Antioxidant Vitamins and Minerals: Protection Against Stress

Mike Donaldson and Dr. Dave Jones discuss the critical aspects of livestock care management, focusing on the nutritional and environmental factors that contribute to animal stress. They explore how stress impacts dairy cows, the long-term effects of maternal stress on offspring, and the role of antioxidants in combating stress. The conversation emphasizes the importance of proper nutrition, social interactions, and environmental conditions in maintaining animal welfare and productivity.

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Transcript

Chris Radke (00:00)
Welcome to AK Podcasts where we explore science and nutrition behind livestock care management with the best of the brightest in the business. I'm your host Chris Radke, part of the Sales Department here at Agri-King. And with me today is the Director of Field Services and a member of the Sales Management Team, Mr. Mike Donaldson Mike, how you doing buddy?

Mike Donaldson (00:18)
Very well, Chris. You can tell we've moved into a little cooler time of year. I've ditched my short sleeves and moved back into a vest. So it's a change of seasons starting.

Chris Radke (00:29)
Yep, I got my sweater on because I knew it was going to be little chilly this morning. All right, Mike, who's with us and what are we talking about today?

Mike Donaldson (00:33)
you

Chris, for pretty much as long as people have practiced animal husbandry, part of taking care of animals has been cutting down whenever possible, eliminating stress. So much so that it's almost an assumed part of good husbandry, taking care of your animals. Today we've got Dr. Dave Jones from AK's Nutrition Department to talk about some of the nutritional aspects

David Jones (00:42)
you

you

Mike Donaldson (01:07)
about dealing with stress. And I need to make this distinction. Dave is now an elite member of our

three timers club, because this is actually according to my count, the third time he's been willing to be on the podcast. we'll try and get a special little clubhouse put together somewhere that you'll have the only key to for right now, but probably in time you'll have company.

Chris Radke (01:31)
No.

Mike Donaldson (01:34)
In case somebody's missed your other podcast, Dave, would you please give us a little bit of your background?

David Jones (01:41)
Sure, it was good to be here again. ⁓

Yeah, for those who don't know me, ⁓ I've been with Agri-King for 26 years now. I'm director of nutrition here. I came right out of college and have not looked back because this is the place I need to be and want to be. I did my bachelor's degree at the University of Guelph, my master's degree at West Virginia University, and then I came out of with my PhD to here from Ohio State. So that's me in a nutshell.

Mike Donaldson (02:14)
Well, perfect. Well, Dave, one of the things that we're going to work off of today is an article you wrote for the Agri-King Advantage newsletter where you did a really nice job with discussing the role antioxidant vitamins and minerals can play in helping to combat stress. Could you start by giving us a rundown on some of the common areas that lead to a stress condition in animals?

David Jones (02:42)
Yes, so first I'll ⁓ start by indicating Dr. Mat Faulkner co-wrote the article with me. Both of us have a bit of a background in this area. Interestingly enough, different backgrounds that came together in this article, which is nice. I kind of explain that as we go through. yes, stress on dairy cows, ⁓ stress is a general term that we hear a lot, but

If you just hear what cows are stressed, it doesn't indicate anything. Other than their stress, but there's different kinds of stress. There can be nutritional stress. If we over or underfeed anything really in nutrition, because we upset the system, I always focus on colostrum. So early on, if you don't have good quality colostrum that will lead to stress, certainly calves may not make it if that part of the nutrition program is wrong. ⁓

Social interactions, we often don't think about that. There's lot of work on behavior. Cows need to socialize. If you don't give them that opportunity, it does stress them out. And then ⁓ maybe the one we talk about the most, especially for the time the article was written, which was over the summer, is environmental stress. So heat and cold are certain stresses on the cows. ⁓ Good... ⁓

depiction is here. Mike's in his long sleeves and vest. I'm still in the summer short sleeve shirt because I don't need long sleeves yet, which means Mike would be more stressed in my scenario than I am.

Mike Donaldson (04:14)
Yeah

Very good, very good.

One of the things that really took me by surprise when I first started seeing it written and talked about the effect that the long-term effects stress can have even beyond the animal experiencing stress now, the ability to affect a calf in utero because the dam is under stress right now. Could you talk about that a little bit, please?

