Intro (00:19):

Angus at Work, a podcast for the profit-minded cattleman. Brought to you by the Angus Beef Bulletin, we have news and information on health, nutrition, marketing, genetics and management. So let’s get to work, shall we?

Host Lynsey McAnally (00:19):

Stress is a major player when it comes to reducing performance on the ranch and in the feedlot. While many cattle producers focus on decreasing stress to the benefit of their herd, there could be a new addition to your lineup when it comes to combating the effects of stress on the rumen. Our team recently had a chance to visit with Kip Karges, a technical service ruminant team member at Lallemand Animal Nutrition regarding how gut health can help cattle combat stress, how live yeast plays a part in building a healthy digestive tract. What research studies related to yeast products are saying about reducing the number of sick animals, the safety of yeast and MOS products and rations and more.

But before we jump in, we just want to say a quick thank you to Superior Livestock for their sponsorship of this episode.

Superior Livestock Auctions ad (01:18):

Superior Livestock Auction is the largest cattle marketing network in North America. Our leadership makes a difference and our customers get top dollar.

"Superior has traditionally been the best price for us, rather than taking them to the sale barn. It's a pretty big deal to have multiple buyers bidding on your cattle from all over the country, too."

Go online or call Superior Livestock Auctions to learn how selling your cattle the Superior way can work for your operation.

Shauna Hermel (01:48):

Hello and welcome to Angus at Work! This is Shauna Hermel, editor of the Angus Beef Bulletin. We're here at the Cattle Industry Convention talking to some individuals on some interesting products around the trade show to help our commercial cattlemen. I'm sitting here today with Kip. Can you introduce yourself, tell a little bit about your company and what you do?

Kip Karges (02:13):

Sure. Thank you for having us. My name is Kip Karges. I have a doctorate in animal science nutrition and I'm a ruminant nutritionist by training.

Shauna Hermel (02:23):

From where?

Kip Karges (02:25):

Where? Okay. We got to get to the where, huh? Oklahoma State University.

Shauna Hermel (02:29):

Excellent.

Kip Karges (02:30):

Yes. So, I grew up in Oklahoma. Obviously got my graduate degrees there, but I spent about, I don't know, a good chunk of my career in the cow-calf, backgrounding and feedlot industries. I got a little experience in all those. Cow-calf is my sweet spot. We got a lot of opportunities in the cow-calf industry today. We got some really good revenues flowing into the cow-calf sector.

Shauna Hermel (02:55):

That's kind of a welcome change from years past.

Kip Karges (02:58):

It is. I'm really happy for them to see that kind of revenue coming in. [It] kind of opens the door for us for different conversations on some of these new technologies, right?

Shauna Hermel (03:08):

Right.

Kip Karges (03:08):

... that are coming onto the marketplace.

Shauna Hermel (03:11):

And you have a new product that you're featuring to help ...

Kip Karges (03:14):

 We do.

Shauna Hermel (03:14):

Maybe get a little bit more out of some of our ...

Kip Karges (03:16):

We do. It really comes down to some fundamentals that I think we see in the industry. How do we get better utilization out of our forages from the cow-calf sector?

Shauna Hermel (03:29):

Okay.

Kip Karges (03:30):

So that's one.

Shauna Hermel (03:31):

Without having to buy a lot more land, right?

Kip Karges (03:33):

There you go. How can we make that cow work more efficient for us, right? Secondly, how do we compound or address these stress periods that we go through? Whether it's calving time or whether it's weaning, those times are really stressful. Then that parlays into gut health, right?

Shauna Hermel (03:57):

Right.

Kip Karges (03:58):

And how do we interact with the microbiome from an immune system standpoint?

Shauna Hermel (04:02):

So let's talk about, I mean, we just came through a big weather event that pretty much blanketed the U.S. [in snow] in some form or fashion. We might not have all got the same number of inches of snow or cold, but how does that affect a cow that's out there carrying a calf or just had one? How does that affect her gut?

Kip Karges (04:26):

Stress, right? It's a real thing. If we're feeding the cow properly, it shouldn't be a big deal. If you're not meeting the nutrient requirements, we've got to start there.

Shauna Hermel (04:38):

And those jump during a cold weather event.

Kip Karges (04:39):

They do, big time. So if you're not meeting those nutrient requirements, then you're really behind the eight ball, so to speak. If we're meeting nutrient requirements ... Some of these different new technologies that we're talking about here today? Improving fiber utilization, for example, with live yeast can be very, very beneficial in these types of situations because you're trying to optimize (or pull out) all those nutrients that you possibly can from the forage. That gives that cow more energy. You have high energy requirements. Just what you alluded to. It goes into ...

