There's a Heifer in Your Tank

Lippy animals

Are your lips getting dry and cracked from the cold, dry winter?
Maybe you should buy a sheep...It turns out animals can do more for your body then you think.

 

Recently we decided to do a research project on the animal byproducts that are found in lip gloss. We found that not everything in that lip gloss bottle of yours is synthetic. Numerous materials produced by animals such as caprylic acid, stearic acid, allantoin, and lanolin are regular products in everyday lip gloss. It turns our many farm animals end up making people look and/or feel better.

Despite goats reputation as trouble-makers, we’ve found that they can actually be very helpful in the healing and maintenance of human skin. A component of goat’s milk called caprylic acid is actually a common product in certain types of lip gloss and lip moisturizers. It has a very low pH which helps to maintain the mildly acidic outer layer of the skin which is produced naturally by healthy skin. Fortunately this layer functions as a barrier against bacteria. A key quality of caprylic acid it is quickly and easily absorbed by the skin providing the lips with essential proteins and minerals needed to stay healthy and soft.

Normally people wouldn’t want pig fat on their lips; however, stearic acid, a component of pig fat, is an ingredient of lip gloss. It is a white wax-like substance with an incredible affinity for water. Dr. Randall Weselake, Professor and Canada Research Chair, is an agricultural lipid biotechnologist at the University of Alberta. He says “stearic acid has water loving and fearing components. It has a carboxyl end which brings water to the lips and a long carbon chain end which repels water”. Its desire to attain water only assists in the maintenance of smooth, moist lips. When applied to lips, it provides texture and thickness making ones lips look voluptuous and irresistible.

How would you like to be kissed by someone with cow urine on their lips? Well, this may have taken place without you knowing. Allantoin, a component of cow urine is a common ingredient in lip gloss.

After a cow urinates, allantoin can be synthetically derived from the uric acid present in the urine. It works by rapidly producing healthy cells by depositing proteins directly on the dry, undesirable skin. Allantoin works excellently for wounds and sunburns, and heals, soothes and moisturizes chapped lips.

 

We found that one of the more commonly known cures for chapped lips is lanolin. Although most people have a basic understanding of lanolin’s importance and reoccurrence in cosmetics many would be shocked to discover its origin. Lanolin is a waste product in the wool processing industry and is universally known as wool fat, wool grease, or wool wax. This thick oily, yellow substance is a mixture of esters and cholesterols of several fatty acids and is secreted by a sheep’s sebaceous glands in the form of sebum. Lanolin is a product of the sebum, an oily substance that is composed of lipids and debris of dead lipid-producing cells. Sebaceous glands are found in the skin of mammals, more specifically in sheep’s skin, and it works in combination with the hair follicles to carry sebum to the skins surface. A sheep produces lanolin to help waterproof and protect its wool and skin from becoming dry, brittle and cracked.

We found answers to questions reader’s had no idea they even had. Waste products of animals are not always exactly waste products. They can be put to use in items such as lip gloss. On the basis of personal interest our research has succeeded in providing you with the knowledge that will last a lifetime.

-Marla Bohm, Robin Derfler and Joel Lamont

How do "ewe" become a foster mother?

 

While walking through your local sheep farm I’m sure the one thing everyone wonders is, “What happens to a lamb if her mother dies?” Lambing season is an important time for sheep producers. This is when the management of their operation is vital to the growth and maintenance of their flock. The health of the newborn lambs relies on how much milk the lamb receives. The milk that a ewe produces within the first 24 hours is vital to the survival of her offspring. This milk, called colostrum, is vital to the lamb’s growth. Producer’s sometimes face challenges with trying to get this milk into the lambs. When this happens they resort to cross fostering techniques to help them.

Cross fostering is when the farmer tries to get another ewe to accept the lamb. There are three reasons for trying to do this, they are: if the ewe dies, does not accept the lamb, or has too many lambs to provide the proper amount of milk for the lamb. Burt Ward, a sheep farmer and large animal veterinarian from Ontario, will only try to foster a lamb if he “has two or three [ewes] that have lambed on the same day”. Ward also adds that if he has a foster lamb to care for he will “use milk from another ewe to give to the orphan lamb if the ewe has lots of extra milk”.

Methods for cross fostering all have to do with scent. Some of the methods mask the scent of the foster lamb and other ways make it so that the ewe can’t smell the foster lamb. There are three ways that we found that do this. Hide replacement and stockings are used to cover the scent of the lamb and a head gate is used to prevent the ewe from smelling the lamb.

Hide replacement only works when a ewe has lost her lamb due to disease, weather conditions or a complication. The dead lamb is then skinned and the hide of the dead lamb is placed on the foster lamb. The hide is kept on the foster lamb until the ewe accepts that lamb. The ewe may accept this foreign lamb because she recognizes the scent. Ward explains that “over in Britain, on occasion, they will try the hide replacement method in areas where they have lambing at a specific time of year. When they have 600-700 ewes, they could have 50- 75 lambing a day. Usually they are with their mother only 24 hours, put back with the group for a day and then kicked back out to the grass. Time is off the essence for these people.”

