Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast RumiNation

Timestamps & Summary 

Chris Gwyn (01:54)
Can you share with the audience a bit of the evolutionary biology of the mitochondrion, how this is crucial for today's dairy cow, and why this is such an interest to you?

Dr. Nial O'Boyle
I share your fascination with it. So, on the evolutionary side, the main theory is [that] ancient cells like archaea and a type of bacteria fused together, and the bacteria was the mitochondrion, or the pre-runner for the mitochondrion, and they became what we now know as the eukaryotic cell, so the cells that we're made up of. And that gave complex life the ability to happen. So that mitochondrion, like the bacterial cell, they can produce energy through electric potential through the membranes. But once that was brought into a cell, what you were able to do is start to do more complex work. You can produce more proteins because the energy was at the site of action. So, cells could get more complex, organisms could get more complex, and the argument is we wouldn't be here if that kind of merger hadn't happened. […]

The reason why I got interested from a dairy cow point of view is that I was fortunate enough to do a master's at Michigan State with the late Professor Lorraine Sordillo. Learned a lot from her, great scientist, um, and was just really interested. She inspired me on, on that connection between immunology nutrition, fat mobilization, and just that whole immunological question. […]

To me, that became the epicenter of this connection between nutrition and immunology. Metabolism is the conversion of food into chemical energy by the body to do work. And I don't think there's anything that comes close to the dairy cow as far as being a metabolic athlete. […]

Chris Gwyn (08:02)
Can you summarize for your audience what you've learned about management, nutrition of the transition cow that maybe relates to this improved or ability to improve mitochondrial function?

Dr. Nial O'Boyle
One thing I've learned with people like Professor Lance Baumgard and others that have brought up this conversation that calcium ketosis, et cetera, and what is correlation, and what's causation. And the more I drilled into the mitochondria, I would agree, but maybe approaching it from a different angle in that they're all related. Like, you need calcium for mitochondrial function, and you need mitochondrial function for calcium regulation. So that's related. […]

Chris Gwyn (10:16)
Do we think about managing cows to improve mitochondrial efficiency or function?

Dr. Nial O'Boyle
I don't think currently we do, but the more I've learned about it, the more I think we should. […]

Chris Gwyn (19:55)
Are we wrong to say it's the 50-kilo cow that's this crazy metabolic athlete, or are cows at lower production levels going through some of the same metabolic challenges?

Dr. Nial O'Boyle
I think the genetic machinery is there for most of these modern cows to be very high producing. It's just all these things that add up to maybe they're not expressing their genetic potential through the environmental and management sides. […]

Chris Gwyn (24:08)
Give us a message from your work that you've done, your experience related to the topic you'd love producers, nutritionists, veterinarians to remember about feeding these transition cows with the concept of thinking about what the mitochondria is doing?

Dr. Nial O'Boyle
I suppose one would be reiterating that supplying fuel isn't necessarily supplying fuel for metabolism. You need different profiles, as we talked about fatty acids, different cofactors, whether it's B vitamins or other nutrients, to make sure that fuel is metabolized and used efficiently.

Timestamps & Summary 

Chris Gwyn (02:00)
What drew you into dairy consulting, and how has that role evolved over the years as both the industry and your customers have changed?
Jodi Erickson
Back in the early 2000s, when I was hitting the job market, nutrition wasn't a career that I was seeking out, but there was an opportunity to work with an established team, an established feed supplier, and I was qualified for the job. It was shortly after that that I discovered my true passion for this career. […]
Over the last 15 to 20 years, my day-to-day role has had to adapt and evolve right along with the industry. I guess the first thing that comes to mind is the precision that we can do things now and the data that we have access to. […]

Chris Gwyn (07:26)
What does a day look like and what does a week look like in Jodi Erickson's dairy consulting business?

Jodi Erickson
My team is a team of 4 nutritionists. So, we do pretty much work independently. We do overlap on farms, just depending on size and location to a degree. But I'm generally covering dairy farms in east-central Wisconsin into central Minnesota. Generally, I am on farms every day of the week, some fairly closer to home to allow for a little bit more office time. But then obviously there are some very long, high-mileage days that happen as well. […]

But my routine farm visits, they're still based around finding what the obstacle is on the farm. Whether that's just visually identifying we're going to have a feed change, how are we going to blend, how are we going to transition this? This is something that we do 4 to 5 times a year on every farm, but it still seems like we need to revisit the procedure every time so it gets done correctly. […]

Chris Gwyn (12:12)
You have a family, you have farm work, you have your dairy consulting. How do you balance all that? What's your key to success in that area?

Jodi Erickson
The key to success there might just be failure. I can reflect on my earlier years with my children, during the hard stages of life when they're not sleeping through the night. So, all that whole dynamic, and I did lose accounts. It was a hard time in my career. And I think, in hindsight, those are probably the accounts that you weren't going to have long-standing relationships with anyway. Generally, something that I see on farms more and more is women stepping up into leadership roles. And these women have all lived through that as well. And it's just becoming, I think, more accepted. […]

But it's still a challenge, I guess. And you know, just communication. Again, it goes back to communicating with my customers. They're aware of what my life looks like, and they're respectful of me and my time. And those are the people that I want to align with.

Chris Gwyn (14:51)
If you reflect back on your 20 years of dairy consulting experience, how do you see that the role has changed over that time?

Jodi Erickson 

What's really neat about the market that I'm in is we still have really quite a few dairy farms that are under 100 cows. We still have a lot of tie stall farms, a lot of upright feed units, silos, harvesters, etc. But really, our larger farms are expanding, and they are expanding rapidly. So, it's really neat. What used to be having 3, 4, or 5 large 500-cow freestyle farms was a pretty significant milestone when I was young in my nutrition work. And now, that's kind of the norm. I'm on more of the freestyle herds than the tie stall herds. And a lot of these farms, they grew within. So, the owners and the management are making these developments and management changes, really right along with myself. […]

Chris Gwyn (20:04)
I'd love if you could share an example of a small management change that you introduced to a client or a client introduced to you that really unlocked real key benefits later on or at that moment.

Jodi Erickson
Probably the first thing that comes to mind when you say a small management change, it's still really focusing on some of the basics in nutrition work. And you see people maybe with the Penn State Shaker Boxes but really focusing on proper feed moisture and length. There have been several occasions where we have just focused on if we're going to be feeding straw or hay to some pre-fresh or post-fresh animals, whether that's driving off of an energy issue or a potassium issue. If cows are sorting at the bunk, they're not eating the diet that we think they are. And there have been a multitude of times that we have really focused on mixer maintenance, whether that's keeping knives sharp or throwing the pitch of regrinding a lot of this straw. Maybe that involves getting a Haybuster. […]

Chris Gwyn (32:27)
If you could leave some advice to a dairy producer working with their dairy consultant, say maybe 3 recommendations on how they could get the most value out of that working relationship with their dairy consultant, what would that be?

Jodi Erickson
I would think the first thing, honestly, is “be prepared.” […]

Another thing is to always keep in the back of your mind that when things are going wrong, it's very easy to blame a person, whether it's a nutritionist or a feeder on a farm. But at the end of the day, we are all on the same team. We're all fighting to win. […]

I would really say those are probably my two big sound pieces of advice. Have a lot of trust but also utilize everyone's time. Be prepared.

Timestamps & Summary 

Chris Gwyn (01:35)
How would you describe the current state of lameness on dairy farms, and how has it evolved over your career?
Dr. Gerard Cramer
I started working on lameness when I started my graduate work in 2003. Things have progressed, but I think it's still probably one of the major animal welfare issues in the industry. So, I'd say we probably haven't progressed as much as I'd like. […]
We're creating too many chronic cows. That's kind of hampering, holding us back. We do all these things to prevent new cases, and I think we're doing a good job in that, but we haven't really focused on what I think is the biggest issue, which is finding lame cows and preventing chronic cows. […]

Chris Gwyn (04:01)
You said identifying; you've done some work with cameras and identification. Where are we going with that technology? Does it seem to be working?
Dr. Gerard Cramer
That's my interest in the cameras because, to me the issue is the people. We need people to find lame cows. You need to have a dedicated person looking for lame cows. So, depending on your size of operation, that's a couple of hours where a person is literally standing there watching cows. So, it looks like you're paying them to do nothing. […]
When I'm thinking about the camera technology, I want to be strategic and say, “Okay, the camera is going to find the lame cows, the newly lame cows, or the cows that are getting worse”. But if she's a chronic lame cow, she's just going to go on a routine schedule, and she might come up to the chute every 3 months. […]

Chris Gwyn (08:29)
You talked about inflammation and changes in bone growth. You want to expand a bit on that?

Dr. Gerard Cramer
Basically, what we're talking about is the last bone; we call that the P3. That's the last bone that's inside the hoof capsule. If we think about when a cow's walking on, she's walking on about 5 millimeters of horn, and then there's about 5 millimeters of something called the corium, and then the bone is kind of sitting on top of that. So when we get pressure on that corium, when it gets squished, basically, whether it's a sole ulcer or a white line, that creates an inflammatory process. So that inflammatory process happens in the corium. […]

Chris Gwyn (12:16)
Could you share with the audience your main findings on hoof trimming modeling and how that can be applied by hoof trimmers or producers at the farm level?
Dr. Gerard Cramer
When I first came to Minnesota, one of the first things I wanted to do was say, “Okay, there's basically one commonly taught trimming technique”, and there was a trimmer called Karl Burgi out there saying, “Okay, we have to do more modeling”. And modeling is basically taking more of the horn away from underneath the flexor tuberosity, which is what creates sole ulcers. So, we did a study where we compared doing that extra modeling- some hoof trimmers would call it excessive modeling— underneath that flexor tuberosity, but not getting into the toe triangle. The toe triangle is basically where the inside wall starts to go into the coronary band, so it’s not going too far into the toe. So, when we removed that extra horn, we had some impact on first-lactation cows where we did this at the time of drying. […]

Chris Gwyn (16:54)
So, trimming cows that are exhibiting signs of lameness is a more strategic approach?
Dr. Gerard Cramer
I get in trouble when I say this, and the hoof trimmers say, “Well, I'm doing this for comfort. Some of these cows are long.” But those are all things that we have to think about and say, “Okay, in the farms I work with, cows are walking a long distance. So, there are not many cows that have really long feet”. So, we're not trimming the cows because they have really long feet. Okay, then we're trimming them really to prevent lameness. And then we have to ask ourselves, “How much lameness are we preventing?” But if you have worked with a dairy and say, “Okay, I have a lot of long feet, these cows are walking on skis, they need to be trimmed.” So, strategic means: We look at the farm and say, “This is what the trimming program is”. And then even within the farm, we say, “Okay, for that cow, this is what her trimming program should be”. […]

Chris Gwyn (17:58)
We're talking about trimming. Is there anything we should be doing differently with pregnant heifers from a trimming perspective?

Dr. Gerard Cramer 
I think it totally depends on where they're coming from. […]

Dr. Gail Carpenter explains how early-life stress, nutrition, and management shape calf health, resilience, productivity, and profitability.

Timestamps & Summary 

Chris Gwyn (04:04)
Calfhood stress: what does that mean, and why is the timing of these stressors so important, in particular for the long-term health and productivity of the animal?

Dr. Gail Carpenter
It is a very stressful time in that animal's life. They don't have an immune system. They don't have the tools to really be able to thrive the way an older animal would. If we're doing our colostrum program, they've got that passive immunity, but that's about it. And there are a lot of things that happen in those first couple of months to our calves. […]

Chris Gwyn (07:59)
What are we seeing from financial or productivity loss in their first lactation or lifetime from the research that's been done more globally? But also, how is that impacting the dairy?

Dr. Gail Carpenter
I'll talk about the replacement heifers first. There's been quite a bit of research done; there's a study that gets often cited out of Mike VanAmberg's lab at Cornell showing more milk replacer. And this is where the accelerated growth programs really started, I think, taking hold was more milk replacer in early life, more milk production in the first lactation. And so, I think a lot of people have seen that research and thought, “Well, if I give more milk, I get more milk.” But there's a lot more nuance than that. […]

Chris Gwyn (18:45)
Can you see other aspects of management and nutrition that can help to reduce the negative impact? And where do you see the biggest opportunities for farmers or nutritionists to help better support those calves?

