Guests: Dr. Greg Penner and Claire Bertens, University of Saskatchewan Dr. Penner describes two primary factors of gut health to be absorption and barrier function or permeability. His lab’s work on permeability is suggesting that intestinal regions really drive total gut permeability to a much greater extent than ruminal permeability in dairy cows.
Dr. Penner describes two primary factors of gut health to be absorption and barrier function or permeability. His lab’s work on permeability is suggesting that intestinal regions really drive total gut permeability to a much greater extent than ruminal permeability in dairy cows. (7:06)
Ms. Bertens is Dr. Penner’s Ph.D. student and explains some new methodologies she developed for measuring gut permeability using chromium EDTA and cobalt EDTA. It’s common to use an oral dose of chromium EDTA as a marker to measure total tract permeability. Claire’s work, using cannulated cows, used a ruminal dose of chromium EDTA for total tract permeability and an abomasal dose of cobalt EDTA for post-ruminal permeability. Both of these markers are indigestible, non-metabolizable and have no transcellular transport mechanisms. Claire is working to publish the new method as a complete validation study has been completed. (9:15)
While this method is currently limited to using cannulated animals, Greg and Claire could envision a less sophisticated and more applied on-farm technique to assess permeability. Until then, there are still a lot of management observations that can identify potential issues with gut permeability. The appearance of feces and the presence of mucin casts can both be indicative of gut issues. Certainly dry matter intake is a major influencer on gut health, and Claire also sees potential in new technologies like rumination collars or rumination ear tags. (13:47)
Are there certain time points in a dairy cow’s life when she is at risk for increased gut permeability? Dr. Penner describes research suggesting if weaning is implemented too abruptly, that really increases the risk for decreased barrier function of the gut. Erratic feed intake patterns resulting from withholding feed for any reason at any age can also increase the risk of leaky gut. For example, depressed intake during the transition phase, along with anything that drives a response through an underlying systemic inflammatory response, probably creates risky situations for leaky gut. Claire is currently running a study looking at the impacts of intramammary LPS infusion on gut function. Greg envisions that learning more about gut function could create a new philosophy for treating sick animals. In the past, only antimicrobials were used to treat mastitis, but now it’s common to also treat with a NSAID for pain. Perhaps in the future, we will also provide treatment to accelerate the recovery of the gut to prevent secondary disorders. (16:15)
How long does an off-feed event have to last to cause an issue in the gut? It seems a fairly acute time period is all that is needed. Most studies are trying to replicate what happens on-farm, for example during mastitis, heat stress or the transition period. Greg indicates that not only will permeability be impacted, but ruminal absorptive capacity can also decline rapidly in these conditions. In Claire’s LPS challenge study, cows’ rectal temperatures peak around six hours after the LPS infusion and usually resolve within 12 hours. But most cows do not eat for a solid 12 hours during the challenge, and they are slow to recover feed intake over the next few days. In cows that aren’t sick but experience feed restriction in experimental protocols, they tend to overeat when they are allotted the full ration and this can lead to ruminal acidosis. (21:57)
Increased incidences of liver abscesses in beef-on-dairy calves are being reported in the industry. Dr. Penner speculates that perhaps these calves are not always achieving adequate passive transfer, and may not be receiving high enough levels of milk replacer to support a more robust immune system. It may be the increased beef cattle genetics in the calves are putting an added requirement on growth or muscle development that may not be met by lower levels of milk replacer or even lower colostrum feeding levels. (34:40)
In closing, providing cows with a consistent environment where they can meet their needs by their own behavior such as free access to feed when hungry and to a comfortable stall when it’s time to rest. Cows reward consistency with health and production. Gut health in a commercial setting is a relevant issue and it might go undiagnosed or undetected. Research into where in the gut permeability is occurring will help define strategies to modulate response. While off-feed events for individual animals might be harder to recognize in a large dairy environment, new technology may allow for earlier diagnosis. (40:43)
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Scott Sorrell (00:07):
Good evening everyone, and welcome to the Real Science Exchange, the podcast where leading scientists and industry professionals meet over a few drinks to discuss the latest ideas and trends in animal nutrition. Hi, I'm Scott Sorell. I'm gonna be your host tonight here at the Real Science Exchange. And we're here tonight and we're gonna welcome Dr. Greg Penner to dive deeper into his popular webinar topic about gut health in cattle and influencing dietary factors that he gave back in February. but first let's introduce Greg. Greg's from the University of Saskatchewan. Greg, welcome. I believe this is your first time in the pub. Now I also know it's very early where you are. We'd like to say it's always happy hour at the Real Science Exchange, but in fact, it is early where you're at the Western Canadian dairy conference. Is that correct?