Another method that masks the scent involves using stockings. This technique is used when a ewe only has one lamb of her own and is able to adopt another one. A nylon stocking is placed on the ewe’s own lamb after it has been born allowing the stocking to absorb the scent of that lamb. After a couple of days the stockings are removed and placed on the lamb that you are trying to foster; thereby, tricking the mother into thinking it is also her lamb. Once again, this method proves how scent plays a very important role in the bonding of the mother with offspring.

Some ewes may be persistent and are unable to be tricked as easily with scent; therefore, another method must be used. A head gate is a device that the ewe is placed in for a few days until she is familiar and used to the new lamb. The head gate restricts the ewe from turning around, bunting or pushing the lamb away. She is able to stand, lie down, eat and drink freely. The foreign lamb is still able to receive the nutrients and care needed for its growth and development.

If a sheep producer has tried all three of these methods and none have been successful then they will simply bottle feed their foster lamb. This method is used when a lamb will not suck off of a ewe or a ewe will not accept the lamb. Burt Ward would not normally try using these methods of cross-fostering a lamb, even though they are available because he feels they are “not worth the aggravation” and are “too much trouble”. Overall the decision of whether or not to try and foster a lamb onto a ewe “depends on different people’s operations” but Ward thinks that possibly sheep farmers in Canada are not doing this because “people here are breeding for Easter and Christmas market and so are not lambing all at once”.

So if you come upon a situation where one of your lamb’s mother’s has died and the lamb needs its essential colostrum from the milk, not to worry, you have some choices. First, you can put the ewe into a head gate so the foster lamb is free to suck from the ewe without getting bunting or rejecting it. Second, if one of your ewes’ lambs have died then you can skin that lamb and put the skin on your foster lamb so that foster lamb smells like the ewe’s original lamb, called hide replacement. Third, if a ewe only has one lamb then put stocking on the lamb right after it is born. Then you take those stockings and place them on the legs of your foster lamb, masking his scent with the smell of the lamb’s ewe. Lastly, either after all else has failed, or in the first place, you could simply bottle feed the foster lamb yourself. That is how “ewe” become a foster mother!

- Kevin Becker, Magaret Keeler, Sasha Kroffat

Just a spoonful of sugar...

Why can sugar help your litty piggy's rectal prolapse?

Producing animals efficiently is not an easy job. Farmers face many problems in raising livestock. Swine farmers in particular, have had to learn how to deal with rectal prolapses. Believe us, it is not very nice.

A rectal prolapse occurs when a pig’s rectal walls fall out of place due to the breakdown of the muscles that support the pelvis. This occurs because of increased abdominal pressure. Environmental and/or nutritional factors may be the cause of this type of prolapse. Problems with feed, such as being ground too fine, spoiling by fungal toxins, or having high lysine (an amino acid in proteins) content, are major contributors to prolapses. Constipation or diarrhea, huddling and piling for warmth, coughing, complications in farrowing (giving birth), and docking tails too short (resulting in a snipped sphincter) are also factors that may lead to rectal prolapses.

What can be done to solve this problem? Normally in this type of situation, a veterinarian would want to surgically place the rectal tissues back inside the pig, then pull them together and close the anal opening with a purse-string suture (a continuous circular fibre). This procedure can be very costly and time consuming. What the veterinarian does not tell you is that common table sugar can help you in your effort to replace the prolapsed tissues. However, the use of sugar in this situation is considered to be a folk remedy. Mary Poppins may have been right after all.

 

Why does sugar help? A spoonful of sugar (or in our case a bowlful) helps the swelling go down. Sugar creates an environment where the solute concentration is greater on the exterior of the rectal tissues than inside of the cells that make up these tissues. Due to laws of osmosis (figure 1), water will passively move out of the rectal tissues and across the cell membrane. The cell wall is impermeable to sugar due to its stable and complex nature. This results in the shrinkage of cells, which will aid the farmer in pushing the less inflamed rectal tissues back inside the anus.

In addition to using sugar, it is important to give the affected pig antibiotics to prevent infections and painkillers to reduce discomfort. It is also essential to give laxatives to keep that colon flowin’.

Many sheep, cattle and swine producers have used or are using sugar to help the rectal prolapses of their animals, although the problem is not very common except in sheep. Sugar is a very cost efficient method of helping to reduce the severity of the situation and in the words of Murray Markert, a swine producer from southern Alberta, “It really works!” Tova Place, an employee of Mr. Markert, told us “Over the last ear, three (of six) sows have responded well to the sugar treatment and were able to farrow and nurse their litters.” Considering the alternatives of surgery or putting the animal down, a 50% success rate seems to be significant enough to continue using this method. Bring on the folk remedies.

- Shari Smith, Naomi Fisher, Suzan Sidra and Mathew Matras

Don't be sheepish, it's still good for ewe

Why do we eat imported lamb when we raise sheep in Alberta?

 

Sitting in a cozy country restaurant in central Alberta, you decide to take a break from your usual Alberta beef and switch to lamb instead. To your absolute horror you find that they do not serve Alberta lamb with a mint sauce; rather it is imported lamb from New Zealand. Outrage! Travesty!