David Jones (04:52)
Yeah, this area is relatively new, in my opinion, certainly new to me. Probably in the last year or two, I started to hear some things, but it was actually at a conference this year where this concept came up and I was able to ⁓ meet some of the people that are involved in this type of research. So I'm not an expert on it. I'm a beginner at it like everybody else, but

What we have to understand when, and I want to use heat stress for an example, just so people can focus on something relatively simple. When that cow is stressed with heat, things are happening to her body that is going to affect the calf in utero. So the daughter in this case, that effect on the daughter can have effect on the daughter's reproductive system.

which is now going to affect the third generation that hasn't even been thought of yet. It's not developed, it's not even in play. But we upset the system enough, it doesn't perform the same. We can actually have heifers born that don't have a tolerance to heat stress because of the effect of the heat stress on its mother. Well, you can imagine how that's gonna affect things further. So what's important about this to me is not

trying to make people expert on the genetics behind all this and the reproduction. It's not my field. But as we're working with producers, the effect you have on that cow today could still be seen three to four years down the road because we don't have that generation yet and they were affected. So doing something to manage stress on these cows is we're now learning as

It's always been important. It's so important. The idea of affecting another two generations is a big deal.

Mike Donaldson (06:52)
Is this, mean, like I say, the first time or two I read this, I'm not sure if to say I didn't believe it as an overstatement, but I certainly questioned it. It didn't ring completely true, but on a little further study, I guess the analogy I go back to is if you think of a farm that has always done everything right.

⁓ whether it's, know, the way they take care of their calves, even down to the, they're born. ⁓ do they take steps to reduce heat stress, any other kind of stress on animals? They just seem to do better more easily. And when I started to think of it that way, then it's like, ⁓ okay. This is, this is why even, you know, 50 years ago, somebody who was a good cow, man, just got better results that you couldn't always.

well, that's because he did this, is because he did so much right.

David Jones (07:53)
Well, and that is exactly.

on point, I think, and I look at it this way and I keep it simple for myself because I'm still learning details to all this. But the stress being caused is affecting DNA. So genetics, it's affecting genetics. And when that happens, you're not going to get the offspring you think you're going to get. So all of a sudden, you don't get what we'll say the we're not meeting the genetic potential of the cow.

There's a phrase I hear, we're not getting the genetic potential of the cow. The problem is with what we know now, I think you select the genetics you want, we damaged it and we cannot get the genetic potential of the cow for what you selected because it's been changed. ⁓ I know before I was hearing about these effects in utero, there was a, there's a lot of talks out there on the epigenome and your nutrition and other stressors.

affect the epigenome, which affects gene expression. And so it's all linked in there as a layman geneticist is linked and we change the genetics essentially, maybe not academically a correct statement, but we're changing the expression of the genetics. Maybe that's a better way to say it.

Mike Donaldson (09:13)
⁓ Okay. Dr. Jones, would you explain what the acronym ROS stands for and its impact on a body?

David Jones (09:24)
Yes, so in our world we love acronyms. I actually don't think acronyms are confusing, but it stands for reactive oxygen species. So that's a general term that is talking about. ⁓ Types of oxygen and I'll get in a little more detail later, but ⁓ types of oxygen that are used. To.

by the immune system to destroy things. So for example, if you have a bacterial infection, the immune cells are gonna deal with that infection and these oxidant species ⁓ kill the infection. It's kind of like internal chemical warfare that's going on in your own body. Yeah.

Mike Donaldson (10:10)
Okay. ⁓

So in your article, in the Advantage article, you talk about there being two main ROS culprits. What are those and can you talk about them a little bit, please?

David Jones (10:27)
Yeah, they're the two I deal with the most, guess. are others. When I gave my last statement there, I thought of another one that's not in the article. ⁓ superoxide anion is one and hydrogen peroxide is another. And I like the hydrogen peroxide one because we use that in water to clean up water. So people can picture that that's a disinfectant, if you will. So it makes some sense that it could be used to

Mike Donaldson (10:35)
Ha

David Jones (10:56)
to destroy pathogens. Those are the two main ones that I'll talk about in the article and I'll stick with, but ⁓ there is ⁓ nitric oxide as well that the immune system will use. And so that's a little plug for consuming bacon and a little bit of nitrate so the body can make that stuff. So there's my plug.

Mike Donaldson (11:18)
I knew I'd like this topic. We're doing

good work here today,

David Jones (11:25)
But I won't go into too much detail on that one because it strays from the concept, but it is important.

