This episode was recorded at the 2025 Florida Ruminant Nutrition Symposium. Dr. Baumgard begins with an overview of his presentation, “Importance of gut health to drive animal performance and health.” He notes the metabolic and inflammatory fingerprint of all stressors is essentially the same, indicating they likely all emanate from the gut. Overall, we’re gaining a better understanding of how typical on-farm stressors negatively influence gut barrier function. He thinks the most likely mechanism of leaky gut is the immune cell known as a mast cell. When an animal or human is stressed, the enteric nervous system releases corticotropin-releasing factor, which binds to the mast cell, the mast cell degranulates, and the former contents of the mast cell (TNF-alpha, proteases, histamine, etc.) causes the gut to become leaky. (4:20)
This episode was recorded at the 2025 Florida Ruminant Nutrition Symposium.
Dr. Baumgard begins with an overview of his presentation, “Importance of gut health to drive animal performance and health.” He notes the metabolic and inflammatory fingerprint of all stressors is essentially the same, indicating they likely all emanate from the gut. Overall, we’re gaining a better understanding of how typical on-farm stressors negatively influence gut barrier function. He thinks the most likely mechanism of leaky gut is the immune cell known as a mast cell. When an animal or human is stressed, the enteric nervous system releases corticotropin-releasing factor, which binds to the mast cell, the mast cell degranulates, and the former contents of the mast cell (TNF-alpha, proteases, histamine, etc.) causes the gut to become leaky. (4:20)
Once the GI tract barrier becomes compromised, antigens like lipopolysaccharide (LPS) can infiltrate, stimulating the immune system. Immune activation causes loss of appetite much like any other infection. The gut heals fairly quickly upon removal of the stressor(s), and the gut can also acclimate to stress such that the early stages of a stress event are more severe than later stages. Strategies to combat leaky gut remain scarce, and there is no silver bullet. There are a variety of dietary strategies to target the gut permeability issue itself. Another approach would be to bind pathogens or curb their proliferation at the membrane of the small intestine. (7:06)
Dr. Neiehues asks if an antihistamine would work on gut mast cells the way it does in other body systems. Dr. Baumgard isn’t sure that’s ever been looked at, although there have been some studies in pigs using a product targeted to prevent mast cell degranulation. Dr. Nelson wonders if we should interfere in some of these processes because they’re obviously there for a reason. Panelists discuss stress events related to parturition and transition, particularly for first-calf heifers. Dr. Baumgard notes that stacking stressors on top of one another compromises an animal’s ability to tolerate stress. (9:28)
We know stress can cause ulcers in humans and horses - what about ruminants? Dr. Baumgard thinks it is likely that it’s happening, but we aren’t looking for it. Few animals who die on-farm do receive a thorough postmortem exam. It could also be that these types of insults to the gut are not visible to the naked eye. (19:11)
Dr. Nelson asks what makes some cows, despite all the challenges, able to be up and milking 150 pounds a day in no time after calving. What makes them unique? Dr. Baumgard lists some possibilities, including lower pathogenic inflammation than other cows, less tissue trauma damage to the uterus during calving, and lower sensitivity to immune activation. The panel disagrees with the notion that high-producing cows are stressed. (23:16)
Dr. Niehues and Dr. Baumgard trade stories of experiments where cows maintained production even with high stress and inflammatory markers. The panel goes on to discuss subclinical infections and their impact on transition cows. Dr. Nelson notes there are retrospective datasets where cows who had metritis showed decreased feed intake even before calving. Dr. Baumgard feels that the decrease in intake has been incorrectly assumed to be the cause of the metritis. He says the decrease in intake is often around two weeks before calving and he doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that at the same time, the mammary gland is initiating lactogenesis. He hypothesizes the mammary gland is causing an immune response, resulting in a decrease in intake. Dr. Nelson wonders if measuring somatic cell counts of colostrum would show any differences in mammary gland inflammation during this prepartum period. (29:18)
Panelists share their take-home thoughts. (42:02)
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 (00:07):
Good evening everyone, and welcome to the Real Science Exchange, the pubcast where leading scientists and industry professionals meet over a few drinks to discuss the latest ideas and trends in animal nutrition. Hi, I am Scott Sorrell. I'll be your host here tonight for our discussion. And I've got a brand new spanking brand new co-host Dr. Laura Niehues. She's new to Balchem and also new to the Real Science Exchange Pub. So welcome on both accounts. Thanks, Scott. So two questions. One, what's in your glass? And then two, I'd like you just to talk a little bit about yourself. Tell us who you are. Yeah, of course. That
Laura Niehues (00:43):
Kind of thing. I have gin and tonic Yeah. In the class, trying to go with the Florida trend. Yeah. And I just started at Chem and I'm the technical services specialist, and I actually did my PhD at University of Illinois with Phil Cardoso. So that's kinda where my background in Dairy cow stems from. But I'm originally from Florida, so, oh, is that right? You're happy to be back at University of Florida.