Dr. Gail Carpenter
You're absolutely right that we need to be thinking ahead. You've probably heard the phrase that genetics is the ceiling and nutrition is the floor. So genetics kind of sets that upper limit, and nutrition sets that lower limit. I don't actually think that's entirely accurate. I like to say that genetics is the ceiling, nutrition is the floor, and management is the foundation. Because you can't outfeed bad management. And I like the way you phrase that about looking ahead and kind of predicting when these stressors are going to happen, because if we can proactively manage them— and dairy farmers are super creative. There's a lot of different— there's no one right way to manage every stressor that a calf is going to have. But when you talk about low-hanging fruit and things that I want producers to think about a lot, the two main stressful points in a calf's early life are going to be that first day and weaning. […]

Chris Gwyn (22:35)
So, as we wrap up our discussion today, I always like to ask for that calf manager, that producer listening to the audience, in the audience today, what would be sort of 3 or 4 key takeaways about calfhood stress that you'd like them to impart and think more effectively about, and how that's being managed and implemented at their farms?

Dr. Gail Carpenter
I would say again, that day 1 care. Make sure you have those protocols locked in. And you're making sure that you're working with your veterinarian on that. I would also say the weaning side of things. And I think a lot of that weaning comes back to getting groceries in the calf and making sure some of those groceries are coming from the starter. [...]

And then cleanliness. That's obviously a big part of that day one process, but keeping that calf kitchen clean, keeping that immune system from having to fight off more germs than it has to because you're feeding with dirty nipples… […]

Chris Gwyn (24:07)
And is there anything specific related to the dairy-beef that you would like to reemphasize with the listening audience?

Dr. Gail Carpenter

There's a lot we don't know about the beef-on-dairy side. There's a lot we're still trying to figure out. But what we do know is that those best practices for heifers are often going to be the same best practices for beef-on-dairy.

Timestamps & Summary 

Chris Gwyn (02:19)

Tell us about your Rancher program and your background journey.

Dr. Juliana Ranches

Rancher is a webinar series that brings most of the day’s information to cattle producers and livestock producers around the globe. […]
I wanted it to be something unique that would highlight the work of women in this industry. So female scientists, ranchers, farmers, in the industry, faculty that work in the beef cattle industry or in the cattle industry in general, to showcase their career, to show their trajectory, and also to, you know, inspire the younger generation. […]

I actually started my research career as a dairy person, but my heart was always beef. So I got a lot of experience in the dairy industry, working as an intern in one of the largest dairy farms in Brazil. […]
Later, I moved to Florida to do my master's and PhD. And there I was trained in nutrition, ruminant nutrition, with a major focus on mineral nutrition. […]

Moving to Oregon, to the Western US, brought another set of challenges and questions that need to be addressed for our producers. And then the wildfire smoke exposure studies, that's definitely something that has been a challenge for producers. […]
That got me thinking about the smoke because we were in a situation where there were a lot of poor air quality days with very poor outside environmental conditions. […]

Chris Gwyn (09:28)

How does wildfire smoke impact cattle biology, physiology, and performance?

Dr. Juliana Ranches

In 2022, when we started doing our smoke exposure studies with natural exposure. So we had a project throughout the state, we had 3 different locations where we were monitoring cattle all over the seasons. So basically, what we tried to do was to create a good, strong baseline of data on the health and other parameters. And then we were hoping that a fire would happen. […]

And in one of those locations, we actually got a fire. Once that fire happened, calves were exposed to that natural smoke, and there was poor air quality, and we started to intensify our monitoring and sampling of those animals. 
By the end of that study, we got samples and monitoring prior to smoke, during smoke exposure, and post-smoke exposure. So that was one of the initial works we did.

What we learned in that study is that smoke exposure led to increases in cortisol, immunoglobulins, cytokines, and an acute phase response. So, with that initial study, we are sure now that smoke from wildfires can be considered an environmental stressor. And that leads to some energy losses through the development of that immune response. […]

Chris Gwyn (11:57)

Are there morphological or lung-related changes from smoke exposure?

Dr. Juliana Ranches

For that study in particular, unfortunately, we did not do any lung ultrasounds or anything more morphological. I know some of our colleagues from the University of Idaho, who are also working in this area of smoke exposure. […]
What we are doing now on the smoke exposure is we now have developed a methodology that we can control and mimic the smoke exposure that we see from natural fires. So we can actually have a little bit more control over it. […]
What we are seeing right now with those control-type studies is that the responses are very similar to what we’ve seen in the first study in terms of immunology. […]
But we also now have the ability to measure feed intake and look at average daily gain on those calves. And what we are seeing is that calves that are exposed to smoke have delayed and slower gains. […]

Chris Gwyn (15:21)

Do the effects of smoke exposure persist after the event?

Dr. Juliana Ranches

At this point, our studies are very short. We're trying to just look at up to 3 weeks after that smoke exposure. […]
We ran this study for about 36 days. We do a week of acclimation, a week of smoke exposure, and then 3 weeks of following those calves.

In this most recent study that we did, we saw that calves that were exposed to smoke never reached the same performance or final gain as the calves that were outside. […]
What we've seen so far is that calves that were exposed to smoke never caught up to the calves that were not exposed. They were lighter at the end of this study in terms of average daily gain, final gain, and final body weight.

Chris Gwyn (16:42)

Can we extrapolate these findings to older animals or feedlot situations?

Dr. Juliana Ranches

I feel like this is a frequent problem here in the Western states of the United States. […]
So, I feel like an older animal that has been able to mature and be in the herd is unlikely to suffer so much through it. But I think what smoke might do is actually cut the productivity of that animal shorter. […]

So those animals entering the feedlot might be more susceptible. […]
I think they might be more susceptible to disease and not necessarily stay long in the herd. So far in our studies, it seems that calves exposed to smoke have the same visual signs as a calf with BRD (Bovine Respiratory Disease), but they don’t have a fever. […]
They might just look like they have BRD, but they might not have it.

Chris Gwyn (19:46)

How does wildfire smoke compare to dust exposure in feedlots?

Dr. Juliana Ranches

In smoke exposure, we tend to look at the fine particulate matter of PM2.5, which is the smallest one. That tends to be the major concern of smoke from wildfires because it's a very, very small particulate. It can actually dry the airways, and with that, it can be inhaled by the animals and get into the bloodstream through the airways. […]

And when we think about the dust and smoke from feedlots, that's probably going to be on the bigger size. It's still very small, but it's probably more of the PM10. […]

But both are very destructive and will negatively impact animals. I would say that maybe the type of response we get in both scenarios might be similar; it's just that what is causing it might be a little bit different.

Chris Gwyn (21:17)

What management strategies can help mitigate wildfire smoke impacts?

Dr. Juliana Ranches

Our first recommendation for producers is “be prepared”. […]

If you get in a situation that a fire is coming, you might have to evacuate, so keep in mind where you're going to move your animals, who's going to move them, when you're going to do it, and what feed resources you have to move with you. […]

And then for producers that are affected by the smoke itself, we always recommend not stacking stressors. […]

If you're planning any type of management like weaning, commingling, transporting, vaccination, and you know there's smoke, you might want to consider delaying that practice. […]

We also recommend always having lots of clean water for those animals. […]

We want to make sure that the airways are always moist, so we avoid giving opportunity to opportunistic diseases. And in terms of nutrition, make sure that those animals have very good, high-quality feed. If they eat a little bit, they might want to eat the best food we can possibly offer.

Chris Gwyn (24:33)

What are your key take-home messages?

Dr. Juliana Ranches

I think at this point we now know that smoke is an environmental stressor, so it should be treated as one. So, try not to stack those stressors and make sure we provide the best feed and water to those animals during that stressful period. Reduce that stressor load in that production moment.

If you are in a situation where you might be subject to evacuation, make sure you have a plan so the outcomes are more likely to be positive. So again, plan and make sure not to stack stressors. […]

Everything that we suspect would happen when those animals were exposed to smoke basically happened. So, we know it's not good, exposure is not good, and it does impact production. So more questions are coming, more research is coming. […]

Timestamps & Summary 

Chris Gwyn (02:58)

How should nutritionists use lab data to confirm that what’s formulated on paper matches what cows are actually eating and performing?

Katie Raver
A lot of times when we get a feed analysis, we use those feed analysis to formulate our ration.
So we'll pull those into a model and build a ration around those. […]
But I think there's a lot of value beyond that. […]
Even testing things like commodities can help us confirm what we put into that model is what's getting fed to cows. […]
And we can even do this from testing our TMR and making sure what is coming out in the feed mixer and getting fed to cows matches what we have formulated.

Chris Gwyn (04:54)

What are the key recommendations for setting up an effective and practical feed and forage sampling program?

Katie Raver
It's definitely based on a farm-by-farm situation, and so we have to take into account a lot of factors when we set out a sampling recommendation. […]
We have to make sure that we've got someone who's capable of taking those samples, that we trust to take those samples. […]
So some of the key points… is the recommendation of sampling feeds more than we're using 4 or more pounds of. […]
We really weigh it based off of the usage and what the farm can accomplish along with farm size. […]
We've seen success sampling as much as 3 to 5 times a week for our very, very large farms, and as low as 1 every week to every 10 days or 2 weeks.

Chris Gwyn (07:53)

What tools or innovations are helping producers and nutritionists get more value from feed testing data?

Katie Raver
In terms of tools to establish a testing routine would just simply be creating a list of the feeds that we're feeding, usage rates. […]
And we've got some tools built to help producers do that. […]
I think being flexible to dairies is what's enabled us to really capture the most benefit. […]
So some new tools would be being able to trend and track this over time. So if we get a robust enough data set, we can use trend tracking tools and statistics to look at how that feed is changing over time and automatically notify the producer. […]

Chris Gwyn (10:27)

How will artificial intelligence and machine learning impact feed analysis and decision-making?

Katie Raver
One of the challenges… is that for the grand majority of our farms, we don't have a very big dataset. […]
Feed sampling, we maybe do every other week. And so… we have about 25 data points per feed per year. […]
When we look at AI models and machine learning, typically those are able to be utilized when we get hundreds of data points. And so now with a more robust sampling program, we're able to develop this really big dataset that we can leverage these AI tools on. […]

Chris Gwyn (12:28)

What feed hygiene issues are limiting performance, and how should producers think about them?

Katie Raver
I think feed hygiene really is something that we all need to take quite seriously because it can be a production limiter. […]
One of the biggest… misconceptions… is that when we have an issue on a farm, it's one problem. […]
However, most of the time… it's often a combination of these negative things working together that are leading to these issues. So maybe it's not that one thing that we're looking to find, but it's a combination of things. […]
But as we look at the whole picture of what the cow is taking in, that's when we start to see a clearer picture. […]

Chris Gwyn (15:34)

How should feed hygiene testing be used, and what signs should producers watch for on-farm?

Katie Raver
This is a test that's done when we suspect an issue. So we're often a little bit retroactive in our testing for these feed hygiene parameters. […]
However, if we feel like we're not getting the productivity we expect, feed hygiene is definitely something to look at. […]
So, one thing that I tend to recommend people look into would be, are we seeing heating? […]
When we look at our bunk face, is it hot? Do we see evidence of spoilage? Does it smell good or are there some off smells that maybe we need to look into? […]

Chris Gwyn (19:17)

How should fecal analysis be used alongside forage and TMR testing?

Katie Raver
It gives us an insight into what the cow is actually doing with our feed. […]
So things like fecal starch and fecal fat, now we can test through NAR. And so, we have this opportunity to look at what the cow is doing with the starch that we're providing and if there's any opportunity to improve starch digestion. […]
And so it gives us opportunities to look at where we can fine-tune these nutrients and where we can potentially gain more energy from these nutrients. […]
So we can use these tools quite a bit to help benchmark within a herd… to make sure we're making improvements in the right direction. […]

Chris Gwyn (23:07)

What are best practices for sampling and submitting fecal samples?

Katie Raver
If we know that shipping a sample in the heat, we get continual degradation of the starch. So especially in summer months, we want to freeze those samples before we send them. […]
We don't want a pile that's been sitting there for, you know, 2 or 3 hours because again, that starch can be degrading. So when we do it, we want to make sure we're taking the right steps, getting fresh samples, making sure we're getting a representative sample from the pen. […]
So I think always having that baseline is good… we need that baseline to know where we're going and help us make sure we're achieving our goals.