Greg Penner (00:56):
Yeah, Western Canadian Dairy Seminar held in Red Deer Alberta every year.
Scott Sorrell (01:02):
Ah, excellent. And so that being early though is there anything exciting in your glass? Tonight, I'll say tonight, even though it's morning?
Greg Penner (01:10):
Well, I have a cup of coffee and, if I had access, my preference would be to have some Irish cream flavoring the coffee for me.
Scott Sorrell (01:18):
Yeah. Awesome. Excellent. So Dr. Penner, I see you've brought a guest with you today. Would you please introduce her?
Greg Penner (01:26):
Yeah, so I brought Claire Bertens. Claire is a PhD student in my group. And fortunately for me Claire is very active in terms of her research progress and has done a lot of the work in our group focusing on gut health and dairy cattle.
Scott Sorrell (01:45):
Excellent. Claire, welcome. It's nice to have you here. Why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself, understand you've got dual citizenship. Tell us a little bit about that.
Claire Bertens (01:54):
Yeah, thanks so much for having me. It's an honor. It's an honor to be here. And the Real Science Exchange is definitely one of my favorite podcasts, so it's cool to be, to be involved. Um, yeah, I grew up on a dairy farm just east of Olds, Alberta. My parents immigrated from the Netherlands in 1996 and where they started milking 50 cows, and they've grown to their current size of 850 cows. So I always thought I would go back to the farm, honestly. But I did my undergrad at the U of S with Greg, and we took animal production class, and it was a tour class, and we toured a bunch of variety of farms around Saskatchewan and Alberta, and I got to know Greg and being stuck in a van with him for over a week. He convinced me to do a master's, and yeah, my master's led to transferring into my PhD and that's where I'm at right now.
Scott Sorrell (02:57):
Oh, I'd say that was a fortuitous ride that week. So, yeah. Good for you. Welcome. Glad to have you here. My co-host tonight is pistol, Pete Morrow. Pete, I couldn't, I couldn't resist, right? pistol Pete had his record That's right. broken this week by what was her name?
Peter Morrow (03:16):
Caitlin Clark
Scott Sorrell (03:17):
Caitlyn Clark from Iowa. Boy. She's the real thing. That was, that was a lot of fun. I watched that game. Unfortunately, she beat up on my Buckeye. So, but I'll, I'll get over that. Pete I understand you're also in Red Deer. Anything in your glass this morning?
Peter Morrow (03:37):
You know, I'm, I'm along the same lines. I'm having a hot chocolate this morning to get a little caffeine and a little, little warmth before I go out and hit the colder weather up here.
Scott Sorrell (03:47):
All right. Very well. So you guys are gonna make me drink alone because I am having a bourbon Yes. Tonight. Um so I'm, usually try to have kind of a bourbon story, but tonight my story's a little bit different. I was skiing last week in Colorado with some old fraternity brothers, you know, 60 some year old guys. I was in a, an, an ag fraternity called a GS, and I happened to get on a chairlift and got talking to the folks on the chairlift. And they were also in an ag fraternity called a GR. There was a, a group of young dairymen and one veterinarian from Wisconsin, the a GR house at Wisconsin. So, had a great conversation. Unfortunately I did not catch their names. And so what I'd like to do is, if anybody knows out there knows of some young dairymen and a veterinarian that went skiing at Copper Mountain last week have 'em contact us at anh. marketing@balchem.com. And I'm gonna give them their choice of either a real science exchange, beer mug, wine glass, or, or whiskey glass. So I hope, I hope I hear from you guys.