Scott (01:09):
And what part of Florida did you grow up in?
Laura Niehues (01:10):
Orlando.
Scott (01:11):
Orlando, Okay. Yep. Very well. And for this episode, our color analyst is gonna be Dr. Corwin Nelson. He's from University of Florida. Corwin, just tell us a little bit about yourself and what's in your glass.
Corwin Nelson (01:24):
All right. I'm yeah, so I'm an associate professor here at the University of Florida. I'm originally from Minnesota, so much colder area, but I've, I've very grown, very accustomed to the Florida weather here now after 12 years here in Florida. So it'd be hard to go back to the, the colder weather up there. And so I, I work on vitamin Nutrition and physiology here at Florida. And yeah, happy to be a part of what we have here today. So what I'm drinking here basically looks like colored water. Yeah. And it about tastes the same too. It is, right?
Corwin Nelson (01:56):
It’s kinda light. It's a very light, very light beer.
Scott (01:59):
Okay. All right. We could get another one if you'd like. No, that may maybe just drink two and it'll
Corwin Nelson (02:05):
I have ways to go yet tonight, so
Scott (02:07):
You go. I get it. Our guest tonight is Dr. Lance Bomgar. Lance, you're no stranger to the pub. Been here a few times. Thanks for coming back. Lance is from Iowa State University. He gave a talk today at the Florida Ruminant Nutrition Symposia titled The Importance of Gut Health to Drive Animal Performance and Health. What's in your glass, Lance?
Lance Baumgard (02:31):
Well, it's Angels Envy. So my wife and I, and some old college friends from Cornell went to Kentucky, Louisville in particular, last late last summer and took a tour, a variety of distilleries and Angels Envy was one of them, and I really like it.
Scott (02:45):
Yeah, I wanna go to that one. I have an angel's en envy myself. The, the difference between yours and mine is I don't have the the fancy ice cube in there, so yeah, this
Lance Baumgard (02:56):
Is like a metal cube, so it doesn't get watered down,
Scott (02:58):
But it stays cool. Yeah. Nice, nice. If you wouldn't mind, just kind of give us kind of maybe an outline of the talk you gave and some of the key points to provide a basis of our discussion.
Speaker 5 (03:18):
New research is changing everything we thought we knew about Choline'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 Choline'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. ReaShure Precision Release Choline from balchem, visit balchem.com/scientistssay to learn more.
Lance Baumgard (04:20):
Yeah. So the talk today, I went over different stressors and seemingly they're very different heat stress transition period, I'll feed events, et cetera. But the footprint and the metabolic and inflammatory fingerprint of all those stressors is essentially the same. So when we think about why would that be, it's because essentially they all emanate from the gut. So stress in general negatively affects the gut. We're getting a better appreciation for that now and, and agriculture. But of course, we've known about this for 150 years. Right. Everyone maybe not everyone, but many people know about how soldiers war fighters experienced a lot of the gut leaky gut problems, gut ulcer problems, and that was been documented in the American Civil War. So I think we're getting a better understanding of how stressors on farm, typical on stressors that probably every farm has negatively influences the gut gut barrier function.
Scott (05:23):
So how does stress then impact the gut and cause leak gut?
Lance Baumgard (05:28):
Yeah. Well, that's a great question, and I'm sure there's some mechanisms that are still yet to be discovered. But the, the, the one that I think is probably the most likely is a, is an immune cell called a mast cell. And everyone who's listening to this podcast probably has some familiarity with a mass cell because when they, when they reside in your skin epithelium and they degranulate, they cause a rash. And so if you have the red bumps, redness on your skin to get rid of the rash, you take an antihistamine, which affects the mast cell, but most of the mast cells live inside of your intestine. And when you get stressed, the enteric nervous system releases corticotropin releasing factor, which then binds to the mast cell, the mast cell degranulates, and there's a variety of things inside the mast cell, TNF, alpha proteases, histamine, et cetera, which then causes the gut to become leaky. And the person who's experiencing the stress then recognizes the immune response to the invading or the infiltrating noxious antigens like LPS or lipo polysaccharide. And you can feel it, right. You know, you'll hear kids say, wow, I got butterflies in my tummy, or I got knots in my tummy. Yeah. Some people get so stressed before big exams or during harvest or whatever that they vomit or they get diarrhea. So this is the really the connection between where your nervous system is communicating with your immune system, and the end result is GI tract pathology.
