Liver Abscess

How often do your cattle develop liver abscesses while you are feeding them out for processing?

Another way of asking this is, how often do you get to eat the liver?

If you routinely have healthy livers, what do you attribute this to?

Thanks

It's been a long time since I've had a liver condemned. I don't feed a lot of grain. Pretty much an all forage diet supplemented with some form of protein.

More importantly-I am concerned with the amount of grain that is fed to young bulls before production sales. At one time, I had 2-3 that could easily have been considered 'failure to thrive'. After learning about the tremendous amount of grain this particular producer fed-35 lbs per head per day- to achieve impressive sale weights -I felt the bulls were a lost cause and sent them to slaughter. I always attributed their Ethiopian appearance to acidosis from too much grain which caused liver abscesses.

Do you have liver flukes in your area? That could also impact that.

Knock wood, mine have never had liver abscesses. I always get the livers back with the rest of the meat.

I attribute it to the way I feed them, when finishing them. I keep them in a small pasture/lot area, about an acre or 2. They're on grass, usually in late fall, through early winter, along with free-choice good hay & minerals and I give them a mixed feed ration twice a day. A mix of ground corn, soy beans, oats & barley. (a mix I get from a local guy who mills it himself). And of course, fresh clean water.

Ebenezer-no. we don't have liver flukes or my Veterinarian says they're not an issue. You get some rain?

Chocolate Cow2":1fw7u46b said:

Ebenezer-no. we don't have liver flukes or my Veterinarian says they're not an issue. You get some rain?

Click to expand...

3" here. Glad to get it. Fall arrived last night.

Liver flukes are a coastal, swamp issue. Did not know where originator lives.

Acidosis is the most common cause, do you remember that animal backing off feed?

Typical commercial feedyards not using tylan probably around 15-30%. With tylan the range is probably half that.

In small operations good management is probably the best prevention. Slowly adapting to a high grain diet, feeding enough good hay, and a consistent feeding program is probably the biggest factors that will reduce/eliminate liver abscesses.