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Scott Sorrell (06:13):
With that. I really like to get started. Um, Greg, you gave a presentation on the Real Science lecture series. That was, again, on February 7th, that was titled Exploring Dietary Factors Influencing Gut Function. That was a very popular lecture for us. We had over 420 people that had actually registered for that webinar. Um, so I'd, I'd like to encourage anybody that hasn't seen it go watch that, that, that presentation. All you have to do is simply go to alchem.com/real science, scroll down to the February 7th recording, and you'll be able to watch it there. Um, so Greg, for those of the that that did miss the webinar, could you give us just kind of a brief overview or outline of what you covered in that lecture?
Greg Penner (07:06):
Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, when I think about gut health, and, and that's really what I tried to present on is kind of my perspective of, of what gut health means, and we focused on a number of factors. We focused on kind of the key functions that we think about from a gut perspective, the, the first one being absorption recognizing that, you know, without absorption across the gut, we have really a limited ability to deliver nutrients to those cows and and achieve the levels of production and, and growth that we expect in our dairy heifers and, and milk production in our lactating cows. And then we kind of shifted gears and, and we focused more on the barrier function aspects or the permeability aspects that are commonly measured. And, and I'd just like to argue, we often don't measure many of the functional characteristics that probably lead to permeability outcomes, and that would primarily be related to mucus and, and antimicrobial peptide secretion.
Greg Penner (08:10):
So, the webinar really focused on, you know, permeability as measured with chromium, EDTA or cobalt TDTA. And that's really why I brought Claire to this podcast as well. Because Claire was instrumental in developing a new technique that we used. And so I showed some of the results from that work highlighting that at least based on our current understanding, it looks like intestinal regions really drive total gut permeability to a much greater extent than ruminal permeability. And so that's, I think, been a long lasting evolution in our thought, but now we finally have data to, to help support that hypothesis that really we probably need to think a lot more of the intestinal regions in dairy cattle than we have historically.
Scott Sorrell (09:02):
Interesting. I was, I'm gonna start off with Claire. you know, how did you come to pick those compounds and can you talk a little bit about the, the, the technique that's used in measuring permeability?
Claire Bertens (09:15):
Yeah, absolutely. Um, so in that study, it was a heat stress model. So we were interested in looking at the effects of dietary cation, ana indifference, and mainly manipulating sodium concentration and dietary buffer for heat cattle that are under heat stress. And we wanted to we know that heat stress can cause a leaky gut. And typically other research groups like Dr. Baumgart's group, they use an oral dose of chromium, EDTA, and however, it's very, it's been used lots and it's a good marker. You, it is total tract permeability. And so, so we don't have the ability to see this regional permeability response or being able to segregate permeability responses in the rumen or in the pre gastric regions versus post al. And so with that, we kind of thought, well, what if we were to infuse two markers that are both indigestible and non metabolizable and that have no transcellular transport mechanisms.
Claire Bertens (10:29):
And so cobalt EDTA is another one. Um, and it's commonly used in nutrient digestion passage rate, those kinds of um, techniques, I guess. And so we thought that ruminal dose of chromium EDTA could give us the total track permeability and then an abbo macal dose of cobalt EDTA would give us our postal permeability. And then even though we're being able to segregate those two regions, even the cobalt EDTA, we don't exactly know where along the intestinal region it is permeating, but at least we're able to segregate those two regions.
Peter Morrow (11:13):
So is this considered a novel technique? Are we gonna have something named after you
Claire Bertens (11:18):
I don't know. We'll have to come up with a unique name.
Peter Morrow (11:24):
I think so
Greg Penner (11:25):
Yeah. I think the first goal is really to publish the method. And, Claire is working on that right now. Um, we've done a proper full validation study. So as Claire mentioned, we kind of did the steps backwards in some ways. We applied the marker or the new method in an active study. It showed some really promising results where we do have treatment responses for intestinal permeability and, and at least a tendency for total tract permeability. And we went back and said, well, we better make sure what we're interpreting is right and do a proper validation study with very extreme treatments. So we imposed off feed events to try to make sure that the timeline of collections and responses are relevant regardless of the severity of the challenge. And so Claire did that and, and actually furthered the method to compare not only urine output, but to start looking at what time points we can collect samples in blood. And so it can make the technique a lot more easy to adopt for the future. And, and hopefully other scientists will utilize that method and, and similar time points if they're interested in assessing permeability.
