a microbiologist and I pretend to be a nutritionist a lot of the time. You know, and a lot of that comes back to the stuff that Bomgar's doing and others, like Lance does kind of the best work I'm aware of, of looking at that gut integrity. 'cause If your gut's not solid, you don't, you're not gonna transport as many nutrients and that absorptive capacity. And he's pretty much heavily on to looking at that hind gut structure. And I think that really is, is more important than what I ever thought. He's kind of, again, he's brought me around to his way of thinking. But, you know, we probably shouldn't tell him that that would give him a big head. But, you know, you know how Lance is on things.
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:32:48):
But you know, it's one of those points that I think he is right and that I was wrong over the years. That I think that hind gut absorption is a big deal. And I think if we can make that absorption, absorptive capacity, both ruminal and hind gut better, then we can absorb more of those nutrients. 'cause We're kind of at a point now where if we take a probiotic approach or an enzymatic approach and just break down this forage feed stuff very rapidly, we lack the capacity to take that much of the VFA up. So it's gonna have to go hand in glove, at least I think it will, between the animal and that microbial population. And, you know, we're, we're trying to figure out if we can, a lot of our focus is trying to figure out if we can manipulate that microbial population to actually increase that degradability in the room.
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:33:47):
And rather than looking at digestibility like what the microbes can do, and then is that affecting our animal performance? If not, what's limiting? What's limiting that absorption or that absorptive capacity? Is it pH, is it too much starch digestion impacting your pill eye length? Are we not getting those calves started early enough? I mean, I use my class, I use a lot of your work, like looking at calves and the papilla length and you know, how we want to get 'em started with a little bit of starch and a little bit of forage early, just getting those papilla to grow and getting 'em jump started because then those calves can succeed later on really well. And especially with all the stuff with dairy on beef and all the problems that we're running into now with liver abscesses Mm-Hmm.
Dr. Michael Steele (00:34:47):
Yeah, I, I totally agree with you. And actually that's what we're working on right now is trying to untangle some of this with the huge problem in liver abscesses that we have in the beef on dairy field, not just Holsteins, but also Crossbreds, it appears, yeah. Based on some of the first thesis that are coming out in some of the first magazine articles. It's a severe issue. And I agree. I think it's coming from early life, and that's what we're trying to do. But you made an awesome point about, we've been so focused on the rumen, but a lot of this stuff is probably happening in the lower gut being the small and large bowel. And I would argue that it's as equally as important as the four stomach, and we'd never really pay close attention to it because it's hard to study in ruminants mm-Hmm.
Dr. Michael Steele (00:35:34):
You know, you can sample the rumen and it's relatively consistent, but then you get to the small and then the large bowel and every single meter is different. And what do you sample in the small intestine? Are you going to do three different segments, four or five? They're all gonna be different with respect to host impact of your microbial treatment. So it's very challenging to do so. But I really like what you're talking about with leaky gut. It's something that, of course, we've all been inspired by Lance to study more, but I think that even that we know, you know, we just presented some data where, of course, like in early lactation, if you look at leaky gut using chromium EDTA as our typical marker, it will increase in early lactation compared to the dry period. And it remains still elevated even into early lactation.
Dr. Michael Steele (00:36:25):
But is chromium EDTA or even like a marker for paracellular or this, the transport between cells really the best way of looking at this and is it kind of trivial? What we're looking at is, you know, transcellular just as important. So these absorptive mechanisms, I think we still have a long ways to go, but we know that there is a problem. Is it linked to systemic inflammation? I, I, I think it's a really good hypothesis, but I don't think that we've really shown that in the literature yet. But it's that so many people are studying this now. 'cause I think that there's a lot of opportunity
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:37:03):
There is. And, you know, we did some, Lance did some cool work and I was kind of hanging out and giving advice from the corner with his grad student, Megan
Dr. Michael Steele (00:37:57):
Yeah. And is it really the pH is that the problem or is it something else? I think we need to open up our mind, especially even with ruminal acidosis is what I focused on for my PhD. And, you know, is it, I know some cows with acute ruminal acidosis that had zero health problems and were producing the most efficient animals in the study. I, I think that it's probably a little bit more than just pH and we need to look at, you know, some of these other bacterial based toxins. Of course, LPS comes up in everyone's mind. But yeah, I think it, we need to change our mind and the way that we look at a lot of these challenges in the dairy industry.
