In this episode, we explore the groundbreaking L-Form Technology and its vital role in supporting every animal on a farm from day one. We address the important issue of mycotoxins and their impact on pre-weaned calves, along with the critical periods of transition in an animal’s life. Livestock face their greatest challenges during these transitions, making it essential to fortify their systems to maintain health before and after these vulnerable times.
While many companies offer products tailored to specific life stages, we take a comprehensive view of the entire life cycle. By starting with the “WHY” question, we ensure that our programs and products deliver genuine, effective solutions.
Tune in to discover the Defend and Protect for a Lifetime approach to animal health. To learn more, reach out for a consultation on how to defend and protect your livestock for a lifetime. Contact us.
🎧 Listen now to set your herd up for lifelong success!
Scott Zehr
All right. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Ruminate This with Agrarian Solutions. I’m your host, Scott Zehr. And I’m excited to be back with you again this week. And we are going to talk a little bit about Agrarian today. Which is something that I don’t think we probably do enough of.
I think you folks have heard us talk about our mycotoxin products. We certainly had Dr. Roth on when we talked about our research involving DTX, which is now peer reviewed, actually. It was presented at the 2024 ADSA conference down there in Florida. So yeah, be sure to check that out. I believe it’s episode two and three of our podcast.
So if you haven’t listened to the benefits of feeding DTX during a mycotoxin challenge.Tthat would be two good resources to start with. Also, I want to make mention that the month of August of 2024, our Biofresh CA3 bolus, which is a calcium bolus, is going to be available on a, a discounted price for the month of August.
So go to agrariansolutions.com and check that out. But today I wanted to spend a little bit of time just visiting with you folks about, I think in the world of, ruminant nutrition, the companies involved in this space similar to Agrarian. I think there’s a lot of great companies in the marketplace.
I think there’s a lot of great products on the marketplace. I think of products that can be fed during a time of challenge, maybe it’s a bolus, for calving. Or I also think of maybe a calf product to be fed during a time of scours and so on. And I just wanted to share a little bit of our I guess, philosophy at Agrarian.
So, you’ve heard us talk a little bit about our L form technology, which is our cell wall deficient, beneficial bacteria. We are the only company in the industry working with these bacteria. And I, I think that’s important. These bacteria, they can do some amazing things and they have a place within the life cycle of the animal.
So one of the things we talk about here at Agrarian Solutions is defending and protecting for a lifetime. You’ve heard me mention it here on these, on these episodes in the past. And really what that means is there’s from the time that calf was born, there are a crazy number of challenges and not just calves, but same goes for piglets.
Same goes for, our friends in the, the poultry world. There’s a number of challenges that these animals face. And they can be pathogenic, environmental combination of both. And we really do feel like when we create a new product, we try to look at things from a 10,000 foot view and we have to, our products have to pass the “why” test.
And the why test is why is it important for the animal? That’s number one. And number two is why is it important for the producer? And, I think there’s, there’s companies out there that they, you know, they maybe create products for whatever the next buzzword is in the industry. I’m not here to say that’s good or bad.
It’s just not our approach. Our approach is the animal. How do we help, I’ll use cows for an example. How do we help that cow be a cow? As a probiotic company, and the more we learn about these L form bacteria, cell wall deficient, beneficial bacteria, the more we realize there’s probably a lot of stuff we can do.
And so I wanted to spend a little bit of time today, just talking about the programs that we have at Agrarian. So, I think there’s some really amazing companies with really amazing products that can fit certain times of an animal’s life. But you know, I, I really feel like without having a, program, if you would, they become one trick ponies. Okay.
And so I also think of products as being reactive. So, hey, this calf has scours, let’s give it something, whether it’s traditional antibiotic therapies, whether it’s electrolytes, whether it’s, you know, a combination, or even some probiotics. We kind of feel like that’s maybe the wrong time to administer.
Certainly, our products like Convert Calf Gel and a Big Calf Powder can be utilized in that manner. Really they’re designed to be fed before that challenge ever, ever occurs and help that calf never experienced that challenge. And when we say defend and protect for a lifetime, you know, that, that actually brings me to mycotoxins.
So one of the things that, like I’ve mentioned, you’ve heard us talk about is our cell wall deficient bacteria, the probiotic that has shown tremendous benefits being fed to mature dairy cattle. And has been well vetted, it’s now the most, researched product in terms of cow numbers for sure in the industry, in the U.S., and, you know, so we started looking at, at the rest of the animal, the rest of the life cycle.
And, you know, I’m going to go to these baby calves because we have a program called the Calf Program, and it really just consists of two products. Within that program, there’s convert gel. And we also have a bolus. So if you prefer a bolus over a gel, that’s the, I guess the producer’s choice. And then the other product is Convert BIG Calf Big stands for beneficial bacteria and immunoglobulins in the form of IGY specialized proteins.