Scott Sorrell (12:50):
Now, is that the only way of assessing permeability, or at least the best way, I'm just kind of thinking, you know, on farm cattle have issues with this. Is there, is there a way to know on the farm other than you've got some animals that are ill,
Greg Penner (13:03):
Claire, why don't you, you take a tackle at that one.
Claire Bertens (13:06):
Um, well, so this technique that we've used is it you require cannulated animals because you need access to the abomasum in order to infuse that cobalt EDTA. And so in terms of being able to apply it at the farm level, I think there are probably opportunities to do so and could be potential next steps. Um, but at the end of the day, it needs to be able to be applied to the producer level. And I think that being able to give them a technique in order to assess gut health would be very beneficial from a practical perspective.
Greg Penner (13:47):
Yeah. So that's, you know, as Claire mentioned, that's exactly where we want to go. We've, I think we've done a good job characterizing the model now to assess permeability in research settings with cannulated animals. Um, she's done a good job showing the timeline of appearance of cobalt and chromium into circulation, so into blood. So we know when we need to sample. And, and the next step really is to understand can we develop a more applied, maybe less sophisticated approach, but a more applied approach so we can go on farm and evaluate products or evaluate physiological states or get a, you know, different approaches to get an understanding if permeability might be one of the causes. Now, you know, that's going pretty deep. I think we can sit back and look at other things before we get to the need of actually assessing permeability, right?
Greg Penner (14:43):
We can still look at feces, we can look at, you know, the appearance of the feces, any other components that are being excreted. I mentioned mucus earlier in the podcast, and I think my mucin casts are a really important indicator of potential gut issues. I think another important factor that would be really nice to know on a farm is dry matter intake. And, you know, I think without alterations in dry matter intake, if those cows are not showing a response where they drop feed intake, probably a good indicator that things are going as intended, or at least the cows are coping with the diet and management situations and physiological changes that they're being faced with in, in a very well adapted manner.
Claire Bertens (15:33):
And I also think that there's some new technology too, like rumination callers or the rumination ear tags, which kind of help to see what's going on under certain, let's say management changes or different practices that are being implemented.
Scott Sorrell (15:51):
I got a two part question. The first is, you know, what percent of the dairy animals out there are gonna have issues with permeability at least some point in their lactation? maybe, maybe I got three questions and when does that usually take place? And, and then the third is, what are some of the major causes for permeability issues?
Greg Penner (16:15):
Yeah, maybe I'll, I'll start. I think what I like to think about from a dairy cattle perspective is, you know, all the way from birth until the time where that cow decides to enter a different career. And so there's a number of places where I think those animals might be at risk for altered permeability. We're seeing a big shift in, in Canada in particular, in terms of calf management. And that's really driven by a mandatory auditing program that Canadian dairy farmers have to participate in called ProAct action. And within ProAct action, there are certain production standards that must be maintained. And so I think we're seeing a big change in calf management and the amount of colostrum calves are provided. The amount of milk calves are provided during the milk feeding phase, and with higher milk feeding rates comes opportunities for growth and, and maybe first lactation milk yield or second lactation milk yield, but also comes with challenges associated with weaning.
Greg Penner (17:18):
And we have some initial work showing that if weaning is implemented too abruptly, we can really increase the risk for decreased barrier function of the gut or increased permeability. And so I think that's one critical risk period that we've highlighted. If we think about as that heifer then moves from the pre-weaning phase into the growing phase, there's a number of dietary changes, there's social setting changes, and while I hope we always have feed present in front of those animals, there are situations on farm where we might be striving for a slick bunk program or, you know, equipment might break down, or for other logistical reasons, feed delivery is delayed. And so that can lead to other digestive upsets that cause erratic feed intake patterns. And we speculate, although we don't know for sure, we think that probably will drive increased risk for a leaky gut.
Greg Penner (18:21):
And then as those animals move in towards calving you know, dairy cows still, even with advancements we've made in, in prepartum diets, they still depress feed intake. And we still see a number of cows that experience transition disorders, whether those be infectious disease or, or other challenges. and certainly with those challenges they drop feed intake and quite often have underlying inflammation. And, and we think, at least the hypothesis in our group is that any challenge that causes erratic feed intake or drives a response through an underlying systemic inflammatory response probably creates situations where we have increased risk for a leaky gut. And I think, you know, that's really what Claire's been doing. So Claire, maybe you want to talk a little bit about some of the projects you've been leading in our group and what you hope to learn from those.
