For years, glyphosate has been one of the most widely used chemicals in agriculture, but the long-term impact of that is now becoming more evident.
It's commonly used as a dry down on crops, but the product is believed to be causing serious health issues in livestock.
During the drought, some producers were forced to bring feed in from other areas to maintain the herd.
Tragically, some of those animals became sick and even died. It was later discovered that some of that feed had been treated with glyphosate during the dry-down period.
Dr. Don Huber, an emeritus professor at Perdue University, says they've been finding high levels of glyphosate in the feed and some of the straw used for bedding.
"When it gets into the cow, into the rumen, its antibiotic activity comes into play. It kills your beneficial microorganisms in the rumen and in the GI tract, but it stimulates your pathogens. So your clostridia, botulinum and others there that are very toxic don't have any of the organisms to suppress their activity. It's just a matter of time before you see chronic botulism kill your cow."
He says we tend to see infertility problems, birth defects, and knobby joints in the calves.
Some ranchers who identified the glyphosate issue in their feed found that the sick animals seemed to rebound after the feed was changed.
He says the key is to get the animals off the affected feed as soon as possible.
"They're eating every day, so it's an accumulative type of a problem, a chronic problem rather than an acute one. The veterinarians change the feed for the animals, the death losses stop. It may take a week but usually within one to three weeks, the animal can pretty well recover from that. But you have to stop putting the toxin in there."
Overall, farmers and ranchers are being reminded about the importance of running complete soil, feed and water tests.