Practically Ranching
Join Matt Perrier as he visits weekly with interesting, thoughtful, entertaining individuals within the beef community. Conversations will inspire curiosity and creativity while maintaining the independent spirit and practical nature for which ranchers are known.
Practically Ranching
#19 - Ty Lawrence - New Challenges
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Dr. Ty Lawrence is a Professor of Animal Science and Director of the Beef Carcass Research Center at West Texas A&M University in Canyon, TX. He was reared on a cow-calf operation north of Dalhart, Texas before pursuing formal education in the animal sciences at West Texas A&M University (B.S. '97, M.S. '99) and Kansas State University (Ph.D. '02). Dr. Lawrence spent two years with Smithfield Foods in the position of research manager for pork harvest and processing facilities on the eastern seaboard.
Dr. Lawrence spends countless hours consulting with businesses throughout the industry, especially in the packing, feeding and dairy segments.
Dr. Ty Lawrence | WTAMU
tlawrence@wtamu.edu
Well, thank you for listening to practically ranching episode 19. This week we visit with Dr. Ty Lawrence from west, Texas, a and M down in the panhandle of Texas around canyon. This week's episodes called new challenges because these topics were nowhere on my radar screen when I was thinking about and they were all things that I heard Dr. Lauren speak about at a recent meeting. I went to the certified Angus beef program put on up in Kansas city. And like I said, some new ideas, new concepts and new challenges that the feeding and packing industry mainly has had to deal with. But are all things that our entire industry is going to need to consider and work towards solutions. We talk liver abscesses, which is not something that a lot of cow calf producers are concerned with. Something that I do think we need to think about because it has major ramifications to our entire industry, but may have some ramifications to us at the ranch level. We talked, dairy crosses again, like we did with Dr. Larry Cora a few weeks ago. And then we finish up with just a discussion about some challenges that the packing industry continues to deal with, not just relative to liver abscesses and dairy crosses, but, Some other, uh, size and carcass length and performance issues there that they, that they continue to deal with and some, some possible opportunities. And I think we may have, for changing the way we go about not just selecting, but also managing cattle here at the, at the ranch level. So. Thank you again for tuning in and we look forward to our conversation with dr Ty lawrence. Well welcome Dr. Lawrence this podcast nice to meet you. First of all, I don't think we've ever met in person. I've listened to you and seen you present at BIF. And most at a CAB meeting there in Kansas city and read so much of your work. I feel. I feel like I know you, but I don't think we've actually met in person so
Dr. LawrenceI, don't believe so. Uh, you, I saw you across the room at the CAB meeting. And I got talking to other people. And the next thing I know, uh, the room is empty and,
MattYeah. Yeah.
Dr. Lawrencelong gone.
Mattthey kind of scooted us out of there. So, and I had to get home after the, after the meeting to get caught up from being gone for a couple days. But, um, did a little on. Everything that you do because I knew you from, oh, the prime one cloning project, and some other things that I'd heard you speak on, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna hit the high points off of WT And you can tell me if any of this is outdated. you teach classes in food and meat, science, meat, animal, and carcass eval. Anatomy and physiology, You work with some masters and PhD students. You the meats and livestock teams and you direct the beef carcass research center. Is that close?
Dr. LawrenceSo that's all true in time. Uh, a lot of that has gone away.
MattOkay.
Dr. Lawrencebecause, uh, we've been, we've been able to grow and hire new faculty. And so I don't for, for instance, I don't teach undergrads right now. And so I'm only teaching graduate courses. So a lot of those courses I've done, I've taught, I developed it and then I handed it off to a younger faculty and got out the way.
Mattgood. Well, my first was gonna be, do you ever sleep?
Dr. Lawrenceuh, still a no. Uh, I do, I do a lot of research. I still teach, graduate student courses, uh, right. For, for instance, this semester I'm teaching, uh, growth and development to, uh, graduate students. And I have a cross listed class for seniors and graduate students and meet animal welfare.
MattOkay.
Dr. Lawrencewhich I don't think you mentioned in your, neither of your, in your stuff there. So those are classes that are not current on the website and, and then a tremendous amount of research all over north America. I'm still director of the research center, um, co-director of the meat lab, as I've been able to hire new faculty, on my team. Then I get to share those responsibilities. And so it's not all about me, which is a good thing.
MattWell, team approach is always the best. Which of these many would get the most of your attention and your time today?
Dr. LawrenceDirector of the beef carcass research center eats up most of my day.
MattAnd what all do you do? assume you're not, not on the, on the grading floor, tracing, ribeye size anymore. What, what did you used to do with that position and how has it evolved today?
Dr. LawrenceSo, uh, you know, a lot of that, uh, work went away with camera grading. In, in reality, we do still have a handful of clientele. That request that old school data, it's a small and declining handful because they don't trust the camera. most of our research today deals with food safety or kill floor pathology. So for instance, right now we are in the salmonella bloom. And we're doing a ton of work with, we've got we've. In fact, we've got four different research projects going on currently, and it could be, it could be fecal matter. It could be lymph nodes. It could be hides. It could be liver abscesses, but it has something to do with salmonella. And what learning more so that we can get ahead of government regulation in salmon. that's, that's a, a huge focus right now. and that's all packer request. So think the big four, they they're trying to figure out how do we get ahead of salmonella? And that's an issue in primarily here the Texas panhandle.