Chris Gwyn (25:35)

What key habits should nutritionists adopt to get more value from lab analysis?

Katie Raver
So what the first one would be: test all your feeds at some routine frequency. […]
Understanding and creating a baseline for the regional area of feeds that you're sourcing, I think is really important. […]
And so just understanding what that is, where you're at, I think will really help fine-tune that ration. […]
And then number two would be looking at trends over time. […]
Tracking those changes over time will give us better insight into how our feed is changing… and that our data is representative of what we're feeding to cows.

Timestamps & Summary 

Chris Gwyn (02:04)
Could you share with the audience why B vitamins would be important to receiving cattle in particular?
Dr. Stephanie Hansen
Absolutely. If we go back and look at the NRC guidelines, we've really ignored two classes of vitamins, vitamin C and vitamin B. Cattle are able to make vitamin C from glucose in their liver. […] Not a lot of work is focused on that because the assumption has been that the animal can make it, it's fine. Similarly, they get most of their B vitamins from rumen microbial synthesis. And so, again, a lot of the requirements were largely ignored, or potential requirements, because the thought has been: Well, his bugs make it for him, so he's fine. […]

Chris Gwyn (04:19)
What do they do to a feed lot receiving cattle that would be important in their overall performance, health, productivity, profitability in the end?
Dr. Stephanie Hansen
The way that I teach this to my nutrition students is that if you think about the macros like protein and carbohydrates and lipids, often the things that we formulate rations for initially, those are like the bricks in a wall. If you stacked those bricks on top of each other, they're pretty robust, and they're a big chunk of that wall. But you could push those bricks over with a finger because there's nothing holding them together. If you think about minerals and vitamins in water as collectively making the mortar that you could put between those to hold it together, and you let it dry, now it'd be pretty hard to push that wall over. It's a sturdy structure. I love that analogy. I stole that from one of my friends in the industry. […]

Chris Gwyn (06:20)
Can you tell us in particular, about some of the health or immune outcomes? You had mentioned immunity that you saw in a study, and what also excited you about to look in the future?
Dr. Stephanie Hansen
This was an eight-week trial. Basically, what we did was we had a pen-based study, so Delivering to Pens. That's what we call an experimental unit for this. This was a set of steers that came out of a ranch up in Wyoming, I think, for this. Basically, we tracked weekly feed intakes throughout those eight weeks of the trial. As expected, intakes are pretty low when cattle first arrive, and they're newly weaned, they're bawling, so they're just literally figuring out everything in life. And slowly, intakes increase over the eight weeks. And one of the things, one of our treatments was a ruminal-protected B-vitamin A combination. […]

Chris Gwyn (08:50)
Was there any direct impact on immunity that you were able to measure in this study?
Dr. Stephanie Hansen
I think one of the things that's been really fun about some of the research that we've done at Iowa State over the last several years is some of the collaborations that we formed. […]
Jodi McGill is our collaborator at our vet school. She's a bovine immunologist, and her expertise is really about things that happen in the lung, in particular. She's really interested in bovine respiratory disease complex, which is very common in receiving cattle. With Jodi, what we have done is what I would call a two-prong approach. One is we're actually able to take essentially a tube and put it in that calf's nose, flush his lungs with a little bit of saline, and then draw that saline back up. […]
That fluid that we pull back up, they then isolate cells out of there. Some of these cells are going to be things like immune cells, and they're not in the lung tissue itself. They're hanging out around it. This is a snapshot of who's on the way to the lung from an immune response perspective. […]

Chris Gwyn (12:42)
Are there other interesting key findings from that study that you're able to share at this point?
Dr. Stephanie Hansen
I think the health stuff is really the most interesting. Maybe at the end of the day, 28 days look like it might be the peak beneficial window. I think that makes sense because after 28 days, we're starting to pick up nicely on intakes. Really, the majority of our health benefits are seen there, especially, I would say, in week two and three, which fits perfectly when we typically see shipping fever break and things like that for newly arrived calves. […]

Timestamps & Summary 

Chris Gwyn (01:44)
Before we jump right in, I'd enjoy hearing about the journey that brings you to research and teaching.
Dr. Stephanie Hansen 
I did not grow up on a beef operation, but my grandparents had cattle, and so I spent a lot of summers there. So, I had the beef bug, so to speak, by the time I went to undergrad at Iowa State, but I was never pre-vet. I was really focused on what we could do, and eventually I realized that what that was was nutrition to actually keep animals from having to see the vet if we didn't have to. And so I found my passion for nutrition through a senior-level nutrition class, and I call that my light bulb class, and I teach that now. So I've been teaching that for over 14 years, and I think that's really a full circle moment to be at the front of the classroom for the class that gave me the passion for nutrition. […]

Chris Gwyn (03:33)
I'm wondering, what have you seen as the biggest changes in cattle receiving practices that have driven some of those changes, whether it's science, economics, or consumer expectations?
Dr. Stephanie Hansen
I think some of the biggest things we've learned in the receiving cattle nutrition is really the importance of what happened to that animal before they came to the feed lot. Now, of course, we're a very segmented industry, so it's really difficult to control that. But we do have a lot of people who will have retained ownership and will have the opportunity to really control more of the nutrition that gets into that animal from birth all the way out through harvest. […]

Chris Gwyn (05:39)
Are there impacts of consumer expectations that have also altered what we should be doing today from what we've done in the past?
Dr. Stephanie Hansen
From a consumer perspective, I would say probably the biggest one, […] is that we have pretty aggressively moved away from mass treatment of animals on arrival. That's really a practice now that is restricted to animals who are at really high risk. […]

Chris Gwyn (07:48)
Are there emerging strategies or even feed additives that you're particularly excited about? What are we doing differently today that we didn't do in the past?
Dr. Stephanie Hansen 
I think now, and moving maybe into the future, too, about this idea of precision nutrition. How do we go from making pen-level decisions for 100 head or 200 head in a pen to making single animal-based decisions? There are all kinds of challenges with that. But I think with some of the wearables and different technology sensors and stuff that we have now, we're increasing our likelihood of being able to do some of those things. […]

Chris Gwyn (10:32)
Do you find that, out of my naivety of knowledge, producers typically have a different diet for sick pens, or is it just fairly basic to get them back on feed and get them healthy again?
Dr. Stephanie Hansen
I would say that, especially in the last several years, the philosophy has really shifted to get that animal back to their home pen if at all possible. Bad things in general tend to happen if you're in the hospital pen, right?

Chris Gwyn (14:58)
We're going to fast-forward five years? Well, let's say 10 years. What do you see as the modern twists that would impact the new standard in receiving cattle management or nutrition?
Dr. Stephanie Hansen
I think two things. I think of wearable sensors, such as ear tags or collars. […] Right now, we've got some challenges where some of them interfere with other things, so you’ve got to figure that out. [Also], labor is going to continue to be one of our biggest challenges in the beef industry. We just don't have as many people who are willing to do some of the work that's required, or that labor force just simply isn't available. How do we help somebody become a better cowboy or cowgirl in terms of their ability to identify sick animals?

Chris Gwyn (18:02)
To summarize, maybe three or four key points that you'd like to emphasize to producers and veterinary nutritionists in relation to receiving cattle, management, technology, and nutrition that you'd really like to stick with them?
Dr. Stephanie Hansen
I think the first one would be the more you know about what you're buying, the better. […]
Think about strategic supplementation, making sure that you've got some fortification of critical minerals like zinc, critical vitamins like vitamin A, and some of the other things that maybe have been less researched, like vitamin C and the B vitamins. […]
Are there ancillary or additional therapies that you can offer when an animal has to get pulled for a treatment? […]

Timestamps & Summary 

Chris Gwyn (00:02:56.23)
Dr. Van de Pol, would you share with the listening audience your journey in AG and in data, and how this journey has brought you to establishing CATTLEytics?
Dr. Shari van de Pol
Similar to a lot of listeners of your show, what really resonates with me is everything tied to agriculture, being outdoors, and the biological systems. I just found it was so interesting and fascinating.[…]
I actually did a minor in fine art at the time, and I ended up working for IBM and found myself at a very interesting, challenging job, but something that really didn't connect with any of the things that I really held dear. I had this moment where I decided, after a few years of spending a day a week with a large animal vet, that I was going to go back to school to become a large animal veterinarian. And that is really what kicked off this path. I always knew when I was in vet school that what I wanted to really focus on was the systems. And that's what I ended up doing. While I was at the Summer Dairy Institute down at Cornell. I met with some really interesting professors and some interesting industry experts. […]
In 2014, that's when CATTLEytics was formally started. We've been in this for over 10 years, and we have a strong history now in the industry of really pairing technology and veterinary expertise. […]

Chris Gwyn (00:06:00.11)
Are there areas in livestock production that we're missing out on by not either having accurate data or not being able to make timely decisions based on the analysis or accurate analysis of data?
Dr. Shari van de Pol
I mean, there obviously are, but we really take a person-first approach to the way that we do our business. We look at dairy farms and dairy cows like athletes. So, if you have a whole bunch of Olympic athletes, it depends on how far you want to go. If you're happy with their performance and you're getting your milk check and you don't want to do anything further than that, then, yeah, there’s a lot of potential, but you're not motivated to really dive into that potential. […]

Chris Gwyn (00:09:24.12)
Tell me about the impact of farm size in those types of decision-making processes.
Dr. Shari van de Pol
You manage a farm differently depending on size. Part of that is due to even just staffing. Because I find people can do things when they are a solo dairy farmer and they have 50 cows, they can keep a lot in their head. They know what's going on. They can assess the situation as it goes. As soon as you start to grow beyond that, you start to involve, often family members, but additional staff. When you get to that point, then you need to start to streamline an operation. […]

Chris Gwyn (00:13:35.02)
How can systems today work to enhance or utilize that data to be more predictive and more preventable?
Dr. Shari van de Pol
What we've seen is when I started, for instance, looking at production data, and I was looking at production data both north and south of the border here in North America, and I was finding that, for instance, there were similar environmental effects affecting milk production in given years. A lot of it could be potentially environmental as opposed to what that farmer is doing. The producer could be doing the exact same thing year after year, performing to that top level, but if the environmental effect is strong, they're going to see a worse return on their efforts. […]

Chris Gwyn (00:15:52.11)
And machine learning, we hear that bounced around. What are we actually talking about here?
Dr. Shari van de Pol (00:15:58.18)
When we talk about machine learning, we're often talking about things like neural networks or random forests, which, again, don't give you much information. […]
The classic example was looking at pictures of dogs and cats. You could look at a picture of a dog and immediately say: “Hey, that's a dog, that's a chihuahua, that's a domestic shorthair.” But computers couldn't do this. They would take this image, break it into pixels, see the dark... They just had a really hard time with problems like that. What that meant is that computer science could only go so far. It could only go up to really mathematical-specific problems. But when you start to go into those areas where it's simple for us but hard for them, they hit a wall, and they couldn't help us out with those other problems. Basically, jumping over this wall means that it opens up what computers can do. Now what happens is a computer looks at an image and it would apply something called a neural network, which means it's like a series of filters on that image. […]

Chris Gwyn (00:21:01.20)
I guess bringing some of those different systems together and talking together is also important, right?
Dr. Shari van de Pol
Absolutely. I mean, it’s one of those things where I was down at a conference and hearing people on a panel say: “If only there was a company that would bring data streams together and do this”, and it's like, we're doing this. It is a tough problem. One of the reasons why it's a tough problem is because there's not necessarily an obvious big motivation for players in the industry to share their data other than the fact that is beneficial to the dairy farmers they are serving. […]

Chris Gwyn (00:23:43.09)
I wanted to bring in the topic about data security, ownership, at he farm level. I was wondering if you could share some thoughts on that.
Dr. Shari van de Pol
When we talk about things like data security, it definitely goes to protecting the assets on farm, making sure that your backups aren't just set and forget. You have to test those systems out and have a plan to test them out, quarterly, for instance. You also need to work with a provider that understands what a dairy is like.