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:38:38):
Well, and I think it's gotta be some kind of signaling molecule with the lactic acid. It's gonna be multifactorial Mm-Hmm.
Dr. Michael Steele (00:39:08):
And we don't really look at transcellular, so the absorption through cells. And I think that, you know, that's requires some merit. You know, there's probably a lot more of that happening compared to paracellular, especially in the rumen where you've got like a stratified squamous epithelium similar to our skin. That's, you know, sometimes 20 layers of epithelial cells and many different layers of really tight junctions, especially in the granulosis. So it, yeah, I really question if it's really happening in the rumen. And it's kind of interesting looking at this liver abscess work to that perhaps it's not just in the rumen, like what we thought for the last 20 years that, hey, maybe it's happening in the small intestine as well, or even the large intestine. So yeah, I think we need to reevaluate everything.
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:40:04):
Love to get you together with Rand Broadway and Kristen Hales.
Dr. Michael Steele (00:40:55):
Yeah. It kind of makes sense when you think about it, why they would have more liver abscesses, the dairy or the cross reds, you know, they're not being weaned at six to eight months. All of a sudden we put them on a high starch diet from basically the first month of life, and they stay on that for their entire life. That's gotta compromise gastrointestinal function. Such a contrast between a beef calf on a cow, getting some fiber, a little bit of sugar from the grass, and maybe some creep feed, but predominantly milk as its nutrient source, at least for the first four months of life. So yeah. Lots to do there. And I'm looking forward to sink my teeth in to that over the coming years.
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:41:38):
Yeah, that's gonna be some fun things to see what you come up with on that. I'm kind of excited. And, you know, part of me is like, man, I wish I could do some of that work. But, you know, we've got our strengths and Yeah. I, I would fail on those studies,
Dr. Michael Steele (00:41:52):
Studies. No, Todd we gotta talk after. You're gonna be a collaborator. Okay. I didn't
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:41:58):
I'm good with that. Yeah, no, I'm good with that. Yeah.
Dr. Michael Steele (00:42:00):
You know, that open door science exchange builds collaboration, so
Scott Sorrell (00:42:05):
Without a doubt. We have seen that in the past as well. Absolutely.
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:42:08):
And that's a great thing about this field is everybody wants each other to succeed. I mean, yeah. You know, we, we throw these names around, but these are people that we can all call and go, Hey, what, what the hell is this? And they'll answer, you know, they'll voice their frustrations. And, you know, in this world, all these scientists and nerds really want to help the producer succeed. And I mean, that's one of the things that marks us is very different than true microbiology. It's why I stay out of the micro field. They're looking for problems and they're trying to cut each other's throats, whereas we're a lot more team oriented.
Dr. Michael Steele (00:42:45):
It's funny that you said that. 'cause I said the same thing to my students at ADSA this year is that we are so lucky to be in this field as dairy and ruminant researchers in general. Mm-Hmm.
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:43:13):
Oh, yeah. Compared to, and the people with big egos do not last in this field at all. Mm-Hmm.
Dr. Michael Steele (00:43:21):
Dr. Ryan Ordway (00:43:23):
I, I think what's exciting here is, I mean, it, there is so much sometimes I feel like in the, in the dairy field and the ruminant nutrition in general, we're almost like ships passing in the night where we have, you know, the, the true where ruminant nutritionists focused on the nutrient side. We have the microbiologists, you know, focused more on the, the micro side. You've got the veterinarians focused on the health, you've got the, you know, agronomy focused on, well, we don't even know what they do. Right. And I think we're finally getting to a point where we're all realizing that, hey, we're all in this together. And the more we talk and collaborate, then we can really start making some, some significant headway. Which leads me into my next question, which is, where do we bring the agronomists into this and the folks growing the the crops?