Shauna Hermel (05:18):

So we don't typically consider yeast a feeding ingredient. How does it actually interact?

Kip Karges (05:25):

Great question. So Lallemand, which is the company I work for, is a very large company. We're basically in bacteria and yeast. We have 15 different business units that [cover] anything in fermentation, basically, whether it's bread making, beer or animal nutrition.

Shauna Hermel (05:45):

Okay.

Kip Karges (05:46):

So we have selected certain strains of yeast that actually ... It's kind of like EPDs on your bull.

Shauna Hermel (05:54):

Okay.

Kip Karges (05:56):

This particular strain of yeast has a set of EPDs. Okay? Those EPDs are going to do certain things for us when it comes to fiber utilization. And so we have this strain of yeast called Levucell® 1077. So the brand, 1077, is specific for these strains of yeast or these EPDs on that yeast.

Shauna Hermel (06:19):

Okay.

Kip Karges (06:20):

And that's what we focus on. We highlight a particular strain that's going to give us a particular response. And, in this case, it's forage utilization.

Shauna Hermel (06:30):

So how does it get a response?

Kip Karges (06:32):

Great question. So without getting too deep, the main concept is to allow those microbes to break open that fiber piece. If we break that fiber open, it's kind of like cracking a pecan, right? Yeah. You've got to crack it open to get to the nut, the good stuff. Same concept here. We're trying to crack open that fiber shell so we can utilize those nutrients more efficiently.

Shauna Hermel (06:57):

So the yeast is kind of feeding those rumen microbes-

Kip Karges (07:00):

Exactly. And arming them with a little bit of energy to go after something else.

Shauna Hermel (07:07):

Excellent. What type of results do you get? And is it the same in Missouri fescue versus going out to the plains of Kansas and ...

Kip Karges (07:18):

Great question. So we've tested this particular yeast, Levucell 1077, on over 364 different forages types.

Shauna Hermel (07:27):

364. Okay.

Kip Karges (07:29):

Globally. So we take forages and we group them into categories, but we've done over 364 tests so far. We typically are going to see a range of 3-7% improvement in forage utilization.

Shauna Hermel (07:43):

Okay.

Kip Karges (07:43):

That's a big number when you start looking at feed cost, right?

Shauna Hermel (07:48):

Yes.

Kip Karges (07:49):

So not only can we see an increase in utilization, but how does that translate to pounds of calf weaned, right?

Shauna Hermel (07:59):

Yes.

Kip Karges (08:00):

That's the bottom line that we're trying to get at. So if you look at a cow-calf man, he's going to sell more pounds of calf. We did a project last year. We came to this convention and launched it. We ended up with 22 pounds (lb.) of extra gain.

Shauna Hermel (08:16):

Wow. On every calf weaned?

Kip Karges (08:18):

Compared to controls. Yes ma'am. That was done over basically the toughest time as far as seeing a response, which is when you have green grass. Everybody thinks green grass, I'm taking my foot off the gas pedal. Well, we went out and said, "Okay, let's see if we get a response on milk production because that's what's going to show up on the calf in extra pounds of gain." And it did.

Shauna Hermel (08:45):

So how do you distribute this to cows that are out on grass?

Kip Karges (08:49):

We went through the loose minerals. So it's something that can be added to your mineral program. It's very simple. Not hard at all to do.

Shauna Hermel (08:59):

And is that something that you would provide year round or is it something that you provide prior to stress points?

Kip Karges (09:06):

Yeah. So this one is really geared towards improving fiber utilization. So if you have fiber being fed year round, it's a year round product.

Shauna Hermel (09:15):

Okay.

Kip Karges (09:16):

Yeah. So we utilize it ... It has a huge footprint in the dairy sector.

Shauna Hermel (09:19):

Okay.

Kip Karges (09:20):

In the dairy sector it's all about measuring things two or three days later.

Shauna Hermel (09:24):

Yes.

Kip Karges (09:24):

so if it's not working, they would know it. And we see a huge response in milk production there. So we took that concept, parlayed it over here to the cow-calf sector on the beef and said, "I wonder if this will work." And it did. Twenty-two pounds of extra gain.

Shauna Hermel (09:41):

That is considerable. So now, how do you translate that to dollars and cents? There's a cost. It's not free. I don't think you're going to give it to us for free.

Kip Karges (09:51):

Yeah. Everybody's in business of making money, right? We all love to eat is what I say, especially when it comes to steaks. Right now, with today's economics, it's a 12-to-1 return on investment.