Chris Gwyn (00:28:09.09)
Summarize three or four key points that you would emphasize to producers, having been there as a nutritionist in relation to collection analysis and application of data on the farm. What would you recommend?
Dr. Shari van de Pol
First off, if you're somebody who wants to, whether you're a business or you're a producer, if you want to get to that next level, there are resources. We will help you as a company. There are ways to get to that next level. […]
The second thing is when we're talking about staffing, onboarding, training, having protocols available, being able to do that, team management, communication, that has been in the past undervalued, and that's an easy win to make your farm a great place to show up to and a place where everybody wants to be. […]
And then the third thing is, artificial intelligence is something that can take away the headaches that you have, the things that you don't want to do, the filling in of forms, and all of those things. […]

Timestamps & Summary 

Chris Gwyn (02:11)
At JEFO, we've been looking at stressors across species, in particular in dairy cows. I was wondering if you could give our audience an overview of this study and why it's important.

Dr. Laura Hernandez
Sure. This was an ongoing collaboration with my colleague Dr. Milo Wiltbank, who's a reproductive physiologist here at the University of Wisconsin. We had a shared scientist who's now a professor at the vet school at the University of Florida, Pedro Monteiro. […] He's traditionally a reproductive physiologist. He developed this question about how this might impact return to cyclicity and timing of parturition. His main complaint was that in our projects, we could never figure out when the cows would calve, so they'd be sampling forever and ever and ever. And then finally the cow would calve earlier or late, of course. And so he was like, there's got to be a way we can figure this out. It also might be really critical to how successfully a cow comes back into cyclicity or what might happen with reproductive diseases, knowing that there are all these losses that occur that are due to a variety of problems in the first 60 days postpartum. […]
We know that cortisol is a major stress regulator of all things, and it changes all the time in relation to a variety of stresses. [Dr. Monteiro] had read this paper, and I believe it was beef cattle, and they had shown that you could measure cortisol in the hair. Really, the hair cortisol is reflective that day for about two weeks prior to the actual date you took the hair sample. Because the cortisol deposits in the hair, and the hair doesn't go away. It grows, and then you shave it off, and you can do this measurement via RIA or ELISA of the cortisol. […]

Chris Gwyn (10:10)
You had demonstrated that if we can just take out some of the key points: low stress, low cortisol versus high. You were able to see a production performance different, wasn't there?

Dr. Laura Hernandez 
That would be from a practical standpoint that if our data continues to go in the way that it has been, that if a farm wanted us to come, that this is something that could be done by a nutritionist or nutrition groups or veterinarian groups, that if they wanted to know what it looked like, say, in the prepartum period, they could take a hair sample when they dried cows off, and then maybe, depending on what their dry off protocol was, three weeks later, get another hair sample. That could be run, and they would have a good idea of what's happening. Or if they wanted to do it in a post-fresh cow, say 10 days postpartum, they could really take a look at what some of these pen changes might look like, if they did it in a new facility, or if they were having problems, is it due to stress? What's the stress level? How might that look on a threshold if we can develop one? It would be a really easy way to do so without bleeding a cow. All you have to do is shave the tail head. It's just a regular shaving. […]

Chris Gwyn (12:43)
Inherently, we may understand that certain periods of lactation or management practices have a different level of applied stress or stressors. Calving, regrouping, the whole process, mixing groups, but we don't know what costs us. Some association of a simple cortisol test with a number of studies that support milk loss or impacts on reproduction will reestablish or reinforce the need to perhaps change some management.

Dr. Laura Hernandez
That's my hope. I'm a very basic scientist, but all the things I root my science in are providing information to make good decisions that work the very best for a particular farm within the means of their ability to do things. I think that's why we're here, is to help them. We try to really make our work as translational as possible.

Timestamps & Summary 

Chris Gwyn (01:50)
Dr. Hernández, could you share with the audience your journey that brought you to be a trusted researcher and advisor at the University of Wisconsin?

Dr. Laura Hernandez
Sure. Working in Dr. Collier's lab, I had the fortunate pleasure of working in mammary biology. I specifically worked on how the mammary gland interacts with the endocrine and metabolic systems of an animal. And naturally, given his research was in dairy cows, that was my first exposure. I really became fascinated with this process. So, it led me to be a postdoc continuing this work, but also in humans and in mice, and looking at things more holistically from how the maternal metabolism and biology coordinate with the mammary gland to make milk and stay healthy at the same time. 
And so when they were looking for a lactation biologist at the University of Wisconsin, I was more than happy to apply for it and very fortunate to get the position. I've been here now for 14 years. […]

Chris Gwyn (03:28)
We deal every day with dairy ruminants about producing milk. Can we say sometimes you overlook the other, and the physiology and metabolism that goes on? This is strange, but it's awesome that you're in this role and the University of Wisconsin is continuing this role because it doesn't exist in a lot of universities, right?

Dr. Laura Hernandez (03:55)
It doesn't. And we're fortunate now we have a second faculty member in the space, Ximena Laporta. And so, they really expanded that. And prior to my getting here, at various periods of time, they had maybe two people focused in that space. Occasionally, we had someone studying mastitis. Pam Ruegg was here before Michigan State. And so they've always put a focus on that. […]

Chris Gwyn (04:50)
Further on that, we can expand because as I read through your research, it seems that perhaps, the industry in general may have overlooked the key role of the mammary system. As you pointed, it's specific to calcium balance or homeostasis in the dairy cow.

Dr. Laura Hernandez 
I think maybe 30, 40 years ago, there was more emphasis on this interaction between what was happening in the tissue itself and how that was dealing with nutrition or the endocrine state of the animal. There have been some really great mammary biologists like Jeff Dahl, Dale Bowman, Bob Collier, and Alan Tucker at Michigan State. But there's been this space where we've really gone down nutritional management, which is important. But as the mammary line keeps producing milk, it's sending signals back to the cow, like “I need more”. And calcium, of course, is critical because it's the highest mineral content in milk. And the cow needs calcium, too, to maintain muscle balance and a variety of processes. […]

Chris Gwyn (07:41)
In some of the discussions you've had that negative gap in calcium actually extends quite a bit of ways into the lactation, doesn't it?
Dr. Laura Hernandez
Yeah. The most data we have in cows, at least, it's hard to assess bone status in a cow without euthanizing the animal, but for sure, in the first 30 days in milk, they're losing potentially up to 13% of their bone mass. But it's really not until the animal hits peak lactation, where she's not compensating for this massive amount of milk production and trying to ride herself after having given birth, that she gets to this state where she's achieved a steady amount of milk. […]

Chris Gwyn (09:20)
I was reading recently, in the last number of years, you and collaborative researchers have been looking at transient hypocalcemia. I wonder if you could expand a bit more on this and what it means to dairy producers or veterinarians or nutritionists.

Dr. Laura Hernandez
This has been an interesting task for my colleague, Jessica McCarthy, and I, of trying to tell people that a little bit of hypocalcemia is okay because the common thought is they're hypocalcemic, they're sick, they need more calcium, or they need a bolus, or they need an IV, and something's not right. There're really these categories and degrees of hypocalcemia that can be problematic. But the issue is what stimulates that calcium mobilization from bone is what we call an endocrine negative feedback. […]

Chris Gwyn (17:01)
Serotonin, you've done some work on that. Is there a play in there for these transition cows?

Dr. Laura Hernandez
This is just what I hope becomes another tool in the toolbox. But what we've shown, at least with our data, is that the precursor to serotonin, 5HTP or 5-hydroxy tryptophan, will trigger a hypocalcemia that then allows for those negative feedback events to start. […]

Chris Gwyn (18:39)
These products need to be mixed, consumed, delivered, properly. Where's the research going on hypocalcemia after this, you think?

Dr. Laura Hernandez
That's a great question. I think some of what we're doing is getting more details together on the exolith and trying to understand that to gather more information, I think that's one way. I think the other thing is trying to understand how all these different preventative methods work. When do you give a bolus? When do you give a gel? How do those things work in combination with these prepartum therapies? Because I think there's a real gap in that knowledge. […]

Chris Gwyn (21:39)
What would you share as the top three take-home messages when it comes to hypocalcemia in cows?

Dr. Laura Hernandez
Manage your cows prepartum. Pick your poison, whether it's Exalate or DECAD. I highly encourage that because they work. I would say, figure out what works best and do it right. […]

The other one is that I don't think we need to be blood testing cows daily for the first week postpartum. I think if you're really concerned about how a herd is doing, maybe on a larger scale, try to get samples. If you're only going to do it once, wait 48 hours unless you see a sick animal. Always treat a sick animal. […]

Then third, I think the other thing is that getting all the knowledge of the different treatments and preventions there are and understanding them is really important as a nutritionist or a veterinarian. […]

Timestamps & Summary  

Chris Gwyn (02:26)

Going past the economic value, what can component volume and percentage tell us about the farm level management and cow health?

Dr. Heather Dann

I think one of the important things that we need to look at is the pounds or kilos of fat and protein that our farm is producing. [S]ome of the common metrics that we're currently using here […] is the kilos or pounds of fat and protein shipped. Several years ago, we had these targets of about 2.7 kilos, or about six plus pounds. People were trying to join […] the six-pound club. And because of improvements in nutrition management as well as genetics, many farms have now been easily able to achieve that. And what we're seeing now is that those targets or those benchmarks are shifting. And we have many farms striving for that 3.2 kilos or 7 pounds plus of milk. And we're fortunate here at the Institute that we're at that level and a little above. […]

Chris Gwyn (04:10)

What else can this high level of component yield tell us about what's going on from a management perspective or cow health perspective?

Dr. Heather Dann

I think it really gives us a lot of insight into the general feeding practices and quality of the diet that's being had on farm. And one of the tools or metrics that we've been using for the last several years and have found quite useful is the fatty acid analysis piece that's come into play. […]

Chris Gwyn (07:13)

What do you see from your own experience or research as the most influential nutritional factors affecting component yield on the dairies?

Dr. Heather Dann

I think one of the most important things that we need to do is make sure we get the diet and that dining experience right to maximize milk components. And to me, that means that we need to focus on diet formulation, but also the management environment in which that diet is delivered to the cows. […]

But I think it just drives home the point that we can't just think about the diet formulation. It's beyond that; it's not just how it's formulated but how we mix it, how we deliver it, and then make sure it's available to the cows throughout the day. […]

Chris Gwyn (11:52)

Cow comfort management affects milk component yield in your experience and the research that you've done?

Dr. Heather Dann

I would say some of the work that we've done here at the Institute, as well as the Guelph Group, which is doing great work, and several other places, really drives home the point to me that we need to focus on optimizing key behaviors of those animals to maximize milk components. And that comes down to […] cow comfort. So, I'm thinking about the physical environment the cow is in, the social environment, not just with her own cow peers, but also as farmers, how we interact with our animals. And those things are going to influence the key behaviors that I think about when I'm trying to set cows up to produce as much fat and protein as they can. So, resting time, rumination time, and feeding time. And if we can get those things right in the cow's daily time budget, then she's going to be productive, healthy, and have a good well-being. So, some of the work that we've done here, we've gone out on farms and tried to understand why some farms have higher fat content than others. […]

Chris Gwyn (19:29)

Have you or others looked at what the time spread is in the delivery of feed? […]  Do we need to spread these meals by 4 hours, by 6 hours, or 12 hours?

Dr. Heather Dann

That's a good question. I think Trevor DeVries has done some work with meal delivery times, as well as Kevin Harvatine at Penn State, who has been doing some work thinking about timing of meal delivery. The Penn State work is really focused more on trying to understand the circadian rhythms of cows and the timing, and can we take advantage of a different feeding schedule that will allow cows to increase more milk components. And there is some work to that. I think one of the things that needs to be explored further is that if we're going to feed twice a day, should we be changing the diet composition? […]

Chris Gwyn (25:41)

Any other key take-home messages that you'd want a listener to focus on in our last 25 minutes of discussion here?