Mattand when you say we're in the salmonella bloom, Are you talking about the time of year or are you talking that that is increasing year over year to where it's becoming a bigger and bigger issue.
Dr. Lawrenceno time of year.
MattOkay. That's what I figured.
Dr. LawrenceSo, uh, August, September, October would be the, the biggest issue that the, the packer has in dealing with it. Uh, some years you can move back to July and some years it'll carry forward, maybe into. But September's the hot month. And so we've got lots of cattle dying right now from targeted feeding projects. Let's say you have a feed additive that you want to test and see what it does to the, rate of, positives and or the enumeration rate of positives. And so we've got some of those on feed where now they're dying and we're sampling them like it's going outta style, uh, at S. Uh, others aren't specific cattle, but we're targeting from specific feed yards at this time of the month, trying to figure out again, what, what can we do to mitigate the, the prevalence of salmonella? So that's a lot of our work. Uh, the other big piece that never goes away is liver abscesses. Uh, my mentor, Ted Montgomery, uh, he was working on that in. Mid to late 1970s doing some of the early work with Lanco and I'm to I'm a little bit shocked, but not completely shocked that this issue has not gone away. In fact, it hasn't gone away. It's gotten worse. And, uh, you would, you would probably be surprised with the number of calls I get every week from the Packers upset about liver. Abs. It is a nonstop sore to the industry.
MattSo the bulk of our listeners, I think I never know exactly, but, but a lot of them are Cal calf producers and some feed yard managers, but the bulk of them are probably somewhere in the commercial or seedstock Cal calf world or advising folks in that grass side of things. Give, give us a quick and dirty about liver abscesses, how they occur, why they occur when they occur and then some preventative measures and maybe going forth what we're going to need to do to make sure we get a handle on that issue.
Dr. LawrencePerfect. So I wanna start since, since some of the listeners are, are cow calf people and, and tell them that it's not strictly a feedlot issue. We've done, uh, a litany of work in the cull range cow. So not a fed cow, but a yellow or orange fat range cow. And we've done, uh, a mountain of work as well in the dairy cow. if you go look at a, a group of range cows, the year round about 16% of them will have an abscess at slaughter and about 19% in the cull dairy. So, again, it's not just a strict cattle feeding issue. The, the, the issue that we see before I get into the why is the, is the frequency. And so if we focus on the, the fed steer and heifer, and this is some data that I, I quoted at the recent, uh, CAB, feeding quality forum. In the fed steer population, we see about 26% of those animals an an abscess and that's, so that's about 10% more than the cow. They came. The heifers only about 22% of them would have an abscess. And some of that difference probably gets into, uh, aggressiveness at the bunk and, uh, sheer days on feed. The, the Mexican animal would support my theory and that they're right at 20% liver abscess rates, which is just a little higher than, uh, than a native cow and Mexican critters typically have a, a much lower, dry matter intake than the traditional beef. Uh, our database would say that Holsteins are running about 27 to 28% liver abscesses. And then the, the dairy crosses are the, the sore thumb, if you will, of the cattle feeding world. And right now in the last, uh, in the last year, in looking at 271,000 cattle, the dairy crosses are running a 68% liver abscess rate.
MattWow,
Dr. LawrenceSo they're the, they're the calls that I get more frequently than anything. These good looking dairy crosses that are, are really grading well and are really attractive in the cooler are killing us in the kill floor, quote unquote. And, and, and they are, I, I see it, uh, day in, day out. So let's get to the, to the why at, at the core, a liver abscess is the result of bacteria escaping the GI tract. So we know that the infection, the liver abscess itself is what we would call polymicrobial. If we sampled it, you were, you're going to find a, a whole host of different
Mattdifferent
Dr. Lawrencein that liver abscess, and most recently, Dr. Paul Morley at Texas a and M Vero has illustrated. There's a, a whole range, uh, hundreds, maybe even thousands of different bacteria that can be found. In contrast to Dr. Morley's work. Uh, Dr. NAAG, uh, TG NAAG at Kansas state has illustrated that for sure. A couple of bacteria can cause, uh, the, the liver abscess and he's focused a lot of his career on fusA Nera. Now, any of your listeners that, uh, that feed Tylan. And know know a little bit about cattle feeding and might have read the label. Fusel bacteria to crop from is the one that is listed on a bag or a label of Tylan. And that has historically been the target bacteria that you're trying to reduce or eliminate to minimize the presence of liver. Abs. Of note and, and maybe of interest to your listeners that same bacteria also causes foot rot and diptheria. And so it's, it's ubiquitous in the environment. It's ubiquitous in cattle feeding and it, it actually occurs more than you might think in humans because that same bacteria is known to cause gingivitis in. So it is in our, in our lifestyle. It's in our culture, it's in, it's in the soil. It is in lots and lots of places. Of note in cattle feeding, uh, fus AUM increases as we, we put the animal and bring them up on a high concentrate diet because it prefers lactic acid as it's, uh, as it's food. And so we, we know that we're going to get, lots and lots of opportunity when we have, cattle on feed on a hot diet. So that's, uh, that's one of the key things to keep in mind, for all of your listeners is there's, there's some bacteria at play here and we've got to make sure that we're mindful of what they do in life and where they are, and, and that they're, they're um, eliminated. And, and to take that a further step, we're not sure if we were to eliminate 'em if, if that would actually get rid of the issue or change it to another bacteria or make it potentially worse. So, you know, eliminating. Entire class or category bacteria may allow something to proliferate. That could be a completely unintended consequence. and a lot of those things we just don't know, uh, because the, the room is vast in its population of microorganisms. And I dare to say, we don't know what we don't know about all of what's inside, the room and fermentation. So nevertheless, one bacteria or many escape, the GI tract. It might be through the. It might be through the small or large intestine, which we're pretty sure can happen. And it might also be through the esophagus or the lips, cheeks, tongue. Uh, and I say all of that because the entire gastrointestinal tract from mouth to anus drains to the portal vein, which is then filtered by the liver. So historically, uh, animal scientists and veterinarians, uh, have all thought that the Roman. Was the place that liver abscesses began as the bacteria escaped the room and, and went to the liver. That's most likely one of multiple locations, upon which bacteria can escape and get to the liver. I'm quite certain it's, it's real. And, and it's a cause I'm also quite certain, it's not the only place that the bacteria escape from. And it's not the only problem that we need to be looking.
