doc talk is brought to you by MK Animal Health the science of healthier animals hey folks welcome to Doc talk I'm Dr Dan Thompson I'm tickled to death that you joined us today we're going to have a great show our guest is Dr Chris rodmaker from Iowa State University and we're going to talk about swine lameness something that's growing more in concern things that that are more of a eating into our pocketbook so to say thanks for joining us today I hope hope that you enjoy our show as Dependable as the sunrise in Dairy parlors open pastures on ranches and feed yards Across America a place where reputation is more than a name where the science of healthier animals is a way of life it's the responsibility that drives who we are and what we do every decision every day it's your livelihood and our responsibility close caption brought to you by agabs the perfect pairing of performance and value this segment brought to you by the new Hired Hand portable cows sprayer for more information visit cows sprayer. Dr Chris welcome to the show thank you very much I'm sure glad to be here folks this is Dr Chris rodmaker from Iowa State University un's College of veterinary medicine where he serves as the swine extension veterinarian and you're also a senior clinician there at the veterinary school that's correct well to get you here on the show I know you're busy and what you do for the industry we really appreciate you taking the time to come talk about this important issue I sure appreciate being able to to talk to people about it because it really has become a really growing issue here in the swine industry over the P past 15 to 20 years cool and folks what we're talking about is swine lameness and and you know when we're setting up the show and and queuing things up you have you have a lot of experience um you know working in the industry and and being a practicing veterinarian in swine Industries in in Minnesota well all over the United States um and so this is something you have a firsthand knowledge of yeah I I think over the past 16 years I pr practiced with a couple of large swine production companies and really what we saw over the time is we saw more and more incidents of lameness both in the S herds and in the grow finish herds as well s herds I think as we've gotten to moving animals indoors and moving them towards um artificial insemination we probably haven't selected for as structurally sound animals as we would have in the past and in the grow finish herds we're taking pigs to a much heavier weight these days than what we used to do before and there's obviously always dise disease concerns and challenges and challenges about how to formulate diets to keep the cost down that can potentially run into some situations as well you well let's go back to that the the breeding herd and and let's start out and we'll talk about the breeding herd and and you know one of the things that that you caught my attention is that you know the the way we select and the way we manage it may have allowed us to to be a little bit more permissive in in laying some of these nonconforming animals into the herd yeah I think artificial insemination really revolutionized breeding herd because it allowed us to put fewer bores in the in those environments that get our seen externally which means that we could really breed SS and we could really start to select in on the SS that produced a lot of pigs and weed a lot of pigs and in the rules of genetics is whatever you select for one thing you're selecting away from something else we probably select it away from because we weren't putting heavy bores on top of ss to do natural mating anymore we would probably allow SS that in a normal uh natural production situation wouldn't even be in there because they couldn't support the weight of the of the boar but over time I think what happened then is those animals become lame really easily they wind up going down and having to exit their herd too early you bet and and then uh you we talked a little bit too about that um used to be we got our genetics from from commercial operations and now we're producing a little bit more of our own um that we're maybe we're we're not as as as picky as the as the animals that we utilize that's right you know back in the day when the swine industry was really expanding everybody bought their genetics from an external supplier and at that time you certainly didn't want to risk the chance of putting all the money into this replacement guilt and then have the End customer rejected now today you've got a situation where most of the producers are producing their own so you're probably a little more permissive on what you L into the herd and you're not maybe utilizing some of those skills of looking for really sound animals you're just concerned that hey I've got a guilt here she's got a Volva she looks like she's got four legs so let's go ahead and move her into so the economies are always a little bit different depending on which side of the Ledger you sit on so I think that's exacerbated the problem as well you bet well let's take a break and when we come back more with Dr Chris rodmaker here you're watching Doc talk more for these messages this meet the future veterinarian is brought to you by zpro choose confidence choose zpro for BRD treatment Emily CT was raised in a small farming community in Western Ohio and is a fourthe student at the Ohio State University College of veterinary medicine she studied Bine respiratory disease in be fots and was also involved in a related tele medicine project upon graduation Emily plans to focus on food animal medicine pathology and food safety some call it to come from behind Victory an unlikely win a reversal of Fortune snatching Victory from the jaws