The Casual Cattle Conversations Podcast: What Ranchers Need to Know About Vitamin A

What Ranchers Need to Know About Vitamin A

Cattle aren’t cheap, which makes it more important than ever to make sure ranchers are managing in ways that tap into the full genetic potential of their cattle. Proper nutrition and ensuring nutrient deficiencies aren’t present is one way to do this – especially keeping Vitamin A in mind.

"Vitamin A is a very critical nutrient as are all vitamins and first of all vitamins are what we call mainly trace elements," says Blane Lowe, DVM. "It's involved with the gene expressions, so vitamin A can help make sure cattle reach optimal performance."

Signs of vitamin A deficiency can vary but all impact cattle well-being and performance.

"Blindness and specifically night blindness is a large component of that we see things with dull and rougher hair coats,” says Lowe. "With younger animals, you can certainly see stunted growth or slower growth rate, lower weight gains and reproductive efficiency."

Part of the lower and slower growth rates are caused by reduced Vitamin A in colostrum.

“If there's not some winter supplementation, it's not uncommon to see the cows have low vitamin A levels,” says Lowe. “The consequences to those cows are really kind of minimal compared to those of the calves they are carrying…Those get their first 90 days of vitamin A through colostrum.” .... 



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