Promising management strategies and feed additives to prevent liver abscesses and disease

Abstract

Continued scrutiny by an ever-critical public demanding re­sponsible animal care and judicious use of antibiotics in live­stock production are the main drivers to consider alternative solutions to liver abscesses and other feedlot disease. Whether antibiotic feed use in cattle feeding contributes to resistant strains of bacteria and renders certain classes of antibiot­ics less effective to treat human disease is not relevant to this discussion anymore. What is not known is how long livestock producers and the industry and professionals that serve them have to develop alternatives. Challenges associated with un­derstanding how and when liver abscesses occur contribute to this lag in developing alternative solutions. A review of various non-antibiotic feed additives is provided here. Yet, there was no non-antibiotic feed additive that was a suitable candidate to replace tylosin. Furthermore, if identified, other challenges in implementing a suitable replacement exist; namely, inclusion rate, storage requirements and shelf-life. Perhaps, dedicating greater research and education efforts towards creating a more stable rumen environment by understanding how moisture content of feeds affects dietary dry matter delivery and how hu­man behavior affects response to bunk scores may be a faster route to solve this challenge while demonstrating care for the animals that serve us.