of defeat This is Our Moment our victory dance because we choose confidence we choose Theo for BRD treatment ask your to prescribe Ziva zpra is a fast acting longlasting BRD treatment that you can count on to get the 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catlan debuting Tuesday nights at 8:30 Eastern right here on RFD TV this segment is brought to you by Norbrook Laboratories manufacturers of enr 100 the newest addition to Your Arsenal for treating bovine and Swine respiratory disease hey folks welcome back to Doc talk I'm Dr Dan Thompson here with Dr Chris rodmaker from Iowa State University's College of Veterinary medicine where he serves as the swine extension Veterinary Specialist and he's also a senior clinician thanks for joining us today and thanks for talking about swine lameness and and we left talking about the the SS and the guilt and let's jump in the grow finish area and and talk a little bit about about the lameness problems that we're seeing there yeah I would say we probably also have seen an increase and lameness problems in the gr finish animals too and I I'm sure part of that is the genetic thing like we talked about before we selected for animals that are very prolific from a reproductive standpoint and ones that grow very fast probably not as worried about the structural issues that maybe would go on with some of those situations that's kind of like with the poultry industry you know they they went through it um and similar AB very similar uh types of ordeals but you know there um the other thing is is some of it we might have brought on a little bit on our own on on these heavier outweights yeah as well yep you know I think with because the industry is becoming so vertically in integrated um what they're really seeing is you know that big packing plant you know it's it's a very expensive fixed cost so the more pounds you put through it you know that's how they kind of lower their cost so what we've seen and our genetic we probably selected for fast growing animals that we can take to heavier weights but I don't think what happens in that all that genetic selection is we don't select for an animal that maybe has the muscular skeletal system to be able to support all that weight and I think that can potentially create some of the lameness issues as well you bet and and so are there there um you know we I had two others here and they kind of go hand inand with with production but disease potential and and U nutrition yeah yep as well yep I'd say uh if we look at total lameness cases that have come into Iowa State over the last seven to eight years there's probably been a really big spike in the last three to four there's probably been a couple of micoplasma diseases that have been in the joints that maybe have always been there but seems to be uh a couple of them been EXA exasperated with some of the heavier weights particularly microplasma hovia because a lot of those are secondary to some of these bone structure problems problems with osteochondrosis for example can potentiate some of that stuff so we've seen a definite increase in those micoplasma related diseases and the other thing that we've seen are some of these nutritional issues and I think what happened what really kind of changed that was the fact that they were able to engineer an enzyme called phyas which the primary role of phase is to get more phosphorus out of the uh the phosphorus that goes into the diet and what that allows for is obviously helping to cheapen the diet the problem is it's an enzyme so if something happens to that enzyme during the process it's not taking out as much phosphorus as what they hope for what happens is you get a calcium phosphorus imbalance and then sure enough what happens is you start to have uh bone structure issues so you can start to see fractures and things like that particularly with going to heavier weights are going to exacerbate that problem absolutely and you know when we're even even on a guy that's going out and buying one show Pig you know we've always looked at that confirmation and it seems like that that confir as a young Pig fast growth heavier growth rates really can can have an or have have an impact yep it sure can you know and the confirmation thing too you know you look at all the the people that do the selection of the replacement animals you know it used to be kids that grew up with animals and unfortunately because of migration away from the farm in some rural communities we don't have people with those kinds of backgrounds so they maybe don't look at at that as importantly as they're looking at you know how many pigs did she have or did her mother have or things like like that looking at the computer more than the P than the pig exactly well let's take a break folks Dr Chris rodmaker from Iowa State University's College of veterinary medicine we'll be back with more doc talk after these messages this hog is head over hoof for Meal made from us soybeans now one hog isn't that impressive but suppose we add another and another and another before long you've got billions of hungry customers around the world all clamoring for the same thing our soybeans learn more about the billion dooll appetite of animal 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I've always had an interest in care for the animals and their well-being really what we want to do is work hard to eliminate as much feed lot lameness or beef cattle lameness as possible how we feed a cow on a daily basis can not only have daily effects but they can also have long-term effects on claw Health reproductive performance uh mamory Health all of those factors as we look at at the inputs and the response that the animal has to what we feed them when animals have