Shauna Hermel (10:04):

12-to-1 return?

Kip Karges (10:05):

Which is pretty shiny. Pretty shiny. And that particular project was done on native range with mama cows. You fed with and without. We had roughly 150 cows on each treatment and we ended up with that type of response. So it was really good. We have since tested that in more of a backgrounding ration ... So if you have some of your clients, for example, they wean their calves.

Shauna Hermel (10:37):

Yes.

Kip Karges (10:37):

And now they're going to background them and then hang onto them for another 120 days, whatever. They go through a backgrounding program. Well, you still have a lot of fiber in that ration. So we tested it this year and we saw a 10-to-1 response. We saw a significant improvement, highly significant improvement in feed conversions. It worked really well. And again, you're just adding that Levucell 1077 to your ration.

Shauna Hermel (11:12):

And so for people who are weaning and preconditioning their calves as well, that would be useful within that?

Kip Karges (11:18):

Not only would that be useful because we're talking about fiber, but now let's talk about the stress of weaning.

Shauna Hermel (11:24):

Right.

Kip Karges (11:24):

So we have an active live yeast again, and that's the key differentiation here with these types of yeast products that we're talking about. The Levucell1077 is what we call active live yeast. It has to elicit some type of physiological response: animal gain. When you talk about the second active live yeast, which is called Proternative® 1079 ... Again, you have got to have the brand. 1079 is that brand. Here's our EPDs on this live yeast. This one works in the hind gut.

Shauna Hermel (12:02):

It works, I'm sorry?

Kip Karges (12:03):

In the hind gut.

Shauna Hermel (12:03):

In the hind gut. Okay.

Kip Karges (12:05):

The small intestine.

Shauna Hermel (12:06):

Yep. Yep.

Kip Karges (12:06):

In fact, it's one of the number one probiotics that humans take.

Shauna Hermel (12:11):

Oh, really?

Kip Karges (12:12):

Yes. So it's very safe.

Shauna Hermel (12:15):

Okay.

Kip Karges (12:18):

We've seen phenomenal responses when we supplement Proternative in stressful situations, and we've got some research that says we saw significant improvement, not only reduction, in say our health. Less pulls. I had less treats on this when I fed Proternative versus my controls. Then we saw, when we took it to the feedyard ... This was the really cool project. We saw a significant improvement, not only in feed conversion, but also carcass grade changed a little bit.

Shauna Hermel (12:58):

For the better, I hope.

Kip Karges (13:00):

For the better. Yep.

Shauna Hermel (13:02):

That's important to our audience.

Kip Karges (13:04):

So if you got people that are feeding the calves all the way through? They take them all the way to finish and they go sell them on the grid. When you can pick up some points on Choice and Prime, that's a big deal. The beauty of feeding Proternative is you only feed it during the stress. If we identify those stress periods as like weaning time, for 40 to 50 days? Or when you go to a feedyard and you transitioned over to a feedyard environment? So new environment, bunk situations, commingling with cattle, etc., etc. Another stressful situation. If we help the gut lining do what it's supposed to do, which is be a barrier against some of these toxins, then that's going to help us in terms of animal performance.

Shauna Hermel (14:00):

So what's the necessity for it to go to the hind gut and not be used in the stomachs?

Kip Karges (14:09):

Oh yeah, great question. So it survives at a very low pH. And so our pH in our simple stomach that we have, it's going to be in the high twos, low twos, somewhere in there. We're very acidic. And that's a built-in mechanism, if you will, as far as preventing some of these toxins from going downstream. So that's very helpful. Same situation in a rumen. That last compartment in the rumen is very low pH. So you have to have a live yeast that can survive at that very low pH and get through that. It's kind of like running the gauntlet, so to speak. You got to get through the gauntlet to the lower track.

Shauna Hermel (14:58):

And that's where it can help bolster that gut?

Kip Karges (15:00):

Yep. The gut lining. Increases mucin production, which is a barrier that we talked about on the toxins. All these types of stress interactions that you're going to have going on with the immune system because most people ... I hear it mentioned more and more all the time, but a lot of people still don't understand that 70-80% of our immune system is right on the other side of the digestive tract. So I always like to pose the question to people. What have we done lately to, maybe, think about how we help manage the nutrition program to interact with the immune system. And that's a tough one.

Shauna Hermel (15:40):

Is that where the efficiency comes from and when protecting that gut lining and helping use some products like urea ... using some products that are absorbed in that hind gut?

