63: Best of Ruminate This: The Dairy Nutrition Conversations That Still Matter

This is the final episode of the year for Ruminate This, and we’re closing it out with a “best of” reflection on five episodes that continue to matter on dairy farms today.

In this year-end episode, Scott Zehr revisits some of the most impactful conversations on dairy nutrition, calf health, transition cow management, gut health, and mycotoxin control, and explains why these topics continue to influence herd performance and profitability long after the episode airs.

Whether you’re revisiting these discussions or hearing them for the first time, this recap highlights practical, on-farm insights that help producers and nutritionists reduce risk, improve efficiency, and make better decisions across every stage of production.

Featured topics include:

• Gut health and digestive integrity and why protecting the rumen and liver is foundational to performance
• Calf health from day one and winning the battle of the gut during the milk-feeding phase
• Colostrum management, including quality, quantity, and why management matters more than band-aid solutions
• Transition cow nutrition and why preventing milk fever alone is not enough
• Proactive mycotoxin testing and how DON, zearalenone, and fumonisin quietly impact herd health

If you’re focused on raising healthier calves, supporting smoother transitions, protecting reproduction, and improving long-term dairy profitability, this episode brings together the conversations worth revisiting.

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Transcript

0:01

Hello everyone, welcome to Ruminate This with Agrarian Solutions. Join us as we explore ruminant nutrition and the impact of mycotoxins. Here we challenge your curiosity and explore new industry insights and research to optimize your herd's health and performance. All right, hey, welcome everybody to another edition of Ruminate This with a great solutions. And if it's your first time here, welcome. I am Scott Zare, your host. If you have been with me for a while, I appreciate it. I really truly do. We're, you know, 60-something episodes into this project, and it's it's definitely been great to connect with each and every one of you. I hope you've all had a wonderful 2025 and looking forward to 2026. So as we wrap up the year, I wanted to do something a little bit different today for the final episode. This isn't a recap of everything we covered because frankly, that would just be annoying and take way too long. But I'm going to use today's time as a little bit more of a reflection episode. And in particular, I'm going to focus on five different conversations that I've had throughout the year with guests. For those of you that have listened to every episode, these five episodes, in my opinion, yeah, they still matter just as much today as the day they dropped. So I'm going to say if you've already listened to them, go back and take another listen because there's there's probably another nugget in there. And if you haven't listened to them yet, or you're just joining us for the first time ever, these are five that yes, you're going to want to go back and really, really take a listen here. Because I think at the core of these five episodes, if you take the message and and really apply it, I think there's actual change that can be made in the farms that you work with or that you own or manage. I think there's changes in the outcomes of certain things. So, which five episodes are they? Number one, I'm going to start with episode number 33. And this episode is titled DTX and Digestive Integrity. And really, it's an episode where we introduced one of the most interesting evolutions of a mycotoxin mitigation product I've ever seen. I mean, DTX has been around for over 25 years, and I think that alone tells us that if tools don't work, they don't last that long, right? And so what makes DTX special is the beneficial bacteria that are cell wall deficient proprietary bacteria. And what I appreciated about agrarian in this move is that we didn't settle for good enough. DTX has proven for years it's the real deal. But when you look at the frontier of nutrition in the US, but really all over the country or all over the world, I think there's a lot of people looking at plant actives. So I'm not talking plant extracts, I'm not talking essential oils, I'm talking about on a molecular level, the actual molecules that are the active ingredients in the plant extracts. And so what we did with DTX is we brought in curcumin that comes from turmeric. We brought in Neragine from citrus peel extract and carnic acid from rosemary. And together they fundamentally changed how we think about gut integrity and liver support. There's amazing research done with KCO2 cells showing that the combination of curcumin and nergine are able to actually repair type junctions in the small intestine. And carnesic acid, there's some studies that we reference in this episode, episode 33. It's a powerful liver antioxidant. And in the study that we referenced, there was a control group of cows that were injected intravenously, I believe, with carnic acid, and the milk improvement was through the roof. So take a look at that because it's it's really something unique about our proprietary technologies. But this episode also challenges the idea that binders are just binders. And I'm going to reiterate DTX isn't a binder. When the digestive tract is inflamed, leaky, or compromised, nothing downstream works the way it should. Your intakes are going to suffer, community suffers, reproduction suffers. So if you're dealing with inconsistent performance, unexplained health challenges, or even cows that just don't seem as resilient as they should, episode 33 is definitely worth revisiting. The next episode that I want to speak about is actually our most listened to episode. And it's episode 35, and it's winning the battle of gut health from day one. There's a saying that we use it agrarian a lot that Dr. Roth uses all the time. Whatever happens day one, week one, month one, sets that animal up for the rest of its life. And if we lose the gut early, literally, we're gonna spend the rest of that animal's life trying to play catch up. And truth bound for you folks, there's no such thing as catching up. The first moments of that calf's life are everything. And yes, I am not downplaying the importance of high-quality colostrum and the amount of colostrum fed. But with our convert line of calf products, the convert gel and the big calf powder, we're bringing in egg-based specialized proteins as well as beneficial cell wall deficient bacteria that are just in there dominating the intestinal tract, number one. We're getting there faster than the bad guys. So there's a little bit of competitive exclusion going on. And these egg-based specialized proteins, they almost, I like to say they they act like a heat-seeking missile against pathogens. E. coli, salmonella, two forms of salmonella, actually: coronavirus, rotavirus, crypto, and clostridium perfinges A and C. So the bacteria that just love wreaking havoc on baby dairy and beef cattle, those are the ones that we're we're fighting against. You know, with dairy and beef cattle and beef on dairy calves in particular, too, at record prices, you know, the the margin for error, I'm gonna say, is is gone, right? On one hand, you