MattSo let's go back for just a second the incidence rate of liver, liver abscesses on these yellow fat cull cows that would be coming off range and probably never fed a bite of concentrated we're at 16% on these cull beef cows. Where would we have been 10 years ago or 20 years?
Dr. LawrenceUh, if, if we go back 10, 20 years ago, it was still occurring. Uh, maybe at a slightly lower rate. The, the lowest number I can think of in, in Cal data is probably about 13% or so. I'm sure there's somebody out there that would, would be able to, to argue there's something lower, but it's not zero.
MattOkay, but it hasn't in it. Hasn't tripled or something in
Dr. LawrenceNo, no. The cow fundamentally has not changed. And the next question is probably, well, why and how? And I agree the, you know, our yellow, orange fat range cow has most likely, never taken a bite of a concentrate ration in her life. And you probably can't eat range cubes fast enough to cause, lactic acidosis in the. But, you know, a range cow might have eaten something coarse and or abrasive, maybe a, maybe a winter hay, maybe shrubs or brush that might have cut or scraped or caused some abrasion of her gums her lips, her cheek, her esophagus, and, you know, at the microscopic level, it doesn't take much to get, uh, bacteria out of the GI tract and into the bloodstream. And so something that might have, have been irrelevant to the cow might have been all it took to get that liver absess infection to.
MattI'm guilty of trying to correlate and outcomes. May or may not have anything to do with, with each other. And, and the reason I ask about an increasing trend to those coal cows is I think a lot of folks would say we've seen an increasing trend of, of foot rot and of some, other issues that we didn't used to see a lot, even in caves and, and, you know, nursing caves, yearlings, things like that. We've heard of more open cows and especially more open young cows over the last several years across the industry. And I think the coal cow data would, would that as well. just trying to figure out, is there something that management wise, we have changed significantly in the last five or 10 years that's causing these things, uh, feeding of dried distillers, grains, other byproduct feeds that we're maybe using more of that we didn't use when we were feeding. hay is our protein supplement or things like this. Uh, do you have any, any thoughts in that
Dr. LawrenceUh, I understand the, the question, but I'm, I'm pretty skeptical that any, any minor change like that in protein supplement. Would lead to what, to what we're seeing, because we're really not seeing any, any large increase. The, the cow numbers are at least in terms of liver, abscess rates are fairly stable and, uh, and you know, the high teens and, and I don't see any, any big change, in what, what the ranching community is doing to increase or decrease that.
MattSo for the most part, the thing that we've got to get hold of is the fed side of things. And specifically these F1. Dairy crosses and why we're seeing so much of an increase in those, correct.
Dr. LawrenceThey hit the nail in the head. That's what we've got to work on as an industry so that we don't lose an opportunity here.
MattFrom an economic standpoint, tell us what we're losing here. Every time one of those livers gets condemned at the packing plant. much are we losing and where would that have gone? If it wasn't.