Scott (06:59):
Okay. And so how does that negatively impact the animal, the human?
Lance Baumgard (07:06):
Yeah. Well, so once the, the GI tract barrier becomes compromise and leaky, well, then you end up getting infiltration of antigens like LPS, which then stimulates the immune system. Yeah. So essentially you're getting immune activation stemming from your gut, right. And then of course, immune activation causes you to go off feed or to lose your appetite. And so all the downstream cascades of this are similar to anyone else who gets you know, lung infection or a virus, a cold, any other type of infection that we all, you know, familiar with, where you get tired, lethargic, lose your appetite, soreness of your muscles, et cetera. So the leaky gut, the footprint of that, it really isn't any different than any other infection.
Scott (07:53):
Okay. And so does this heal, heal up on itself if, if there's no longer stress?
Lance Baumgard (07:59):
Yeah, of course. Chronic stress, it has its negative implications as well. Yeah. But luckily for the gut, the gut does heal fairly quickly. Right? Yeah. And so, like some of the data I've shown you today with how the gut becomes leaky in response to feed restriction, well, with time that gets better. And that's, that's part of the acclimation phase to a stress, which I think makes sense, right? Most stressors like heat stress, for example. The early stages of a heat stress event is much more severe than the a couple weeks later.
Scott (08:33):
Yeah. And so lemme guess the the way to solve leaky gut is avoid stress,
Lance Baumgard (08:38):
Try to avoid stress. Exactly.
Scott (08:40):
Okay. Yep. And if we can't,
Lance Baumgard (08:43):
Well, yeah, if you can't, right. We don't know if we have great strategies on what to do. There are obviously different well, so the stress and causes the leaky gut, so of course we could try to target the, the gut permeability itself. Yeah. And there's a variety of dietary strategies to do that. The other one is how stress allows pathogens to adhere to and flourish at the apo membrane of the small intestine. So I think, you know, strategies to either buying pathogens or to, I know curb their proliferation would be, is a good strategy. And so there, I dunno, there's a lot of strategies we can use. There's no silver bullet with regards to gut health. At least I've not seen one. Yeah. Yeah.
Laura Niehues (09:28):
So Lance, I have a question for you. Yeah. In that regard, if it's mast cells potentially that's causing the leaky gut, why can't we just give dairy cows antihistamines? Give them some Claritin?
Lance Baumgard (09:39):
Yeah. Yeah. I've, I've thought about that too. Yeah, I, I'm not sure if that's actually ever been tried. I, you know, I haven't dug into that lizard you think I had, but I don't think it's been, so we've tried some mass cell stabilization experiments. Okay. Okay. And we did it in pigs. And really what we're doing is, is doing what Adam Moser at Michigan State is doing. And he's the leader in the animal agriculture world of this, in this discipline or this area. And so we tried given a, a mast cell stabilizer, or essentially something that prevent the mast cell degranulation during heat stress to pigs mm-hmm
Corwin Nelson (10:51):
Just to tie up into that question or that, that concept too, you always gotta think about what are the consequences then of disrupting the normal process, right? There's a, a reason for those mass cells to be there and to give that reaction. And just like you talked about in your talk, if you go and give a cow ban amine for consecutive days there on Patricia Tion or after tion, that has a negative consequence, right? There's a, a reason for that inflammatory process to be taking place. So at the same place, at the same time, we gotta always think about what every process that's taking place in the body, what is the, the, the role of that? And what happens if you were to actually stop that?