Mike Donaldson (11:32)
We've talked a little bit about why this aspect of stress is something to try to avoid, minimize. Let's start talking a little bit about the nutritional things that can be done to help alleviate, to help address stress. Obviously, if we're talking about heat stress, there's things we need to do from an environmental, how our barns are set up standpoint. But when it comes to things that could be done nutritionally,

Could you take us through some of those, please?

David Jones (12:02)
you

Yes, so...

At Agri-King, we work with vitamins and trace minerals. And there are specific vitamins and trace minerals that are very important to this immune function and dealing with oxidative stress. So, and to understand that, we have to understand that there are some enzymes that deal with these ROS species. So, the superoxide anion has an enzyme to counteract it called superoxide dismutase.

And ⁓ through the hydrogen peroxide process, ⁓ in there there's glutathione peroxidase, which minerals are involved to improve the function of those enzymes. And then we have some vitamins, vitamin E, vitamin C, that are really important. Vitamin E is one of my favorites. I really like that vitamin. ⁓ So they're involved with

So direct antioxidant function, those vitamins.

Mike Donaldson (13:14)
So how does maybe Agri-King's approach to that aspect of nutrition differ ⁓ what maybe someone else thinks ought to be done?

David Jones (13:29)
Yeah, so in the nutritional world, we're all pretty familiar with what these vitamins and minerals are there for, what they're doing. So what we do, ⁓ we'll backtrack a bit here. We need zinc, manganese, and copper. They work with superoxide dismutase to make it function. If you don't have enough of those, you don't get proper function. ⁓ Vitamin E is sort of a direct antioxidant, if you will.

Vitamin C works with vitamin E, which we can cover some of that in a minute. And then what I learned that is not in my paper, because I didn't know this until I was kind of reviewing for the webinar I did and this, ⁓ glutathione peroxidase is involved with that same vitamin E, vitamin C link. So that was new to me, I did not know that. ⁓

So what we're doing, there's a baseline of nutrition. First and foremost, forget stress. We have to get the base requirements met. So that's what our base products will do. Our dairy Trimax, Dairy VT Max, LDH Fortifier, even on the beef side, our beef multifactors. They're designed to meet the recommended needs of the animal for copper, zinc, manganese, vitamin E. ⁓

And you notice I left vitamin C out for a moment. That's ⁓ kind of an additional vitamin, so I'll talk about it later.

Mike Donaldson (15:06)
Okay.

David Jones (15:08)
So that maintains the base nutrition of the animal. Now, if you throw in stress, that's an extra issue. I'll focus on heat again because it's easy to think about. Your cow's doing fine, summer heat kicks in, now you have issues, but you did not change the base nutrition. Those issues occur because her demand for these nutrients has gone up. She has an extra need. So we have

add-on packs, ⁓ Bovine Replete is one and Super Micro is another that can be added on top of the base mineral to supply the extra demand that the animal needs for that time of stress. Everything is designed to be added together because we're very aware that if you overfeed these kind of things they can act as prooxidants so they add to the problem they don't help the problem.

Certainly if you underfeed them, you just don't manage the stress because the enzyme systems and what not are not being supported properly. ⁓ So when we get into summer heat, we'll add, for example, Bovine Replete into diets. We're going to add the extra vitamins and minerals we need. The minerals will work with superoxide dismutase. That's copper, zinc, and manganese.

Selenium will work with glutathione peroxidase to improve it. Now selenium we cannot add more. There are legal requirements. We cannot go over 0.3 million of the diet. So we're a little bit stuck there. ⁓ We'll add extra vitamin E. As a direct antioxidant is kind of an interesting one because vitamin E is a fat soluble vitamin. So it's a lipid. We all know ⁓ things like milk can go rancid.

They get that smell. That's because the lipids have been oxidized, damaged. We don't want that to happen in our body because these reactive oxygen species can damage the host cells themselves and cause problems. So something like vitamin E being a lipid becomes oxidized itself. So now that's the focal point. We damage the vitamin. We don't damage the tissues, but vitamin E's

Mike Donaldson (17:33)
Ahem.

David Jones (17:35)
a little more difficult to excrete because it's a lipid. So vitamin C, which is water soluble, then itself becomes oxidized, repairs vitamin E, for example. Vitamin E can go on to work again. Vitamin C is easy to excrete in the urine. So the system is genius, in my opinion, because it's taking something difficult to get rid of to something easy. But what I learned, glutathione peroxidase

has some role in ⁓ converting vitamin C back to its original state so it can function again. Which means not all of that vitamin C that became damaged is going to be excreted from what I can tell. So I think that's kind of a neat thing. The systems are really working together to help out.