Dr. LawrenceSure. So it's variable. And so you're gonna have to kind of follow me here. We have different differing severities of liver abscesses and what they may lead to in terms of value lost in the carcass. If I start at the, the most minor outcomes, those would be what we call an a minus or an, a liver abscess. And those are very minor, pockets of liver abscess. And they probably barely detracted from the growth performance of the animal. And, and I say that because our data would say that those carcasses weigh equal to what an animal with a normal liver weighed at, at slaughter. So in those cases, we're only losing the value of the liver. And I say only, but that's still a, that is still a value lost. And. If I, if I look at that liver today, it's worth about $8 per animal on the wholesale market, which doesn't sound like a lot per se. But if I, if I total all of those animals up and I put them across the rate that we typically see in our, in our fed beef industry, the minor liver abscess at only an $8 cost is approximately 27 million of beef industry value. Which does add up. So, that's, that's basically a dollar ahead if you average it across the entire industry of just the, the value of the liver for those two scores, if we increase, to the more severe scores, the first thing we we score is called an a plus in the more severe category. And that's a, a liver that is. Grossly infected with postes of liver abscesses. And in this case, the animal is. Literally living on a fraction of its normal liver mass and the remainder of that liver fraction is fighting an active infection. And so if an animal is metabolizing energy on a fraction of its liver, then it is metabolizing a fraction of the nutrients that it would normally have a. And so in addition to losing the liver, we also see that we lose carcass, weight opportunity. What I mean by that is our database would say a carcass with an a plus liver has comes to, comes to market at an 18 pound hot carcass weight. Deficit. So at, in today's market value, if your carcasses are weighing 18 pounds less than they would, if they had a normal liver, that's $41 on top of the $8 liver, uh, that's $49 in total, we could round it up a dollar and, and for easy math, call it 50 bucks. And that one score itself is a big detriment to the industry. And today is about 68 million. Of, of just lost. And then I've got two more that are, uh, of even greater severity. One is what we call an adhesion. And that is when the liver is glued with, uh, with collagen to the skirt meat, and that's of particular concern to the beef processor because not only did they lose the liver, now they lose the skirt meat that surrounded that animal. And you would know as the diaphragm so that, you know, that has a, a strong market for fajita meet, uh, not just as a domestic item, but also as an export item. And so, I typically field, uh, complaints from beef processors whom are shorting orders to their customers, both domestically and abroad because their liver abscess rates are killing their skirt yield. And that that's a real issue for them. So if we add the skirt and the lost carcass weight and the liver itself, uh, every time we have an adhered liver, that is about $107 per animal. And that one score in and of itself is the worst of all because of its frequency and its severity. And we're losing 187 million a year in. Then the last one is the most severe case in which liver. Abscess is open at slaughter and the, the pu jewel has broken out and contaminated. Typically the entire S and also the inside of the carcass. And here's where the weight really starts to drop on the carcass weight, because that is considered a contaminant, no different than fecal matter or milk. And the animal will be trimmed. To remove all of that, uh, contamination off. So you lose the carcass weight due to trimming you lose the liver because of the abscess. And because it's an open abscess now you lost all of the Vira and the entire gut mass of that animal gets condemned. And the total there is about $150 per occurrence. Given that frequency and the number of cattle slaughter in, in the year, that's about 128 million for that one score. If I add all of those together, uh, the reality in the beef processing sector is about $410 million of value lost solely due to liver abscesses.
Mattwow. And you've seen this especially. Or Packers have seen this the last few years or couple years with, the dairy crosses. I assume if we're talking a 68% incidence rate there, um, that's triple almost what they were seeing with with just straight beef or even when you include the straight Holsteins. I know they're asking, I'll ask you, your theory to why we're seeing.
Dr. LawrenceOkay, good theories. And I, and I've got a couple, so we'll start with, with management. with few exceptions, most people that feed purebreds or straight bread Holsteins, that's kind of their, their business. And they might do that, typically in Arizona and or Southern California into a, a smaller degree in Minnesota and Wisconsin. those cattle are kind of pocketed strategically in a few parts of the country. Not that you wouldn't find a random pan in the panhandle or Southwest Kansas or Nebraska, but they're just not concentrated there. And so the people that feed Holsteins are more frequently specialists in Holstein feeding, and that's their that's their entire, maybe their entire feed yard would be full of them and they get really good at it. They get really good at managing. Holsteins. They get really good at managing a Holstein diet, which probably needs more forage than the traditional beef cattle concentrate diet might have. And they might be managing it a little bit different implant regimen and they might be pushing them maybe not quite as hard as you might a beef KEF in, in aggressiveness of the ration in contrast. every feed yard I go to anymore has a few pins of dairy, cross cattle, or a bunch of pins of dairy, cross cattle. And they are managed more frequently like a beef animal. And so they come in, they look, they look like they're black hated and. fed like a, a black hated Angus animal or SIM Angus or know, anything else in the, in the beef world. And they're not managed like they're half Holsteins or half jerseys. And so part of my theory here is we're, we're pushing these crosses in the central part of the country too aggressively. And we're, we're not putting enough roughage in the ration and we're aggressively processing the grain and we have, extremely high starts availability, extremely high net energy for gain rations. And don't put enough focus upon rumen health and we're left with, uh, an animal that has. A GI tract that is, I don't wanna say it's full of holes, but it is permeable to the point where bacteria are escaping in much higher numbers from either the Ru likely or the intestines also likely, and then getting to the liver That's the most plausible explanation I have for the, the extremely high rates of liver abscesses that we.
Mattwould most of these cattle still be fed Tylan or some type, of a technology that is supposed to at least remedy those? So it's not, it's not a natural, no antibiotic type of management where they've pulled that away. That that has influenced.
Dr. LawrenceTrue that yeah. With those, those, those programs are.
Mattare
Dr. LawrenceArguably small in, in scope and few in, in frequency and the, the mass of cattle, uh, are fed, Thailand or Tsin to control, uh, liver abscess rates. And, and we've done enough studies in recent years or, or been involved with enough studies that were confident it, it still works. And removing Thailand from the ration is. Arguably going to increase or allow the increase of, of liver abscess rates.
MattWhat is that in the research that you've seen, if, if they are on a no antibiotic, know, if they're not feeding,
Dr. LawrenceRight? If you're, if you're, if you, if you're feeding it and then all of a sudden you decide to take it away, I think you should expect to increase your rate by 20%.
MattOkay.
Dr. LawrenceThat's all I say you would go from 20 to 40. That'd be a pretty good expectation.
