Livestock Nutrition and Health Archives

Zoetis and AgNext Collaborate for Cattle Industry

Posted on December 5, 2024October 8, 2025 by Weicks-Webmaster

Zoetis Announces Strategic Research Collaboration with AgNext to Bolster Cattle Industry Science and Discovery

Research will help establish baseline measurements as part of animal lifecycle assessments

PARSIPPANY, N.J., December 5, 2024 —Zoetis announced it has entered a collaboration with Colorado State University’s AgNext to advance research in sustainable animal production. Together, Zoetis and AgNext are in position to shape the future and set new standards for sustainable management practices using animal health and genetic data.

“Beef and dairy producers currently define sustainability as healthy animals that are more productive and are therefore more resource-efficient and sustainable animals, which is true. However, specific benchmarks and data have been elusive in the industry,” said Dr. Mike Lormore, Head of U.S. Cattle and Pork Technical Services for Zoetis. “This research will allow us to obtain specific data to establish baselines and eventually to help producers, veterinarians, and nutritionists make more informed decisions to meet sustainability goals.”

Goals

The collaboration strives to close data gaps on technology and management practices that can enhance the efficiency of livestock production while ensuring the well-being of animals and addressing the industry’s evolving sustainability needs. The first study is focused on establishing baseline greenhouse gas emissions that reflect an industry-typical production environment for fed cattle and accounts for the standard health treatments animals typically receive.

Second is the study of lifecycle assessment of beef and dairy production systems to support industry knowledge of the effect animal genetics and animal health interventions like vaccination and parasite control have on sustainable beef and dairy production.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) found that improving animal health can increase livestock productivity and welfare, and ultimately help farmers mitigate emissions and contribute to climate solutions.

“By leveraging animal health technologies and expertise at Zoetis and Colorado State University, we aim to increase the understanding of improved management to sustainability using this animal health data,” said Dr. Kim Stackhouse Lawson, Director of AgNext. “This will enable us to develop strategies that enhance animal welfare, environmental stewardship, and economic efficiency for livestock producers.”

“Zoetis’ animal health experience and genetic capabilities combined with AgNext’s expertise in advancing sustainability in the beef and dairy industries through their impactful research to improve animal health, productivity, and environmental stewardship, strengthens this collaboration,” said Shari Westerfeld, Vice President, Sustainability Customer Engagement at Zoetis. “This collaborative agreement demonstrates our commitment to support farmers, ranchers and producers in meeting their goals to raise healthy animals, to sustainably provide nutritious foods and meet the growing protein needs of the world’s population, now projected to grow to approximately 10 billion people by 2050.”

To learn more about sustainability efforts from Zoetis and AgNext, visit Zoetiswww.zoetis.com/sustainability and AgNext.colostate.edu.

About Zoetis

As the world’s leading animal health company, Zoetis is driven by a singular purpose: to nurture our world and humankind by advancing care for animals. After innovating ways to predict, prevent, detect, and treat animal illness for more than 70 years, Zoetis continues to stand by those raising and caring for animals worldwide – from veterinarians and pet owners to livestock farmers and ranchers. The company’s leading portfolio and pipeline of medicines, vaccines, diagnostics and technologies make a difference in over 100 countries. A Fortune 500 company, Zoetis generated revenue of $8.5 billion in 2023 with approximately 14,100 employees. For more information, visit www.zoetis.com.

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All trademarks are the property of Zoetis Services LLC or a related company or a licensor unless otherwise noted.

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Compass Minerals Assists Producers

Posted on August 1, 2021September 30, 2025 by Amy Wold

Compass Minerals Assists Producers

Compass Minerals Assists Continually the Producers with It’s Extensive Line of American Stockman® Salt and Mineral Products

Look around most retail and distribution outlets for feed mixes and specialty salts and you’ll be hard-pressed not to find American Stockman products gracing the shelves of these facilities. And here’s why: The American Stockman brand of salt and mineral products has been in the marketplace for many years, building a reputation for being an exceptionally reliable product produced by a company that delivers on what they promise.

According to Todd Kipper, senior director of sales at Compass Minerals in Overland Park, Kansas, this level of product reliability has resulted in American Stockman being a known commodity in the agricultural industry.

“On the most basic level, we provide the key nutrition needs that producers are seeking for their animals,” Kipper says.

Compass Minerals, the manufacturer of American Stockman products, has a long-established history of providing innovative animal nutrition salt products that have proven to be an invaluable component of ranches and farms across the globe. Quite simply, the company is at the forefront of understanding the role sodium chloride plays in better milk production, weight gain and overall livestock health.

“When you look at feeding a mineralized salt, there are a few key nutritional things that producers need to be aware of,” says David Gisleson, national sales manager at Compass Minerals. “This would include performance attributes including weight gain as well as feed efficiency, which includes how well animals convert feed to lean muscle gain and overall herd performance and health.”