Mike Donaldson (18:23)
So that's the part about vitamin C you were mentioning looping back into is the way it's working with vitamin E to be better together.

David Jones (18:34)
Yes, ⁓ when I did my webinars looking for some good diagrams to show this ⁓ in the article I wrote, I kept it a little simpler, but webinars you can use the more complicated diagrams because you're there to explain it. And that's what I found. So I need to investigate a little bit more on this because I'm interested in it. But that's what I found in the diagrams. And it's it makes sense to me. I this whole antioxidant system is a system. It takes all of it. It's not one thing that helps you.

So when we add those stress packs in Bovine Replete and Super Micro, it's not just extra vitamin E. It's ⁓ extra level of vitamin E, vitamin C, copper, zinc, manganese, no selenium.

Mike Donaldson (19:20)
So I think choosing heat is a very logical, mean, that's especially, we're just coming off of what was a fairly hot summer in most places. And one of the other things I learned a long time ago that I never considered is that, and dairy cattle specifically, start being stressed, start...

start not enjoying the day as it goes over 70 degrees. I think someone told me one time, whatever I feel at 90 or 95 degrees, a cow starts to feel at 70 or 75. If we wanted to expand some of the areas, and I don't ever want someone to think that nutritionally we can cover up for a lack of fans or for harsh conditions. mean, good husbandry practices.

are a very important part of handling stress. If you stayed with temperature, where do cows start to feel stress as temperature drops?

David Jones (20:28)
For cold stress, you mean? Yeah. I don't know the exact number. I'll be honest with that because I don't deal with it as much because they get more comfortable. ⁓ I think their ideal range is in the 50s and 60s because as you're going up,

Mike Donaldson (20:30)
Yes.

David Jones (20:46)
around 68 degrees depending on ⁓ humidity, because that is a major factor. They can start to feel heat stress. So 70 is a good number to remember because it's easy to remember. Going backwards, I think you have to get into the 30s before they start to feel it. But most of what I see is when it's below freezing. ⁓ If we don't have the wind off them, know, most barns have curtains up and everything, it can be quite comfortable. ⁓ But I don't recall the exact number where they feel cold stress.

Mike Donaldson (20:50)
Mm-hmm.

Well,

I mean, I've noticed, I've noticed, you know, just not very scientific observation at single digit below zero. Like you say, if cows are being kept out of the wind, if they've got feed, if they've got water that can be drunk, not frozen drinkers, they seem pretty happy. ⁓ I'm all the way to being kind of miserable and they're awfully happy. So I doubt it's that big of a stressor at any point.

David Jones (21:34)
Mm-hmm.

⁓

Mike Donaldson (21:45)
What about something like being overcrowded? I'm thinking mature cows. Are there points where that is stressed not as easily recognized as what heat stress might be?

David Jones (21:58)
Well, I think it can be recognized almost as easily. We don't think about it as much because a lot of barns are overcrowded, but there's a lot of work out there.

Mike Donaldson (22:01)
Okay.

David Jones (22:07)
academic work that would suggest we really don't want to overcrowd too much. part of it is, and you can just watch the animals, how they use the stalls. Some of them don't lay in them, they perch in them possibly. And they're, I think they're kind of holding that stall for whenever they want it. But other times when they get into a stall and lay down, if they haven't been in there for a while, they're not leaving, which means they're not eating, drinking, they throw off the routine.

Mike Donaldson (22:24)
Okay.

David Jones (22:36)
I think it also upsets their social interactions. And one of the more interesting things I learned about that, I think it's like three or four hours a day cows want to socialize. And if you don't let them, they will find another time to do it. It's a desire. And this is interesting to me, because it's starting to think of a cow like a human in some ways, which I had never really done, but they will go socialize when they can.

and they will give up other things they need to do. Eating is one. Probably drinking when they should, which means you're going to lose milk. So overcrowding, though, they can't get to the feed bunk, maybe can't get to the water troughs. You're just going to lose. can't. The cow can't do what she wants when she wants. And that is a stress. Put yourself in a crowded elevator. And the elevator stops because I don't know, the building's on fire.

Mike Donaldson (23:25)
Mm-hmm.

David Jones (23:36)
And now you're stuck in there. You can't move and smoke's coming through. You're a little stressed. You're not thinking of your lunch. You know, you're not thinking of, I'm a little bit thirsty. You're thinking, I want out of here. I want to do something different. Um, and it, when you get out, what's one of the things you might do, you see your family there because they're wondering if you're getting out. So you go see them because you need to socialize with them before you remember.