MattAnd yet, like you said, these dairy cross cattle, and somebody's gonna have to tell me what the proper terminology, if it's beef on dairy beef, dairy, dairy, cross, F1 Holstein, I've heard 'em all. And, and in this transition, I'm gonna have to figure out what the, the appropriate nomenclature is for these Holstein. Angus Angus limousine, whatever it might be But the fact of the matter is they're still being fed Tson. The management has not changed drastically from what it was when they were feeding cattle or feeding straight Holstein cattle, except in the case, like you said that they fed those straight Holstein cattle, a lower energy ration and, and kind of babied them along, I guess, is that fair to say,
Dr. LawrenceWell, and I don't. Yeah, I don't know.
Mattknow,
Dr. LawrenceThat they, that they baby him so much. But when I talk to nutritionists that specialize in Holsteins, many of them, would tell me they're putting more roughage in the ration than what I see the dairy crosses being fit. So some of this, right wrong or different probably lies upon the nutritionist and or the feed yard manager and the aggressiveness with which they're trying to get the cattle done and get them finished, in, in as quick, a time as possible and or with, uh, you know, as, as affordable cost to gain as possible. arguably the, the recent war, in Ukraine and Russia and it's altering of grain prices worldwide has not helped the situation because there's more impetus than ever to. Be as aggressive as you can in your, in your concentrate part of the ration and get, you know, every ounce of energy, out of that, that you can, in addition to that, it's also arguable that. Roughage is expensive. Given the drought that we've had in the Western half of the us. And, you know, I hear, I hear people bailing weeds anymore just to put some, some roughage into the diet. So we almost have a perfect storm situation brewing that is leading to what we're seeing at slaughter.
MattSo if you would, let's back up for just a second, and this will be an aside from liver absess discussion. Uh, we talked a couple weeks ago with Dr. Larry Cora on this podcast and, and talked about the beef dairy mix. I don't know though, that we a entry level description of, of how that process works. If you would walk us through the time their AI and those dairy cows to whatever beef semen it is. and that calf hits the ground and then goes on until he hits spike and plant. Can you give us a little background on, on that logistic?
Dr. LawrenceSure. So in, in many cases, a calf ranch, uh, representative is going to circle by your dairy, uh, maybe every day, maybe every other day, maybe every third day, but on a, on a regular schedule and pick up those recently born calves, from you and take them to the calf ranch and a calf ranch might have upwards of. 10 20, uh, maybe even 30,000 animals on site. And initially those calves would be in a, in a Hutch. And that Hutch is, it looks kinda like a big doghouse, typically they're made of plastic, uh, but not, not always. And they'll have a, a hug panel or a cattle panel and a wrapped around the front of them and their individual housing units for those Cal. And the individuality allows for, uh, individual disease control and individual medicine application and individual feeding. And so those, those calves would typically be fed, two or three times a day and they'd be fed a large, um, you know, Several quart milk bottle two or three quart milk bottle. Uh, typically again, two or three times a day. hopefully at the dairy they received colostrum to, you know, start it off on the, on the right track in, in terms of, of room and, or, just immune status and immune health. And so it gets to a, a calf ranch and it's fed milk for, uh, a variable amount of time. I know I can take you to a calf ranch where they're their goal is to get the calf off of milk in four. And I, I know of others that go up to nine weeks on milk and there's a, I'm certain variable, uh, ranges in the middle. So those animals will eventually leave that, uh, that calf Hutch system again, in, in four to nine weeks. And then they go to group housing where they're pinned in, in small pins of groups of like age calves, probably born within a week or two of each other. And, then. In that system till they weigh about, uh, 300, uh, 300 5400 pounds. And at that point, most of them are sent to a feed lot. And you know, here we could argue that there's, there's some, some other issues I talk to people in this world, I don't hear of diet transition very much. They were on diet a at, uh, you know, At their first stop. And then they are abruptly put on diet B at their second stop and then abruptly put on diet C at their third stop. And so the, the traditional transition from a cooler ration, maybe a starter ration to a hot ration. Or, you know, top ration that might not occur in, in many cases with a dairy animal, uh, and, and, or a dairy cross. Uh, I, I frequently hear of people. I bought these cattle, they were on hot feed and I just put 'em on hot feed. And so there was no restarting of the room if you will. And no time to adapt, uh, they went from one hot ration to another. And so I don't think that's, that's probably not helping the situation at all. And, and I understand the financial implications for. Doing as little to the animals as possible and just keeping them from one hot ration to the other. But that may be part of the problem that manifests into what we see at slaughter. Uh, I can tell your, your, uh, your listeners that we have found liver abscesses in, Extremely lightweight calves, uh, I think the lightest one we founded in was about one 70 in weight. so we know they can occur early. obviously, you know, we're not slaughtering, young calves to just find out the answer, but we know that it can occur in that small, young, lightweight calf, and in,, uh, I know of people that have documented cases at all weights and ranges of sizes, obviously all the way to slaughter. So, there's, there's probably not a particular point in time that is UNSU susceptible to the liver abscess, but at any time that animal, uh, is eating, a diet that is rough and, and might cause an abrasion or extremely high in energy and might lead to, uh, acidosis, whether it be in the Ruen or in the hen gut. Uh, all of those options are, are likely opportunities for the bacteria to find a portal to escape.
