By Wilhelm Joubert, BSc Hons (Microbiology, Biochemistry, University of Pretoria)
I was talking to a farmer this past winter who made a very interesting observation. Following the beautiful rains, he drove past so many farms where winter grass stood waist-high, unused, while farmers’ cattle lay in poor condition beside their feed troughs, not going out to make use of this valuable source of fibre.
Where are we going wrong, and what can we do to overcome this major shortcoming? What would the implications be for every cattle farmer if we could get our cattle to make effective use of winter grass?
Well, this past winter, we accepted the challenge and became involved with a few cattle farmers in the Free State.
Vermate was included in the winter lick fed to cattle grazing on the veld. The objective was to improve cattle performance during the most difficult time of the year by enabling them to utilise the dry winter grass. And this is exactly what happened.
Including Vermate in the lick quickly led to better lick intake, making it possible for the cattle to utilise the tough, dry veld grass. Body condition scores improved from 4–6 out of 10 to 6–8 out of 10.
An improved body condition score means two things. Firstly, it leads to weight gain, which means weaner calves put on more weight. Secondly, better condition leads to improved fertility.
In the case where bulls ran with the cows continuously, all the cows were pregnant within a period of two months, even though this was in the middle of winter in the Free State.
This is a lot to take in, explained in just a few words. What happened to enable the animals to utilise the dry veld and perform better? The answer lies in the powerful action of a diverse population of micro-organisms, which make the mineral elements in the lick available for absorption in the animal’s rumen. Let’s look at two scenarios of lick intake, with and without microbial supplementation.
SCENARIO 1: WITH THE RIGHT MICRO-ORGANISMS
Protein- and carbohydrate-fermenting organisms in the rumen use the energy and nitrogen in the lick, together with the fibre from the grazing, to multiply in very large numbers during rumen fermentation.
This is like bringing fat, a fire and dry wood together. The result is an explosion.
During this explosive process in the rumen, the salt-based minerals in the lick are absorbed into the organisms and combined with carbon and protein elements in the microbial cells.
Once these large numbers of organisms pass through to the true stomach and small intestine, they are broken down by the animal’s stomach acids, releasing all the elements for use by the animal.
These minerals are no longer in a salt-based form. Instead, the microbes have incorporated them into complex organic molecules that are highly absorbable by the animal’s body, without causing any form of salt or metabolic stress.
SCENARIO 2: WITHOUT THE RIGHT MICRO-ORGANISMS
In the absence of the necessary protein- and carbohydrate-fermenting microbes in the lick, the nitrogen and energy components in the lick cannot be used effectively to break down the fibre in the grazing.
The fermentation process, in which the organisms should use carbon to multiply rapidly while incorporating the lick’s minerals into their microbial cells, becomes inefficient.
It is like trying to start a fire with wet logs. There is never a proper flame, and the wood never burns properly.
The consequences are drastic
Instead of the minerals being converted into complex, absorbable protein and carbon compounds, these elements pass through to the true stomach and small intestine in a salt-based form.
Here, they are absorbed directly into the bloodstream in this salt-based form, leading to salt or osmotic stress in the body.
The body attempts to counteract this stress by drinking more water. The kidneys then flush these salts out through the urine. By secreting fluid into the intestines, the body also washes the salts out of the true stomach and small intestine into the animal’s manure. This flushing process leads to diarrhoea.
What a self-created crisis!
Where the lick is supposed to supplement the animal’s nutrition, it instead places the animal under further stress. The animal might even have done better without the lick. We can therefore see that when fermentative micro-organisms are not included in a lick formulation, meat is not produced efficiently. Instead, the result is very expensive manure full of mineral salts.
THIS SOUNDS GOOD, BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR ME AS A FARMER WHO NEEDS TO MAKE MONEY AND SURVIVE?
The first major change is that the animals become eager to immediately utilise hard, unpalatable grasses under the most difficult winter conditions, grazing indiscriminately rather than selectively.
This means farmers can transition more easily to high-pressure or ultra-high-pressure grazing systems.
It is not necessarily a matter of waiting three to five years for genetic adaptation before the system starts working. By simply completing the lick formulation with the necessary microbes, cattle can immediately make the transition to high-pressure grazing systems. By introducing just one critical environmental factor, rumen microbes, into the breeder’s formula, the equation Phenotype = Genotype + Environment can function in the right proportions.
Furthermore, everything points to weaner calves finished on the veld performing as well as their counterparts in the feedlot. The only difference is that this can be done much more economically.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if more farmers could secure the benefits of high-pressure grazing systems and finish their own weaner calves?
What a great day it would be if enough of these farmers joined forces, showed the feedlot magnates the farm gate, and marketed their own animals directly from the veld!
ABOUT WILHELM JOUBERT
Wilhelm Joubert grew up as a farmer in the Hoedspruit area, where his father farmed commercial Afrikaner cattle.
As a boy, he closely observed the behaviour of cattle in the veld and identified a gap in understanding the role of microbes in animal nutrition.
As he continued his studies in microbiology, this gap became increasingly clear. He developed the Vermate product to address this need.
Today, the results speak for themselves!
