1. Rosewood, Ohio

2. A.J. Luft, DVM
ajcowdoc@frontier.com
419-305-5502 cell
 1996 Ohio State University DVM degree
 Co-owner of Chickasaw Veterinary Center since 2003
 Working with the organic industry since 2004 with about 20%
organic clientele
 Loosely affiliated with Organic Valley, OEFFA, & Crystal Creek;
continually developing more contacts like NODPA & CFSA
 Dealer for Crystal Creek, Dr. Paul’s, Lancaster Ag & more
 Couple of public speaking engagements per year
 Small 20 acre farm with 13 dual purpose cattle, a few chickens &
hogs plus gardens & orchard
 Lovely wife with son 17 (aspiring country singer) & daughter 12
(aspiring future veterinarian) who I dedicate my life's work too

3. Buckeye

4. Dottie

6. Conventional Dairy Production
1. Maximize production with high inputs



Ignores the down-stream or future costs
Heavily subsidized through crop insurance
Go broke successfully maximizing production
2. History of a steady increase in production

TMR, AI, housing, higher yielding crops, newer generation
antibiotics, advanced biologicals, etc.
3. Profitability?


National average dairy cow profits $1 per day
High maintenance costs/inputs: medicines, breeding, hoof,
housing, herd health, Holsteins, surgeries, etc.
4. Size


Today a small farm if less than 300 cows
Lost about 50 small herds over the past 15 years

7. Conventional Dairy Production
5.
Sustainability?



6.
Monoculture




7.
Soil depletion &/or erosion
Lost or leached nutrients (poorly mineralized)
Lack of crop rotation & heavy pest burden
Excessive use of synthetic inputs
Concrete/confinement disease

8.
How many Kcal of petroleum for each Kcal of corn?
Water, organic matter (top soil), erosion, CO, global warming, etc.
Technology: Robotic milkers, GPS, GMO, TMR, synch
programs, ultrasound preg check, milk or blood preg check, heat
detection programs, etc.
Lameness, poor heat detection, injuries, free-stalls, etc.
Approximately 50% of all dairy cows calving in the U.S.
experience a metabolic condition or an infectious disease
within the first 60 DIM: Dairy Herd Mgmt, March 2011 &
Hoard’s Dairyman Jan. 10, 2014 (Healthy cows get pregnant)

9. Conventional Dairy Veterinary Medicine
1. Primarily concerned with record analysis, building/housing/
parlor design, vaccination schedules, surgeries, treatment of
sick animals & repro synch programs (Healthy cows get
pregnant)
2. EBM: Biased (follow the money), one or two variables, linear
measurements, labor & energy intensive, expensive, etc.
3. FDA:






VCPR: OTC vs. Rx & VFD’s
What is a drug? Anything given parenterally and most things given
orally. Sterile water is a Rx drug.
Over regulated: Prohibited or restricted extra-label use (Baytril &
Excenel), withholding times (based on healthy animals)
>15% of gross practice revenue from one antibiotic: Ceftiofur
(Excede, Excenel and Spectramast LC & DC)
~6% of gross practice revenue from repro hormone sales & use
Antibiotics never kill 100% of a population

10. Ceftiofur Antibiotic
15% of Gross Practice Revenue

11. Reproductive Hormones
>6% of Gross Practice Revenue

12. Conventional Dairy Veterinary Medicine
4. Antibiotic resistance: MRSA, Salmonella, etc
5. Environmentally toxic? Years to break down
(glyphosate, ivermectins & others?)
6. Can go broke successfully treating sick animals
7. Western conventional medicine does NOT have
ALL the answers
8. Very powerful medicine especially beneficial in the
per-acute, life-threatening situations
9. Palliative therapy: (relief of symptoms, but no
cure), poor response to chronic, deep disease

