What is it?
Gut health refers to the health of one’s digestive system, as well as the ability to properly digest food, absorb nutrients, and excrete waste.
Cattle are ruminants and have a four-chambered stomach [1]:
- Rumen: contains a large community of microbes that help aid in digestion and fermentation processes,
- Reticulum: this is where cud is formed and rumination begins,
- Omasum: removes excess water and furthers digestion,
- Abomasum: also called the true stomach, this is where acid and enzyme digestion occurs.
This complex digestive system allows the animals to better utilize the nutrients and energy in plant fibre.
Maintaining proper gut health is directly linked to overall health, as well as feed efficiency and growth rate. Issues with the gut can lead to various problematic health conditions, such as liver abscesses and inflammation [2]. Interrelated factors such as diet, stress, and the cattle’s immune system and microbiome influence gut health.
Challenges
- There is no one simple solution to maintaining good gut health. It is complex and involves many different interdependent components. This makes it difficult to determine the best steps for developing and maintaining strong gut health in the herd.
How Does it Prevent AMR?
From an antimicrobial resistance perspective, it is important to maintain a strong and diverse microbiome within the gut. Using antimicrobials can negatively affect this microbiome as they can affect both the “good” and “bad” microbes present and allow for resistance microbes to spread and re-populate the gut with little resistance. Therefore, it is important to maintain a healthy gut to avoid the need for using antimicrobials.
Adding oregano to feed has been shown to promote feed digestibility, aiding in gut health.
This program includes a focus on nutrient digestion and absorption, as well as overall animal health.
Further Reading
Research Gaps
Product/Service Gaps
References
[1] Beef Cattle Research Council, ‘Nutrition in Beef Cattle’, Beef Research, Jul. 28, 2022. https://www.beefresearch.ca/topics/nutrition-in-beef-cattle/ (accessed Aug. 17, 2022).
[2] N. Briggs, ‘Gut Health in Cattle’, Penn State Extension. https://extension.psu.edu/gut-health-in-cattle (accessed Aug. 17, 2022).