Dr. Heather Dann

I mentioned earlier that protocol drift is really important. People get bored with routine tasks, and on our farm, that's feeding, that's bedding animals, that's milking them. And we can't forget to make sure that we're going back and reviewing and emphasizing the importance of those activities. But really, I think for me the big take home today is that there's a simple recipe to getting more milk fat and protein and that really comes down to carefully formulated rations along with great forage quality and feeding management and then making sure we have good top notch cow management with a real emphasis on those transition cows. […]

Timestamps & Summary 

Chris Gwyn (01:51)
Dr. Slesser, you recently published a study titled Wisconsin Farmers Share 

Their Stressors and Mental Health Care Needs Through Focus Groups. I was wondering if you could share the reasoning behind conducting the studies.
Dr. Heather Schlesser
I think we all know that Covid was hard on everybody, whether you were on a farm or not on a farm. And one thing that we saw here in Wisconsin is that with COVID, we had an increased spike in the number of suicides that were happening on farms. The CDC has even shown that between 2000 and 2020, there was an increase in the rate of suicides in rural areas by 46%. […] And our study team wanted to know why were these farmers not seeking help. Why weren't they reaching out to medical providers and getting assistance for the stress that they were feeling?

Chris Gwyn (02:55)
So you took a focused group approach to the study and it’s be interesting to know what were the key findings in the study.
Dr. Heather Schlesser
Interestingly, one of the main things they said is that they didn't feel comfortable going to the providers because they didn't have a farming background. They didn't understand that farming isn't just a job for these people, it is a way of life. You know, farmers identify as farmers. That is their whole entire life. It's not just “I'm going to go to an 8 to 5 and come home and be something else”; they are farmers. […]

The other thing that they said was a major stressor for them is, “We're already so busy on the farm doing that work that has to get done on a daily basis. We don't have this time to take off, to clean up, to drive into town, and to go see somebody that doesn't even understand what we're going through.” […]
Another thing that came out that we saw is that there's still that stigma. “We can't go see a provider because then everybody else in town is going to see our truck in the parking lot, and they're going to know that we need help.” […]

Chris Gwyn (04:58)
So what have you seen work in order to lower some of these barriers and these stressors?
Dr. Heather Schlesser

I would say the biggest thing that has really helped has been due to Covid. We couldn't meet in person with COVID, so they started Telehealth.
Telehealth has been a huge helper because there's no more getting changed. There's no more taking a shower. You can't tell if I smell. I might, but you can't. There's no truck in a parking lot that somebody is going to drive past and see. I don't then have to make a 20-minute commute into town and then a 20-minute commute back. So, Telehealth has really helped farmers because it allows them to get past a little bit of that barrier of time. […]

Chris Gwyn (06:16)
Can you expand a bit on the Telehealth program?
Dr. Heather Schlesser
Before COVID, it wasn't approved by a lot of insurance companies. In order to have a Telehealth visit, you had to go into the doctor's office in order to get insurance to cover that. So now, because it was allowed during COVID to do Telehealth visits, they have continued that, and they've continued them not only for mental health… […]

Chris Gwyn (08:20)
What are some of the key must-dos when it comes to transitioning farm business to another generation of owners?

Dr. Heather Schlesser
I would say that the biggest must-dos are that you need to develop a plan, then communicate that plan, implement the plan, and then evaluate if that plan is working. I think far too often we get hung up on transferring the cows, transferring the buildings, transferring the assets of that farm, and we forget that younger generations may not be doing all of the day-to-day, and they don't have the knowledge that it takes. […]

It takes a lot of time. A lot of farms that I work with are like, “Okay, I'm getting out in two years.” And I'm like, “Did you start your plan five years ago?” […]

Chris Gwyn (10:34)
I'm wondering whether you've looked into whether there are observations that you can share about how stressors on families and employees and ownership impact overall cow health and productivity.

Timestamps & Summary 

Chris Gwyn (01:49)
Docteure Duplessis, vous et vos collègues étudiez depuis de nombreuses années le rôle des vitamines B, en particulier celui de la vitamine B12 et de l’acide folique sur l'impact métabolique, productif et reproductif des vaches laitières. Avant de présenter vos dernières recherches, pourriez-vous résumer les découvertes à ce jour ?

Dre Mélissa Duplessis
J'ai commencé ma carrière en recherche il y a quinze ans. J'étais une étudiante à la maîtrise à cette époque dans le laboratoire de Christiane Girard à Agriculture et Agroalimentaire Canada. C'est vraiment elle la première qui a mis au défi le vieux dogme que la vache n'avait pas besoin d'apports extérieurs en vitamine B, parce que les microorganismes de son rumen produisent la vitamine B. […]

Mon projet de maîtrise se concentrait sur quinze fermes laitières commerciales au Québec. On a donné des suppléments d'acide folique, qui est la vitamine B9 et la vitamine B12, chaque semaine. Puis moi, pendant quatorze mois, j'allais sur ces fermes-là à chaque deux semaines pour prendre des données. Et on s'est intéressé à la productivité de ces animaux-là autour du vêlage. […]

Chris Gwyn (08:39)
On va parler des études plus récentes. Vous avez partagé avec moi une étude plus récente où vous avez examiné l'impact de l'alimentation des génisses au pâturage ou dans une étable, ainsi que les différences en concentration d'acide folique et de vitamine B12. C'est intéressant. Pouvez-vous partager avec nous vos conclusions ?

Dre Mélissa Duplessis
Vous faites référence à mon étude en collaboration avec Mary Beth Hall, qui a récemment pris sa retraite de l'USDA. En fait, c'est une étude qui a été réalisée aux États-Unis sur des génisses qui avaient environ cinq mois. Donc il y avait la moitié qui était élevée au pâturage, avec un ajout de suppléments et de minéraux et vitamines, et l'autre partie des animaux était élevée dans l'étable et recevait une ration totale mélangée. C'est vraiment une étude préliminaire. Tout ce qu'on a fait, c'est qu’on a fait des prises de sang chez ces animaux-là, puis on a évalué la concentration plasmatique en acide folique, puis en vitamine B12. Donc ce qu'on a vu, c'est que pour les animaux au pâturage, l'acide folique était plus élevé que les animaux élevés à l'intérieur. Et en opposition, les animaux élevés au pâturage avaient une concentration en vitamine B12 plus basse que les animaux élevés à l'intérieur. […]

Chris Gwyn (13:09)
Je pense que les recherches précédentes auxquelles vous avez participé ont démontré la teneur élevée en vitamine B du colostrum. C'est correct ou non ?

Dre Mélissa Duplessis
En fait, il y a deux études qui ont été publiées, qu'on a faites dans notre laboratoire, et il y en a une qui est en cours, je dirais, et ce qu'on a vu dans la première étude, quand j'étais à Cornell, pendant mon doctorat, on a récolté du colostrum d'une étude qui comparait différentes rations, différents niveaux d'énergie de la ration après vêlage. […]

Puis un autre projet qu'on a fait aussi, c'est lorsque la mère recevait des suppléments d'acide folique, vitamine B12 et biotine en prévêlage. On a récolté le colostrum de ces vaches-là et on a pu constater, sans aucun doute, que oui, la supplémentation en ces vitamines-là augmente ou améliore la qualité du colostrum. […]

Chris Gwyn (19:42)
Selon les recherches disponibles, quels sont les rôles des méthyles ou des vitamines B dans le rendement ou la qualité du colostrum ?

Dre Mélissa Duplessis
C'est une bonne question. Je pourrais mentionner que dans l'étude dont je vous ai parlé sur le volume de colostrum, et sa qualité, on va s'intéresser aussi aux vitamines B dans ce projet-là, mais on attend les analyses. Donc, je ne peux pas tout à fait répondre encore à la question, mais ça s'en vient. Ce que je peux dire, c'est qu’on a regardé la vitamine B12 dans ce projet-là. Les résultats sont déjà analysés. Ce qu'on a vu, c'est un petit peu comme dans le même sens que je disais tout à l'heure pour la vitamine B12, c'est que lorsqu'on augmente la fibre de la ration, ça augmente aussi la concentration de B12 dans le colostrum, ce qui vient un petit peu en contradiction avec ce que j'ai dit tout à l'heure à propos du volume de colostrum, c'est carrément le contraire que je vous ai dit. Donc c'est ça qu'on est dans le biologique. Comment fait-on pour optimiser le colostrum sans nuire à une autre composante aussi ? […]

Chris Gwyn (21:48)
Est-ce qu'il y a d’autres points clés que vous voudriez partager avec les nutritionnistes, les producteurs qui écoutent RumiNation ?

Dre Mélissa Duplessis
Je crois que j'ai dit beaucoup d'informations. C'est certain que je n'ai pas discuté de tous mes projets. En résumé, ce que je peux dire, c'est que récemment, une des hypothèses que j'ai, c'est que tout événement stressant chez l'animal, surtout lorsque la vache produit beaucoup de lait, par exemple, ça peut être un stress de chaleur ou toute transition qui est un stress peut avoir un impact sur le statut en vitamine B de ces animaux-là. Mais à savoir si ça a un impact biologique, métabolique, ce sont des questions qu’il me reste éclaircir. J'ai beaucoup de questions en suspens, finalement. Mais ce que ça suggère, c'est que tout stress chez l'animal peut avoir un impact sur les vitamines B et que peut-être l'animal aurait avantage à recevoir un supplément ou un apport extérieur.

Timestamps & Summary 

Chris Gwyn (01:50)
I was wondering if you could summarize for the audience what has been discovered to date about B vitamin nutrition in dairy cows, in particular B12 and folic acid.

Dr. Melissa Duplessis
I started my career in research 15 years ago. I was a master's student at that time in Christiane Girard’s lab at Agriculture and Agri Food Canada. And she was the first to challenge the well-established dogma that dairy cows do not need an exogenous supply of B vitamins because their ruminal bugs are producing the B vitamins. But now, as you know, dairy cows are producing more and more milk, especially during the early lactation. We can wonder if it is still true that they don't need supplementation in B vitamins. That's why my master’s project was conducted. […]

Chris Gwyn (10:19)
I wanted to talk about some of the more recent research that you shared because it helps one to think about what some of the other needs are and future research. And in particular you shared a study about the impact of pasture or housed fed heifers fed at TMR. I'm assuming in the housing and the difference in folate and B12 concentrations and wondering if you could share those findings and how that might impact at the farm level.

Dr. Melissa Duplessis 
I think you are referring to my recent collaboration with Mary Beth Hall, who recently retired from the USDA. This study was conducted in the US with heifers at 5 months of age. And half of the heifers were raised on pasture receiving grains, vitamins, and mineral supplements, and the other half were in the barn receiving TMR (total mixed ration). And this is a preliminary study. We obtained blood samples from those heifers, and we analyzed folic acid and vitamin B12. And we obtained that heifers raised on pasture had a higher plasma folate, and the opposite was observed for vitamin B12. So, heifers raised on pasture had lower vitamin B12 concentration. […]

We did not record dry matter intake, but we also observed that there is a link with dry matter intake, and the ruminal synthesis of B vitamins could also be an explanation. And so, as I mentioned, it's a preliminary study. So, when we conduct a study, sometimes we have 10 other questions raised by that study. So it's normal, [it's the nature of the work we do].

Chris Gwyn (14:04)
I know recently you did also some work where you looked at pre calving nutrition and the impact of colostrum quality and yield and wondering if you can maybe touch base on that one. What does B vitamin levels look like in colostrum?

Dr. Melissa Duplessis
We conducted two studies with colostrum that have already been published. The first one was during my PhD thesis at Cornell University. So we collected colostrum samples from a project evaluating the impact of different levels of energy during the pre-calving period. And we observed that the impact on colostrum was that cows fed controlled energy prepartum had higher B vitamin concentration in colostrum. And when looking at the rations, we observed that the controlled energy had the highest NDF or fiber concentration. […]

Interestingly, we also observed that calves born to mothers receiving folic acid and vitamin B12 were heavier one day after birth. One hypothesis is that epigenetics, which includes folic acid and vitamin B12, has a link to epigenetics. So, it could be an explanation. So, it's a recent study that has not yet been published. We conducted it in 51 dairy herds, and we collected pre-calving rations served to cows in these herds. And we also collected colostrum from over 300 dairy cows. With our fancy statistical models, we evaluated the link between the prepartum diet and the impact of colostrum quality. […]

Chris Gwyn (19:26)
But certainly as you point out in your study, the effect on fiber and energy level again continuing having on the quantity and quality of colostrum is something that when struggling with those things producers should be discussing with their nutritionist.