14. Personal Holistic/Organic
Professional Contacts
 Paul Dettloff, DVM & Guy Jodarski, DVM with
Organic Valley
 Richard J. Holliday, DVM with Helfter Feeds
 Hubert J. Karreman, VMD of Penn Dutch Cow Care
 Richard Olree BS, DC of Olree Chiropractic Center
 Dr. Arden B. Anderson
 Gary F. Zimmer of Midwestern Bio Ag

16. Slaby & Jodarski

17. References for Alternative
Treatment of Animals
 Acres U.S.A., Publishers www.acresusa.com
 Alternative Treatments for Ruminant Animals by Paul
Dettloff, DVM: 10 years ago & outdated
 Treating Dairy Cows Naturally by Hubert Karreman, VMD
 The Barn Guide of Treating Dairy Cows Naturally by Hubert
Karreman, VMD: very detailed
 The Antibiotic Alternative by Cindy Jones, Ph.D.
 Veterinary Herbal Medicine by Susan Wynn, DVM
 Complementary and Alternative Medicine by Allen
Schoen, DVM & Susan Wynn, DVM
 PDR for Herbal Medicines Third Edition
 Homeopathy for the Herd by C. Edgar Sheaffer, VMD
 Soil Fertility & Animal Health by Dr. William A. Albrecht
 Real Medicine Real Health by Dr. Arden Andersen
 The Biological Farmer by Gary F. Zimmer

18. Alternative Product
Manufacturers & Distributors
• Crystal Creek, Spooner, WI
1-888-376-6777
www.crystalcreeknatural.com
• Lancaster Agriculture Products, Lancaster, PA
1-717-687-9222
www.lancasterag.com
• Dr. Paul’s Lab Arcadia, WI
Distributed through Lancaster Ag or A.J. Luft, DVM
• Agri Dynamics, Martins Creek, PA
1-610-250-9280
www.agri-dynamics.com
• Others

19. Alternative Veterinary Medicine
1.
Holistic (whole body)
a. 11 systems of the body: musskel, nerv, digest, skin, endo, circ, resp, repro, urin, im
m & lymph
b. Endocrine is the master system
c. First system to shutdown when nutritional deficiencies
& stress is reproduction (Healthy cows get pregnant)
d. Second system to shutdown when nutritional
deficiencies & stress is immune
e. Restore balance & equilibrium by using a multi-pronged
approach to stimulate as many systems as possible

20. Alternative Veterinary Medicine
2. Modalities:
Physical, energetic, nutritional, botanical, homeopathy
& miscellaneous medicine
3. Non-toxic & biodegradable
•
All cells differ by only a few organelles (-cides)?
4. No resistance:
•
•
•
Natural compounds are too large & complicated for
pathogens to develop resistance
Multiple properties acting synergistically together
Conventional drugs are usually simple compounds
5. Usually requires multiple treatments (time consuming)
6. Less expensive (do not have to pay for bogus FDA
requirements = $250 million to get drug approved
through FDA)

22. Health Enhancement through Holistic
Management (R. J. Holliday)
1. Everything possible is done to raise
the health & vitality to the highest
level
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
Water quality
Superlative nutrition
Housing/ventilation
Properly maintaining equipment
Hygiene
Mold/mycotoxin free feeds

24. Health Enhancement
2. Any decrease or compromise to the
above list will lead to stress, which
always decreases animal health:
a. Primary factor that can set the stage for
disease vs. the pathogen causing disease
b. Lowers immune system
c. Cascade of inflammatory reactions

25. Health Enhancement
2. Stress
d. Three categories
I.
Physical (environment): Faulty nutrition, bad
water, poor hygiene, unsuitable habitat, poorly
maintained equipment, etc.
II. Physiological: Production/Reproduction
 MONSANTO (Posilac) in the 1990’s
 Peak Performance Workshop: ‘Higher production
is not stessful’
III. Psychological:
Weaning, grouping, shipping, surgery, handling, etc.
e.
f.
All animals vary in their ability to accommodate
stress: species, breed, sex, age, history, etc.
Cumulative effect

