1. Research. Is there research data to support the claims of the sales person or manufacturer? Was the research conducted on animals similar to yours? This does not mean they had to be angus or hereford or crossbred, but if you contemplate feeding it to cows, was the research done on cows or weaned calves or yearlings? Were the feeds used in the study similar to what you feed? They may have fed cottonseed hulls or sugarcane bagasse as the primary source of roughage, and you feed straw or alfalfa hay. A well-designed feed study compares two rations that are identical except for the addition of the test product. If it was a winter trial, was their weather similar to ours, or was it done in an area where the winter was very mild and dry. Cold, rain, snow, and mud have a dramatic impact on cattle behavior and performance. The company offering the additive ought to have research available for you, your nutritionist, your veterinarian, or your livestock agent to review. I like to see this information on a web site. I’ll warn you ahead of time; most novel feed additives don’t have that kind of information.
   
2. Response. What was the response? Did it prevent or treat a disease? Did it de-worm the cattle? Did it control flies? Did it improve feed efficiency or rate of gain? Did it bind a mold toxin? Did it allow you to graze or feed a roughage that had endophytes? Did it prevent nitrate toxicity? There are products on the market that claim to offer these benefits. How was the response measured? Some products make a difference in the paunch, blood, tissues, or liver concentration of a nutrient, but that difference doesn’t appear in rate of gain or feed efficiency. So we know something was happening inside the body of the animal, but didn’t express the benefit in a way that we can measure. One of the old adages for feedlot additives is that the product must improve performance or efficiency by at least 5% to be seen at the production level. A product may show a statistical improvement that doesn’t translate into one that can be seen on the ranch. However, a statistical advantage is the best way of proving that the advantage seen is most likely real or true rather than just the luck of the draw. This is the criteria that scientists use to evaluate research findings.
   
3. Results. This is the area that affects us directly. Will the results on your ranch be worth the money that you invest? When you measure the results on your ranch you must try to eliminate the variables that might affect the outcome. Examples of variables that might not be related to the feed additive are such things as weather. Was the weather worse than normal, milder, or wetter? Did you have a new hired hand that fed much different than the person he or she replaced? Did you invest in a new feed truck? Did you change your de-worming or vaccination program? Did you change bulls or try A.I.? Did you buy new cows or replacement heifers? Each one of these factors would influence the outcome or rate of gain, cost of gain, and feed efficiency. This would happen whether you used a new feed additive or not. You can’t attribute the performance of the cattle to a feed additive when you made numerous changes in management, equipment, or personnel. This applies whether the change was an improvement or a decline in performance. One year we were having nightmares with performance of the bulls at a ranch in Oregon. The ration was very simple; corn silage, alfalfa hay, and corn. The corn silage and alfalfa hay were tested (oh yeah!!) so we knew they were good quality. There was no mold in any of the feeds. The ration was also tested and the results indicated that this particular ration should have provided gains of about 3.0 b per day. However, the bulls were only gaining 2.0 lb/day and their feed intake was very erratic. Mud was not a problem. They had plenty of space at the feedbunk. The feed was well-mixed and provided in a timely manner. Old feed was not allowed to accumulate in the bunks. We were going nuts! The rancher happened to be watching the bulls one morning when they were drinking out of the new water tank. It was one of those that had an electric heater to keep the water from freezing. Yep, you got it; the bulls took a little sip and then jumped back like they had been shot. It turned out that our entire problem was due to faulty wiring. Once that was corrected, the bulls started eating better and went on to perform as expected. We got lucky when the shocking was noticed. We had good feed records, the bulls were check-weighed and the feed had been tested. Without that information, we probably wouldn’t have noticed that there was a problem until too late in the year.
   
4. Returns. Does the product being considered offer an economic return? If it costs $.02 per head per day, how much extra gain or improved feed efficiency will be seen? If gain is worth $1.00/lb, then it only takes 1 oz increase in daily rate of gain to return $.06. Although very significant in terms of dollars, that amount of gain would be almost too small to measure on the ranch. I hope to see a 0.1 lb/day improvement in gain to increase confidence in the benefit. If feed costs $120/ton, and the cattle eat 5% less feed to achieve the same amount of gain, then an animal eating 20 lb. daily to get 2.0 lb of gain would have a feed cost of (20 x $.06/lb=)$1.20. If that is divided by 2.0 lb gain, this yields $.60/lb of gain. A 5% improvement in feed efficiency means that 19 lb of feed would be needed for a 2 lb gain. If the feed additive cost $.02/day, then feed cost would be $1.16/day and feed cost/lb gain would be $.58/lb. instead of $.60. Both of these are big deals when you can get a return like that for 100 or 120 days. Measuring the return of a de-wormer, fly drug, and other health related product is much harder because these are areas that don’t get measured. We can appreciate cattle that aren’t switching their tails, or running from flies. We can also see cattle with slick haircoats in the spring and summer, but neither event is easy to measure. We must rely on the scientific studies behind these products to measure the benefits.

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Mike Mehren, Ph.D.
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