As the harvest season is upon us, we want to bring an urgent issue to your attention. This year, a number of cereal crops across our region are showing unusually high levels of Ergot, a fungal infection which can pose significant risks to livestock.
What is Ergot?
Ergot is a fungus that infects cereal grains like rye, wheat, and barley. It forms hard, dark sclerotia in place of the grain kernels, which contain toxic alkaloids harmful to both animals and humans.
Risks to Livestock
Cattle, sheep, and goats are especially susceptible to Ergot poisoning. Ingesting contaminated feed can lead to:
Circulatory Problems: Ergot alkaloids cause blood vessel constriction, reducing blood flow to extremities and potentially leading to lameness, tissue damage, and in severe cases, gangrene.
Reproductive Issues: Livestock may experience reduced fertility, miscarriages, and significantly reduce milk yields.
Neurological Effects: Symptoms can include nervousness, convulsions, and even death in severe cases.
Safe Levels of Ergot in Diets
Ergot is highly toxic, so we would not recommend feeding any contaminated grain to livestock. Some research has shown that an Ergot concentration of 0.2 ppm (equivalent to 0.0002g/kg) in the overall diet can be enough to cause significant symptoms. Therefore, if a cow eating 50kg fresh weight per day, just 0.01g of Ergot in the mix is enough to cause an issue.
Mycotoxin binders will not help with Ergot unfortunately.
Recommended Actions
Inspect and Test: Regularly inspect your grain for visible Ergot sclerotia. If in doubt, please let us know and we can arrange testing for you. Some images of Ergot are shown below to help you identify it.
Clean: A good grain cleaner will separate good grain from Ergot, it's lighter than grain so quite easily separated. It must go through the cleaner slowly to be effective.
Discard or Dilute: If contamination is present, consider discarding the affected grain. It is possible to dilute it with clean grain, but careful calculations will be needed.
If you have any concerns at all, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.