Or perhaps, reality. Sitting in the middle of winter in Alberta we are accustomed to ranchers relaying stories of cows dropping calves into snowbanks like pennies into a piggybank. We live an area where society jokes that “if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes”, but this tongue-in-cheek comment actually hits the lamb industry quite hard. New Zealand boasts a climate with both a mild winter and summer, and they don’t see the extreme –40 to +40 degree changes within a six month period like most of Canada does. According to Anthony Ruffo, President of the New Zealand Lamb Company Ltd., lamb production is extremely efficient in New Zealand due, in part, to the moderate climate 12 months of the year as well as a plentiful supply of fresh water and open pasture.

Another difference between the lamb industries is feed programs. New Zealand animals are raised on grasslands. Sue Hosford, Business Development Specialist Livestock Products of Alberta Agriculture, Food and Rural delopment says that grazing the animals on grass year-round tends to give the meat a strong, distinct flavour. When Albertan sheep producers finish their animals on grain, they are not only producing a meat with a milder flavour but they are increasing their production costs. Hosford states that 80% of Alberta’s cost in the sheep industry arises from the winter feed costs.

With this price separation, consumers see a difference when they get to the supermarket. Alberta lamb carries a premium on it due to the cost of production as well as the scarcity of product. One of the biggest challenges facing the lamb industry at this moment is the lack of processing plants. While the borders closing in 2003 affected the beef industry, doors also closed to sheep and impacted the growing market. Currently, Sunterra Meats is working to increase the numbers of lamb processed in Alberta; Hosford says Sunterra processed approximately 80,000 head of lamb last year. With this initiative, lamb consumption in Alberta is expected to increase by more that 40% by 2020.

While a wide array of challenges lie between Alberta lamb producers and a firm hold in the meat market, they are not impossible obstacles. Increasing efficiency of year-round production, educating consumers of an alternative meat source, and developing better processing facilities will all play a large role in Alberta developing a fast-hold in the industry. However, New Zealand exporting to Canada is not unlike the many export advantages Canada has to other countries, says Ruffo. So the next time you are sitting in a cozy country restaurant and have a craving for something different, why not try that imported lamb from New Zealand? All things considered, it is realistic to look to the future and see Alberta lamb as a commonplace meat product. With time, the Alberta sheep industry might flourish not only domestically but within the international trade markets alongside major exporter countries like New Zealand. Until that time, if it ain’t Albertan, it’s still sheep!!

-Alix deBeaudrap, Kendall Watson, Karin Lindquist and Malori Sparrow

Do sheep sleep with their head uphill?

 
 

While sheep are often associated with human sleep, people do not usually think about how sheep sleep. Sheep only sleep 3.8 hours in a day, meaning they are active 20.2 hours a day. During the 3.8 hours per day spent sleeping, 2% of that is spent in REM sleep. REM stands for rapid eye movement, a characteristic of deep sleep. As a prey animal sheep tend to sleep in herds so that there are more eyes on the watch for predators. For the same reason they space out their time spent sleeping by taking numerous naps and sleeping lightly. Sheep also sleep on their front to allow for a quick escape. A sleeping sheep can be recognized among a herd by its posture, they tend to have a droopy head and neck.

In addition, wild sheep sleep with their heads uphill in order to detect predators and falling rocks. This leads to the question: is sleeping with their heads uphill a natural instinct for sheep? Although there is no definitive evidence that sheep sleep with their heads uphill, prolapsing can be associated with this sleeping position. Vaginal prolapsing usually occurs during the last trimester of a female ewe’s pregnancy due to increased intra-abdominal pressure caused by the developing fetuses. Sheep tend to have one to four lambs per litter depending on the breed which can increase the pressure on the uterus. In fact, the record in Canada is a Romanov ewe that had 9 lambs in one litter. Dr. Lloyd Keddie DVM states that if a sheep is already prolapsing then sleeping in an uphill position will make the prolapse more apparent. The force of gravity adds pressure onto the pregnant ewe’s uterus making prolapse more severe and obvious. Dr Lloyd Keddie also mentions a similar event happening to a cow, the pregnant cow being caught in an uphill position prolapsed because of the increased stress on her uterus.

While prolasing is not often a fatal condition, according to Dr. Jim Brown DVM 4% of sheep prolapse per year on average. In order to prevent further distress once prolapsing begins a ewe-spoon is inserted into the vagina to temporarily keep the uterus inside the ewe. However, Dr. Brown mentions that this technique is not very effective. Sheep that have prolapsed are typically culled or sold because of its reoccurrence.

The question of whether sheep sleep with their heads uphill is a difficult one to answer; only assumptions can be made from their natural tendencies.

-Laura Kippen, Brandy Bartlett, Christine Buchanan, Erin Galloway and Kim Kuneff

 

Why do sheep breed better when you pull the wool over their eyes?

 

 By Kirsten Larson, Breanne Laturnus, Lucus Poitras, Leah Rodvang and Krystyne McDonald

What is a remote control sheep dog?

 

by Lucas Bell, Brittany Henng, Deandra Tonn, Kaitlyn Matters and Bailee Stenton