Weekly livestock news: August 3, 2020

Farmer mental health bill clears senate

A bipartisan bill meant to improve access to mental health care in rural America and curb rising suicide rates among farmers has cleared the U.S. senate as part of the National Defense Authorization Act. “The Seeding Rural Resilience Act aims to address the farmer suicide crisis by increasing the accessibility and decreasing the stigma of mental health care in rural America,” according to an announcement from one of the bill’s sponsors, Chuck Grassley. Among other things, the bill would fund a public service announcement campaign to increase public awareness of farm and ranch stress and destigmatize mental health care in rural communities.

Vesicular stomatitis spreads across Midwest

Seven states have seen animals infected with vesicular stomatitis virus, an insect-borne disease that causes blister-like lesions in and around the mouth of horses and livestock, wvik reports. “We expect that we’re going to continue to see cases, probably going to see a lot more than what we have so far as the summer progresses and those insects continue to hang around,” said Oklahoma’s state veterinarian, Rod Hall. Hall said the disease isn’t typically deadly, but cases have to be investigated because of its similarity in appearance to foot-and-mouth disease. Additionally, a 14-day quarantine imposed on animals with vesicular stomatitis virus could prevent farmers from moving their livestock to market, one expert said.

How producers can prevent vice behaviors when changing hog diets

As producers change their hogs’ feeding habits to deal with the pandemic—in many cases feeding them low-energy or high-fiber diets—they may see a higher incidence of vices in finishing pigs. National Hog Farmer discusses how vices occur and measures producers can take to avoid them. These behaviors include tail biting, ear biting or necrosis, flank lesions or nudging, and vulva biting. This means it’s important for farmers to work with veterinarians, nutritionists and industry experts to understand the risk of vices and have a plan in place to respond quickly if vices occur.

Spray-dried plasma in chick feed can have lifelong benefits

Novel feed ingredients, including spray-dried plasma, in chick feed can help improve bird health and lifetime performance, WattAgNet reports. “SDP in the first diet in broilers modulates the immune system, improves gut health and nutrient absorption, improves performance at slaughter age in healthy flocks and increases the tolerance to diseases and stress in a wide variety of situations,” said Dr. Ricardo Esquerra, global poultry manager at APC Inc. “Additionally, these benefits are observed even when the challenge occurs at some point after SDP is no longer fed, which illustrates the importance of the first few days of life for future health and performance in broilers. A reduction in mortality is frequently observed in challenged and unchallenged flocks, which may relate to its immune modulation effects.”

Gene-edited bull calf expected to produce more male offspring

Scientists at the University of California Davis have successfully produced a bull calf who was genome edited as an embryo to produce more male offspring. The researchers used the gene editing technology CRISPR to insert the cattle SRY gene—responsible for initiating male development—into a bovine embryo. It’s the first demonstration of a targeted gene “knock-in” for large sequences of DNA via embryo-mediated genome editing in cattle, according to the announcement. Part of the motivation to produce more male cattle is that those cattle are about 15% more efficient at converting feed into weight gain and are more fuel efficient than females, said animal geneticist Alison Van Eenennaam.

Integrity Beef Sustainability Pilot Project completes two-year study

The Integrity Beef Sustainability Pilot Project, the first U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef-supported program to test USRSB tools and resources, completed a two-year study to validate, track and trace beef sustainability claims across all segments of the supply chain, Drovers reports. The study applied the U.S. Beef Industry Sustainability Framework to 36 ranches. The pilot determined the scalability of the framework, which is a comprehensive set of beef sustainability indicators, metrics and guidance material for use throughout the supply chain. “This pilot successfully tracked animals from birth to the beef patties at the restaurants,” said Wayne Morgan, vice president of Golden State Foods and current USRSB chair.