Here's some buck pics to help get us through the offseason. On our lease, the deer are taking down about 100 lbs of cottonseed a week right now. I hope you enjoy!

Lots of people do not believe in cotton seed....I do.

Thanks for sharing the pics.

I don't think anyone doubts the positives, they're justifiably concerned about the negatives.



Congrats, OP, you've got some great deer to look forward to this fall.

Very nice looking bucks

I'm a hunting newb...so I have to ask. What are the negatives of cottonseed that we should be concerned about?

Way cool. Thanks!

Great pics! What county are you located in?

I think probably the main concern is making your deer sterile.

B_Rod, it can cause temporary sterility if the deer eat too much of it. But, it is only a temporary issue. Stop feeding it in September and there's no problem. It's extremely high in protein and fat, cheaper than protein, you don't need expensive feeders to feed it, and hogs and birds won't eat it. It used to be hard to find, but now you can buy it in many parts of South Texas in 50 pound sacks.

Maybe a dumb question, but how did they prove cotton seed causes sterility? I'm still learning as well

ARTICLE LINK

5. Gossypol Poisoning

Cottonseed includes sufficiently high gossypol concentrations to produce acute poisoning. However, there are cumulative effects of dietary gossypol and toxicity which can occur following an ingestion period of one to three months [1, 78–81]. Gossypol poisoning has been reported in many species, including broiler chicks [82], pigs [71], dogs [83, 84], sheep [85], and goats [86]. Monogastric animals, such as pigs, birds, fish, and rodents, are more susceptible to gossypol toxicity than ruminants [5, 6, 20, 87]. Moreover, young ruminants are more sensitive to gossypol compared with adult ruminants [1] because gossypol is not bound during ruminal fermentation, as it occurs in animals with fully functional rumens. However, if the gossypol intake overwhelms the ruminal detoxification capacity, free gossypol may be absorbed at hazardous concentrations even in adult ruminant animals [88].

General signs of acute toxicity are similar among animal species and include respiratory distress, impaired body weight gain, anorexia, weakness, apathy, and death after several days [1, 6, 80, 85, 89–93]. Heart failure was reported in calves [90, 94], lambs [85], and dogs [79].

The postmortem findings in ruminants include pulmonary edema, yellowish liquid in the chest and peritoneal cavities, gastroenteritis, centrilobular liver necrosis, and hypertrophic cardiac fiber degeneration. In calves, the major pathologic findings are ascites, visceral edema, acute centrilobular hepatocyte necrosis, kidney damage, and cardiovascular lesions. Increased pneumonia has also been observed, likely due to an increased sensitivity to secondary infections [85, 90–92].

Pigs may present reduced weight gain, anorexia, respiratory distress, cardiac insufficiency, coughing, and exercise intolerance. Necropsy findings include fluid accumulation in the body cavities; edema and congestion in the liver, lung, and spleen; and cardiac hypertrophy with degenerated muscle fiber [71].

Anemia is often observed in animals fed cottonseed. In fact, gossypol is a highly reactive compound that readily binds to minerals and amino acids. Binding with iron forms a gossypol-iron complex, which inhibits the absorption of this metal. The consequent iron deficiency affects erythropoiesis. Furthermore, gossypol promotes increased erythrocyte fragility [57, 74, 87, 95]. Gossypol also stimulates the eryptosis (apoptosis-like erythrocyte death) by increasing cytosolic Ca2+ activity resulting in cell membrane scrambling and contraction, which contributes to anemia [96].

Gossypol also affects thyroidal metabolism [68, 97–100]. Some studies with male [98] and female [99] rats showed decreased blood concentrations of T4 and T3 after dosing with gossypol. On the other hand, gossypol dosing resulted in increased T3 serum concentrations without affecting T4 in rats [97] and sheep [68]. The histopathological evaluation of thyroid glands from male rats dosed with gossypol revealed follicular degeneration and atrophy [98]. The thyrotropic cells in the pituitary gland, which are specialized for TSH synthesis and secretion, showed hypertrophy, hyperplasia, and degranulation after gossypol dosing in rats [100].

Certain clinical signs of gossypol poisoning have been attributed to reduced antioxidants in tissues and increased reactive oxygen species formation, which produces lipid peroxidation [101–104]. At high concentrations, gossypol also impairs energy generation from oxidative metabolism by interfering with enzymatic activity in the mitochondrial electron transport chain and oxidative phosphorylation [105–107]. Furthermore, gossypol decreases the contraction force of the heart and the extent of contraction of cardiac fibers [108].
6. Liver Damage

