Feedlot Deficiencies in Practice

Abstract

When you come to “feedlot deficiencies’’ as far as nutrition, they are really hard to describe, hard to detect, and rather vague. If you can go out into a specific lot and make an accurate diagnosis as to what the deficiency might be, I will say that you are much better than I am. I think one of the most common deficiencies that we have is probably calcium and probably it is the most common deficiency because of the very nature of what we are doing with feedlot animals. We are taking an animal that is a highly roughage dependent animal, putting it in the feedlot, and making it an animal that is supposed to have only one stomach, feeding it all of these concentrate? By the very nature of what we are feeding, we reduce the calcium intake. Now, corn, of course, is high in calcium, but it isn’t high enough, and so one of the main things you will find is a calcium deficiency. Now, I have run into some feedlots, not only in one lot, but lots within a lot, in which calcium is going in at the level it ought to and phosphorus is going in at the level that it should, but the blood chemistry shows that they are not being metabolized the way they should. I think that in one specific lot in the last month we have been having some problems even though the nutritionist at this lot is very good. He has calcium and phosphorus going in there the way they should, but the blood chemistry shows low calcium and the phosphorus about three times too high! So, in this specific instance, there is something probably tying up the calcium. When we talk about deficiencies that may be in the diet, we may have problems getting them metabolized. Some of the factors that will interfere with metabolism would be nitrates, low vitamin B and A, etc.