MattAnd I would guess that, you know, we're, we're in the transition phase of this F1 beef dairy cross animal, and anytime you're transitioning something. Fairly significantly within a you learn some mistakes you learn from doing things the old way and realize that what we're dealing with is a different beast, literally in this case. and I would hope, you know, I, I know a few dairies, I know a few calf ranches and, and I do know that yeah, they are operating on thin margins and yes, they are running a, a and they need to make that Financially viable and sustainable, and they're gonna do the things that they need to do, but they also do care about doing the right thing. And if there are economic, incentives or in this case, disincentives of that much loss to the that's gonna find that information is gonna find its way back and those Packers and those folks that are feeding those cattle, especially that that may have a higher incidence rate than else. They're gonna figure out. This is why we're seeing better results or that is why we're seeing worse results and let's fix it. And so I guess I would just, just like, I'd say to everybody within the beef industry, let's, let's find where we can make improvements. And if that is a management, if that is a feed transition, as you said, or at least indicated. let's figure out how to fix that, cuz I, I know that there are ways and, and I, for one, I mean you look at, you look at a set of high performance beef animals. their and their intake levels as we've bred for more performance, as we have improved palatability and, and taste wise as we've put and steam flake, corn and everything else we've made these animals want to eat. Animals that a lot of times you'd say, you know, this is tough to even get these cattle to come to a bunk on their first day they're devour and stuff. And. We've worked the system both ways from a, from a management feed nutrition standpoint, and also from a genetics and an appetite, an intake standpoint to where it probably doesn't me that much, that as we added 50% high performance beef genetics to a dairy animal who quite often really can't decide whether he or she wants to eat or not. It doesn't take a rocket to figure out that these cattle are probably going acidotic when we think we're doing the same thing that we should be doing, that we've always done
Dr. LawrenceAnd that, and that's very fair. And to. Hit on your point earlier, those conversations of, Hey, these cattle aren't acceptable anymore. We're we're not buying them. That's already happened from the packer back to the cattle feeder. And several cattle feeders have told me, they've already had to eliminate suppliers who were repeat offenders of high rates of abscess. They said, we just can't buy your cattle anymore. They're not working out for us because the packer won't buy 'em from us. And so those messages are, are being sent and there is a learning curve here. You're you're exactly right. And in time, given enough time, we should be able to, to get this under control.
MattI would guess when those, when those signals get sent, we'll get it under control pretty quickly. And, and I, I hope anyway, now, obviously there's a, there's a lag, as we find. you know, it takes that long to get a beast from a day old dairy calf through the calf ranch for a couple of months. And, onto, I assume you said a lot of those cattle would be going at 350 pounds to a feed yard. Is there not a, a. call it a stalker a grow type yard that they from three 50 to maybe six 50 or seven before they would go to what I would term uh, traditional conventional feed yard.
Dr. LawrenceSo actually both happen. there, there would be cattle that would come into the, the. Central plain states, uh, every day at that 3 54 weight, and they're gonna be fed for a year and they'll leave, you know, weighing 14, 50, 1500 pounds. There are also, uh, grower operations that would take that same initial weight calf and grow it to maybe 900 pounds and then send it to a, a finishing yard to put on the last five or 600. So all of those opportunities exist in the industry.
MattSo let's stick with the dairy beef. Maybe you, maybe you can tell me, I asked earlier what the proper terminology is for these critters.
Dr. LawrenceI hear everything. So I, I call 'em dairy crosses
MattOkay. I like that. That's that rolls off the tongue tongue easier. Uh that's transition.
Dr. LawrenceEverybody typically knows what I'm talking about when I say that
MattYep. So what are some other challenges that we see with these dairy crosses as we go through this transition and the of them and, and percentage wise, what are we talking? What do they make up? Is it still about. 15 16% of the total fed beef harvest.
Dr. Lawrencethat's probably fair. Yeah. Uh, they, they appear to be a little more concentrated in. The Southern plain states than anywhere else, but as a nation, uh, yeah, that, I don't think we can get over, 15%. It'd be probably unlikely to get over that 20%. What I think would be our absolute maximum number. And a lot of that's gonna be variable depending on how much acceptance this animal has in the dairy. So you, you were asking about other challenges and one that is a little bit perplexing. if you, if you, have never dealt with a dairy animal before is the, the rate of lactating heifers. And so that, in and of itself is something that most of the, most of the Packers were not expecting when they started, uh, harvesting these. And so what we find is. Dairy cross cattle that are Jersey crosses and to, to a primary degree and lesser in the, in the Holstein cross animals, they're often lactating. And when they get to slaughter that lactation, yields itself in milk that may spill onto the carcass. And it's, of note that U S D a food safety inspection service. Considers milk, no different than fecal matter. It is a contaminant of the carcass and therefore must be cut off of the animal rather than removed by, by washing. And so the rate of lactating heifers has been a particular challenge for beef processors that harvest dairy cattle and in particular, dairy cross heifers have been a challenge.
MattAnd let me make sure I you correctly. You said these heifers are lactating, but not pregnant.