Claire Bertens (19:24):
Yeah, so I'm current, that's why I'm not in Red Deer with Greg right now as I'm currently running a project. Um, and it is looking at how gut health is affected during an interm memory LPS challenge, so a mastitis challenge and understanding that link between gut health and so whether inflammation stemming from the mammary gland can cause systemic inflammation and whether that to together with low feed intake 'cause sick cows they don't eat. And seeing if there is a link between the mammary gland and the GI tract. And then understanding if we can help speed the recovery from a mastitis challenge by looking at gut health. And so I'm actually, I am feeding a probiotic and seeing if there is an interaction there.
Greg Penner (20:22):
And I think this is a really exciting area, you know, if if we, if we can prove whether or not leaky gut situations happen and, and whether they have a, a production related or animal welfare related response, I think it could create a situation where we enter a new philosophy in how we treat sick animals. Um, you know, the, again, the running kind of story that we're focusing on is when we have a leaky gut, we might be able to deliver different compounds to accelerate recovery. And so if we have cattle that come out with a case of mastitis, you know, when I went through my graduate training and undergraduate training, we just treated mastitis with antimicrobials. Now quite commonly we use non-steroidal anti-inflammatories in addition to the antimicrobials. we're, we're questioning, maybe the next evolution is not only treating the infection and the pain associated with the infection, but maybe we need to be thinking about how we can accelerate recovery of the gut to prevent secondary disorders from arising as those animals are recovering from their first their first challenge.
Peter Morrow (21:33):
Dr. Penner or Claire, I was just wondering if you had in your mind, was there a critical T time period for with feed withhold before we think there's problems or is there, you know, a, a a period that, you know, wouldn't be a problem? Obviously minutes probably aren't a problem, but hours are, is there a break point where, where that is
Greg Penner (21:57):
Yeah, our data really suggests, so I look at this a different way. We typically withhold feed in our studies as a nutritional challenge, but what you really have to do is look back at kind of the methodology for how we're conducting the studies. And in most cases, we start our permeability measurements two or three days after feed has been withheld. So these can be fairly short term reductions in the amount of feed that the cows are consuming. And the whole point of these challenges is to try to replicate what we would see under, you know, normal infectious disease like mastitis or under heat stress conditions as, as Claire tested in, in her first experiment or other conditions that we would see with transition dairy cattle. So it can be pretty acute. And in addition to altered permeability, you know, we've, we've done some fairly intensive experiments where we've shown absorptive surface area can decrease by at least 60% within that five days if we're talking about ruminal absorption.
Greg Penner (23:09):
And where I get a little more confidence in the data is when other groups kind of replicate a similar model, and we find similar outcomes across groups and across institutions. And so Lance Baumgart's group has also shown pretty severe reductions in Intestinal VII surface area when exposed to off feed events. Claire, what, what is your thought when you think about mastitis or other issues? Do you think there's a long enough exposure to off feed events or enough of an inflammatory response to alter feed intake? How much do you see cows dropping feed intake when you induce your or infuse LPS?
Claire Bertens (23:55):
Um, that's a good question. So usually the cows, they tend to peak, their rectal temperatures will peak around six hours with the induction challenge that we're working on. And then it seems to resolve within 12 hours. But their feed intake they get sick probably three hours after, and they don't eat for I would say for a solid 12 hours that they don't touch it. And so that intake is low that first day, and then it stays low for probably a day or two, and then it starts to come back up. And so as the, it might be a transient reduction in low feed intake, but even as they start to recover, I think we have to start thinking about that secondary potential rum acidosis as they start regaining their dry matter intake and how that can affect the gut as well. So maybe coupled together with the systemic inflammation and the low feed intake and then returning to feed, there are lots of factors that can potentially affect the gut.
Greg Penner (25:03):
Yeah, and that's really been one realization we've had with this work when, when we've imposed purposeful feed restriction a as a model when consistent finding is, you know, in our case, our cows aren't sick when we impose the feed restriction, and so they tend to overeat on, on the day that they receive full feed allocation. And it's a really effective tool if we would want to induce rum acidosis. And I think it fits very well with transition cows that, you know, we know are already at high risk for acidosis have gone through a period of low feed intake. And so I think it's helping us to understand that there are different challenges that we've probably underappreciated and there are management strategies we can put in place to help these cows cope with what is a natural process, right. Going through calving and, and starting to eat more after going off feed.
