Location: Livestock Issues Research
Project Number: 3096-32000-009-004-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Jan 1, 2024
End Date: Dec 31, 2025
Objective:
Specific Objective: of these additional studies will be to evaluate our liver abscess model in beef x dairy cross calves and to evaluate the use of several non-antimicrobial feed supplements as a means to reduce and/or prevent the development of liver abscesses in a controlled environment. Livers from these studies will be collected and all abscesses will be cultured for Fusobacterium, Trueperella, and Salmonella spp.
Development of an experimental model to study liver abscesses in cattle and the use of nutritional supplements to reduce the incidence and severity.
Approach:
Forty weaned Holstein steer calves from a commercial calf ranch or dairy operation in the Texas Panhandle will be randomly assigned to 1 of 3 treatments: 1) Control (n=13), 2) acidotic diet (n=13), or 3) acidotic diet + intraruminal inoculation with F. necrophorum (n=14). The acidotic diet will be comprised of fine ground corn (66%), distillers corn with solubles (25%), cottonseed hulls (5%), and fine ground alfalfa (4%). Upon arrival, an intraruminal bolus that monitors pH will be inserted and calves will be placed in individual pens in an indoor climate-controlled facility and allowed to acclimate for 7 d to a
commercial, basic starter ration. On d 0, calves in treatments 2 and 3 will undergo a diet change. Calves will be fed the acidotic diet for 3 days, control diet for 2 days, and the cycle will be repeated 3 times. Boluses monitoring real-time pH will be evaluated prior to the morning feeding, and if a calf reaches a ruminal pH of less than 4.5 for greater than 4 h, the calf will be switched back to a control diet. Following the ration change cycles, the calves in treatment 3 will be intra-ruminally administered with F. necrophorum. Blood will be collected prior to the ration change and every 2 weeks until harvest (43 days
post-ration changes). Blood will be used to quantify complete blood cell counts and serum chemistry profiles. Upon harvest, calves will be evaluated for liver abscesses and/or scarring along with an evaluation of the rumen, lungs, and colon.
Abscesses will be cultured for Fusobacterium, Trueperella, and Salmonella spp. Histopathology samples will be collected from the rumen to evaluate the differences in architectural features between the treatments. Finally, F. necrophorum will be cultured from ruminal epithelial tissue and colon tissue.