We take these two products and they’re really nice fit for each other. And the day that calf is born, right? She’s now exposed to things like E. coli, Salmonella Dublin, Coronavirus, other types of Salmonella. And, and even crypto and clostridium, especially a little bit later on.
But you know, that first 21 days, we’ve all heard numerous presentations in our life about the first 21 days of an animal’s life, of a calf’s life, and that death valley period, you know? Especially between say day one, day two, and like day 15, 16, you know. There’s this like two, two and a half week period where these calves are super susceptible to pathogens.
And so the convert program we utilize specialized proteins from egg yolks where we’re able to provide protection against bovine specific E. coli, two types of salmonella, coronavirus, rotavirus, crypto and Clostridium perfringens A and C. And then we can follow that up. So that’s, that’s meant to be given like at birth 15 mil of gel. It comes in a multi dose or a single dose for biosecurity.
But that’s meant to be given at birth to give that calf a high level of not just the specialized proteins, but also two of our cell wall deficient strains of L forms, that help with intestinal pH, making a favorable condition for the good bugs, unfavorable for the bad bugs.
And also, another L form strain that we have in there that, that we believe helps modulate the immune system. So in conjunction with tremendous colostrum protocol, it helps provide that calf with, with some protection there. You know, day one, day two, day three. And, then Big Calf is designed to be fed at a rate of just one gram per calf per day for the milk phase.
typically that cost is around 10 cents per calf per day. So if you’re weaning at, say, 60 days, your investment in Big Calf is just $6 a calf. And with Big Calf, you’re providing a daily dose of the IGY, from the specialized egg proteins. And, also the beneficial bacteria. So we’re having continual protection during that death valley. But also there’s high levels of beneficial bacteria in there that are going to increase appetite.
We did a small farm study up here where, in New York, where we compared the farm’s current protocol to what we’re able to do with big calf. And, we definitely out gained what they were currently doing. They weren’t using a, a daily fed product. And so our calves would have been ready to wean up to three days sooner by administering Big Calf. So there’s obviously some benefit there.
But with the mycotoxins here recently, I was visiting with Dr. Roth at Agrarian Solutions, and said, you know, these, baby calves, they get started on grain and, I’m not throwing shade to, to grain companies out there. They have some extremely, extremely tight, protocols when it comes to mycotoxin, acceptable mycotoxin levels in, in say starter feeds.
But we live in reality here and, we know that it doesn’t take much of a mycotoxin load in these pre weaned calves to potentially see some negative effects. So looking at that and saying, “Okay, well, we have this wonderful strain L form strain that is proven to combat negative effects of mycotoxins.What if we incorporated that into our big calf program? Into the convert, program.”
And so that’s what we’re working on. That’s going to be available, really soon on the marketplace. And, it’s kind of one of these things where if we’re saying we can defend and protect for a lifetime, we need to back it up. And so that’s, what’s led to this. And, there’s research out there showing that, I mean, very low levels of DON and zearalenone in a calf diet, in a, say the pellet or the starter feed is shown to really reduce average daily gain, higher incidence of disease issues, that sort of thing.
So we really try to think about how do we protect that animal? Not only when she needs it most, but from the challenges that we can’t see. And I think that’s an important point. With the rest of our programs too, we think about the big transitions in an animal’s life and I’m, I’m referring to maybe like the calf at this point.
Obviously the big transition of being in utero to now being born. And we just talked about the convert program and, and how big calf can help with that, weaning transition as well, getting them maybe ready to be a full ruminant after their weaned. But then you have the weaning phase, which can be, sometimes very challenging for a calf.
You know, depending on your situation, you could be going from individually housed animals during the milk phase to they get weaned and they’re immediately moved to a new barn. They are now co mingled with other animals. So we have environment changes. We have social challenges. We have, obviously diet changes. That’s going to cause some challenges.
And we see some usage, a lot more probably on the beef side, thinking of that calf during weaning, when she’s coming off the mother, where customers are utilizing our BioCycle product, as part of their weaning program. And in the beef world, we see that done quite a bit. And the reduction in the number of poles after their weaned, for health treatments, things like BRD that tend to pop up after their weaned. We see a huge reduction in that. Huge reduction.
And, that’s one way to, to utilize BioCycle. And I see the application over on the dairy side as well, to maybe incorporate a product like BioCycle into that starter program or excuse me I guess you would call it a transition, feed program. Just to give that calf a little extra immune support during that time.