Laura Niehues (11:34):
Well, and I do wonder just a little bit with that concept, is that during transition, it makes sense because the cow's gonna have to calve and weed haven't induced the cow into calving. That's a normal biological process. But some of these evolutionary fight or flight responses don't necessarily have to happen. The cow doesn't have to feel like she's running from a tiger if we have music on in the milking parlor. Right. So if we, in those circumstances, if we can reduce the stress response, does the cow still turn out okay? Even if it
Lance Baumgard (12:12):
Yep. Yep. A couple good points that you both brought up I'll go back to you first. Cor one, I think it's really important for scientists to think of biology within an evolutionary context. And I think oftentimes we don't, right? If, if biology is favoring this amongst different species there's gotta be a reason mm-hmm
Corwin Nelson (13:29):
You think of that, you know, first calf heifer in particular going into the parlor for the first time. So there, she just had a calf for the first time. She just more than likely got moved to a new pen. And then she's going through that parlor and wondering what's going on to me here? I, I, yeah. That's a, that's a lot going on for that heifer. And, and unfortunately, and, and, you know, we really try to make sure we, we coach everybody on just, you know, calm, managing those animals well, that heifer isn't going in, and, and things start to get more chaotic very quickly, right? So, you know, we really coach against those things. But the reality is, all of a sudden you see chaos start to take place, and that, that really puts that heifer and you can see the effects on that animal when that's taking place, how it really slows them down, just being comfortable going into that parlor.
Lance Baumgard (14:19):
Yeah. I think there's just a lot of opportunities, especially in very early lactation, right? Think about she's got new pen, new diet, we just took her calf. She's learning a new routine of getting milked, right? And if she's getting thrown into a fresh pen with a bunch of older cows, there's just and if they're, if it's overcrowded, there's a lot of stressors that, that, that gets stacked on top of each other. And in the field of stress physiology, there's a, there's a term called stack stressors, where an animal will typically be able to tolerate one stressor. But if you throw another one on top of her, and if that other one was isolated, no problem. But when they start stacking on top of each other, then their ability to tolerate a stress or survive that stress is compromised.
Laura Niehues (15:05):
So we see heifers, I feel like a lot of times, maybe don't have as difficult of a transition as multiparous cows, but kind of what we're discussing now, it seems like maybe they're more stressed just because it's all brand new. So is it just that they can take those insults a little bit better because this is the first time through? Or kind of, what do you think about that?
Lance Baumgard (15:28):
I guess it may depend on, you know, how we, how are we judging whether or not they transition better? Mm-Hmm
Corwin Nelson (15:40):
Yeah, I think there's maybe a couple things there. Metabolically, they're perhaps not as challenging much, 'cause they're not milking as much, as much, there's not as much of a, a metabolic challenge. But on the flip side, you look at incidents of metritis, you know, that's generally gonna be greater in heifers than what you'd find in your, your multiparous cows. So there's it, there's, there's differences there, but yeah. How do you, it it's difficult to compare, how do they transition of a premium Paris cow versus a multiparous cow.
Lance Baumgard (16:11):
Yep. Yep. Exactly.
Scott (16:15):
So you might find this surprising. But I listen to Joe Rogan a lot, and he, he purposely does cold plunges, and he goes in saunas and it does it regularly. And that's, that's done for health effects. And so how does that jive with what we're talking about with stress causing leaky gut?
Lance Baumgard (16:36):
Yeah, I think, I think this fits in kind of with Jose Santos question this morning. And he said, well, you know, humans, humans do intermittent fasting all the time. Yeah. And obviously without negative consequences and arguably with benefits. Yeah.
Lance Baumgard (16:54):
And there, I think the difference is when a farm animal goes without feed for a few hours, they don't know they're gonna be fed again. Right. So now we have a psychological stressor involved here where when you and I jump into a cold bathtub Yeah. Or choose not to eat for a day, we can al we know that we can always go to the refrigerator and Yeah. Right. And eat again. We usually do. Yeah, exactly. So I think there's a comparing how Amer Americans, how humans respond to voluntary stressors. Yeah. Right. Is different than what a farm animal
Scott (17:33):
Does. There's a psychological aspect
Lance Baumgard (17:35):
To it. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I really do.
Scott (17:37):
Interesting and wonder if there's anything we can learn there to, to help, help help animals adapt. I don't know. Yeah.
Corwin Nelson (17:49):
As you bring that up, you know, just that thought came to mind and just how a conditioning animal, and we talk a lot about early life events and how that has long-term impacts and you know, that that's becoming a very common practice for calves to be raised elsewhere. Right. So it's again, that that stressor incurs early in life. So in that first week of age, they may be shipped off to a calf ranch raised there. They, they're gonna be, you know, maintained within that system there. So minimizing stressors, but eventually those animals gotta come back to their, their home place. And so they, you know, they're, they're being conditioned. So it'd be interesting to see as we collect more data on this process, and some people are working on that, but collect more data on just that type of management, how that has an impact on the future performance of those animals.
