Oh ok.
Hardware disease is where they consume pieces of metal, fencing, pieces of metal from a pasture, from hay, etc.
It travels threw the gut and stops in a stomach chamber and punctures the stomach wall. Can puncture other organs as well.
General practice is to insert a magnet into each cow/calf. That magnet stops in the first chamber/stomach and any metal consumed sticks to that magnet preventing it from going further and in the long run killing that cow/calf.
Diarrhea is a symptom of hardware disease. Which in turn shows the weight loss.
These magnets were taken out of a pair of steers that a client was raising. The cleaner one is out of a home raised steer we butchered the same day. As you can see there is A LOT of metal on the one.
Heres the two (client) steers magnets side by side.
Turns out they got a load of hay with A LOT of junk in it. There pasture wasn't the cleanest either. Lots of very old fence pieces buried in the ground.
There growth ended up stunted in the long run but they did dress out ok at butcher. If we didn't put magnets in every animal we produce they would have lost those steers for sure.