Kip Karges (15:52):

Yeah, that's some of it. I think the bigger piece of it really is when we're talking Proternative, we've got a product here that ... Think of like an alley system. You got a lot of sorting gates, right? So you got different places where nutrients can be absorbed.

Okay? The wider that gate is, the easier it is for some of these mycotoxins and bigger molecules to get through. Proternative helps control that gait system to where it's a narrower gate and it's harder for some of these toxins to get across into the bloodstream. That's what we're trying to do. So it's managing what we call tight junctions. You can call it the gates in the sorting alley. We're trying to manage that more efficiently with Proternative. In addition to that, by doing that you see different things start to occur with the immune system. You get some upregulations of some certain things that are really beneficial to the immune system and it's kind of all in one. Everything comes together and helps in a stressful situation. It's not a cure-all. You're still going to have sick animals, but when you can significantly reduce the number of cattle that you're going to treat, that comes back into my quality grade. There's all kinds of data out there that says the more times we treat an animal, the more impact that's going to decrease my quality grades. That's what we're trying to do here.

Shauna Hermel (17:46):

And if it reduces labor, it might improve quality grade for the person.

Kip Karges (17:52):

Yeah exactly.

Shauna Hermel (17:55):

At least life quality, right?

Kip Karges (17:57):

Exactly. And if you're a backgrounder ... I know a lot of people in the background in the industry. That is a stressful life. And when you get a crew that's running through 5-6% death loss or more? That's mentally demoralizing on your crew, right? Because they're trying to do everything right. So when you can come up with some of these newer products like 1079 Proternative and reduce that some? That's a big lift.

Shauna Hermel (18:29):

Now we can see the need for something like that when we go through like these big weather events.

Kip Karges (18:35):

Yes.

Shauna Hermel (18:37):

But when we have a weather event, that's not time to prepare. Do these products, I mean, do you have to ramp cattle up on them? Can you go buy them tomorrow and put them in the mineral feeder?

Kip Karges (18:50):

Great question. There's no ramp-up period, so it's put them on and you're going to start seeing responses. There's no withdrawals on these organisms. So the reason you feed it every day is because the way yeast operate, they love oxygen and they require oxygen to reproduce. In an anaerobic environment, you don't have oxygen. What little oxygen you got in there, they're going to scavenge it. So they can't really reproduce. That's why you got to feed it every day.

Shauna Hermel (19:24):

So do you have to follow any type of protocol with a Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD) or anything like that? No prescription. So you can just go down to your feed store?

Kip Karges (19:35):

Yeah, great question. How do you get this? We typically distribute our product through the major distributors that are out there. If you're working through your feed mill, you go to your feed mill and you say, "Hey, can you get me Levucell 1077? Can you get me Proternative 1079?" And they say, "Well, let me check." And they can get those products in from distribution and then put them into a mineral mix.

Shauna Hermel (20:04):

Are there any cautions that you would put out there that people need to know before they start cattle on one of these yeast products?

Kip Karges (20:12):

No. They're really, really safe. That's the beauty of it. They're really safe. They're all natural. It helps with our sustainability conversations that are going on today because you're producing more with less. Those are all positives. We really like to make sure we tell that story to people.

Shauna Hermel (20:30):

Tell me about [Levucell Trivantage].

Kip Karges (20:32):

Yeah. Trivantage is kind of like our bumper-to-bumper coverage, if you will. This is our index, right? So we have Levucell in this product. It's a combination of that, Proternative and our third product that we think highly of: Agrimos®. And MOS — mammal oligosaccharides — that sounds really complicated, but there's a lot of MOS products on the market.

Shauna Hermel (21:10):

You'll have a cheat sheet for me to spell that, right?

Kip Karges (21:12):

Yep. We can get it spelled out for you. But the cool thing about that is ... think of a piece of Velcro. You've got a tennis ball, which is the bad guy.

So we're going to supplement the animal with this product that has the ability to tie up this bigger molecule: that tennis ball. When it ties it up, it keeps it from being absorbed. That's the concept that we have with Agrimos. It's going to attack, if you will, and attach to some of these toxins because these things ... MOS has all these different parking spots and that toxin is looking for a parking spot. It will attach and once it attaches, it's tied up and it prevents it from getting absorbed.

Shauna Hermel (22:20):

So they just poop it out?

Kip Karges (22:22):

Goes out the back door.

Shauna Hermel (22:23):

Okay. So what kind of toxins are we going after?

