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Method of treating dehydration in large mammals

Method of treating dehydration in large mammals description/claims

This application is a divisional of application Ser. No. 10/913,583, filed Aug. 6, 2004 and claims priority from that application which is also deemed incorporated by reference in its entirety in this application.

Not applicable

I. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to the treatment of dehydration in large adult domestic animals, particularly mature bovine mammals, caused by environmental stresses to thereby maintain normal nutrient and body fluid balances. More specifically, the present invention relates to a pelletized feed supplement composition and method of making designed for use in feed intended for beef and dairy cattle, for example, to help prevent dehydration during extreme environmental conditions such as extreme heat and high humidity that causes dairy cows and beef cattle to minimize their production of milk or maintain normal body weight; or, prior to shipment, to help prevent dehydration and loss of body fluids when animals do not receive or have feed and water available for their normal consumption during transport.

II. Related Art

Re-hydration products such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,839,347 to Peter H. Franz, an inventor in the present application, have been very effective in reducing losses from dehydration in animals when administered via the drinking water. Animals normally consume drinking water at a rate of about 8-12% of their body weight per day, depending on climatic conditions; and when measured over extended period of time, most animals consume an average volume of about 10% of their body weight in fluids.

Present accepted drinking water facilities on most livestock farms, for example, operate on a continuous flow basis in which they may store a small amount (3-4) gallons of water. Once these amounts of drinking water are consumed, the free flow or continuous systems automatically refill dispensing containers on a continuous basis to make drinking water available to animals on demand. Animals such as young piglets weighing 10-20 pounds consume 1-2 pounds, or pints, of water on a daily basis over perhaps 6-10 intakes throughout a day or 24-hour period. The continuous flow drinking water delivery systems have developed proportioners that can administer water soluble re-hydration products such as disclosed in the above patent for poultry, swine and calves until they reach a certain size. However, once cattle reach a weight of over 600 pounds, oral re-hydration products such as the formula of the above-mentioned patent are much less effective in preventing dehydration because of difficulties in proportioning for the large total amounts of water consumed on a daily basis by each animal.

Thus, a dairy or beef animal weighing 1,000 pounds will normally consume about 100 pounds or 12.5 gallons of water per day. These animals consume up to 5 gallons at a single time and most continuous drinking water systems cause the flow to move so quickly that they have difficulty in maintaining the correct concentration of re-hydration products in the water within a normal system pipeline, thereby reducing the potential benefits of such re-hydration products for large animals. In addition, dairy cows and lactating beef cows producing milk need additional supplies of drinking water for milk production. A 1,200 pound cow producing 80 pounds of milk, for example, would need 80 pounds of water for milk production plus 120 pounds of water for normal maintenance or a total of 200 pounds (25 gallons) of water on a daily basis. Many cows produce in excess of even 100 pounds of milk per day so that it can be seen that the required fluid consumption is quite high in these animals. For the above and other reasons, there exists a definite need to supply re-hydration products to such animals on a basis other than via the drinking water.

Those raising beef and dairy animals have long realized that milk production drops in hot weather and during transport and are in need of an alternative way of re-hydrating those animals to prevent body shrink and dehydration. The re-hydration material of the present invention has been specifically designed to answer this need by providing such a re-hydration material in a pellet form which, when mixed with the feed or fed as a top dress, provides similar re-hydration benefits as seen by the drinking water supplement for small (10-400 pound) animals.

Additionally, in the related art, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,505,968 and 5,728,675 disclose supplements for treating stress associated with transport, holding, management and handling of animals. These supplements may be administered to an animal in solid form. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2002/0176881 discloses a supplement for treating dehydration which, although preferably in the form of a fluid, may be in the form of a premix, a powder, a glomerate, a syrup, a gel, a tablet or a capsule. That supplement includes an amount of betaine, betaine, one or more digestable carbohydrates and one or more minerals.

By means of the present invention there is provided a re-hydration composition for the treatment of dehydration in large mammals, such as mature bovine animals, preferably administered to the animals in solid form with the feed and, most preferably, it is produced in the form of stable pellets which are added to the feed. The formula includes high energy nutrients in the form of saccharides including both monosaccharides (dextrose and fructose) and disaccharides (sucrose and lactose) and electrolytes to help restore proper osmolarity in the animals. The electrolytes include both cationic and anionic electrolytes. The cations preferably include sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium. The anions preferably include chloride, carbonate, phosphate and sulfate. A large fraction of the composition is made up of grain and grain by-products including wheat middlings and cooked cereal fines. Additional ingredients are utilized to enhance taste and also to promote stability and processing of the material into pellets. A complete listing of the ingredients for formulae in accordance with the present invention is shown in Table I.

Another important aspect of the invention aside from the novel composition of the re-hydration supplement has to do with the pelleting process itself. The pellets are generally produced using a die containing an array of hollow, generally cylindrical die chambers, each chamber being a hollow passage having an inlet and an outlet. The die including the chambers is connected to a source of heat and steam which can be applied to the chambers during the pellet-forming process. Pellet stock in the form of form of pre-mixed dry powder including a feed supplement formula is forced through the die chambers and forms congealed cylindrical pellets in the presence of applied heat and steam. This causes the material to swell significantly. An important aspect of the process of the present invention addresses and solves the problem of expansion and increased friction by enabling developing pellets to expand as they progress in the chambers during the formation process. This is accomplished by increasing the diameter of the chambers between the inlet openings which admit the material to be pelleted and the outlet openings from with the formed pellets are discharged. While this can be a gradual increase in diameter, the preferred configuration includes a rather abrupt increase in the diameter of the chamber about halfway between the inlet and the outlet which, in effect, creates a dual diameter chamber to aid in the pellet formation process. This alleviates long-standing problems associated with excess heat from expansion friction.

Certain additives are also included in the mix such as lubricants which aid in moving the material through the die and coating materials, which also can be added during the pelleting process, both to preserve the integrity of the materials within the pellet and also to prevent the pellets from sticking to each other and prevent the formation of cubes or clumps in the product.

The concept of the present invention also includes the concept of a method of treating animals utilizing the re-hydration composition.

• Provisional Patent
• Utility Patent

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