Cattle self medicating

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/14439598

In my last essay I suggested that advocating on behalf of native plants required demonstrating a dollar value for native plants in order to change any attitudes among typical landowners. I realize that the people likely to see my essays already value native plants for deeper, more visceral reasons than money, but I can't think of any consideration other than money that's likely to change attitudes or behaviors of landowners who are currently disinterested in native plants. Since I haven't discovered any easy way to translate native plant seed grown on my own place into money, the money value of the seed might not be the best point to use in advocating on behalf of native plants. But maybe there are other ways to connect native plants to money.

One possible money connection that has occurred to me is the possibility that cattle might use native plants to self medicate. I thought of this possible connection by comparing my cattle farm with that of a neighbor. With his 15 foot bush hog and air conditioned tractor to pull it, he clips his pastures several times each growing season, greatly reducing the ability of his cattle to nibble anything other than forage species. With my worn out 10 foot bush hog and open tractor, I clip only once per season, except where cockle burrs are bad, and then only twice. Every health issue that happens to cattle always seems to hit his herd worse than mine. Pink eye is running through his herd this year. Several of his cows got so sick with it that he took them to the vet for shots. I've had six cases and none got sick enough to require any intervention. He spends lots more money than me on mineral because he buys mineral laced with antibiotic to protect against anaplasmosis, which has affected a number of his cattle. I buy ordinary mineral and so far have had no cases of anaplasmosis. He's had 11 still born calves in the last 2 years. I've had zero still born calves, not only in the last two years but several years prior to that. He attributes the different health outcomes to me being the luckiest fellow there ever was, but I think we must be doing something different.

On the matter of the still born calves I suggested that I made a better choice of herd sires than he did. At first his push back was that the auctioneer at the bull auction said "Easy going and easy calving."

"But" I asked, " did you get a piece of paper to back that up?" He did have a registration paper for his bull, but he hadn't looked at it. I asked to look at it. It showed that the bull he chose had a calving ease value of one. I had gotten cost share money when I selected my current sire and the sire I selected had to have a calving ease value of at least 4 to qualify for the money. I told him about the cost share opportunity but he didn't apply. It involved fulfilling an educational requirement. The mere mention of the word education puts him off. Once I showed him something to back up my point, he loaded his bull up, sold it and bought a new one with higher calving ease values.

On other health differences between our herds, I suggested to him that my cows might self medicate on the weeds they find in my shaggy pastures. He replied that he liked to be able to find his cattle. I have no hard evidence I can show him that might sway him to mow less frequently. And I can't name which plants in my pastures might be the ones cows munch on when they're feeling bad. I did find with a simple search that cattle self medicating is a real thing.- http://orgprints.org/8282/1/engel_animal__self-medication.pdf - Here's a quote from the article on suggested research protocols - "Provide an environment that closely matches the species’ natural habitat in order to observe and utilize self-help strategies. "

It isn't studied much because there are no monied interests that would stand to gain from the findings. Instead a number of monied interests would likely lose by farmers employing less maintenance to their pastures. Perhaps those native plant lovers who are also connected to Academia could use their influence to push for more research in this area.

הועלה ב-יולי 21, 2018 08:17 אחה"צ על ידי frank-lyne