Peter Morrow (25:58):
As a follow up to that, do we think such a transient event, like you're, you're just, you're describing where, you know, an LPS challenge, is that enough to effectively lower this the surface area, the vii, or would it need to be longer?
Claire Bertens (26:16):
Um, I guess that'll be an interesting finding. We're not looking particularly at any, um morphology of the, of the rumen or anything. We're not taking biopsies. But if that is affected it might take well, even as Greg said in the webinar, it takes retrogressive adaptation takes a lot, takes is very quick compared to when fun or reg when you, it takes to adapt that epithelium. And so it might take six to eight weeks to have proliferative adaptation, but then the other end retro aggressive can be very quick.
Greg Penner (27:01):
And we, we haven't I guess evaluated how short per se but we've, we've had studies where we've exposed animals to five or or 10 days of low feed intake, and this is both cattle. We've also run these experiments with sheep and it fits in with what Lance's group has done. And you know, the starking finding or the stark finding is that within five days we see enormous reductions in surface area. We actually have reductions in liver weight within five days. And so I think again, about transition cows that go off feed and the importance of the liver and, and whether or not the liver is actually decreasing in, in mass as in response to a lower plane in nutrition just because of that reduction in feed intake that's occurring and all the adaptations that need to occur to make sure that the recovery occurs in, in a reasonable timeframe to support lactation responses.
Claire Bertens (28:04):
And even in my, in that validation study with the feed restriction model, we did five days of low feed intake, so they were feed restricted 60% or offered 40% of their ED Lida intake. And one of the cows after I returned, like Greg, was saying that first day she ate a comparable amount and then the second day she tanked. Um, and likely because she was not able to absorb any of the short-chain fatty acids that were being produced. And that absorptive capacity was largely reduced and she had a minimum pH of 4.9 and 15 hours per day that it was, that her pH was less than 5.8. So she clearly had acidosis and we had to give her supplement, we had to give her antibiotics, a veterinarian did blood testing and said she had sepsis. And so we had to do some transformation and it was, it was a hard hit for that cow for sure.
Greg Penner (29:06):
And, and I think the important thing to keep in mind there is this cow did not have a diet change No, it was just a quantity of feed. Yeah. Quantity of the same diet. And so, you know, level of feed intake and consistency of feed intake is a really important factor for the gastrointestinal tract.
Claire Bertens (29:25):
And then unfortunately in that study, we didn't do a permeability test in the recovery phase. But likely she would've had a leaky gut then as well.
Peter Morrow (29:37):
Certainly that signs of sepsis would tell us that something was getting where it
Greg Penner (29:40):
Doesn't belong.
Claire Bertens (29:42):
Exactly. And these are healthy animals before the feed restriction challenge. And so I guess we argue that that inflammation is coming from the gut and then it would be interesting to see if there were multiple organ interactions, whether that be the mammary gland or the uterus when there's in transition cows. And anyway,
Greg Penner (30:05):
So yeah, you know, in line with that, we have parallel programs running on the beef cattle side. So we're looking at respiratory disease induction models and, and trying to understand whether respiratory disease also influences permeability of the gut. Same real concept, right? Cattle with respiratory disease drop feed intake, some of the data suggests up to 80% for seven to 10 days, so quite an extended drop in feed intake. and, you know, the approach to treat with or treat respiratory disease centralizes around antimicrobials, and there's no other supportive therapy that we're really aware of to help those cattle recover. And so while this is commonly thought of as a feedlot issue, we can think of calf ranches and we can think of young calves also having respiratory challenges. And we think the application could be much broader than the specific challenge model that we're imposing.
Scott Sorrell (31:07):
Claire, I wanna circle back. You said you're gonna do some of your research with a probiotic. I'm kind of curious how did you chose a probiotic, right? We've got probiotics, prebiotics, postbiotics. How did you pick a probiotic and then what's the expectation or hypothesis behind using that?
