Riomax introduces the Turboboost Program, a 60-day program scientifically designed to help feedyard and backgrounding operations start off incoming calves on the right four feet. Or more accurately, the right immune system.
“The Turboboost program works by boosting gut health; feeding the good guys and tying up and flushing out the bad guys in that calf’s rumen. As well as, by pouring the coals to the immune system and activating an immune response” according to Trevor Greenfield, founder and co-owner of Riomax, home of the Riomax360 tubs, dubbed “The tub that pays for itself.”
A strong immune system matters because, at a price point of around $40 per head for calves going for $2,500 per head or more, the ROI is easy to calculate when fewer calves get sick, less are treated more than once, eat and drink right away after arrival and death loss is reduced.
The Turboboost program consists of a dose of Turboboost paste on arrival, then access to Turboboost tubs for 60 days. It’s an all-natural program that stimulates the immune system at a time in calves’ lives when stress events make them more prone to sickness breaks.
Stress is particularly devastating to cattle health when stress events are piled on top of each other. Weaning or lack thereof, marketing, comingling, trucking all stack up to challenge and weaken the immune system just at the time when it needs to be at its best.
When the immune system is compromised and stress has reduced their appetite, calves struggle to respond to antibiotics or vaccines well enough to recover. It’s a downward spiral that leads many calves to the sick pen, chronic pen and death.
Greenfield stresses that antibiotics are necessary tool in cattle production. Calves get sick and must be treated. However, antibiotics in beef production are under scrutiny and must be used judiciously and prudently. Beef producers can do that by working to ensure calves don’t get sick in the first place.
That’s where the Turboboost program comes in. “We’re enabling that calf to fight off disease challenges from the inside out because we’ve given the immune system what it needs to activate an immune response,” Greenfield says. “So we’re working with Mother Nature versus trying to prop her up with antibiotics.”
What’s more, Turboboost serves to stimulate the appetite. “What we’re looking for is a healthy, hungry calf up at the feed bunk,” Greenfield says. If calves don’t eat, they don’t have the fuel to feed the immune system. And getting newly arrived, high-risk calves up to the feed bunk and eating is one of the major challenges in getting calves started off right.
“The main levers we’re pulling are fewer first treats, fewer retreats, less death loss and more weight gain,” Greenfield says. “While weight gain is important because we’re paid on pounds, once a calf gets sick, it never catches up with its pen mates, carcass quality suffers and input costs are higher. You can help all that with the Turboboost program.”
Limited trials show that the product works. Stocker operator Lake Newcomb, Carter, Oklahoma, conducted a trial that showed a pen of calves treated with Turboboost had a 5% first treat rate versus 15.2% for the control pen that wasn’t on the Turboboost program, and a 2.2 pound average daily gain as opposed to 1.88 pounds for the control pen.
“For us, it’s all about keeping them healthy,” Newcomb says. “We doctored four or five,” he says of the Turboboost pen. “None of them got doctored twice.”
That’s important at today’s high cattle prices. When calves get doctored more than once, they seldom keep up with their original group. So they must go back down to the next group in weight. “You’re going to feed that calf another 30-45 days before you market him than you would if he would have stayed with his group.”
An east Texas program produced similar results. The Turboboost pen showed a 30% reduction in first treats and a 30% reduction in retreats, resulting in a .5 lb increase in average daily gain on that group.
Terrill Ostrum has seen similar results locally. In a trial last fall on a load of high risk calves unloaded at a backgrounding yard, the manager commented that normally, similar calves would stay in the sick pen for up to seven days after the first pull. With the Turboboost paste on arrival, cattle returning to their home pen after first treat within two days.
“If there ever was a time to get out of your box and try something new, this might be the best time to do it, in my mind,” according to Terrill Ostrum. He’s a cow-calf and stocker operator in the Red Lodge, Montana area. “Look at the dollars you’ve got to work with. When you’ve a five-weight calf bringing anywhere from $2,500 to $2,900 a head, you’ve got a little extra jingle left in your pocket,” he says.
But that extra jingle can be harder to come by if calves get sick or die. “Maintaining the health of that animal is key in the success of your operation,” Ostrum summarizes.