Dr. LawrenceBut not pregnant and never exposed to a bull. you know, I, I had, uh, I had mentioned at the, at the feeding quality forum and, and in multiple presentations, I've given on this topic, I've actually milked two steers, uh, at slaughter, which is something that, you know, people kind of scratch their head about and, It takes some, it takes some pondering. Uh, so it, it has happened to me twice in life. Uh, the first time was a purebred Jersey steer. The second time was an F1, Jersey steer. Uh, but both of the steers were lactating and the reality and, and the physiological outcome of that is both of those steers. And these lactating heifers have, large quantities of estrogen or more specifically Tron. In their system. And so that's an outcome of extreme finishing of a, of a Jersey animal. So they get so fat that their fat cells will actually produce their own Tron. And that will lead them to lactate. So it, it is kind of a, unique feature of the, of the dairy animal more specifically, and more likely to be, uh, an issue with Jersey crosses than it is Holstein crosses. So that that's a challenge that the, that the beef processor didn't see coming.
MattYeah, I would imagine. So let's switch off the dairy cross, for just a bit. You work with a lot of packing plants and collect a lot of data from there and have for decades, really. Um, what are their biggest challenges today? In to some of the things you talked about with these dairy cross carcasses, what are their biggest challenges? and do you see any major structural or management changes to that segment in the next decade? 15 years?
Dr. Lawrencethe, the number one issue that I see day in and day out is probably no different than most of America and that's labor and finding, uh, Able bodied workforce willing to come in and do shift work either morning or night in, in many cases or maybe just in, you know, just every day in a, in a one shift plant and there for, for years. You know, the, the lifetime employee is almost a unicorn anymore.
MattYep.
Dr. LawrenceThey're very rare. it is a challenge. And we see, we see holes all the time. Yes, you're right. My, my team and I are in the, in the beef processors of America daily, and my kids notice it all the time and they'll say, Hey doc, did you notice that that stand right. There has nobody on it. And last night there were two people doing something that, and, you know, there were two jobs there today. There's nobody. And then over here, we've got a person that wasn't here this morning. And so they noticed those things and, and, and they're real. And that you, your workforce is
Mattis
Dr. Lawrencea challenge. Arguably these single biggest challenges they face, uh, every. beyond that, one of the big challenges that I see is an ever growing animal size, getting in the door and being processed in a plant that might have been built in the 1950s or the 1960s or the 1970s and the space between the rail and the floor or the rail and the gut table has not gotten any bigger. But the cattle have completely filled that space where they might have been feet off the ground when that plant was built. It is not uncommon for us to see cattle dragging the floor at the nose at the tongue. Uh we've we've seen instances where the cattle actually drug at the shoulder.
MattCadillac.
Dr. LawrenceAnd, and so those are issues. We have to rectify as an industry. And you know, many of our older facilities are going to have to upgrade their, their plants. Uh, they're either gonna have to build a new, slaughter of the, of the facility or they're going to have to literally raise the rails up. I I've actually seen both. I know of a plant. They were going through the system and, and every long weekend they would, they would figure out how to raise, uh, 10 or 20 feet of rail. And over the course of years, they raised the entire kill floor about three feet. And so that's one option but it took 'em a long time to do it. Another option arguably much more expensive is to build a, a new kill. And then turn it on. Uh, you know, at, at some point after two to three years of construction, so Neith of neither of those are easy or inexpensive, but the reality is everybody in the entire beef system, from the cow calf producer, through the stalker operator, through the cattle feeder through the beef processor gets paid to produce a, a bigger, faster growing. Nobody is incentivized to produce a smaller, lighter weight, slower growing animal. And, and thus, our entire industry gets bigger by the order of five to six pounds of carcass, weight per year. And that is an extremely linear line going back 45 or more years. I've, I've, uh, actually calculated for another group, uh, that will, will have a mean carcass weight of a, of a thousand pounds in about the year 2039. So if the means a thousand, then the heavy animal is gonna be quite a ways out there.
Mattyou gave two options, raising the rails, building the brand new kill floor. give you a third one. this comes from a cow calf who. Agrees with everything you've said, our industry has incentivized us to increase performance, yield efficiency, et cetera. Cetera. I would that. And maybe we're there already, but we're sure going to be there the time we get thousand pound average carcasses at the expense of the cow, standing out there trying to do her job. On a forage type of environment. so, in my opinion, if you look at it from a cow calf producer standpoint, yes. Pounds pay the bills. But if we have to spend so much on inputs to make sure that cow does her job gets bred milks, and then does it year after year after year. Um, we look at the net profit. Are those pounds paying the bills or are they costing us so much on the expense and cost side we're not profitable and not sustainable? so I would say there's a third option and that is to stop. This continued of here's where we're gonna adopt you for HES. Oh, now it's gonna be, it went from nine 50 to 9 99 to nine four or to thousand 49. And now sometimes 10 99. Um, you. You back that dock back down now I understand. Dollars per shackle. I understand getting the most outta your labor. And so yes, those packing plants today are incentivized to continue to get as many pounds outta every carcass as they can. And, and, and it's no secret that a lot of them say you can't make 'em big enough. We will deal with how to them. You just keep making 'em bigger. I think that we've reached a point of diminishing returns. On the cow side of things, my opinion, that we've got to figure out how we're gonna do this going forth, or we're gonna have every cow a feed yard because that's the only place we can deliver enough nutrition efficiently to do her job.