Dr. Ryan Ordway (00:44:18):
You know, because I think we, we always just say, Hey, we're dealing with what we get, but now that we're looking at this, this tie in between the biology, obviously the microbial populations, and could that be impacted by the feeds that we're, we're getting handed to us? You know, where do we bring that into the equation and, and and really start, you know, looking at that aspect? 'cause I, I, I, I mean, it's my knowledge, I don't think we've, we've really even talked about that
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:44:55):
Yeah, it's a great point. And we've been working on that. We've got a research lab, our research center down in Tifton where Jennifer Tucker is, and Jennifer's doing a lot of work. She's, you know, a lot more crass oriented than I am. So she's been doing a lot of that work. We've got Nick ov here who's done work on the the fescue with end of fight or non end fight infected. We're looking at what does that do to the microbial population and those end products and all that fun stuff. So there's people that are doing it. Brandon Smith at Auburn's working on that as well. So, you know, we're, there's people doing that. The problem with it, and I always, you'll love this, Mike, I'm always like, why don't you guys don't do this? They're like, okay, it's gonna take us a year to get the stand of grass grow
Dr. Michael Steele (00:46:26):
We have to stop with chicken researchers and swine researchers. They make us very jealous as ruminants, but then we have to look at the crop side. It's totally true.
Dr. Ryan Ordway (00:46:36):
It's slower.
Dr. Michael Steele (00:46:37):
I think there's all kinds of potential there too that hasn't been tapped. And, you know, we have been in our own silos, and it's really great to see a lot of people, even animal scientists, reading a little bit more about soil microbiology. That's how I really got into very interested in microbiology, is looking at the soil in undergrad and realizing, wow, this is completely active. And we have no idea really what the impact is. And, you know, but I think, yeah,
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:47:03):
I saw something, you go ahead on soil health like that, and it was just, it's amazing how complex that is. Mm-Hmm.
Dr. Michael Steele (00:47:12):
Dr. Ryan Ordway (00:47:12):
Well, yeah. And, and we're talking about calves and making, get, setting their microbial health for the rest of their life. But the same thing could be happening in the soil, right? If we're setting a, a good soil health, that's helping everything else that's being grown from that soil. And I've often wondered, you know, over time we've, you know, think whatever in a a, a native cow, so to speak, she's out consuming grass, she's eating all kinds of stuff. She's just not eating a pure stand. But over time, what have we done? We've created pure stands of whatever we're trying to harvest. And maybe we're actually shooting ourselves in a foot, so to speak, because we're working against, we're, we're killing off some things could be soil microbes, but it could also be, you know, what we would term weeds that were actually having a beneficial impact to the nutrition standpoint.
Dr. Michael Steele (00:48:15):
Yeah. Empty a cow's rumen in New Zealand, Australia, you'll quickly figure out that the soil microbiome is there.
Dr. Ryan Ordway (00:49:51):
And maybe if we step back and consider the soil health, maybe we're gonna inoculate those forages with some microbes that could help them during the fermentation process. When you're in siloing, maybe you end up with a better product. If you're starting with some microbes, it might help facilitate that process just from when you're growing it. Mm-Hmm.
Dr. Michael Steele (00:50:12):
Dr. Ryan Ordway (00:50:19):
Full pun intended.
Dr. Michael Steele (00:50:21):
Mm-Hmm.
Scott Sorrell (00:50:24):
Maybe kind of switching gears a little bit, Todd during your presentation you talked about different animals that have a different microbiome. And I, I don't know if you meant just rumen or, or, or or lower gut, but the fact that the least efficient cows tended to have a more diverse microbiome as opposed to your more productive cows had a less diverse microbiome. And I found that very curious and, and interesting. Would you mind kinda expounding on that just a bit?
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:50:57):
Sure. Yeah. That was a study that they did at the University of Illinois back in 2016. And, you know, the dogma has always been that more diversity is necessarily a better microbial population, which makes sense when you think about it. You know, more diversity is good. Sure, I can get behind that. But what they found was the most efficient milk producing cows, when they looked at that microbial population, especially in the rumen, that lower diversity meant a lower diversity of microbial end products of metabolites with VFAs and such. So compared to the more diverse population where you had more end products that weren't necessarily used by the end. So the analogy that I use is it's building a car. So you're either, if I'm building a car in my garage, it's gonna take me five years to build one, but if you train me to put two screws on two different bolts, we can sit there on an assembly line and a group of us can make a car in a couple of hours.