Kip Karges (22:29):

Mycotoxins is one. There are several of aflatoxins and you can get mycotoxins coming in forages, too. A lot of people don't realize that. You can get different types of funguses on forages. You can get some other types of toxins that we're concerned with. Whether it's the bad bacteria ... Maybe it's E. coli or salmonella. We have data that shows that that particular strain ... It's a specific strain. Again, it's not a knockout punch. It's more of a knockdown, okay?

Shauna Hermel (23:11):

But it would reduce risk going into packing plants or ...

Kip Karges (23:15):

It helps. It's the concept of when we feed these types of products, I'm supplementing and turning loose my army. My good guys. It's going to go compete against the bad guys that are in the digestive system. The salmonella, for example. And when I say compete, it's going after the same substrate. If I overwhelm the system with the good guys, they're going to consume that substrate. In a sense, you're not allowing the bad guys to really get going because you've taken away what? Their food.

Shauna Hermel (23:57):

That sounds pretty familiar with the New World screwworm and similar flies, doesn't it?

Kip Karges (24:03):

Yes, it does. Pretty cool stuff.

Shauna Hermel (24:07):

Now, of course, this product is going to be a premium product. How much are we talking cost per animal?

Kip Karges (24:16):

So with that type of product, depends on your distribution price and what have you, but you're going to be safely in that $0.09 per head per day-type range. It might get a little higher depending on where you're at and freight that comes with it. Whereas you buy Proternative and Levucell by themselves. Levucell, pretty economical. It's going to be in that $0.035 range per head per day. Proternative, you're probably going to be closer to that $0.05 per head per day.

Shauna Hermel (24:47):

Okay. So prescribe me: 150 cow herd, calving in the spring, weaning calves in September or October, and I'm backgrounding them. Send them to the feedlot. How would you balance out these products to make the most efficient use and get the biggest bang for your buck?

Kip Karges (25:10):

Great question. Levucell. If my cows are getting forage 365 days a year? In my operation, they'd be getting Levucell 365 days a year.

Shauna Hermel (25:22):

Okay.

Kip Karges (25:25):

Proternative I would use during my stress times in the cow-calf sector. Where's that at? That's really at calving time and weaning time. That's where I would implement Proternative. Agrimos if I'm in a situation where I know I'm dealing with potential clostridial issues or salmonella. Or maybe it's just some type of mycotoxin that I'm struggling with. Then I would pull in Agrimos. But my go-to is Levucell and then Proternative during stress. If you want bumper to bumper, then you feed the Trivantage.

Shauna Hermel (26:12):

So what else haven't I thought of? What else do we need to cover?

Kip Karges (26:17):

I think that does a pretty good job of a high level summary. Again, these are all Lallemand products, so if you want more information about it, you can go to our website lallemand.com. If you're working with a consultant, a feed company or maybe it's just your local co-op, you can ask them, "Hey, I heard about these Lallemand products. How do we get them in?"

Shauna Hermel (26:43):

Our audience really enjoys some of the research backing up some of the products. Where can we go to find that research?

Kip Karges (26:51):

Go out to our webpage. You can find it that way. You can contact your Lallemand representative and if you can't find who that is, go to our webpage and just drop us a note. Somebody will reach out to you quickly and we'll get you connected.

Shauna Hermel (27:11):

Excellent. Well, on Angus at Work we always like to leave on a high note. So I'm going to ask you — as we do everybody — give us something that is a highlight or a high point in either your professional or your personal life. Is there something fun and positive?

Kip Karges (27:32):

I think from a professional standpoint, I'm in fourth quarter of my career. Seen a lot, a lot of change and I've got to work in an industry with a lot of really cool people. At the end of the day, you hear people say it's about the people? Well, it really is. That's what's been the most rewarding to me. Along the trail I've met a lot of nice people. Some of them have been really good mentors and it's propelled me through my career. Without that, it would be a different career path for sure.

I like the wide open space. Working with cow-calf people. The overall moral values. The moral compasses that this whole group of people has, it aligns with my values too. …

Shauna Hermel (28:30):

Cow are more sane than people. And cattlemen are closer to them.

Kip Karges (28:36):

It makes me want to ... And that was always my dream to have my own cow-calf operation. And I think good Lord knew what he was doing because if I had that, I'd probably go hibernate and never come back out.

Shauna Hermel (28:48):

Me, too. Well, thank you for joining us here.

Outro (28:59):

Listeners, for more information on making Angus work for you, check out the Angus Beef Bulletin and the Angus Beef Bulletin EXTRA. You can subscribe to both publications in the show notes. If you have questions or comments, let us know at abbeditorial@angus.org and we would appreciate it if you would leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and share this episode with any other profit-minded cattlemen. Thanks for listening. This has been Angus at Work!