Lance Baumgard (18:40):
Yeah. That would be very interesting. We know that young cows that have some type of immune activating event, whether it be scours or especially pneumonia, right. Their future productivity is compromised mm-hmm
Corwin Nelson (19:04):
Not that we're advocating rough handling their psychological stress for an animal by any means, but
Lance Baumgard (19:11):
No.
Laura Niehues (19:11):
So Lance and your talk, you talked about people in army and soldiers and how they get ulcers and that sort of thing. Yeah. And I have any equine background, so very well versed in ulcers,
Lance Baumgard (19:35):
So that's a great question, Laura. And I don't know if we, if we do, but I don't know if we're not, I don't know if we're looking mm-hmm
Laura Niehues (20:03):
Okay.
Lance Baumgard (20:05):
And so I think, I think it happens. Yeah. you know, and ulcer where you can visibly see with the eye we oftentimes affiliate that with the, with the rumen mm-hmm. Rum acidosis or chronic osis. But, you know, many of these small hyperpermeable regions probably aren't visible with a naked eye that that would see the typical posting.
Laura Niehues (20:33):
Yeah. And you mentioned, again, when you showed those pictures of, and maybe this was a different picture, but with the villa of the villa that was healthy and then heat stress and then para Fred and the heat stress one was just markedly worse. Yeah. And so were you then attributing that a little bit to that histamine response? Is that why the VI has got worse or
Lance Baumgard (20:54):
So, so we almost gotta go back to like 2009 or 10. When Rob Rhodes and I were collaborating on all this stuff, most of what we chase in animal agriculture, specifically, this area of stress physiology comes from human, you know, physiology. And of course, the US military is very interested in heat stress because oftentimes our soldiers are in hot environments, and they're wearing these huge, you know, 50, 75 pound packs, you know. And so there was a guy from the University of Iowa shoot, I'm forgetting his name right now, but he was the one who first started to characterize this leaky gut and rodent models. And then the, the, a Department of Defense described it really nicely in American soldiers. So that's why we started chasing it. Now, the, the morphological changes that I showed you today, I mean I don't know if that could all be, you know, mast cell mediated. And like I said, there is definitely a reduction of blood flow to the GI tract during heat stress. And that, you know, we used to think that was the whole reason why animals get leaky gut was there was a reduced perfusion of the tic bed. But cold stress also causes leaky gut. And of course now we have an increase in blood flow to the, to the core. So how much does blood flow contribute to this leaky gut pathology? I don't know, but probably some percentage. Yeah.
Laura Niehues (22:27):
Okay. Does cold stress have that? I, and we haven't really studied cold stress No, all that much. So you probably don't have the answer if it does have that same negative effect on the villa I as
Lance Baumgard (22:41):
That is much less studied cold stress, and that's for sure certain in anime culture mm-hmm
Laura Niehues (23:13):
Good point.
Corwin Nelson (23:16):
You know, so just yeah, thinking about the, going back to the transition dairy cow and this phenomenon of how you see that, you'll, you'll see that, or going back to gut permeability with that and maintaining feed intake. So what fascinates me all the time is you see these cows, you, despite all these challenges, just rocket through there and they'll be up and milking 150 pounds a day in no time at all. And it, those, those cows fascinate me, what is it about those cows that makes them get through that? Right? They've experienced all, you got 'em on the same diet, you got 'em in the same environment, and what is it about those cows that, that, so it's, it's a question that fascinates me. What is, what makes them unique?
Lance Baumgard (24:02):
Yeah. So my, my, my knee kneejerk reaction are kneejerk answers, well, those are the ones that just simply haven't had as much pathogenic inflammation as the cows that are crashing and burning. But then the question is, well, why would that be? Like, like you mentioned, they're all fed the same diet, right? Maybe it's more tissue trauma damage to the uterus during calving. Maybe they're just super sensitive to immune activation. I mean, there's some genetics to that. Mm-Hmm
Corwin Nelson (25:01):
Lance Baumgard (25:21):
Would say she's the least stressed animal. Yeah. Yeah. Right. The highest producing animal in the farm is the least stressed animal in the farm. Mm-Hmm
Corwin Nelson (26:02):
Right.