say, well, there's one sick calf out of a hundred, isn't bad, and it's it's not, however, there's such an opportunity there, and you know, if it's a beef on dairy calf, it's cash opportunity. If it's a traditional beef animal, there's significant income loss there, and then with that dairy animal, you never actually catch up from a sick calf, but also the replacement cost of these animals is getting extremely expensive. But I I want to just make a note here the episode 35 is really less about the product and more about urgency. Day one matters. The milk feeding phase, we all know this, it absolutely matters. And calves that can protect themselves early are more likely to unlock their genetic potential later. If calf health has felt like a constant uphill battle for you, or if you're just wanting to take your calf program to the to literally the next level, episode 35. Take a listen, it lays out why and what needs to change. Next, I'm going to move over to episode 41. Colostrum is still king. So in episode 41, we brought in a young lady, Danielle Varner, from Cargill Animal Nutrition, and we talked about a topic that I think everyone has thought they figured out already, but and that's colostrum. But we do colostrum and we do colostrum well, definitely not the same thing. We talked about quality, we talked about quantity, we talked about why bull calves and beef on dairy calves often get shortchanged, and how that decision shows up later in life and health and growth and performance. We also challenge the idea that you can fix poor management with band-aid products. So, referencing back to episode 33, when something does happen to that calf, you never really catch up. But I tell people this all the time: like, even the products that we sell here at Agrarian, yes, you can use them as a band-aid. Yes, you can administer convert at a week old when a calf is scouring. But the value in these products is an extra layer of protection, but they also don't fix poor management. Can they be used to assist during times of troublesome management? Yes, absolutely. The convert program will help get you through a tough time with fewer sick calves, fewer dead calves, while we work on fixing the management issue. So, yes, these products can be used as a crutch, but they're more valuable as the next level of protection for that animal that unlocks her genetic potential than they are as a crutch. Coloster Management, it's it was a great episode with Danielle. Really appreciated her coming on. And I think one of the most powerful points of the episode was the two pound of per day growth challenge and what it actually takes to get there. So if you're looking for fewer sick calves, better growth, stronger replacements, this episode definitely deserves another listener. Next, I want to bring in episode 54. And this one really is kind of a revolutionary step. The title is called Transition Care is More Than Calcium. And I really think episode 54 is is one of those, maybe one of the most paradigm shifting conversations we've had all year. Yes, preventing milk fever absolutely matters. Preventing subclinical milk fever absolutely matters. But if calcium boluses were the whole story, transition problems would already be solved, and they're not. So in this episode, John Lawler and Dr. Larry Roth walk through research that challenges some really long-held assumptions, showing us that while calcium boluses will prevent milk fever and help with subclinical hypocalcemia, they don't necessarily improve performance. And for me, that was a big moment because you think, okay, we're giving a high-quality calcium that's proven to raise the ionized blood calcium levels. However, there's over 20 research studies done that show no improvement in production or reproduction. And so we kind of discussed a broader, more comprehensive approach to transition nutrition, one that impacts metabolic health, body condition, milk yield, and fertility. I'm gonna say that again. A comprehensive approach to transition nutrition, one that impacts metabolic health, body condition, milk yield, and fertility. So if your transition cows are feeling a little fragile, maybe they're inconsistent, unpredictable, or just not reaching that next level as quick as they should. Maybe we're suffering on peak four milk. This episode is gonna open the door to better questions and better strategies for your farm. And lastly, I'm gonna send you back to episode 59: Proactive mycotoxin management. We talk about mycotoxins a lot on this platform. That is the core of our work at Agrarian is mitigating mycotoxins. Mycotoxins are unequivocally one of the quietest profit drains in dairy, not just in the cows, but likely in your calves and heifers as well. Because by the time you see the damage, it's been happening for months. So in this episode, Lair and I talked about why reactive testing is too late. When you get to a point, if you're not employing a routine testing program already, and you get to the point where you've gone through all of the things that could possibly be wrong that are causing these problems, and then you get to the point where you say, okay, now it's time to test the corn silage, it's time to test the TMR. Oh, shoot, we found Don, we found Xerolinone, we found fumanicin. The damage has already been done. You've already lost the opportunity to maintain or increase milk through that challenge. So testing ahead, testing corn silage during harvesting before it's in siled, testing the corn silage pile when you start it, testing the corn silage pile. I'm gonna say three to five times a year, testing the TMR monthly, will cover the cost of the sampling for you. We're here to walk you through that and let's flip the conversation about mycotoxins from reactive problem solver to proactive solutions. And then also in this episode, monthly TMR testing on your lactation cows. Fair enough. Please test the dry cows, your far-off and your pre-fresh rations. Standard practice. Whatever that cow is ingesting during her dry period is setting her up for the days she calves. And you know, further down the road for the rest of her lactation. If she's consuming mycotoxins in her dry cow diet at any point, she's going to have more inflammation around calving. But again, it's I'm not saying this, you know, to throw out fear, but you have the ability to sample this stuff regularly and generate more predictable outcomes for your transition cows, for your lactating herd, and for your repro program. So if you're serious about protecting milk production, reproduction, and herd health, episode 59 lays out that proactive path forward. So that's it. Five episodes, five areas where small changes lead to big outcomes. If one of these stood out to you, go back and listen again. If one of these is new to you, start there. And if you've been listening all year, again, I want to say thank you. This podcast exists to challenge assumptions, sharpen thinking, and help producers, nutritionists, veterinaries, herd managers, herd owners make better decisions, not louder ones. We'll see you next year in 2026 with more conversations that matter. Until then, stay curious, stay intentional, and keep tuning in to ruminate this with Agrarian Solutions. We'll be talking to everybody again soon. Thank you for listening to Ruminate This with Agrarian Solutions. Look for our next episode in two weeks.