Holstein Hemp - The Next Big Market?

Holstein Hemp - The Next Big Market?

Haylie Shipp
Haylie Shipp
With your Southeast Regional Ag News, I'm Haylie Shipp.

If you have a high-stress dog like my little Izzy, you may have dabbled in the world that is canine CBD. But have you ever heard of Holstein hemp?

Researchers at Kansas State University say hemp could be used as a stress reducer for cattle. Kansas State University beef production medicine veterinarian, Dr. Mike Kleinhenz talks about some of his latest research on feeding hemp to cattle…

“We fed industrial hemp to a group of Holstein steers. I want to stress that this was high cannabinoid industrial hemp, so we had a high amount of cannabinoids, specifically cannabidiolic acid, which is the precursor to CBD, so what you see in gummies and things like that, outside pharmacies all over the place. It is a similar compound to that, we fed to these cattle.”

Kleinhenz says they put accelerometers on the calves to monitor the amount of activity each animal had during the day to see if there was any impacts on stress…

“When we looked at their activity throughout the day, our industrial hemp calves spent a lot more time lying. And so, that kind of shows us they're a little bit less stressful, and it was a complete inversion. So, our groups, we monitored about four days before we actually started feeding hemp and our hemp calves actually spent less time lying, had a little bit more activity. And as soon as we started feeding hemp, they started laying down a little bit more. And that was also supported by our cortisol results. So, cortisol is a stress hormone, and our hemp fed calves had lower stress cortisol throughout the whole study, so we felt pretty comfortable that we had a nice stress reduction there.”

Dr. Kleinhenz says he sees quite a bit of potential especially if hemp seed meal could be approved.

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