Lance Baumgard (26:03):
Dogma among scientists and some scientists, some veterinarians, some farmers mm-hmm
Laura Niehues (26:16):
Corrin, going back to what you had said about that there are some cows that just really take off. And I, I've had that thought about a lot, mostly on the efficiency side of things, that you can look at two cows side by side raise exactly the same, and one can be substantially more efficient than the other. And just trying to kind of figure out why. And I do wonder if it has, of course, feed efficiency's gonna be genetic to some expl, but when you get in a herd of cows, there can be one or two that are a lot more likely to walk up to you and some that are more skittish. So I do wonder if it has a quote unquote personality. Yeah. Differences definitely to some that are more attuned to be stressed from a small change, whereas others that are more resilient to that change, and whether we've accidentally picked for one or the other in some herds,
Lance Baumgard (27:08):
I think the beef industry has done a really good job of trying to quantify that. Don't they calculate the speed at which an animal leaves the chute. Mm-Hmm
Laura Niehues (27:24):
I would say those ones are probably scared. So they're, they're freaked out bolting out there. Yeah.
Corwin Nelson (27:30):
Yep.
Lance Baumgard (27:31):
Exactly.
Corwin Nelson (27:32):
But yeah, and to that point, you know, you think of just the variation that the cow's temperament that you see out there and, and how they're gonna deal with new situations and, and those that are going to just kinda be that calm cow that go through anything, they're, they're more than likely not gonna be disrupted by pen movements, anything like that. So Yeah.
Lance Baumgard (27:55):
Exactly.
Scott (27:56):
It makes a lot of sense. Are the genetic companies, are they even, can they identify that in the genome and maybe they oughta start selecting for that brave
Laura Niehues (28:04):
Cows could be
Lance Baumgard (28:05):
Brave cows?
Corwin Nelson (28:05):
Yeah. Yeah. We, we obviously we've selected for temperament over the years and, and have done that. There's still the variation within that too, that how much can you select for, continue to select for to identify those cows. So we obviously have done that over the years to Yeah. Get these very docile Holstein cows, and then of course people come to the university farm, 'em, we handle cows so many times, and then you walk out into a pen in any water, 'em, and just walk right up to him because he'd been handled so many times. So Yeah.
Lance Baumgard (28:41):
Yep. I was, I was in Israel not long ago. And a bunch of veterinarians who are, have become good friends of mine they put up big signs on their, on their client's farms saying, you know, minimize cow touches
Laura Niehues (29:11):
Hmm. One thing that was interesting if we're getting into the storytelling portion of this podcast is that
Scott (29:16):
We're always in the storytelling portion.
Laura Niehues (29:18):
Lance Baumgard (30:33):
It's interesting you said that because I, we have a paper that's in press, so you could find it in GDS Sonya Rodriguez Hemenez is the first author and where we created a chronic inflammatory model seven days. And so we were successful finally after trying three or four times, but we finally were able to get animals to be inflamed for the whole seven days, chronically inflamed. Right. And of those seven days though, the negative effects on production was only in the first couple days. So productivity and feed intake acclimated to the chronic immune activation. Ah, but they remained inflamed the entire seven days. So then now, and that makes me worried a little bit about our understanding mm-hmm
Laura Niehues (32:02):
Yeah. It's a, it's a difficult concept, especially 'cause those cows were moved a little ways after dry off, so they kind of had that insole to dry off, were able to maybe recover from that, and then they were brought to a new farm and then incorporated into a whole new herd and that sort of thing. So then they had that inflammation saying, starting at 40 days before calving. Yeah. So they kind of had that buildup already, but didn't seem to hurt them on the back end of calving at all. Yeah.
Corwin Nelson (32:30):
The immune system, like the endocrine system is full of checks and balances, right? So you can have some activating factor elevated, but is there another response to that that helps maintain a, a balance there and so that the immune system is full of those checks and balances? We know that in, in T cells, for example, you got your activating T cells, but then there's a, your regulatory T cells that go along with it to maintain a balance there. And we know from disease, like autoimmune diseases in people, for example, a lot of the, the manifestation of disease really comes from not so much always the activation part, but a dysfunction on that regulatory aspect there. And we really don't have a handle that in, in cattle and the, in terms of the, the, that inflammatory response and how they then balance out their resolution of that inflammation. We've talked about it a lot, but we really don't know much about resolution of inflammation.
