Feature

 

 

New bloat treatment makes alfalfa a safe grazing option
June 8, 2005
With the proper dose, even cattle on a 100 percent legume pasture won’t bloat.
Another year of field trials with a new bloat control product has provided further evidence that Canadian beef cattle can graze alfalfa without risk of bloat, says a University of Calgary (U of C) researcher.

More demonstration projects using Alfasure to control frothy bloat in cattle will be mounted during the 2005 grazing season to answer several specific questions, says Dr. Merle Olson, a veterinarian and gastrointestinal specialist at the U of C. But data collected from dozens of grazing trials in 2004 involving more than 7,000 cattle shows the product does work.
 

Highlights from 2004 grazing trials

  • 1 case of bloat in about 100,000 grazing days

  • Product performed under a wide range of conditions

  • High producer satisfaction

  • Steer gains averaged 2.5 lbs/day; heifers 2 lbs/day

  • Stocking density averaged 0.5 acre per cow/calf pair/season

  • An effective injection treatment for acute cases of bloat
“The studies showed mortality was less than one animal in 100,000 grazing days,” says Olson. “In all cases, except for one, losses were due to management issues. The bottom line is, if cattle get the product, they don’t bloat.”

Alfasure is an anti-foaming agent typically supplied to grazing livestock in their drinking water. The product works as a surfactant to destabilize foam in the rumen, enabling cattle to eliminate gas. Working with a number of New Zealand-developed bloat control products, Olson formulated the product for use in Canada. Alfasure is marketed by the Calgary-based Rafter 8 Products.

Along with demonstrations showing the effectiveness of Alfasure when administered to cattle through drinking water, Olson’s work also showed Alfasure can be administered as a direct intraruminal injection to quickly treat acute cases of frothy bloat. An injection of an Alfasure solution directly into the rumen relieved gas pressure buildup in less than half an hour.

Grazing opportunities

The product is a major development in the decades-long search to make alfalfa a safer livestock feed. While its virtues as a high quality, high protein legume for grazing, haymaking and silage are well known, alfalfa and to a lesser extent, related clovers have one major drawback. They can cause frothy bloat in cattle.

“If we can eliminate or greatly reduce the risk of bloat, it opens up several opportunities to increase the use of alfalfa by livestock,” says Dr. Tim McAllister, a research scientist and livestock nutritionist at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s (AAFC) Lethbridge Research Centre. McAllister is one of the independent researchers who has evaluated the effectiveness of the bloat control product in recent years.

In the prairie-wide 2004 demonstration and efficacy trials, Olson tested the effectiveness of Alfasure across a wide range of growing conditions, involving dozens of farms and ranches. Most were cow/calf, heifer and yearling steer beef operations.

“We wanted to see how well the product worked across a wide range of variables,” says Olson. One of the key factors in the effectiveness of the product and in ensuring the proper dose is that treated water has to be the only source of drinking water. Cattle can’t have access to a water trough with Alfasure-treated water, as well as a dugout, creek, or other water source.

Variable conditions

“We were concerned that with good growing conditions and heavy rainfall in various parts of the prairies over the growing season, cattle may not get the proper Alfasure dose,” says Olson. “But, despite the rainfall and lush growing conditions, the product was 100 percent effective.”

Cattle involved in the trials grazed pastures with an alfalfa (legume) content averaging 80 percent. Both irrigated and dryland pastures were included in the study.

Along with the extremely low incidence of bloat, use of Alfasure also led to improved production, says Olson. Although beef weight gains varied between sites, steers averaged 2.5 pounds per day gain, and heifers averaged two pounds per day gain. “While farmers were a bit cautious until they saw how well the product worked, they found that alfalfa can support higher stocking densities,” says Olson. “On average, depending on moisture, half an acre of alfalfa pasture can support a cow/calf pair over a grazing season that runs from late May until late October.”

The 2004 demonstration trials also showed that commercially-available automatic medicators can be used to treat drinking water. Rather than a producer having to visit each trough and manually pour in the product, the automatic medicators commonly used in other livestock operations such as hog barns, can be installed in-line to dispense the proper dose as troughs fill with water.

Acute treatment

Olson also found that a 50 percent solution of Alfasure can be injected directly into the rumen to alleviate acute cases of frothy bloat. “If cattle are getting the proper dose of Alfasure on pasture, they won’t bloat, but if they bloat on pasture without treated water, the product can be used as an injectible treatment,” says Olson. In 2004 trials, researchers purposely induced bloat to test the effectiveness of Alfasure.

Rather than a conventional treatment, which involves tubing the animal to administer an oral drench, a 50/50 Alfasure/water solution was injected using a 60-milliliter syringe and a 14﷓gauge needle. Bloat relief was obvious within 15 minutes and cattle fully recovered within 30 minutes.

Further testing of Alfasure in 2005 will again monitor product efficacy as well as compare the production and economic performance of grazing legume forages versus grass forages, says Olson.

Data will also be collected on how high quality legume forages can reduce the overall methane gas production from beef cattle production.

Environmental benefit

Aside from the beef production standpoint, increased use of alfalfa and other perennial forages is also good for the environment. Demonstration of grazing alfalfa with the assistance of the bloat control product is partially funded by the beef sector of the federal Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Program for Canadian Agriculture (GHGMP). The Canadian Cattlemen’s Association (CCA) administers the program. See an earlier related story on the CCA Website at www.cattle.ca.  Click on the Stewardship section and follow the links to GHGMP pages.

Access to higher protein alfalfa pastures could reduce beef finishing times by as much as one month, he explains. Trials show steers grazing alfalfa were ready for a finishing feedlot 30 days sooner than cattle on grass. Reducing the length of time from birth to finish can reduce the amount of methane, a greenhouse gas, produced by cattle.

As well, because alfalfa is more digestible than other forages, if grazed at the proper time, it has the potential to reduce the amount of methane animals produce per pound of forage consumed. The combined benefit is a shorter grazing period, which reduces rumen methane production.

Increasing reliance on alfalfa pastures may also help reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Alfalfa, like other plants, captures carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. Some of this carbon is cycled through the animal during feeding. Some remains in the plant and root material, eventually adding to soil organic matter levels, a key indicator of the amount of carbon stored or “sequestered” in the soil.

In the longer term, Olson sees the opportunity to finish more cattle on pasture. “A shift toward increased reliance on alfalfa could see a reduction in annually cropped acres for feed grains,” says Olson. “Perennial forage stands sequester more carbon than grains. Also, we could reduce the greenhouse gas component of the energy needed to produce fertilizers, and reduce fuel needs.”
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© Canadian Cattlemen's Association, 2005.
 

© Canadian Cattlemen's Association, 2005
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