Research shows that up to 50 percent or more of your dairy cows are quietly suffering from subclinical milk fever. CA3 Biofresh Calcium Boluses from Agrarian Solutions are proven with third party independent research. to provide high levels of available calcium to fresh cows when they need it the most, the first 24 hours after calving.
Our unique formulation provides non caustic calcium acetate for quick availability, as well as two other calciums for extended release. We load every bolus with tons of vitamin D, which your cows need to absorb that calcium. If you would like to learn more or find out where to purchase CA3 BioFresh boluses, email me at [email protected].
That’s podcast at A G R S O L dot com.
The next big transition I kind of think about is she’s going through puberty. We’re getting her bred. And you know, she’s got to become a cow, she’s got to have a baby and that’s kind of where we think about, again, we talk about mycotoxins. But we also, you know, that, that animal freshens and she’s got this high demand for calcium. And so we have come up with our Biofresh transition program, which is a combination of a couple of different things.
So one, from a treatment standpoint, or I should say preventative treatment standpoint, you know, we have the BioFresh CA3 bolus. So three different forms of calcium. A fast acting and, calcium with calcium acetate, and then two other, forms of calcium that are a little bit slower release, just to give her a little boost there for the first 48 hours.
But the calcium acetate. Highly available. This is a product that’s research proven, a third party, independent research, to deliver the calcium that that cow needs when she needs it. Along with that, we have the Biofresh Microbial Gel, which is high levels of beneficial bacteria available, and that’s really designed to be used during that time of calving. But also anytime that animal is off feed for a little bit.
So, you know, some of the applications we see the pro the whole program used in is when we’re seeing, some of the cow monitoring companies have the ability to obviously track rumination and eating and laying downtime. Well, if we’re monitoring those dry cows and we see that a dry cow, who let’s say she’s 20, 30 days pre calving, she goes off feed for a day, that animal is like 80 times more likely to develop a metabolic disorder after she calves.
Just from that one day of being off feed and if it lingers for a little bit, that’s even worse. So BioFresh Microbial Gel is designed to be utilized in that manner, to get that cow back on feed. Because the one thing we know is that if we can keep the cows eating, they do a lot better. They do a lot better.
And then, you know, right at calving. So what do we need that cow to do? She doesn’t want to eat as much just before she freshens. We’re really relying on calcium from the diet to, to play a part in helping with a successful transition, fighting things like subclinical hypocalcemia. And, and so we need to get her eating and going again as soon as possible.
And so that combination of the microbial gel. Also available on a bolus, and the CA3 BioFresh bolus together, what a great program for a transition cow is we have the gel to help her get eating and then the, the fast acting calcium to fight off that subclinical hypocalcemia.
And then, you know, kind of moving into our feed additive programs. So I’ve mentioned, you know, we’ve talked about DTX at length on this, platform. And certainly I will say, you know, this is one of the things we love about our relationship with Dairyland Labs, where we do, the bulk of our mycotoxin sampling in the U S., is that we, I don’t believe there’s ever a bad time to be testing your forages for toxins.
I’ve always been told the most consistent thing about mycotoxins is their inconsistency. They’re not distributed evenly in the field. They’re not distributed evenly in the storage pile. And you know, they’re probably not distributed evenly when you put it out on the bunk. And so having a routine testing program, like we offer here at Agrarian Solutions, through Dairyland, which is complimentary by the way, we, we, we take care of that for you.
But having a routine sampling program lets you know where those toxin levels are at. And helps us work with you to develop a strategy for mitigation. And sometimes it looks like 365 day protection with, with a product like DTX to where, Hey, let’s take care of this toxin load, with our DTX product and continue to test if the levels of toxins increased past where we would feel comfortable with a, our standard nine gram dose. There’s the opportunity to increase that with no effects on binding micronutrients.
I’ll reference a study by Cajal et al, where they looked at the ability for traditional binders, say clay and yeast cell wall, to also bind things like amino acids. Like vitamin E, which that immune system really needs during a time of challenge. But also some other micronutrients and, and we’re going to have a podcast talking about that, very soon. But with DTX, we can increase the feeding rate if we need to when we’re dealing with a, you know, what I would call an extremely high toxin challenge. And never have to worry about adding more DTX from the standpoint of we’re not binding. We’re getting that cow’s body to do what it’s capable of doing just at a higher level.
But it works the other way. If we’re taking advantage of the Agrarian Mycotoxin Testing Program, then when we see toxin levels drop, we’re going to be the first ones to tell you, Hey, we can either cut back on dosage. And still provide a level of protection. Or you know what? These feeds are really clean and maybe the toxin product isn’t exactly what we need. So yeah, sometimes that’s a 365 day product. Sometimes it’s not.