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:52:07):
So it's that difference in efficiency by being focused on what that job is. And it goes back to the point that Mike made earlier about looking at those output. What are those metabolites? What do they look like as far as a profile of what the animal can use? So it's about being a little more focused in a microbial population rather than being completely broad and doing a little bit of everything. So, you know, when we talk about this microbial population, the ruminant evolved to be able to adapt to different feed cells where they can eat a little bit of this and a little bit of that. So that diversity, that broad diversity was always a benefit to the animal first survival strategy. But what we are feeding them now for production is not a varied diet. It's a very similar diet. There's a lot of homogeny to that diet day after day after day, and across farms. So we are providing this artificial selection for a more narrowly or lower diversity population. And what is that gonna have on our animals long term, number one. 'cause We've got millions of years of evolution for them to be adaptable. And adaptability and efficiency tend to be negatively correlated. So we're taking these highly adaptable animals and trying to make 'em efficient. So we're fighting a tide in a lot of ways.
Scott Sorrell (00:53:40):
Interesting. You, you'd mentioned metabolites and, and during your presentation you also talk about malate and fumate found that very interesting. Could maybe expound on that just a bit. It seems like there might be a commercial opportunity there, and I don't know if anybody's taken advantage of that or not.
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:53:58):
Oh, that one is something that goes back to, you know, we're talking about the old stories malate and fumarate. I worked with those on my master's degree, Scott Martin before he left working in this field. And malate and fumarate are di carboxylic acids that fit into the TCA cycle. So plants have 'em in a lot of their, when they're growing rapidly, and a lot of their, you know, those, when we talk about the sugars, those are just simple compounds in that TCA cycle. But bacteria like mega sphera, ls, eldenei and Selena and antum that are lactate utilizers. So they'll take lactate and convert it to propagate. Now they're the guy that comes in to a party, sees a bunch of donuts, licks the donuts, so no one else will eat them and they can come eat it later. So that's their strategy is then they're taking lactate to propagate.
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:54:54):
Well, if you add malate and fumarate it, because you're adding these intermediate metabolites in the pathway, it causes that pathway to spin faster. So it increases the lactate utilization rate by those lactate utilizing bacteria. So it speeds up their metabolism. So you're shifting lactate to propionate faster. And it's a really cool compound. To work with. Malate was the one that was the most efficient. And it's like you know, we bought a bunch of it from Japan years ago and 50 pound bags, that was the end product of aspartate production for amino acid companies. And it was a waste product they had, and I think they still do what we can use. The problem was it's a little bit hard on machinery 'cause it's an acid and it'll heat up augers. But companies started looking at it and it just never went anywhere as far as beings added because in that era, you know, again, this is 30 years ago now, that era people didn't really think about that approach.
Dr. Todd Callaway (00:56:04):
Well, we also discovered over the years that a lot of our postbiotics contained malate and fumarate naturally. So they stimulate that lactate utilizing population to go ahead and grow faster and utilize lactate more rapidly. So it causes a shift in that microbial population simply by giving those guys a competitive advantage. So I recommend a lot of companies take a look at what their composition of their product is as far as containing alate and fumarate and, you know, you can use that as a hook to understand what's going on in that population. So it's really something very cool. And that's where, you know, we start talking about antibiotics as a encompassing organic acids. This is where things like palate and fumarate will fall.
Scott Sorrell (00:56:57):
Interesting. Well, gentlemen, this has been a very interesting conversation. I have a feeling it could go on for quite a bit longer, but we're kind of at the top of the hour here and I think it's time to, to call it quits or call, last call. That's what we say here. And, and with that, what I'd like to do is, is if each of you could just kind of give me, you know, one or key takeaways maybe for a nutritionist, maybe for the research community that, that you think we ought to take away from this conversation. And Ryan, if you don't mind, I'd like to start with you.
Scott Sorrell (00:57:42):
The economics of feeding reassure precision release choline reassure is fed during the transition period. And because it's fed for such a short period of time, it costs just $15 per cow. And yet the benefits will continue to generate income. Throughout the year, cows fed reassure produced five pounds more colostrum, which pays for your reassure investment on the very first day of lactation cows. Fed reassure also produce five pounds more milk per day every day. That means after the first day, every day is payday invest in reassure during the transition period and recoup your investment on the very first day of lactation after that. You got it payday.