Claire Bertens (31:25):
Um, that's a good question. Um, so we're working with a company that is supplying a probiotic and that they want to have some more insight into how it functions and whether it can have immunomodulatory effects. And there are some, there is some data to suggest that postbiotics or those um, in particular yeast, so croce CI know there are some with the fermentation end products that like beta glucans have some immunomodulatory effects. This probiotic is a combination of yeast bacteria strains and some also postbiotics. And so they're just interested in whether it can have some effects on the immune system and particularly during a mastitis challenge. So whether feeding this probiotic or combination can help with gut health and potentially create a more robust immune system during a challenge and help these cattle recover. So maybe that means in terms of somatic cell counts that they are recovering quicker or in terms of dry matter intake or maybe they don't drop as much. And so that's kind of where we're interested in.
Greg Penner (32:54):
Yeah, so if, if I think of gut health or at least therapies, there's a couple approaches we can think about, right? One would be can we provide supportive therapy to prevent issues? So this would be prolonged feeding of, of products if, if they are effective at stimulating gut function. Or it could be in situations where you can't predict an outcome or can't predict an outcome. So if a can animal comes down with mastitis you know, there's, there's an opportunity maybe to apply post-diagnosis therapy to help accelerate recovery. So kind of a two-pronged approach trying to mitigate the risk. And secondly, accelerate recovery,
Claire Bertens (33:38):
Right? So, the probiotic that I'm feeding is an in feed. So they are being prior to the mastitis challenge, they're being fed. And so maybe on a, like Greg is saying, on a practical or on a commercial level, if a cow comes down with mastitis, whether, I guess if you use probiotics or prebiotics or postbiotics in the diet and then having that alternative to maybe give them a boost when they do have clinical cases of mastitis.
Scott Sorrell (34:08):
Greg, while we're talking about young calves there was a question during the webinar related to problems with beef on dairy calves when they're fed out that they're having more issues with liver abscesses. And, your comment was that you gave was related to colostrum. I kind of wanted to dig into that a little bit in terms of what could be the mode of action there and, and, and do we potentially see that why, why in beef on dairy calves and maybe not on on the heifers as well?
Greg Penner (34:40):
Yeah, I, what I'd really like to see is some data to confirm whether or not these beef on dairy calves are achieving adequate passive transfer. Um, there are some speculations in industry that that might not always be the case. And, I'm involved peripherally in some work that Dr. Mike Steele is leading with beef on dairy systems, really looking at colostrum feeding and milk replacer feeding. Let's, you know, in most cases, at least in calf ranches, we would expect these beef on dairy calves are fed milk replacer programs. and I think because of the cost of milk replacer and, and the investment that's being imposed, probably not seeing high levels of milk replacer feeding like we would see for replacement heifers that are retained on a dairy farm or, or on a heifer rearing facility. So I, I think if we had a fundamental shift where we change kind of how we're managing these calves and providing higher levels of milk to support their growth, probably would be able to support a more robust immune immune system, or at least immune response and, and probably could help protect against some of the disorders that, that they succumb to.
Greg Penner (36:01):
Um, carcass data that has come out of Texas has shown very clearly that these beef on dairy cross calves have much higher rates of liver abscesses, and it, and it looks like they're higher than we see for straight bred holsteins and certainly higher than we see for kind of the native beef population. And so when we start bringing in these beef breeds, it might put an added requirement on in terms of growth or muscle deposition that we're not meeting with lower levels of milk replacement or feeding or maybe even lower levels of colostrum feeding. So I think this is really nutritional programming of the gut and maintenance of the gut recognizing the gut is very responsive to nutrient intake, and if we limit nutrient supply, we probably limit the ability of the gut to fulfill all of its key functions.
Scott Sorrell (36:56):
Claire, I'm kind of curious when will you be finishing your PhD and do you have future research plans and then what, what happens after you get your PhD?
Claire Bertens (37:10):
That is a great question, and maybe I should, you should ask Greg when I'll be done, but okay. I'm thinking, I think a year and a half, two years is kind of where I'm, by the time I finish up this study. And then I think we'll do one more and hopefully it's a more of a practical application to this gut permeability track that I'm on. Um, and after that, I I really, coming from a dairy farm, I always thought I was gonna go back, to be honest, I never thought I would do a master's, let alone a PhD and meeting Greg and I haven't regretted it a day since. I'm so glad that I did it. And I really have gained an appreciation for research, especially at the farm level. And so I think and, and where I could do the connection, like an extensionist role where I could connect research to industry, that's where I feel like I something I would love to do.
