Pica, Urine Drinking & Depraved Appetite in Cattle

PICA (DEPRAVED OR ABNORMAL APPETITE)

Pica includes persistent licking, chewing or eating of wood (fence posts, tree-bark, sticks, wood partitions), soil (dirt, clay, stones), rags, bones etc. Pica can occur in all types of cattle and is mainly an outdoor problem. However, housed calves may develop navel-sucking, hair-licking or may lick plaster off the walls.

CAUSES
  • SPORADIC CASES (in only a few animals in a large group) may indicate primary or secondary BRAIN DISORDER (encephalitis, encephalopathy (as in liver disease, CCN etc), toxicity (CNS poisons, ragwort, Pb etc), metabolic disease (nervous ketosis, hypomagnesaemia etc) etc)).

    HERD OUTBREAKS (in many animals in the group) may arise in herd problems of parasitism, obesity, mineral deficiency (p, na, cu, co etc), undernutrition (protein-energy deficit) and with low-roughage feeds. Cattle in certain paddocks may eat clay or tree-bark in those paddocks but not in adjoining paddocks. That problem often arises on lush grass (heavily fertilised and low in fibre) and the cattle seek out the stemmier grass under fences or on headlands. Grass in those areas may be grazed to the ground.

REMEDIAL ACTIONS: IDENTIFY AND CORRECT THE CAUSES
  • If shortage of fibre is suspected, extra roughage (some straw or hay) may be provided.
  • If mineral deficiency (P, Na, Cu, or Co etc) is confirmed on blood and/or feed tests, increased supplementation with those minerals may be tried (see mineral supplements, below). However, pica often occurs in cattle which are otherwise healthy and thriving and mineral supplements may fail to control it.
  • Some outbreaks have no known cause and may not be solved by laboratory tests on blood or feed.

SLURRY/URINE DRINKING
Persistent drinking of slurry or urine (sometimes drunk directly from other animals) occurs mainly as a herd problem in calved cows wintered indoors or in yards. The problem is more aesthetic than economic, as general herd health and productivity is usually normal. However, as infected urine or slurry can spread infectious agents (such as TB, Salmonella, Leptospira, BVD etc), the vice is undesirable.

CAUSES
  • The causes are largely unknown. Suggested causes include: metabolic disorders associated with high milk yield and low roughage intake (high quality silage (high DMD) and dairy ration); subclinical ketosis; subclinical acidosis (with craving for alkaline material); mineral deficiency (P, Mg, Na, trace-minerals).
  • Investigation usually is futile. It has aspects of a learned vice, associated with boredom: once it starts, it usually spreads rapidly through the group. Poor yard drainage, or poor concrete (allowing pooling of effluent, slurry or urine) is usual. Otherwise, there appear to be few etiological factors in common.
  • One can test blood and/or feed for mineral deficiency (Na, Cu, Co, P, Mg etc) but many cases investigated by us over the past 20 years have failed to confirm any specific deficiency as a main cause.

REMEDIAL ACTIONS: IDENTIFY AND CORRECT THE CAUSES
  1. If detected early (when only a few animals are affected), removal of the culprits to a separate area may prevent the vice from spreading to the rest of the group.
  2. Provision of extra roughage (some straw or hay) and 30% inclusion of pulp (beet- or citrus-) in the concentrate feed, improvement of yard drainage and resurfacing of pitted concrete occasionally helps.
  3. If blood or silage tests indicate Na, P, Mg or trace mineral deficiency, feeding of salt or a high-quality mineral (see below) may be tried. However, salt or high quality mineral mixes, even at high levels, often fail to control the problem.

See the Teagasc Manual on the Control of Mineral Imbalances in Cattle & Sheep, or shorter Web articles on minerals for Cows & Other Cattle, and for Beef Herds.

In spite of the above attempts, it may be difficult or impossible to control slurry/urine drinking until the cows are let out to pasture, when it usually self-cures within days.
Phil Rogers MRCVS, Lucan, Dublin, Ireland​
Fax: 353-46-26154 Tel: 353-46-26740 (Lab)
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