Dr. Ryan Ordway (00:58:32):
Sure. Yeah. I, I think that takeaway is as, as a nutritionist who used to be in the field, I, I think the takeaway is, you know, for all the, all your nutritionists out there, don't forget to have the conversation with your partners in crime. IE the dairy producer, whoever, beef producer, whoever that end user is, the veterinarian, the crop team and the management team on the farm. And make sure you're all working in coordination talking, because that's really where the, the synergy is gonna be. I think now in, in particularly in the future as we, we learn more about how this all coordinated biology is working together and that coordinated biology is not just within the animal, but it's outside the animal. It's all those other factors that are coming in, into play, like we talked about, from the soil to the crops, to the, you know environment that the animals are in.
Scott Sorrell (00:59:35):
Yeah. Thank you for that, Ryan. Mike, you've been a great guest. I'm glad that Todd asked you to join us tonight. Really appreciate your comments and insight. Do you have any final thoughts for the audience?
Dr. Michael Steele (00:59:48):
Yeah, for the nutritionist and farmers out there only use probiotics or any other microbial based solutions that have minimum three publications showing efficacy in a high ranking journal. Not just any journal, but a journal of Dairy science or, or even higher. I think that that's one of the main problems why we've received this, you know, negative reputation in our marketplace because we are actually feeding a lot of, a lot of microbial based solutions that don't have enough research behind them. And I, I think it's critical. I think there's a lot of really great products out there and there's a lot of great companies. So I think I would pay attention to that. And, you know, measure it on farm. Make sure that you choose your metric properly. You know, if it's a healthy herd, perhaps that's not the best way of looking at it. Maybe just focus your analysis on farm with the cattle that are experiencing some stress or some metabolic or infectious issues, you know, to truly evaluate the return on investment on farm. So I think it's not foo dust. I think there's great solutions out there, but you just have to make sure that it's a proven solution that from a company that's research based, that's really critical.
Scott Sorrell (01:01:09):
Yeah. Excellent advice, excellent advice. And Todd, I want to thank you for joining us. This is your first time at the pub, but I can guarantee it will not be your last, we'll, we'll plan to have you back here. You've been a, been a great lecture and a great guest here at the Real Science Exchange. Any final thoughts from you?
Dr. Todd Callaway (01:01:28):
Dr. Todd Callaway (01:02:26):
So they're giving you their real data. They're not just giving you cherry picking the good examples. So those are the companies that I really tend to trust and follow and, you know, his and his point of what is your metric that you're using? What does success look like for you as a farmer? You know, that's the thing to keep in mind is, you know, what is your metric? It's gotta be measurable. It's gotta change. You know, we all want to think about its profitability and ultimately that determines if you stay in the business. But profitability is a product of so many other things that you've gotta focus on something bite size that this product can change that's going to impact that bottom line.
Scott Sorrell (01:03:09):
Yeah, well said. Gentlemen, I, I appreciate your insights, appreciate your collaboration. You know, I, this has been a, a great podcast. Looking forward to doing it. One again as a follow up. So I really appreciate you guys joining us here tonight. And to our loyal listeners, I appreciate you joining us as well. As always, I hope you learned something. We hope you had some fun. We hope to see you next time here, the Real Science Exchange where it's always happy hour and you're always among friends.
Commercial 1 (01:03:37):
We'd love to hear your comments or ideas for topics and guests. So please reach out via email to a h.marketing at chem.com with any suggestions and we'll work hard to add them to the schedule. Don't forget to leave a five star rating on your way out. You can request your Real Science Exchange t-shirt in just a few easy steps, just like or subscribe to the Real Science Exchange. And send us a screenshot along with your address and t-shirt size to a h.marketing at alchem.com. Bal chems real science lecture series of webinars continues with ruminant focused topics on the first Tuesday of every month. Monogastric focused topics on the second Tuesday of each month, and quarterly topics for the companion animal segment. Visit bal chem.com/real science to see the latest schedule and to register for upcoming webinars.