Dr. Melissa Duplessis 
Yes. And if you are interested with our ranges, for example, like if you want to know the dairy ration of our herds, you can contact me, I would be more than happy to help in that regard.

Chris Gwyn (22:44)
What are some of the key points in your most recent research that you'd like to share with the audience?

Dr. Melissa Duplessis
I would like to say that from other studies I conducted, stressful events for the animals, for the cows or for the calves can modify or make a change in the B vitamin status of the cow. For example, a stressful event can be the calving, but it can also be heat stress or it can be weaning for the calf, or something like that. So, future research needs to be conducted to answer whether there is a practical implication of the change. Would animals benefit from supplementation? It's all good questions to be answered, hopefully in the future.

Timestamps & Summary 

Chris Gwyn (02:35)
Dr. Devries, your lab has been extensively and intensively looking at cow management and nutrition factors and their associations and correlations with early lactation outcomes. Why don’t you give us an overview of this most recent study design.
Dr. Trevor DeVries
Yes, this is a large study that we recently undertook with a large cohort of dairy farms in southwestern Ontario. […] Not specifically looking at milking system effects, but looking at the management of those cows during the dry period, their nutritional management during that time period, and looking at not only how it impacted the cows during that time period, but also those cows as they transitioned after calving, and looked at the fresh cow success of the cows on those farms and correlating that back to differences in management, differences in environmental conditions, and particularly things like heat stress.

Chris Gwyn (05:22)
One of the factors that came out is that you and your team demonstrated pretty large variation and differences between formulated diet and the diet that was fed at the farm level. And I was wondering if you could dig down a little deeper into that and share some of the other key findings and information from this study.
Dr. Trevor DeVries
One of the factors that we were interested in from a stress standpoint was dietary and looking at differences in diets. And then, one of the key things that we were really interested in was how closely those diets matched what was formulated for those farms, as well as how much variation we saw within a farm over time in terms of the diets that were delivered to the cows. […]

Chris Gwyn (12:08)
In the study, your lab looked at heat stress impacts on the cow and its relation to markers of stress associated with changes in physiology and metabolism. I'm wondering if you could share a bit more details with the audience and what you can conclude from the findings in the study.
Dr. Trevor DeVries
We knew that one of the primary factors that we were hoping to key in on was that heat stress. And so that was in itself measured through doing cow-level observation, continuous observation over time. We had records of temperature and humidity, so we could calculate THI within the close-up pens and fresh cow pens on these farms. […]
We could look at how much heat load those cows were incurring. But then we wanted to be able to link that to the cows themselves and what they were experiencing. And one of the measures, which was quite interesting, was looking at the eye temperature of the cows as a new way of looking at how much heat load those cows have. […]

 

Chris Gwyn (22:13)
Speaking of energy balance, [it looks as if] heat stress had an impact on glucose production. Is that something that you can comment on, as well as findings that you found from your paper?
Dr. Trevor DeVries

We didn't look directly at glucose ourselves, but definitely from other work that's been done by other research groups, we know […] there's a huge potential draw, or not even potential draw, there is a huge draw of glucose when that cow calves and she starts lactating and blood glucose levels drop on a fresh cow versus a dry cow. Because again, the amount of glucose getting taken out of the system for making lactose and making milk, there's a huge demand there. And so that drive to produce milk, and then the need for lactose trickles down to a need for glucose. And one of the challenges is that when there are things like heat stress going on, we tend to see not only things that may reduce intake in cows, that may lead to less kind of substrate availability for producing energy and glucose, but also inflammation in the gut, and things like that can cause leaky gut […]

Chris Gwyn (24:26)
Is there anything else that you wanted to add in that field of stressors and this study that you wanted to elucidate or impact for the audience?
Dr. Trevor DeVries
We talked about some of the primary stressors that we were really interested in, at least in this research, around heat stress, some of the management-related things, grouping of cows, and movement of cows. One of the things that we haven't gone too deep into with this data set, but we know from other work, is the crowding of cows and competition of cows that can also lead to stress and more negative outcomes. And again, we know that anytime that we overcrowd cows, whether it be at the feed bunk, whether it be at the lying area, whether it's a stall or a pack, or even the water trough, we're going to see a negative impact on the behavior of the cows, which can then result in negative outcomes. […]

Chris Gwyn (28:21)
Before we wrap up, given what you and your team has been discovering in this research, recommendations that you would like to reinforce for dairy producers, nutritionists, veterinarians and other advisors.

Dr. Trevor DeVries
We talked about the variation in controlling variability and being consistent. Consistency is huge. And so again, one of the first things from a management standpoint, is to make sure we're consistent. And like we mentioned before, if things are consistent and still not working the way we want things to be working, then we start evaluating those, those protocols, and those systems that we have in place. […]

Chris Gwyn (

30:15

)

What's next in your research, Dr. DeVries?

Dr. Trevor DeVries

This is an area that we continue to work on, this area of management of transition cows. I'm very interested in the other transition that we talked about with cows, and that's from lactation to the dry period. And again, there is a lot of focus on the transition from the dry period to calving. But we also note that there are potential challenges associated with drying off cows that are heavy in lactation, not only from an immediate welfare standpoint, and again, some older research on the effects on those cows from a pain standpoint, even, with utter engorgement, utter health, is also very challenging. But then those two factors actually influence inflammation in those cows. […] And so that's kind of an exciting area that there are others working on and we're going to be looking at as well, hopefully in the near future.

Timestamps & Summary  

Chris Gwyn (03:02)

What is important for producers and nutritionists to consider when optimizing stock and density in their dairies?

Dr. Rick Grant (03:10)

Well, that's the big question, isn't it?

And there are at least two or three main factors that we can get into today. One would be just, I had an aha moment a few years ago when a grad student and I realized that we need to think about overcrowding as a subclinical stressor. That allows us to think about how the same level of stocking density of stalls or feed bunk doesn't affect every herd the same way because the point at which a subclinical stressor affects a cow within a herd really is a function of the quality of the management on that dairy as well as the quality of the facilities. […]

The other thing, I would say is, we know this, but we don't think about it enough. When we say stocking density, we count stalls, we count cows, or we count headlocks, we count cows. But we need to always step back and think within a pen, what is the experienced stocking density from an individual cow's perspective? […] I think that's something we need to think more about in terms of managing a given stocking density on a specific farm, the cow's perspective. […]

We did a study where we found that cows tend to prefer the stalls nearest the pen exit, particularly lame cows. And doesn't that make sense? If you're a lame cow and walking is a bit challenging for you, you may have 50 stalls to choose from, but you choose the ones that are closest to the exit or the entrance. That tells me right there that a simple mathematical calculation of stocking density would fail those moderately lame cows because they don't have 50 stalls available to them. They might only have 10 or 12 if you allow them to express their natural desired resting behavior. That's something we need to wrestle with in the industry.

Chris Gwyn (07:13)

What are some of the key metrics or cow observations that we should follow in order to ensure that what we use on the farm, as far as stocking density, helps us to maximize that component yield or profitability?

Dr. Rick Grant (07:30)

Well, certainly, the things that we normally measure, like milk yield, intake, repro health, all of those things can give us clues in terms of how well the cows in that pen are dealing with the day-over-day chronic subclinical stress of the overcrowding. […] But at some point, every herd will have a problem with additional stressors. And how many stressors are there on a typical farm? The list is long. You might say time outside the pen is too long. Are all the stalls comfortable? Is feed available 24/7? All these things are critical factors that can snowball or add to the negative consequences of some subclinical degree of overcrowding. […]

Chris Gwyn (10:05)

What are the essential factors in managing these cow pens if we're managing to a higher level of stocking density?

Dr. Rick Grant (10:12)

We did some work a number of years ago. We looked at almost 80 farms in New York and Vermont, and it was all breeds. Jersey and Holstein breeds, tie stalls, free stalls, and some robotic herds. The things that rose to the top in terms of essential factors […] is that they don't go as high in bunk stocking density. They just don't push the system as hard. That's simple to say, but that was the biggest factor. In fact, we looked at all the variations in terms of milk fat and protein across these 69 herds; 65 % of the variation in component output was due just to bunk stocking density, not necessarily nutrition. […]

Chris Gwyn (12:58)

What are the key takeaways that you would share with the audience: nutritionists, veterinarians, and primary producers? If they're going to manage through stocking density, what do they need to really pay attention to?

Dr. Rick Grant (13:12)

I think the best answer for that hit me a few years ago. I was reading this paper on robotic milking systems and automated milking systems. It was over 120 farms. […] What struck me is the factors on the farm that contributed to the best milk yield, and the best lameness outcomes were the exact same list of factors that we've seen with free stall barns and probably even tie stall barns to a certain extent. But it's feed push ups and deep-bedded sand in these 120 farms. Those two factors, feed availability, comfortable stalls, and deep-bedded sand, resulted in 4 to 5 pounds, at least more milk production on average. The other thing about lameness […] is the same as the free stall herds: greater bunk space, feeding frequency, and deep-bedded stalls. You sound like a broken record, but those factors rise to the top in every study that I'm aware of. […]

At the end of the day, if you can get that done, you're going to have a good balance in your herd between eating time, and eating behavior, and you're going to have that recumbent rumination, that lying down rumination that we think is so critical to cow health and performance.

Chapitrage et résumé 

Vicky Brisson (01:54)
Tout récemment, Jefo a fêté son 40ᵉ anniversaire. Pouvez-vous nous raconter les débuts de Jefo ?

Jean Fontaine
Ça prend un petit peu de temps à expliquer tout ça, mais les débuts étaient très modestes. J'ai commencé à 25 ans avec le choix de faire faillite ou de commencer à faire de l'argent. Dans le domaine des luminaires, c'était le bicarbonate de soude qui était granulaire contre les Américains qui avaient le monopole du marché. Donc on a commencé modestement dans une maison avec un appartement qu'on a modifié avec des bureaux. Aujourd'hui, on a le campus Jefo à Saint-Hyacinthe et c'est un centre d'information. Jefo a commencé au Québec, ensuite en Ontario, après le reste du Canada et le marché mondial. Le petit pas, c'était la bonne technologie pour grandir sans s'enfarger. […]

Vicky Brisson (03:06)
La culture de Jefo est centrée sur «Life made easier» ou «La vie ne plus facile». Qu'est-ce qui a inspiré cette mission et est-ce que vous pouvez nous donner quelques exemples de la manière dont vous et vos employés incarnez cette déclaration ?

Jean Fontaine
La vie est plus facile, ça résumait l'approvisionnement plus facile avec différents fournisseurs. L'entreposage pour les produits, on dit en anglais «Just in time», l'approvisionnement spontané; il y a tout chez nous. Et, avec la recherche, on rend la vie plus facile aux chercheurs parce qu'on a rassemblé plusieurs marchés différents avec le même objectif de faire plus avec moins. Donc, ça a été ça qui fait le slogan «La vie en plus facile» la première fois et depuis tout le monde accepte que c'est vraiment ce qu'on fait.

Vicky Brisson (4:31)
Avec l’arrivée de l’intelligence artificielle, quels sont les principaux défis que les producteurs devront relever ? À votre avis, quelles seront les principales caractéristiques de ceux qui vont réussir à s'adapter ?

Jean Fontaine
S'adapter. S'adapter au changement. Vous savez que la plus grande crainte des gens c’est de changer. Donc, l'agriculteur et l’agricultrice vont apprendre à mieux mesurer ce qu'ils font. Avoir accès à leurs données, que ce soit la température, la qualité des fourrages, tout ça grâce au système d’intelligence artificielle. Ils vont être capables d'avoir une plus grande précision. Et quand on peut mesurer ce qu'on fait, on peut l'améliorer. Sans mesure, c'est très difficile de s'améliorer. Donc, c'est une voie que personne ne peut éviter. […]

Vicky Brisson (05:36)
Depuis plus de 20 ans, vous apportez des innovations à l'industrie de l'alimentation animale avec la technologie Jefo Matrix. Est-ce que vous pouvez nous expliquer pourquoi c'est important de micro-encapsuler les nutriments ?