The team at Compass Minerals also understands how the most common micronutrients for herd health— including zinc, manganese, cobalt, copper, iodine and iron — all have their specific function in the health and performance of livestock. By pairing these essential trace minerals with sodium chloride, animals receive the nutrition boost they need for optimum performance and health. Compass Minerals works closely with producers, ranchers, nutritionists and veterinarians to identify what products will result in exceptional animal health and nutrition.

“In this industry, what we find is most producers and ranchers really know what they’re looking for in a mineralized salt,” Gisleson says. “We are able to provide that solution to them.”

One of the key products that American Stockman offers to producers is a pure white salt with no added minerals. This is the most common choice of ranchers who are looking for a product with no additives. Another popular product within the American Stockman product line is the Big 6®mineral salt.

“Our Big 6 product offers the same base of granulated salt, but we add six key micro-minerals into the mix that are required for optimal animal health,” Gisleson says. These trace minerals include zinc, manganese, cobalt, copper, iodine and iron. This product is first choice of many producers for weight gain, feeding efficiencies and overall herd performance for all classes of beef and dairy cattle, pigs and horses.

American Stockman also offers a variety of niche market salt products that meet specific needs a producer is looking for. For example, American Stockman’s Cobalt Iodized Stock Salt is fortified with a cobalt additive, which helps with vitamin B12 synthesis, an essential component for appetite stimulation and normal protein, carbohydrate and mineral metabolism. Cobalt can also help prevent deficiencies that can lead to low conception rates, birth rates and weak calves in beef and dairy cattle, sheep, pigs and horses.

“We also have products that have added selenium,” Gisleson says. “This can help improve immune system functions.” Indeed, American Stockman’s Se-90 Trace Mineralized Salt with Selenium boosts selenium levels and adds copper, too. Selenium is an antioxidant, which protects against disease by promoting healthy immune systems and regulating an animal’s ability to handle stress.

Other specialty salts offered by American Stockman include Sulfur Salt, which is ideal for producers looking to enhance the development of cartilage, protein, bones and tendons in all classes of beef and dairy cattle, sheep, horses and pigs. This specialty salt also helps with hair and wool production and assists in regulating fiber digestion and weight gain.

In addition to offering a wealth of salt product options, American Stockman also provides its products in various forms. As Kipper explains, the form that the salt takes is also a key area of focus of American Stockman. “In order to meet the specific needs of producers and ranchers, we offer our salts in 50-pound bags as well as 50-pound salt blocks,” Kipper says. In the U.S, for example, American Stockman’s Trace Mineralized brick is a popular choice, as it provides the six core micro-minerals in an efficient feeding system.

So what are some key innovations and trends within the mineral salt marketplace that producers should be aware of?

“Cobalt continues to be one of strongest, most popular products. And although we’ve offered our cobalt product for years, the interest continues to grow,” Gisleson says. “Garlic-added loose salt or blocks also seem to be a trend among today’s producers. We have a talented innovation team within our company and we continue to look at ways in the agricultural market where we can add value to the salt products to provide a more refined product for producers to use.”

Always read product labels and follow directions. To learn more about Compass Minerals visit compassminerals.com. Additional information about the American Stockman line of products is available at americanstockman.com.

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August 2021

Keep Biosecurity Simple and Realistic

Posted on March 1, 2021October 14, 2025 by Amy Wold

Keep Biosecurity Simple and Realistic

The Oxford dictionary definition of “biosecurity” is procedures intended to protect humans or animals against disease or other biological agents. A broad term, it brings many different ideas to mind for different people. Often it is associated with visitors or surgical and treatment precautions. While these are all part of the picture, biosecurity is a mindset that should go right down to the daily tasks undertaken by everyone on your operation.

Biosecurity for beef cattle will look different than biosecurity practiced in poultry, swine and even dairy cattle. The core principles, however, remain the same shaping the mindset of your herd management on a daily, seasonal and annual basis. Similar to safety, animal health and biosecurity is a mindset more than a list of rules or standards. But not everyone will have the same mindset you do when it comes to your animals, making it important to have a program outline and be willing to enforce it.

Small steps not only go a long way to safeguarding your herd against harmful diseases, improving your biosecurity measures could solve certain health issues you may have been struggling with. Much of the time, ongoing health issues stem from inconsistent or improper management we have become desensitized to. If you know the weak areas where pathogens are introduced and transmitted, you will be able to develop preventative measures around them.

Identify the key areas

When experts talk about biosecurity in cattle, they usually draw up three main categories. These are animal and human traffic, isolation and sanitation. Details that make up a strong or weak biosecurity protocol tend to fall into one or all of these areas. Essentially, just about every part of your program will trace back to them.