Dr. LawrenceOkay, I'll give you a fourth option and I, and, and it goes along with your option, it's, it's gonna, there'll have to be tied together. So I grew up on a cow calf operation in, uh, you know, an arid environment in the Northern Texas panhandle. And I understand. Cow size and it getting out of hand. I agree with everything you said, uh, a fourth option is keep the, keep that cow small, like you're saying, and extend the amount of time it, it grows. And what, what I want to elaborate on here is the ability to grow that animal and not get it. So maybe as, as the weight continues to increase and as the packer continues to want and, or demand, in some cases that they get bigger, we just grow that critter and you grow it till it's eight, 9,000 pounds. And then it goes into the yard and you put the last 6, 7, 800 pounds on in the yard. And you, you had a, a pretty big frame. You calf come into the yard and that's very doable with, you know, little, little cattle feeding, knowledge and technology, uh, to do that. So,
Mattthat help with your liver abscesses as well?
Dr. Lawrenceuh, unknown, uh, potentially potentially, but unknown. Again, that's a, that goes a lot to the aggressiveness with which we feed the animal so we could have 'em out on, on, uh, pasture. Now that our drought, situation's not gonna help this scenario at all,
Mattright. Or Hey
Dr. Lawrencegonna need some, we're gonna need some forage. To be able to grow that critter to, you know, 900 or more pounds and put a big frame on it, then bring it in and, finish it. But that's another option. And another way to, to get to the same end point.
MattI guess, as we're talking about that, have you done any or has anyone done any research on the difference in liver abscesses between calf, feds and yearlings coming into the feed yard, that would be close to what you're talking about. Is there any difference in those, in those rates?
Dr. LawrenceUh, Cal feds would, would tend to be worse. And my opinion is in a, if I'm comparing beef or beef, Cal feds, it's, it's simply days on feed. There's there's just more risk because they were on feed, on a high concentrate diet for a longer period of time than a, than a big yearling coming in and needing, you know, months, fewer days on feed.
MattRight. So I should have started with, uh, your history growing up. You grew up north of Dalhart. Is that right?
Dr. Lawrencedid. Yes.
MattYeah. On a cow calf place
Dr. LawrenceYes.
Mattand then education from there was what.
Dr. LawrenceUh, then I went here where I'm a professor now, west, Texas, a and M and earned a bachelor's in animal science. And I graduated in 97 and then I stayed with, uh, Dr. Ted Montgomery and his program and earned a with him. And then I went on to Kansas state, uh, for a PhD, uh, under. Dr. Michael Dyckman. And, I left Manhattan and moved to North Carolina and I was the research manager for Smithfield foods. and so it, that was a, a wide variety of things. It, it could have been a meat quality in, in pork, or it could have been slicing yields in bacon. I was up and down the Eastern seaboard, for two years. On a daily basis. And then I had the opportunity to come home upon Dr. Montgomery's retirement and take over the meets program, here at west Texas. And I, took that opportunity and moved back to the panhandle in 2004
MattHaven't been there ever since.
Dr. Lawrenceand been there ever since. And, uh, God and administration willing. Uh, I will retire here.
MattGreat. Good for you. We've got uh, a Dale banks kid, longtime here at the ranch, Eric burden's, daughter. Katie actually a freshman at She and another local students are in the band there. And then I have also a friend or two that have got, got kids that are just starting down there too. So Canyon's not a bad place to be.
Dr. LawrenceCanyon's not a bad place to be. And it's a, it's a pretty cool place to raise a family and grow up. If particularly, if you have a passion for agriculture, this is a good place to be.
MattYep. I actually spent three or four years, uh, in Texas in New Mexico, lived in Fort worth, but I traveled for the American Ang association and. Some of my very best friends were flatlanders there in the Amarillo area and specifically canyon Herford and that, that country, so, uh, good folks to be around.
Dr. LawrenceYes. Amen. You know, you mentioned flatland. I had a new, uh, a new, a new young person with me this morning. We went out and, uh, we bought some cattle and he said, doc, I think I could stand on a five gallon bucket and watch my dog run away for two days out here.
MattThat's good. That's good.
Dr. Lawrenceit's about that flat.
Mattyeah. Kansas usually gets chastised for that. But as you probably found out in Manhattan, there are, there are a few more Hills there than there are
Dr. Lawrenceway more than where I grew up. Oh yeah. Uh, you can, it's a flat here. You can see the curvature of the earth.
MattYes. It is something to, to just sit out there and watch for sure. So, well, Dr. Lawrence, I really appreciate your time here today. I had two or three more topics, uh, the prime one cloning project and, and several others that I wanted to talk about, but I think I've probably taken enough of your time. So. If you're willing, uh, at some point in the future, we may have you back on and, and talk about some other things that, have probably come up since we had this conversation and, and that you've been working on there at WT and in the beef but, uh, just a wealth of knowledge. And I appreciate all your, all your info that you shared with us.
Dr. LawrenceOh, it's my pleasure. And, I'd be glad to join you again another day and, and have another opportunity to share our insights and, uh, our vision of the world from canyon, Texas.
MattSounds great. Well, you can see a long way from there, so, um, that's, that's why you have that vision, right?
Dr. LawrenceWell, we're trying.
Mattsounds great. Well, thanks a bunch, Dr. Lawrence.
Dr. Lawrencethank you for the opportunity and you have a great day.
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