Jean Fontaine
C'est un concept. Si on se rapporte au tout début, quand j'ai commencé en 88 à vendre des acides organiques enrobés pour compétitionner les facteurs de croissance chez le porc, on s'est moqué de moi. Aujourd'hui, le monde des médicaments a beaucoup baissé. Les additifs alimentaires qu'on donne chaque jour pour moduler la flore intestinale […] sont de moins en moins à la mode, puis même à certains endroits, ils sont bannis. Avec la technologie de matrice que nous avons, on prévient le bris de nos molécules, de nos nutriments avant d'arriver à l'intestin où ils sont absorbés […].
Sauf que nous avons découvert qu'en enrobant avec des matières grasses 100 % végétales, on vient qu'on traverse le rumen à 85 % et on relâche lentement avec la lipase qui brise le gras les nutriments qui sont bénéfiques pour la vache laitière ou le bœuf. Dans la volaille, la même chose s'applique. On va résister au PH acide, au phytate, au calcium, au soufre qui vont venir lier les différents nutriments et les rendre indigestes à l'intestin. […]

Vicky Brisson (09:27)
Vous observez depuis plus de 20 ans l'impact de la nutrition de précision sur les animaux. Est-ce que vous pouvez résumer pour nos auditeurs quelles sont les principales observations que vous avez pour ces animaux ?

Jean Fontaine
Première chose qu'on peut voir, c'est l'efficacité digestive. […] La principale raison pour laquelle nos jeunes hommes et jeunes femmes quittent les fermes, ce sont les problèmes liés au vêlage. Donc, quand une vache va vêler, les gens préviennent avec différents traitements qu'ils ont appris à faire parce qu'il n'y avait pas la technologie que nous avons aujourd'hui. […]

Avec notre approche de précision intestinale, on livre ça tout ensemble ces fameux coenzymes, ces cofacteurs d'enzymes et les oligo-éléments. […]

Vicky Brisson (11:15)
En tant que visionnaire dans ce domaine, quelle est, selon vous, votre contribution au monde des vaches laitières ?

Jean Fontaine 
Si on réussit à améliorer le vêlage et à avoir une vache qui va pouvoir faire plusieurs lactations consécutives parce qu'elle a une meilleure santé générale causée par cette nutrition de précision. Je pense que nos éleveurs gagnent beaucoup. […]

Vicky Brisson (12:23)
Vous avez créé avec succès une entreprise familiale. Pourriez-vous nous expliquer comment vous avez favorisé la collaboration et l'harmonie entre les membres de la famille tout en bâtissant une entreprise prospère ?

Jean Fontaine
Ça c'est une bonne question. Parce que pourquoi les enfants s'intéressent à ce que j'ai construit ? C'est qu'ils ont compris que j'avais du plaisir à faire ce que je fais. On peut guider les gens par l'exemple. Les enfants ont vu que j'avais du plaisir à recevoir des gens, à visiter des gens, se créer un réseau d'amitié à travers le monde. Parce qu'on a l'avantage dans notre industrie de vendre ou de fournir des produits et des conseils toutes les semaines, tous les mois. Nous, dans notre industrie, on établit la proximité. Chez Jefo, on aime recevoir les gens. Ici, au campus et même chez moi, on a développé cette amitié de proximité avec les clients, les fournisseurs. C'est important. Si tu n’as rien à vendre, tu n'as pas de produit à vendre, ce n’est pas bon. D'avoir des fournisseurs, mais pas de clients, c'est pareil. Donc, tout est relié ensemble. Mais je crois que mes trois enfants, Émilie, Jean-François et Anthony ont su apprécier ceci de mes 40 ans de vie d'affaires. Et aujourd'hui, ils vont prendre le relais. […]

Vicky Brisson (18:07)
Pour conclure, pouvez-vous nous faire part du message que vous souhaitez transmettre à la prochaine génération d'entrepreneurs de l'industrie ?

Jean Fontaine
La plus belle chose que je peux leur suggérer, c'est de ne pas avoir peur du changement. […]

Le changement qui s'en vient va être impressionnant. Certaines personnes ont peur du mot : intelligence artificielle. Elle est là pour nous aider. Il faut accepter le changement et oser. […]

Moi je vous dis que la vie est pleine de belles choses. Il faut s'amuser à la désirer.

Timestamps & Summary 

Chris Gwyn (02:05)
JEFO recently celebrated its 40th anniversary. Can you share with us and with the audience the story of how JEFO started?

Jean Fontaine
JEFO started very modestly. I was out of school, 25 years old, and I had a choice to declare bankruptcy or try something. And I had a vision to offer our industry different source of material, to be more competitive. And it started like that. The snowball effect started gradually with one or two products, then the other ones were added altogether. So, simple start, amazing development.

Chris Gwyn (02:49)
This started and centered our culture of “Life, made easier”. Can you share with us what inspired this mission and give a few examples of how you and your employees embody this statement?

Jean Fontaine
After meeting with some experts who guided us about establishing our motto “Life, made easier”, we realized that we make life easier for the buyer, and their supply chain, with our quite fair size inventory warehouses. Life made easier by sourcing with our expertise, we know what is a product that fits. And, with the efficacy. Then, life made easier for the truckers. We have a nice system of logistics, able to make quality pallets the way we ship our products. So, it's life made easier for everybody in the chain of activity. […]

Chris Gwyn (04:44)
We've seen over the last few years the idea of artificial intelligence gaining interest across the world as the livestock industry keeps evolving rapidly. In your thoughts, what are the main producer challenges and market changes that you foresee and what will be the key attributes of those who successfully adapt to these changes?

Jean Fontaine
Farmers need to get access to their numbers and to have them handy to be able to know what's going on rapidly and correct the situation. Before AI, it was not easy to take a note and then put all these things together. Today, there are more and more tools to do that. Some companies offer on-site, cameras, and sensors that can feel the water flow, the temperature, the ammonia level, and the behavior of animals. So, all this will bring precision and the farmers will know what's going on. And sometimes we don't realize they have a hell of a challenge in their life. Many factors must be controlled. So, to do that, AI will bring us tremendous capacity. And then you have to adapt to change. The future with AI will change the planet. […]

So, there's no reason that people can object to this change of knowledge. IPhones have been around for 15 years. Can you imagine your life without an iPhone today? Try to figure out your life today with no portable phone and then no smartphone. We can talk to the vets before they get there. They can have an edge about what is going on.

Chris Gwyn (07:30)
I know for over 20 years, Jefo Nutrition has brought innovations to the livestock and poultry feed industry with this Jefo Matrix Technology. Why is it important to microencapsulate nutrients like coenzymes in animal nutrition?

Jean Fontaine
It was believed that the rumen of the cow would do everything for the cow. Initially, we discussed having some AD plus B vitamins be protected to escape the rumen. Maybe you leave like 10 or 15 percent in the rumen to nourish the bugs and to go bypass. […]

Today, we have discovered that very small quantities bypassing the rumen make a tremendous impact. From the expertise in ruminants, we went back to poultry and swine, and we discovered an amazing approach. And the concept for us is to prevent feeding the pathogens in the intestine of the cow, of the pig, of the poultry. And we have developed data on that aspect that is intriguing to a lot of people. Now we have the capacity to go after the rumen and after the stomach in monogastric. […]

Chris Gwyn (10:44)
Can you explain how we do that within the Jefo Matrix Technology?
Jean Fontaine
Our technology uses vegetables, 100% vegetable carrier, fats, which have high melting points. We have some specific formulations of carrier with fatty acids and triglycerides, that will allow it to be released in the small intestine. We know how to slow the lipase to have a delivery further down in the intestine. This is why we're gaining so much momentum with the customers.

Chris Gwyn (15:08)
Often in meeting with clients, they express to me the admiration they have for the entrepreneurship and the visionary aspect that they see in you. In this area of a visionary in the field, what do you feel is your contribution to the world of dairy cows?

Jean Fontaine
The contribution is to bring precision to the intestine of the cow for nutrition. People have injected vitamins. People have done a lot of drenching the cows. It was all behaviors to compensate for the problem they have at calving. Our technology, to protect against rumen degradation, has allowed us to give them a solution which is much less demanding on staff. The first reason people will leave the farm, the young guys, is the problem of calving their cows. They never quit because they drive the tractor. They never quit because they pass the broom. They hate to grab the cow and drench her and all the other precautions because of calving issues. When the placenta doesn’t get out, they hate the smell of the barn and the cows suffer. If the placenta gets out with the calf a couple of hours later, as they do with our solution, we make their life easier. It's another phrase that fits. It's life made easier for calving problems. Our contribution is to give maybe more fun to the farmers solving their main problem of calving.

Chris Gwyn (17:02)
Could you share the key factors or strategies that contribute to the seamless integration of the family dynamics into a business and how you've worked to foster collaboration and harmony among family members while building this thriving business which is Jefo?

Jean Fontaine
I was so surprised to learn that 85% of companies die with their president. I was not conscious of that. Today, I'm lucky, out of seven kids, I have three who are old enough to be involved with us. Émilie, Jean Francois, and Anthony. I think I transmitted to them the passion for what I do. I retired 42 years ago. Now I play the role of the president of the company. I play the judge’s role; I play the father’s role. I am still an actor, but I play roles. Today, the kids realize it's valuable. People respect and appreciate if you give your time for a purpose. To define the purpose of life, it's a challenge. The first time I was asked the purpose of my life; I jammed the question. So, we have to find out our purpose in life and share that fun of helping others. If you are useful, you have a future. I teach my kids to be useful, to be passionate, to love people, to accept also to be their friends. So, I teach them: The more you give, the more you get; the more you give time, attention, help, and love, and you can talk about money as well. Whatever we can do for others won't come back to us at a high speed. So today, for me, it's a very big emotion to know that when I leave, people will do that. Success, if it's only one life, is not success. Success is measured in time. So, I have many chances to be successful.

Chris Gwyn (19:09)
Could you share insights into how you strategically built and nurtured your professional network or circle of people who influenced you, advised you, and networked with you and what key principles or practices you believe contributed to the growth and sustainability of Jefo?

Jean Fontaine
It may sound easy to say, but we have the privilege to be in an industry where we have to be friends for a long time. If you sell me a house, I'll buy my next one maybe 20 years from now. It won't happen every month. In animal feed, we have to fill the pipe. So we need to talk to each other on a regular basis, weekly, monthly, quarterly. So we have a business of developing proximity and friendship. If you have proximity to people, you learn about their problems, their issues, and their challenges. Can we help them? Sometimes, yes, we can. This is making a rich relationship with the customer. And if the customer is happy, you have a good business. It's a fruitful business and it can be contagious. They're going to talk to others. I teach my staff to be lazy and I'll define laziness: Do it right and make people talk about you. Your reputation will be your best future. You have to be useful to somebody. If you're not useful, you're going to be out with the game.

Chris Gwyn (20:48)
As we conclude, maybe a message that you can pass on to the next generation of entrepreneurs in the livestock and poultry feed industry. What would you share with them?

Jean Fontaine
Don't believe the past will be the future. Whatever happened in the past without AI, without all these technologies, would not necessarily be proof for the future. We have to change. The world we are addressing is something invisible. So, we have to be open, and love change instead of avoiding it. Please be all excited by the change for the best. We are living in the best time for the human race. […]

We have to be hungry for change and not fear to adapt and progress together. And this is needed for everybody together. Not one guy, one company, one team. Everybody should be in the same kind of thinking pattern.

Timestamps & Summary 

Chris Gwyn (02:11)
I'd like to know a little more about why you became interested in researching ideal topic density.

Dr. Albert De Vries
I actually had an intern student from the Netherlands, and that student was very interested in welfare. And I said: If we just do welfare in the US, maybe that's not of primary interest to producers, although I understand our producers are all interested in welfare aspects as well. But I'd like to put dollars into whatever we do with cows. And so we did a little digging and came up on the topic of stocking density, the economics of stocking density. It's really a fascinating topic because there are some welfare implications but there are clearly also economic implications. […]

Chris Gwyn (03:23)
What are the key influencers of the economic return when you're evaluating where a farm is evaluating its optimal stocking density?