Lance Baumgard (33:32):
A hundred percent. And what you were just got done describing reminds me of something what Dale Obama always used to say that in biology there's redundancies built in and the more important the system, the more redundancies there will be. And probably speaking with regards to, if you had to prioritize, you know, which systems are most important, arguably the immune system's probably right up there with the central nervous system. Right? So to his point, and to your point, maybe this immune system's, so there's all these checks and balances and redundancies built in to make sure, hey, I'm gonna, I need to survive this insult. Right. And yeah, those are things we need to figure out. Yeah.
Corwin Nelson (34:10):
So sometimes we, we look at markers say like Haptoglobin, TNFL IL six, and those would be elevated, and they generally are very good indicators of that animal's inflammatory status. But then how are they still function in response to that? And I mean, we, we, it goes back to this, we know very well that a very good indicator of animal health is animal performance. Exactly. Right. If they're performing well, it's a good indicator that they're a healthy animal. Yeah.
Lance Baumgard (34:39):
I'm unaware of any illness where or I'm, I'm unaware of any situation where an animal's productivity is not reflective of its overall health status when, you know and, and, and maybe I'm, I'm just not thinking of something. Maybe you guys can think of something, right? When would an animal have some type of disorder, health problem, immune activation event where productivity wasn't affected? I can't think of any. No.
Corwin Nelson (35:12):
I mean, it, it may be hidden to the point that it's not necessarily noticeable to us, but it is, like we know that from subclinical mastitis, we don't see the, the clinical monetization, but we also know from, from collection allotted records of animals elevation, that somatic cell count, even if it's subclinical, you still have a decreased production milk. Exactly.
Lance Baumgard (35:32):
Yeah. No, a hundred percent. That's why I just, you know, just I'm totally agreeing with you that our best marker of productivity, or sorry, of immune health status is productivity. Yeah.
Laura Niehues (35:45):
So is there any chance that stress and immune response during transition starts to get into that chronic state that the cows are acclimating to that stress, say if it starts prior to calving, they start to acclimate to it already, and that plays a part into how they're able to be high producing by day seven? Say, or do you think that chronic stress has any play in there or that it doesn't because we have these, an insole and then another insole, and it kind of starts that timeline over.
Lance Baumgard (36:21):
My, my guess is that they can, they can acclimate to a stressor like overcrowding you know, noise, noise, those types of things we can, they can acclimate to, but if it's an infectious stressor like mastitis or metritis or leaky gut or pneumonia, that's hard to acclimate to, right? Yeah. You just gotta let the immune system run its course then. So I think the two are a little bit separated, although emotional stress causes immune activation, you know, via the gut. But mastitis, metritis and pneumonia and gut inflammation I think are a little bit different than the psychological stressors that we've been talking about today.
Laura Niehues (37:05):
So during transition it could just be combo of both. Yeah. So they have a hundred percent both of those going on.
Lance Baumgard (37:10):
Yeah. Oh, well, I think the Florida group has done such a nice job of describing how, what, what percentage Corwin of cows calving have some type of subclinical endometritis. It's like over 50% or I can't remember what job.
Corwin Nelson (37:24):
Yeah. So if you go to and there's been different rates, but yeah, I've seen 40 to 50% depending on the population that you're studying. But yeah. And I think truly our, our rates of metritis are actually much more than what farms will typically report. You know, the, a lot of farms say, oh yeah, we don't have any metritis. Well, that's 'cause you don't measure it like they have it. Like, and, and it's, I I think even well-managed herds, it's still probably running anywhere from 10 to 15%. Yep. And, and then that, that's metritis clinical. Yeah. Yeah. Clinical metritis, that's not talking about subclinical endo metritis, which would be much higher. So that brings up a a interesting point I've seen in this in a couple different data sets. And there's some data that's, that's been published too that suggests the same thing. So we've seen cows that have metritis, you already see a decrease in feed intake
Lance Baumgard (38:14):
Before calving
Corwin Nelson (38:15):
Even before calving. Right. And we've seen this at one is at feed intake. We, we have another large data set from a commercial herd a couple thousand animals, and we looked at body condition score, and there we even see body condition scores has declined before Calvin, these cows that developed metritis. So what's, it goes back to what's going on there in that prepartum period that would, is it what would be causing them to decrease their feed intake? And we've corrected for factors like lameness and that, so it, it's taking that out of it. So what other factors could it be? Is it, you know, they're not overcrowded, so it's not necessarily competition for bunk space that you have there. So what, what is it that, that's taking place and causing that decrease before calving?