High-trafficked areas are a haven for biological hazards and contamination. Areas involving co-mingling, such as chutes, trailers, loading docks, holding pens and alleyways are all prime examples of this. Besides involving a lot of nose-to-nose contact and bodily fluid exchange, these areas also tend to accumulate manure and dirt, but don’t always receive the cleaning detail they deserve.

Another sometimes forgotten aspect of “traffic” is the cross-species aspect. As a New Mexico State University Extension hand-out explained, part of traffic control means stopping or minimizing contamination of cattle, feed and equipment used for feed, transport and other activities. Animals outside the herd, including domestic ones running around, pests and wildlife can also be attracted to highly trafficked areas.

Issues such as feral swine, rodents and birds getting into the feed bunk all infringe on your biosecurity, mitigating or eliminating them should be on the priority list. Likewise, keep your farm dogs, cats, horses and other animals up to date on their vaccinations and limit their exposure to your beef herd when possible.

Isolation is a very familiar precaution against disease, usually this encompasses keeping new herd additions separate for a period of time and isolating sick animals. This could also include separating groups according to low (mature groups) and high (young or immunocompromised) animals.

Finally, sanitation is exactly what it sounds like. Trace many health issues back to poor sanitization in environment or equipment. This involves having the right equipment and labor. The chemicals you use for cleaning should be appropriate for the task and environment – are you checking and following the labels before purchase?

Another aspect that falls between the cracks is how cleaning is complete. Some people just use a quick hot water rinse and others will actually get in and scrub. Make sure you keep your team on the same page for consistency. This is where your vet can be especially helpful by taking swabs and cultures of facilities and equipment to make sure your protocols aren’t working. And if they’re not, he or she can help develop something better.

Some numbers to consider

The United States Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service released some study results back in late 2009 on biosecurity in U.S. cow-calf operations. While this is a bit dated, it provides a bit of insight on what is likely to happen in “real world” type settings.

According to this study, over 60% of operations acquired new animals within the past three years. Only about a quarter of them required testing for brucellosis, 4.5% for bovine viral diarrhea, 5.4% for bovine tuberculosis and 2.1% for Johne’s disease before being added into the herd.

Many producers cited they leased or purchased new bulls regularly. About a third of operations with bulls over 18 months of age or not virgin required animals be tested for Tritrichomonas before breeding. The study noted this percentage was higher for operations with over 200 head of cattle. While this number could be improved, it showed a significant change in behavior from a 1992 study were only 4.4% of all operations tested their bulls.

Something to really put in perspective is the number of visitors coming in and out of animal facilities on a regular basis. In this study, researchers found nearly 30% of operations had 10 or more visits per month. This includes veterinarians, haulers, nutritionists, sales reps, neighbors and the like. Again, the larger the operation the more likely they were to have multiple visitors within the same time frame as a smaller one.

While this is inevitable, you can how visitors come onto your property and interact with animals. You can extend this for hosing down vehicles or directing specific routes of traffic.

Speaking of “visitors,” let’s not forget the wildlife kind. When raising cattle, you can almost guarantee yourself to encounter some form of wildlife be it in the forms of shareable rangeland ,fence line contact or pests like rodents and birds.

This study found within a 12-month period, wild cervids like deer and elk had contact with beef cattle on over 70% of operations. Other species in varying percentages included horses, pigs, dogs, goats and cats. Likewise, flies and other insects are also vectors of disease across animals and livestock operations. Well over half of all beef operations reported to using some sort of rodent (65%) and/or fly control (82%).

Practical tips

All the statistics and knowing what you “should do” doesn’t mean anything if there isn’t a practical way to incorporate biosecurity to your day-to-day farm or ranch life. There’s a wealth of resources out there from USDA, universities and extension agents. But to keep from overwhelming yourself, or over-agonizing over every aspect, it’s easiest to go by the three main categories or a short list of general health and sanitization guidelines.

USDA-APHIS has a general fact sheet of some good guidelines for all types of livestock producers. They outline four “dos and don’ts” categories such as – keeping visitors distant from animals, encouraging cleanliness by training employees and visitors and having a good facility sanitization routine, not cross-contaminating with neighbors and keeping mindful when visiting other animal facilities so you don’t bring anything home.

Some ways people manage visitors include keeping a logbook, using footbaths or boot covers and keeping “clean zones” where you don’t allow access. When it comes to employees, family members and anyone else involved with operations or animal care, keep everyone on the same page. Have written protocols for how to clean things, install boot washing stations and encourage mindful practices.

Keeping biosecurity in check need not be overly elaborate or frustrating, but it should be deliberate and mindful. With a healthy dose of practicality and realism, you shouldn’t be afraid to make changes that will lead to improve – even if they be a bit inconvenient. After all, your animals’ health is worth it.

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March 2021

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Using Drones for Livestock Management

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