Non-Antimicrobial Methods to Control Liver Abscesses.

Abstract

Beef feedlots have few non-microbial approaches available to decrease the incidence of liver abscesses. Decreasing the degree of grain processing might be useful, but methods that decrease dietary starch (eg, feeding digestible fiber sources such as distillers grains) have limited effects. Managing feed intake to decrease daily variation has little effect on abscesses, as do feed additives such as essential oils and tannins. Live yeast and yeast fermentation products provide some benefits, but further research is needed. Lack of reproducible in vitro and in vivo models for rapid screening of potential non-antimicrobial methods has limited progress.