Scott Sorrell (38:16):
Alright, great. Um, are there any topics I'll ask all three of you that we've not discussed yet that we need to discuss for the audience?
Greg Penner (38:25):
I think we've covered off feed events. I think we've covered regional permeability. We have a number of different production challenges that fit in. So I think that that's covered most of it. I think the main challenge or the main question I keep getting back is how important or how relevant is leaky gut in a, in a commercial setting particularly given that we would expect cows at best have transient exposure to a leaky gut and it has to be transient, or those cows don't stay on on a dairy farm, right? They get quite sick or may actually not survive that incident. So I, I think there's still some questions that we need to answer in terms of, you know, how, how relevant and how important is this leaky gut condition from a production performance response? And that's always gonna drive the economic side. Um, from an animal welfare side, I think, you know, transient days off, of cattle not feeling well is, is important to address. And, I think we will see a production outcome arising from that. So to me, it's still the economics of should we or can we prevent cows from experiencing a leaky gut and, and does that pay off besides kind of the, the good stewardship of animals?
Scott Sorrell (40:00):
Very well, I think this would be a great place to call, last call. And with that, what I'd like to do is ask each of you to kind of give us just some final thoughts, some key takeaway messages for our audience and Pete, I'd I'd like to start with you.
Speaker 5 (40:18):
Tonight's last call question is brought to you by Nitro Precision Release Nitrogen. NitroShure delivers a complete TMR for the room microbiome helping you feed the microbes that feed your cows. To learn more about maximizing microbial protein output while reducing your carbon footprint, visit balchem.com/nitroshure.
Peter Morrow (40:43):
I think it goes back to the statement that cows reward consistency and they need a consistent environment where they can meet their own needs by their own behavior. So if it's time to eat, they need free access. You know, if they, if it's time to rest, have free access to a stall that's sized appropriately and has, you know, adequate surface comfort and you know, they will reward that consistency with, with health and production. And I think this research, you know, tells us anytime we get in the way of her doing what she needs to do, that there's a negative outcome.
Scott Sorrell (41:20):
Yeah. Well said. Pete. Claire, what kind of final words do you have for us?
Claire Bertens (41:25):
I think that gut health in terms of on a practical, on a commercial setting is probably an irrelevant issue and it might go undiagnosed or undetected. And I think that leading into whether this permeability response is all or postal will better be able to, or better us be able to pick strategies that can help modulate that response. And again, like you said feed availability, stocking density things like that, ma good management practices can be a good start to mitigating negative effects on the gut.
Scott Sorrell (42:14):
Yeah. Thank you Claire and Dr. Penner, what final words do you have for us?
Greg Penner (42:19):
Yeah, you put me in a tough spot after Pete and Claire kind of took, took the key concepts, and I, I think that's really important, right? It's all about consistency and it's a, it's about good animal management and good animal stewardship and recognizing changes. And, and that can be hard in large dairies where, you know, off feed events for individual animals might be a little bit more difficult to recognize. But as highlighted earlier, there are technology changes that are coming so that we can have earlier diagnosis. And I hope through research we can work to develop strategies that quantify the impact of those off feed events or the production responses for cows that face challenges under commercial settings. And then two, develop strategies that help accelerate and help those cows recover from those challenges so that they can continue on in their consistent daily life enjoying the comfort in the barn and producing incredibly high quality food products for people.
Scott Sorrell (43:26):
Excellent. This has been a very good podcast, very enjoyable, very interesting. You guys have been great guests Dr. Printer. Wanna thank you for joining us and for inviting Claire. Claire, you've been an awesome guest. I wish you the very best in the future with your career, whatever, whatever it is you decide to do. Pete, once again, thank you for joining me and to our loyal audience, thank you for coming along for another episode of The Real Science Exchange. We hope you learned something. We hope you had some fun and we hope to see you next time here at the Real Science Exchange where it's always happy hour and you're always among friends.
Speaker 5 (44:00):
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 anh.marketing at balchem.com. Balchems 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 balchem.com/realscience to see the latest schedule enter, and register for upcoming webinars.