adequate intake of effective nutrients we take care of the immune system and perform performance follows it's important that the consumers understand our dedication to the wellbeing of these animals Hello friends I'm Ernie rodina and I'm Don Dawson with the better horses radio show for over N9 years we've been bringing the better horses radio show to markets all across the Midwest we talk about God Lots about horses we talk about cows we talk about horse Health we talk to top trainers and we even talk about Roy Rogers we are having a blast with better horses radio show and would love to take it to a market near you so visit our website at better horses radio.com and let us or your local radio station know you'd like to hear it in your area the better horses radio show is unbelievable Broadband has become as important to us as highways that is why dock talk is teaming up with ntca the rural Broadband Association and Rural Broadband companies like Blue Valley telecommunications inviting for Quality Broadband access through the program smart rural communities I don't think we have any idea idea what's coming in the future I couldn't have imagined 5 years ago what we're doing today so in 2 years I would guess there's things we can't imagine that we're going to be doing to learn more visit ntca.org smmart or blue valley.net beef producers asked for it and Norbrook delivers introducing new enroflox 100 the newest addition to Your Arsenal for treating bovine respiratory disease enlex 100 is an FDA approved ready to use injectable antimicrobial solution to treat br associated with manima hemolytica pastorella mtoa and hopus somni in beef and non-lactating dairy cattle administered SQ as a multiple day therapy consult with your veterinarian today about enroflox 100 the new Choice Valley vet supplies devoted to providing information and professional quality products at reasonable prices supp true test group Weighing Systems electronic identification Eid electric fencing and dairy automation systems help farmers and ranchers around the world manage the performance of their livestock for ultimate profitability folks welcome back to Doc talk Dr Dan Thompson and Dr Chris rodmaker Dr Chris is from Iowa State University my alma moer and uh he is the swine extension veterinarian up there and Senior clinician and we've been talking about uh uh lameness and and as we left we're talking about grow finish but let's go back to the SS and let's talk about some of the ways that we can we can prevent this because I know that zenpro has done a lot of work on organic Trace mineral and you had some experience of that when you're in practice so let's start out with the nutrition you bet you bet I they a lot of that actually picked up they had they've got a very healthy business in the dairy business where they're looking at and I think the dairy guys have Quantified really well the effect of foot Health on milk production and on reproduction performance and really it's they kind of took the opinion of well why wouldn't SS be the same as cows you know kind of and it's a good way to think about it so we had actually done a couple of studies looking at some of the organic trace minerals to see hey if we make foot Health better does that reduce the some of that inflamation that can really become kind of the profit Robert because Sals don't milk as well they don't eat as well they don't stay in in the herd as long and what happens is uh they're going not going to be near as productive animals and they're going to wind up sliding out of the herd much earlier either as uh deaths or calls because they just can't stand up very well and so when you start going to some of these organic trace minerals you started seeing improved hoof structure and and then also some performance that's correct we we' done a study where we saw that we definitely saw the changes in the foot structure and we measured them in a research barn and it looked like we saw like 5% uh better retention rate uh for SS that would stay into the herd longer we saw probably nearly a half a pound on weaning weight and a lot of that was all mediated through Sal 8 better uh they returned to breeding better and then they just made heavier pigs so it certainly looked like there was some impact to adding that organic tracem Minal to to the diets and and and one of the other things is is that y'all went back to looking at some of the confirmation as well yeah yeah we're fortunate enough to have uh um a consultant Dean compart actually an old peer bread breeder from Minnesota for years came out and evaluated one of our herds and as we got walking through there we looked at the call line and here what we saw were were animals that were in the call uh SS to be called but they were in there for uh any a number of sorts of reasons but they all had pretty poor confirmation then we went to the to the part of the barn that had the oldest SS in there and they're kind of some rougher looking old SS but their confirmation was absolutely perfect and we didn't select it that way those animals self- selected out over time they stayed in the herd longer because they had good confirmation so that's really been kind of a lesson learned to say we need to go back to really starting to look at some of this confirmation the confirmation when we're doing selection for replacement animals and I think it was you know when when you made the comment that when we're selecting for one trait we're we're deselecting for another yeah yep and I think that was an easy one to give up because when the statisticians and the geneticist put that into the model it didn't rate out very very high because back in the day it was all about how do we get these SS to give us more pigs and have those pigs