Lance Baumgard (39:06):
Well, I don't know the answer, but in a couple things I wanna comment on your, is that, so traditionally then the reduced feed intake before calving has been blamed for the post calving pathology in this case titis. Right. And I, I, I think that had been an incorrect assumption. Mm-Hmm
Corwin Nelson (39:55):
Right.
Lance Baumgard (39:56):
But the ones that do that typically starts about 14 days prior to cg. And I don't think it's a coincidence that the mammogram is also initiating LAC agenesis at about that, that about that time. So my guess, my, my assumption, my, my guess would be total hypothesis that the immune activation is stemming from the mammary gland on those cows before calving, which is reducing feed intake. And now we have a cow that's in the midst of a mild immune activation prior to her even calving. And now you have a dilemma of the immune system post calving, where you have to take care of both a mammary and a, and a potential uterine infection total. You know, I'm just totally speculating
Corwin Nelson (40:44):
Here. No, I get the wheels turning here thinking, well, we get to, we measure we can measure sax cell score of colostrum, find out how much there's how much indication of inflammation you have in the TER there. Yep. At the time of Calvin, that would be occurring, would've been occurring during the, that period of made development. I got, I got one more thing to go work on now. So Yeah, there you
Lance Baumgard (41:09):
Go. Job security corps. Yeah.
Scott (41:12):
This has been a great discussion and I hate to shut it down, but Lance, you have a, you have a plane to catch a flight to catch. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (41:35):
Tonight's last call question is brought to you by NiaShure Precision Release Niacin. Niacin is a proven vasodilator for heat stress reduction and a powerful anti lipolytic agent for lowering high blood nefa in transition, cows protected with bowel Balchem's proprietary encapsulation technology. You can be sure it is being delivered where and when your cows need it. Learn more@bowelchem.com/niashure
Laura Niehues (42:02):
Scott (42:45):
Corwin.
Corwin Nelson (42:45):
Yeah. just thinking about that of and, and, and going back to my experience in the last year of helping manage our university dairy, and it is going a situation like that one, I, I realize every dairy farmer out there, how they going get an ulcer from the stress that they deal with and opportunities or stress that they deal with. But the you can look at your situation and, and, and see, man, there's so many things I need to go and, and solve. You know, there, there's a problem here, problem here, problem here. That it just can be overwhelming to solve all those things. And we know how to manage calories very well. Right? We, we see it, we have very good examples. Here's what we need to do for this transition cow to do it right. And we can go around the world and find the great examples of these cows and herds that are just doing amazing. But then you're also faced with, man, I can't get it all done at once, but identify that low hanging fruit of, well, here's a simple solution that I can, I can fix right now. Solve that one now, then go to, okay, what's the next one that I can solve that one and start, you know, identifying that low hanging fruit to work on making, implementing some of these easy changes to help these cows through this period. Yeah. Some
Scott (44:01):
Points. Yeah. Lance,
Lance Baumgard (44:05):
Well, you know, I'm biased working in the area, but I think the industry's becoming increasingly aware of, of how the gut, gut health, gut barrier health dictates overall animal health. You bet.
Scott (44:17):
A big part of that. Well,
Lance Baumgard (44:19):
I'd like to think so. Thank you for saying that. So you know, I think we need to educate nutritionists, veterinarians and farmers about how, hey, we wanna minimize environmental pathogen load. Mm-Hmm
Scott (45:11):
Yeah. Well, thank you guys. I, I was reflecting during the, the podcast, the recording here you know, my favorite part of my job is that I get to spend time with some very smart people and sit around and talk and with them and have some beverages. And so I'm, I'm truly blessed. And so I want to thank you guys for joining us here. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us, Scott. This has been awesome. Yeah, it's been great. So, just wanna thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. To our loyal listeners out there in cyberspace, thank you for joining us once again. Hope you learned something, hope you had some fun, and I hope to see you next time here through Real Science Exchange, where it's always happy hour and you're always among friends. Cheers,
Speaker 5 (45:53):
We'd love to hear your comments or ideas for topics and guests. So please reach out via email@anh.marketing at balchem.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. Balchem's real science lecture series of webinars takes place on the first Tuesday of every month with the top research and nutrition topics that will impact your business. We also include small ruminant, monogastric, and companion animal focused topics throughout the year. Visit balchem.com/realscience to see the upcoming topics and to register for future webinars. You can also access past webinars and search for the topics most important to you.