In addition to such effects, gossypol is hepatotoxic (Table 1) [11, 44–47, 71, 109, 110]. Ascites and hepatocyte degeneration (strong cytoplasmic eosinophilia and nuclear pyknosis) were observed in rats that received a single intraperitoneal gossypol dose of 25 mg/kg BW [45] or 30 mg/kg BW [46]. Rats that received lower gossypol doses (15 mg/kg/day for four weeks or 30 mg/kg/day for two weeks) showed morphological changes in the liver, as observed through electron microscopy, which were characterized by mitochondrial vacuolation, an enlarged endoplasmatic reticulum, an expanded perinuclear space, and collagen fiber proliferation in the perisinusoidal space [109]. Chickens fed a diet with 0.1% free gossypol for 21 days had increased plasma gamma glutamyltransferase activity and liver lipidosis [44]. Broilers that received a diet with 0.4% total gossypol for 20 days had greater liver weights [11].
tab1
Table 1: Experimental studies showing liver damage induced by gossypol.
7. Reproductive Effects

Gossypol affects male and female gametogenesis and promotes embryo lesions [81]. In the 1950s, China underwent a sharp drop in the birthrate in many rural areas where humans were consuming cottonseed oil containing gossypol. This observation was initially associated with male infertility caused by gossypol in the cottonseed oil that they were consuming. Gossypol has been investigated for use as a male contraceptive in a number of experimental studies [1, 81, 111–115].

The gossypol toxicity for male reproduction (Table 2) was reported in several studies showing that it inhibits spermatogenesis, which decreases the sperm count and spermatozoid motility and viability [20, 47–51, 53, 55, 102, 116–120]. The male antifertility effect is dose and time dependent; in effective doses, gossypol causes infertility by inhibiting sperm motility, decreasing sperm concentrations, inducing specific mitochondrial injury to the sperm tail, and damaging the germinal epithelium [20]. However, such effects are reversible when gossypol is no longer ingested [52]. Furthermore, gossypol administration to male rats did not interfere in the embryonic and fetal development of untreated dam offspring [121].
tab2
Table 2: Selected experimental studies describing effects of gossypol on male reproduction.

The deleterious effects on male reproduction have not been observed for all animals fed cottonseed meal. In adult male goats [122] and sheep [123] fed a diet with 0.5 kg/animal/day cottonseed meal for 120 consecutive days, no detrimental effects on semen volume, sperm concentration, motility, and morphology.

The gossypol-mediated spermatozoid disturbance mechanism includes the inhibition of release and utilization of ATP by the sperm cells [124]. Another effect of gossypol is the reduction of cellular and microtubular -tubular content in spermatocytes and spermatids [125]. Furthermore, gossypol inhibits calcium influx [126, 127] and Mg-ATPase and Ca-Mg-ATPase activity in spermatozoid plasmatic membranes [126]. Abnormal spermatozoids are produced because gossypol produces ultrastructural alterations in the nuclear membrane, endoplasmic reticulum, and mitochondria [119, 128–130]. In cultivated Sertoli cells from piglets, gossypol also decreases cellular oxidase activity and damages the DNA [131]. Reduced nuclear expression of androgen receptors was observed in Leydig cells, Sertoli cells, and myoid cells from rats fed gossypol-rich cottonseed flour [132].

Gossypol also affects female reproduction (Table 3), and ruminant females tolerate higher dietary gossypol concentrations than nonruminant females [20, 54, 118, 133], probably due to the ruminal detoxification. Female exposure to gossypol has been associated with interference with the estrous cycle, pregnancy, and early embryonic development [20, 57, 81]. Gossypol interfered with rodent estrous cycles [54, 134] and pig granulosa cell function [135]. Furthermore, ovaries from heifers fed cottonseed meal had fewer large follicles (>5 mm) than heifers fed soybean meal [57]. Gossypol affected in vitro ovarian steroidogenesis [136, 137] as well as bovine oocyte cumulus expansion and nuclear maturation [137].
tab3
Table 3: Selected experimental studies describing effects of gossypol on female reproduction.

Previous studies have shown that gossypol interferes with embryonic development [118, 138–141]. In fact, gossypol may reach the uterine fluids through the maternal circulation [141]. A gossypol-mediated embryotoxic effect has been observed in in vitro [118, 138, 140–142] and in vivo [57, 139, 141, 143] studies. The early pregnancy loss promoted by gossypol is not due exclusively to direct damage to embryos but also to interference with implantation of the embryo [139]. However, this compound significantly reduced the fetal body weight in pregnant mice, but no fetal abnormalities were observed [144].

The probable mechanism for gossypol embryotoxicity is through direct embryonic cytotoxicity [20, 143]. This cytotoxic effect might be promoted by (1) generation of reactive oxygen species inducing oxidative stress [102, 104, 145], (2) intercellular communication disruption [146], (3) apoptosis induction [32, 147–152], or (4) interference with ionic transport in membranes, which increases intracellular calcium [153].

How big is a 50 lb bag of cotton seed? I would think that it'd have be a large volume compared to corn or protein pellets.

Very interesting.... thanks for the info