Mike Donaldson (23:42)
Yeah.

Yeah.

David Jones (24:06)
I was on my way to lunch. I'm hungry. None of that matters anymore. I, that's a weird way to look at it, but I, it helps. I think it helps people imagine this type of stress. Maybe not to that severity. I don't know, but cows are going through this too. They want what they want and they want to be comfortable.

Mike Donaldson (24:26)
Do you have any other observations on the topic? mean, stress, things we can do nutritionally. You've given us a lot to think about. I just want to give you a chance to put some closing thoughts together.

David Jones (24:42)
Yeah, there's a lot that goes into stress. So I'm passionate with the nutrition. You can't avoid the nutrition. They must have it. So that has to be on the forefront. And if you have to bump up that nutrition for the animals, then you have to do it. But we cannot, as you already implied, you cannot overlook other things. ⁓ Keep the environment comfortable. ⁓

Good fans, good airflow in the summer, keep the drinks closed in the winter to keep a cold breeze off them. I've seen that with robots. I've seen a robot milker not being used correctly because there was a cold breeze on it. As soon as there was some sort of curtain put up, it got used. The cows just were not comfortable in there. ⁓ I'm not a big fan of overcrowding. So make sure they have feed space and stall space. They have to have it. ⁓ If you see something that...

is odd. So bunching of cows in a pen could be heat. It could be going to a cooler spot, although it seems weird when you're hot bunching up with a bunch of cows. But what about flies? I've seen cows bunch up because where they went was less fly pressure. So we need to manage that's manure management, know, ⁓ alley scraping, all those things as well as fly control and stuff. So it's a total package. Every single stress.

can ⁓ put into action the immune responses we were talking about. You get the stress hormone cortisol, it sets things into play. Every single stress can do that, which is why the nutrition is so important. But as you start to add these stresses, it's worse and worse and worse. And all of a sudden, you have little stresses that add up and you're not sure why is this happening because the temperature's not too bad. I'm only slightly overcrowded.

You know, there's some flies, but we have to go in their environment. Every little stress adds up until it breaks the system. And that's where we lose milk and components for the most part, hopefully not the cow.

Mike Donaldson (26:47)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, today's topic has drifted into some kind of scientific ⁓ words and especially some of the things that, you might not have caught quite the first time. If there's a piece of this that you didn't quite get, I encourage you to go to the Agri-King homepage, select the About Us drop down, choose the advantage. And you can see the complete collection of Agri-King articles that our Nutrition Department has written.

Chris Radke (26:51)
I'm coming up to you in the last slide. I'm to go ahead show you some of the things that I've done with the postdoc. And there's a piece of that that I think might be in my written notes. So I'm going go ahead and show you some that I've with the postdoc.

Mike Donaldson (27:17)
including this one on stress at that same spot. You will also find some of the different videos and we have our Agri-King podcast there as well. So I encourage you to look at that. you've got a little, you know, if you've got more question also, you know, reach out to your local Agri-King representative and even the ability to access our nutritionists on our 800 number. So Chris, buddy, what'd you learn today?

Chris Radke (27:19)
Thank

My big takeaway is the idea that a cow needs three to four hours of social time ⁓ just getting out and doing cow things. ⁓ I'm fascinated with that. And then what Dr. Jones started out with, that that can affect ⁓ not just the next generation, but three generations down. basically how you live your life today and how you affect that cow today is going to affect their future.

It's kind of a life metaphor there almost like what you do today is not just for today. So love it, Dr. Jones, good stuff. If you like what you heard and you want to find more, you can find us on just about any of the socials. Leave us a review on podcasts or whatever you're listening for. And like Mike said, you can find us on the Agri-King website. ⁓ And if you have any questions or any follow ups or something you'd like us to talk about, you can email us at podcasts@agriking.com. And finally,

Last podcast we featured a cow that Mike has So we are taking some name requests. So if you have any sweet names for

Mike Donaldson (28:43)
I'm

Chris Radke (28:47)
cow with the yellow boots there.

Mike Donaldson (28:47)
you got any, if you any suggestions for

our mascot, let us know.

Chris Radke (28:54)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, please submit those. All right, Dr. Jones and Mike, thank you so much and have a great day.

David Jones (29:01)
Thank you.

Mike Donaldson (29:01)
Thank you guys.