Jun 11, 2026 · 8 min · 6 segments
Most producers reach for a quick fix when they see heat stress — but in today's episode, we discuss why that's the wrong move. Trevor, Twain, and Daryl break down why heat stress is really a rumen and…
Trevor GreenfieldHostDaryl PasquaHostTwainHost[laughs] We don't run into a lot in January in Minnesota.
[laughs] Every year we get questions about it, and it's a factor that impacts the performance of cattle, doesn't it? And at the end of the day, what we're wanting to combat is the negative effects of it.
You've got an animal that experiences very high heat and, and humidity, and then they start to...
You start to see symptoms of heat stress, and a big part of that is the rumen health, the, their feed intake, their milk production, and those all lead on to, uh, negative impacts, don't they, Trevor?
Well, you've often spoke, Daryl, about that, that rumen function, which we know so well with Nutrizorb, having a functioning rumen that's breaking down your forage, and you got that balance, and that is key to heat stress in its, in itself.
A lot of people think of heat stress as, oh, let's treat that symptom, but can you maybe walk us through more what is the cause, and what else are we doing besides just adding, you know, like, say, some miracle drug or miracle ingredient for heat stress?
Like you mentioned, the first thing we wanna do is make sure those cattle don't go off feed.
Of course, in the beef industry, we don't necessarily measure the amount of feed they eat every day, do we? But the dairy industry does, and they can see it by the hour, but it works the same in whatever type of cow you're running, in that if they go off feed, everything else goes off as well.
They're, maybe they're, uh, needing to put on body condition or they're needing to cycle because we're trying to get them bred back or we're trying to get them to produce milk.
As soon as they go off feed, all of them spinoff effects are detrimentally impacted.
If we can, um, provide, uh, nutrients and digestion assistance to keep that cow on feed, that is step one.
Uh, we can, um, put ingredients in there to, uh, further, uh, improve, uh, vasodilation, and then...
Oh, yeah.
[laughs]
If you're gonna improve vasodilation, that means you're gonna have to do something to increase, uh, blood flow.
Dilation is make it bigger, kinda like you get your eyes dilated, which I never enjoy.
I've never done that before.
[laughs] We don't run into a lot in January in Minnesota.
[laughs] Every year we get questions about it, and it's a factor that impacts the performance of cattle, doesn't it? And at the end of the day, what we're wanting to combat is the negative effects of it.
You've got an animal that experiences very high heat and, and humidity, and then they start to...
You start to see symptoms of heat stress, and a big part of that is the rumen health, the, their feed intake, their milk production, and those all lead on to, uh, negative impacts, don't they, Trevor?
Well, you've often spoke, Daryl, about that, that rumen function, which we know so well with Nutrizorb, having a functioning rumen that's breaking down your forage, and you got that balance, and that is key to heat stress in its, in itself.
A lot of people think of heat stress as, oh, let's treat that symptom, but can you maybe walk us through more what is the cause, and what else are we doing besides just adding, you know, like, say, some miracle drug or miracle ingredient for heat stress?
Like you mentioned, the first thing we wanna do is make sure those cattle don't go off feed.
Of course, in the beef industry, we don't necessarily measure the amount of feed they eat every day, do we? But the dairy industry does, and they can see it by the hour, but it works the same in whatever type of cow you're running, in that if they go off feed, everything else goes off as well.
They're, maybe they're, uh, needing to put on body condition or they're needing to cycle because we're trying to get them bred back or we're trying to get them to produce milk.
As soon as they go off feed, all of them spinoff effects are detrimentally impacted.
If we can, um, provide, uh, nutrients and digestion assistance to keep that cow on feed, that is step one.
Uh, we can, um, put ingredients in there to, uh, further, uh, improve, uh, vasodilation, and then...
Oh, yeah.
[laughs]
If you're gonna improve vasodilation, that means you're gonna have to do something to increase, uh, blood flow.
Dilation is make it bigger, kinda like you get your eyes dilated, which I never enjoy.
I've never done that before.
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