grow faster and I think the confirmation thing just kind of got left to the side over time so yeah and I and you know we see it we see it all the time and and maybe it's that optimizing growth instead of maximizing growth that that all of our Industries are going through absolutely yeah it's all part of the growing pain process that's for sure cool well folks we're going to take a break Dr Chris raker from Iowa State University's College of veterinary medicine more doc talk right after this the bqa tip of the day sponsored by Beringer engelheim V Meda Inc hello folks this is Dr Nells Lindberg with Animal Medical Center and production animal consultation this is your bqa tip of the day it's a nice beautiful Springtime we got some cattle out on rye uh but it's often common time of year for cattle to be turned out on rye and wheat one thing we often uh have a problem with this time of year is bloat these cattle develop a a frothy bloat out on rye it can be a very challenging situation to deal with we have many different products we can use uh bloat guard blocks we can actually feed them some extra extra feed to offset the effects of bloat but often times one of the biggest factors in it is simply the stocking density rate uh we can often times control our frothy bloats just by increasing our numbers out on the Ry or wheat uh that may not be an option but if it is uh stocking density is the biggest factor in reducing those bloats other than that fall back on your products uh and visit with your local veterinarian thank you no matter where no matter why the veterinary Health Center at Kansas State University is committed to providing quality patient care to animals and exceptional customer service to their 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gun check with your animal health supplier for availability this segment is brought to you by the beef quality assurance program and the Kansas beef Council improving Animal Care and beef safety for more than 20 years folks welcome back to Doc talk Dr Dan Thompson here with Dr Chris rodmaker and Dr Chris is from Iowa State University where he serves as the swine extension veterinarian and Senior clinician at the College of veterinary medicine and we're talking about swine uh lameness and you know when you get into these these cases and you're producer out there and we have producers watching we have veterinarians watching we have we have people that aren't involved in the swine industry watching but when when you um get out there and and find that lameness issue what what are some of the first steps you need to go through yeah good point I think getting the veterinarian involved is is probably the primary thing just because they'll do a really good job of helping you think through and sort through now what we've our experience has been is these lameness cases usually are pretty complicated it's it's not usually just as simple as well you're doing this wrong change this and it'll fix the problem they tend to be multifactorial so many different things that may be causing it so uh we've had the best luck in resolving these cases generally if we see an outbreak either in a sarm or in a grow finisher it is to actually load up you know 15 20 coordinate with the Diagnostic lab ahead of time but we've taken anywhere from 15 to 30 animals in and let the Pathologists um do the ne cropsy and do all the tests there and that's really been a good way to be able to kind of Whittle uh Whittle it down and to be able to definitively tell us here's what the issues really are and then that's allowed us to kind of go back and plan for okay what do we got to change to make this thing better right right and so so a lot of times is it site specific or can it be you know spread across the a farm or you know y great question usually um I'd say more often than not it tends to be a little bit more systematic it it can be a sight issue but many times especially if we talk about genetics or nutrition or breeding it's probably affecting pigs on multiple sites so all the more reasons really to to be able to get your veterinarian and then they'll probably get a Diagnostic lab involved to come up with the right diagnosis yeah and I think that that you know the the one thing that that that we see whether it's beef industry or or poultry or swine is that you know D always said that he could sell a a vaccine for a few thousand do but he couldn't sell a diagnosis for a few dollars absolutely and and you know I think getting that diagnostic uh answer is is so vitally important that's right it's key because then you can go back and once you in the veterinarians will be good at this okay here's what the issue is here's what that's really costing you you know it's like the dead pig thing but if it's slowing down your growth or or having a poor fee conversion that's really going to cost you money that's so the diagnostic actually gets to be the cheapest part of that whole process absolutely and and it's one of those things too that when you start to say hey um the sooner we get to the bottom of this the sooner we start to fix it that's exactly right yeah well I appreciate you being on the show my pleasure I appreciate being asked thanks and folks we appreciate you watching Doc talk as well if you want to know more about what we do here at Doc talk you can find us on the web at www. vet. ksu.edu remember always work with your local veterinarian thanks for watching Doc talk today I'm Dr Dan Thompson and I'll see you down the road close caption brought to you by agar laabs the perfect pairing of performance and value for more information about this program or previous programs go to dot talk tv.com doc talk was brought to you by MK Animal Health the science of healthier animals