DTX also, the other additives we have in our feed additive program, DTX is one of them, I mentioned biocycle already. So biocycle think of that as our immune support product. So immune support, where do we need that? Right. So, you know it’s August. I guess, July 31st, it was 90, 94 degrees that peaked out up here in New York yesterday, it was humid. It was nasty. It was a bad day to be a cow in New York.
Probably not as bad as it is down in Florida or Texas or California or some other places across the world that people are listening to this podcast. But it was a bad day to be a cow in New York. And, you know, there’s immune support products on the marketplace that are traditionally used during times of heat stress.
And I’m not going to mention names, but what I would say is that some of those immune support products have ingredients like clay or yeast cell wall in them as part of the immune enhancement, I guess, mode of action. So I understand why those products can be in there. Some of it is they’re binding up toxins.
But they’re also going to be tying up things like vitamin E, which is an antioxidant. Which is really needed for that cow’s immune system to fully function. So if we’re feeding a product that has clay or yeast in it and we’re tying up according to Cajal et al, up to 30 percent of the vitamin E that is available, if we’re not compensating for that, we could actually be running short of vitamin E of what’s available to that cow.
And so one of the things that we like about the BioCycle Program is that we can feed that product during say a heat stress challenge. We can help kind of boost that immune system, but we’re not tying up any of those micronutrients.
And so the third product in that additive program is BioCycle plus we call it. Which is a combination of BioCycle and DTX. So I think of, the Northeast right now is over the last couple of years has kind of been a mycotoxin hotbed. Especially for DON and zearalenone. We’ve seen a lot of T2 pop up up here.
So if we’re dealing with a toxin challenge and we have other environmental challenges like say heat stress, that’s where we would look at BioCycle Plus to be utilized and really fit into that program. I think when we, At Agrarian, think about how our programs fit into this life cycle of an animal.
It really does when I say it has to pass the why test, again, why is it important for the animal? Why is it important for the producer? And you know, so many of these challenges are compounded. We never deal with just one challenge at a time. You know, we might be dealing with mycotoxins and then heat stress comes along. Or, maybe we’re struggling with somatic cell or, other immune type challenges.
So, again, when we think about the different programs here at Agrarian, it really does come back to our core values of RISE, Relational, Integrity, Strategic and Excellence. And that why test, you know, why is it important for the producer? Why is it firstly important to the animal? And when I say it comes back to our core values, it’s because we want to be excellent in everything we do.
You know, Strategic, I guess I’m kind of going backwards here. But you know, strategic, we look at it like, Hey, again, there are a lot of companies with a lot of products in this space. And, I think so many times that, there’s some of these products that are really good. But we don’t really know how they fit.
You know, you can use it for this or this, but you can’t use it for that. Or you can’t use it during a specific time of an animal’s life. And I think that’s something that we take into account here at Agrarian. And, it’s not just, you know, offering a whole host of products with no support, right?
There’s, there’s a structured way to use these that are going to provide the biggest benefit, to the animal, but also to the producer. And from the integrity side, you know, we have, most of these products are research proven already. Some of them we are working on doing some more research on third party research, so we can get that to you as soon as possible.
And relational, right? I don’t want you to go and, go to the website and just start buying products and really not understanding how to best utilize them. We wanna work with you one-on-One. We wanna work with each one of you one-on-one to have a better understanding.
I think sometimes, going back to my days on the dairy farm, you might listen to somebody talk at a conference or you might read something and, and one of the dairy publications and say, Hey, you know, I think this would be a good thing for us to try. You know, my experience with that is oftentimes, you know, you try it and you don’t really see anything out of it. Or maybe you don’t really know what it’s supposed to be doing. So we don’t even know what to evaluate.
You know, I would say, if you’re interested in any of these things that we’ve talked about today, go to agrariansolutions.com and, send us a note and we’ll reach out to you and provide that consultation and see if we’re the right fit.
And if we’re not the right fit, we’re going to tell you we’re not the right fit. We’re not going to force, a square peg to a round hole to use that old analogy. And so, that’s really the relational part of it is earning your trust. Not by anything other than just working with you hand in hand, you know, getting our hands dirty. And, doing what it takes to make sure we’re doing it the right way every time.
So with that, if you have any interest in learning more about our programs at Agrarian, feel free to reach out to me directly at podcast. The email address is [email protected] that’s [email protected] and just put programs in the subject line. And, I’ll reach out to you and visit with you and, we’ll get you in contact, with the right people here at Agrarian.
It really is a, a really cool approach when, we all work together at it for the greater good of that animal. And that’s another reason I’m proud to be here at Agrarian. I believe that’s all we have for this week. In two weeks, we’ll be back with another episode of Ruminate This, and I look forward to talking to you all again soon. Thanks.