26. Health Enhancement
3. Vitality (power of enduring)
a. Never reach perfect health, but death is
common
b. Health enhancement is more profitable
than either immunization or treatment
c. Maximum resistance to disease when
maximum vitality

28. Health Enhancement
What is a healthy animal?
1. There are many levels of health just like
many levels of disease
•
•
Just because an animal does NOT display
symptoms does not make it profitable
Difficulty in predicting drug withdrawals times?
2. Clinical line vs. Profitable line
3. Must eliminate the stress that put animals
below susceptibility level
4. Timing of intervention is critical for success
5. Unless we eliminate the stress then
treatments are only band-aids

29. Health Enhancement
Which one is healthy?
8
7
 Did the germ cause the disease or did the
6
pathogen trigger a disease in an animal that
5
was already suffering from stress-induced,
4
low vitality?
3
 Microorganisms vary in their ability to cause
disease
2
 Why vaccines fail? Vaccinations increase
1
resistance against a specific organism but
0
does little to elevate the animals vitality
 The final stress that triggers symptoms is
usually not the primary cause of the illness

30. Health Enhancement
 Did the germ cause the disease or did the
pathogen trigger a disease in an animal that
was already suffering from stressinduced, low vitality?
Microorganisms vary in their ability to cause
disease
 Why do vaccines fail? Vaccinations increase
resistance against a disease but does little to
elevate vitality
 Why did this procedure/surgery fail?
 The final stress that triggers symptoms is
usually not the primary cause of the illness

32. Nutrition
1. Plants are basically made up of air & water (95%)
a.
b.
c.
d.
CO2 (air) + H2O = CHO (sugar & starch)
N (mostly air) = AA or proteins
What is left is Ash (mineral) 5% = continually declining
in all soils and some sort of mineral supplementation is
critical to maintain healthy animals
13 required minerals to grow a crop
2. Regular monitoring of quality:
a.
b.
c.
RFQ testing for mineral uptake, balance & digestibility
Use wet chemistry forage analysis not NIR especially for
mineral content
Four plant indicator minerals that tell a large part of the
story of what is happening in the soil: Ca, B, P & Mg (G.
Zimmer)

33. Nutrition
3. No two animals have the same needs:
•
•
Who believes the every variable is constant 24/7?
TMR’s negate the ability of the animal to select for
individual needs
4. Modern dairy cows often eat dirt, chew on
wood/bedding or drink urine. Is this normal?
Warning signal that something is amiss
5. Can every disease or infection be traced back to
a mineral deficiency?
 (R. Olree selenium deficiency in the stop codon for
the cancer fighting gene in the body)

34. Nutrition
6. Free-choice hay should always be available, because
cows can balance their ration for fiber better than
computers or nutritionists

Free-choice success is determined by accessibility both
to the forage & to the water which drives appetite
7. Force-feed a balanced mineral/vitamin supplement
then provide free choice mineral components:
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
Ca source: Feeding lime, dolomite, aragonite, oyster shell
P source: Soft rock phosphate
Salt
Kelp or Dyna-Min
Buffer
Humates
8. Use feedstuffs only inherently natural: avoid
urea, animal fats, cottonseed, excess proteins, byproducts

35. Nutrition
9. All flesh is grass
•
•
•
Feed at least 70-80% of DMI as forage
75% of DMI in corn silage does not count as 70-80%
forage; half grain
Must earn the right to feed 100% forage (highly
mineralized)
10. Gauge success by manure consistency and BCS, no
more than 1% in BW in grains/concentrates
11. Grazing is the most economical: No molds, fresh
vitamins, exercise, waste disposal program, reduced
fuel consumption, etc.; MIG vs. Mob
12. Feed the rumen bacteria & they will feed the cow; can
not reach optimal health on inadequate nutrition

36. Nutrition
13.William Albrecht: Soil Fertility &
Animal Health
 ‘Study books and observe nature, if
nature and the books do NOT
agree, throw away the books.’
14.They/you are what they/you eat.

37. Any Questions?