Dr. Albert De Vries 
I think we should start by defining, what we mean by stocking density. Different metrics of that. We're not talking about dry lots here. We're talking about free stalls. We were also not interested in fresh cows or dry cows, which I think all experts agree should not be overstocked. We're looking at lactating cows. And we also did not think that feed bunk space was a limiting factor. So, in our research, we really looked at the number of cows over the number of stalls in a pen. And if that is 100%, then you have one stall per cow. And if it's like 120%, you have 120 cows for 100 stalls. So that is where we sort of limited our research to. And secondly, I think it's important to get the economic principle right. What are we trying to optimize here when we're talking about economics? […]

Chris Gwyn (11:20)
In that study, you looked at milk production. Did you look at component yield?

Dr. Albert De Vries
I think we looked at component yield, but I don't remember seeing anything necessarily, because, of course, we get paid for components. I don't think it was very clear that either fat or protein, for example, was reduced by overstocking.

Chris Gwyn (14:10)
If there are some other issues that you wanted […] to highlight, we can do that.

Dr. Albert De Vries
I haven't really said much about welfare yet. I mean, the student I work with was really interested in that, and I think it needs to be on our minds, too. So, if we say we just want to take care of the cow, we probably don't want to overstock. Cows are probably compromising welfare, perhaps a tiny bit only if we start to overstock, and more when we overstock more. So, we don't know how to square that with profitability. But obviously, that needs to be in our mind as well. […]

Chris Gwyn (16:34)
Can I ask you a further question about that? Because I'm not an economist, but where does cash flow come in if a farm needs to increase cash flow? Does that kind of counter go against optimal stocking density in low milk pricing?

Dr. Albert De Vries
I think you're on the right track there because we assume our fixed costs are independent of the number of cows. So, we would add cows to it up to the point of maximum optimal stocking density, which implies that, for that pen, the highest cash flow. And so, with low milk prices, we reduce cow numbers, because if we don't, our cash flow is going to be even less. So, cash flows, in this analysis, and this is obviously what I call a steady state; we sort of permanently are at a high or a low level of stocking density, but it's the same thing. So, the question becomes practically different: Well, my milk prices change, and I may or may not have the cows. What is the long-term response to stocking density? Those are harder to answer because, again, we don't know the long-term response to stocking density per se, but essentially, when we optimize our stocking density, we're optimizing the cash flow, the amount of cash made there for that pen on that day over time.

Chris Gwyn (20:40)
As we wind up, I always like to ask, what are some of the key take-home points for producers and nutritionists and lenders, in fact, and veterinarians, when considering evaluating the impact of a stocking density on the farms they work with, what would you recommend they look at?

Dr. Albert De Vries
If I put on my economics glasses, if you will, then I think overstocking a pace. And like last year in the US, we had actually good milk prices. […] At the same time, we learned through the research that it sort of is farm-dependent in terms of prices and what are the losses that you observe. And so we have a spreadsheet available for listeners that they can work with, and play with. Probably the easiest way to get there. If you go to Google and you look for “dairy stocking density calculator Florida”, I think we end up number one on the Google search list there. And there's an EDI extension publication there. And that publication lays out what the research was about, hopefully in not too scientific terms. And there's a link to a calculator we used as well that we made available for folks to play with. […]

Timestamps & Summary 

Vicki Brisson (01:44)
As an introduction, can you explain what de novo fatty acid synthesis is?

Dr. Débora Santschi
To me, the fatty acids are basically if we would take that black box of fat, the milk fat test, open it up, and look at what's inside of it. So, if we take, for example, a herd that is at 4% fat, if we open it up, we can see what makes up that 4% fat and see where those fatty acids come from. […]

The de novo fatty acids are one of those groups of fatty acids we find in the total fat. It represents, depending on the herds and the cows, roughly between 25-30% of the total fat. And those are the fatty acids that are synthesized in the mammary gland of the cow. […]

Vicki Brisson (04:00)
What impact does that milk fat composition have on the cow? And what are the periods when the fatty acid profile is more likely to vary?

Dr. Débora Santschi
I think it's very interesting to look at it from a cow’s side and also from a herd’s side. So, if we take the cow example, a cow in very early lactation, we all know that she's using her body reserves to compensate for that very high demand for milk production. In that case, a big chunk of her fat content will be preformed fatty acids. So, in very early lactation, we see roughly 50, or sometimes even slightly more, as a percentage of her fat being the preformed fatty acids. And in that case, the de novo will be very low and increase slowly over the first 45, 50, and 60 days of lactation. […]

If we look at it on a herd level, when we do some ration change, when the forage digestibility changes, but we don't notice too much. All those little effects can also have an impact on the de novo content of the bulk tank sample. In that case, because bulk tank samples are often analyzed very frequently, then we can get a rapid insight into something that we might not have noticed on the farm level. […]

Vicki Brisson (05:46)
Knowing that the fatty acid profile of milk matters, what can we do to promote the production of de novo fatty acids?

Dr. Débora Santschi
The de novo fatty acids are the result of being produced in the mammary gland from rumen volatile fatty acids. So, everything that we can do to maximize rumen volatile fatty acids will have a positive impact. So, we often focus on the ration. So, of course, having a highly digestible ration, well balanced with all the nutrients that are required, is really important, but we need to keep in mind everything around it. […]

Vicki Brisson (07:33)
Can you expand on specific nutritional solutions that our listeners may want to consider? 

Dr. Débora Santschi
The way we train our people, and I just want to mention, we have a lot of information that is available directly on the website as well to help understand and find solutions, because it's going to be very herd specific. But when I look at a herd, I look at the fat test, and the protein test, because those are values we know and we handle very well. I look at the MUN value because to me, it's important to look at the overall protein balance as well, and then I go and look at the fatty acid profiles. I always start with the de novo, then look at the mix, then look at the preform. That's my way of addressing a report. […]

Vicki Brisson (10:01)
Beyond just the amount of de novo fatty acids produced is also the variation in fatty acid levels. So, what are the impacts of that variation in fatty acids and how can we address it?

Dr. Débora Santschi
Very good question. I think, again, there's some information on the cow level, there's some information on the bulk tank level. I like to work on the bulk tank level first because it's every second day in our case, so it helps to get a very accurate and up-to-date overview. However, the downside is that it's only on a farm level, it's an average, and I have no idea of the distribution of it. […]

When there's a lot of variation on the bulk tank, we see it a lot in the inconsistent feeding herds, in the herds that have a lot of changes in the ration, where the forage composition is not very constant. […]

Vicki Brisson (13:44)
Can you help us understand or explain the link between B vitamins and fatty acids?

Dr. Débora Santschi
To my knowledge, there hasn't been too much specific research combining the two, I think that's a very interesting area to explore. I think if we take one step back and look at the whole picture, rumen health, optimizing the bacterial populations we have in there, and making sure that this is all functioning well should also be reflected in the de novo synthesis. […]

Vicki Brisson (16:23)
Can you just expand a little on the tools that you have at Lactanet and that you offer your producers on how to monitor de novo fatty acids and how they can use that as a decision-making tool or to help them identify possible issues on the farm?

Dr. Débora Santschi
At Lactanet right now, back in 2020, we launched what we call PROFIlab. That's our milk fatty acid monitoring tool, currently available in Quebec, and in some Atlantic provinces, at the bulk tank level for now. […]

We do have a prototype for the cow level. We tested it with some of our advisors, and some of our farmers. So, 2024 should see that prototype become a real tool, this time not only in Québec, but across the country. […]

Vicki Brisson (19:13)
Can you share your take-home messages? Maybe three or so for nutritionists, vets, and producers when they think de novo fatty acid synthesis in milk?

Dr. Débora Santschi
I'll say the first one is that black box. I like to see it like that. We're opening up the fat and understanding better what makes up that fat. So, get a deeper insight into your fat test, which is what we're being paid for. 

Second one, dare to use it. Just try. Just try something. Ask questions. Get the information you need to start working with it and try to have that value change. Try to cause an impact on that de novo value to make it move. And you'll see how it can be powerful for your herds. 

And the third one is, please, any suggestions, any ideas, any questions? You're more than welcome to contact us because as I just said, I think that's how we learn altogether and that's how we can make it even better and then share that information back. […]

Timestamps & Summary 

Chris Gwyn (01:57)
Animal welfare and perhaps its impacts on health are hot topics in the livestock industry today. Can you please share how you became interested in these topics?

Dr. Marina Von Keyserlingk
That started probably in my head, let's say 25 years ago. As you alluded to in the introduction, I did a Ph.D. in Animal Sciences and I was trained initially as an experimentalist and as a ruminant nutritionist. And I worked in the feed industry in a number of roles for over seven years. And during my time, sort of at the end of my PhD, and also working in industry and coming from a farming background, what I was noticing and what was becoming very evident to me is that society was asking a lot of questions about where their food comes from. We had passed the time when society in general just trusted farmers to do the right thing. […]

It wasn't necessarily that people wanted to become vegetarian. It was they just wanted assurances that animals had a reasonably good life. […]

Chris Gwyn (06:02)
Talk to me about how we maximize the amount of time that cow and calf spend together if that's what we're trying to do, and also to be realistic about the management procedures that a producer can or will implement at the farm level.

Dr. Marina Von Keyserlingk
I'm going to start a little bit further back than just that question. Why are we even talking about cow-calf separation? And ten years ago, I remember trying to apply for some money from the dairy industry and was basically told: Go away. […]

Generally speaking, what's happening is that society is starting to ask questions. And society's question is, when people see dairy, do they see a situation or do they hear about the fact that the calf is taken away? We provide assurances that the calf is going to be fine and the cow is going to be fine. […]

When we weigh all of the evidence on the health side and also on sort of the welfare behavior production side, I can't give you strong evidence to justify the separation. So, for instance, calf health, we say we do this because it's better for the calves. But what is the mortality rate of dairy calves in North America? We applaud when we can get it lower than sort of 6 or 7%. The beef industry would go broke if they had mortality rates at that. So, there are a lot of examples like that. Mastitis rates. Keeping cows and calves together is highly protective for mastitis. What's one of the biggest economic costs for farmers is mastitis. So, we have this situation where we don't have a lot of scientific evidence to justify the practice, but what we do have is 100 years of tradition. […]

It's not a question of if it will become part of the conversation in North America. It's just a matter of when. So, you know, there's a farmer in southern Ontario that is keeping cows and calves together. I've talked to veterinarians in Quebec who are working with farmers that are trying to do this. Is it all working really well? Some things work well, some things are a disaster. […]

Chris Gwyn (15:03)
Do you have any hints of what can successfully work on a dairy?

Dr. Marina Von Keyserlingk
A lot of it is anecdotal. I would say the questions are actually a lot more fundamental than that. Like for instance, how long? Nobody really knows. […]

The only thing we know is from the beef industry, where we keep them together for six, seven or eight months, which is closer to when they wouldn't wean naturally. I had to pick a number. We picked four months. Is four months right? I don't know. […]

Chris Gwyn (19:04)
We don't really know what the system really looks like, right? We're talking about contact. As you say, it could be a full day, half day, it could be a partial day, it could be through a window, could be in the same pen. I mean, this is all the stuff that we don't know and probably the stuff that maybe scares us a bit in production.

Dr. Marina Von Keyserlingk
Exactly right. And it scares us because at least here in North America, let's just take Canada, for instance. We still have whatever 70% of our farms are, tie-stalls. How would this ever work in a tie-stall? I mean, we are transitioning out of that. I would not invest in cow-calf contact work in a tie-stall facility right now. […]

Change is scary. But change also brings opportunity. […]

I understand how difficult it is for farmers because change is really hard and it's super scary, especially in those markets where they don't have supply management. […]

Chris Gwyn (23:05)
What are the deep holes and research that are needed over the next five to ten years to help the dairy industry understand and find practical solutions for that cow requirement?

Dr. Marina Von Keyserlingk
I think it's an exciting time in that area because it's almost a blank slate. I think, as I said earlier, I think issues are going to be: How long? What does contact mean?

Chris Gwyn (28:30)
Tell me about some of the take-home messages you'd like to leave talking about cow-calf contact and what needs to be considered moving forward.

Dr. Marina Von Keyserlingk 

The number one message is: Don't be afraid of the conversation. […]

I think what the dairy industry needs to do is figure out how to keep the consumer because there are a ton of alternatives out there. We want the consumer to want to buy milk, to buy yogurt. And a lot of that comes down to values. […]

My other take-home message, just one other one, is I truly believe that the thoughtful person on the street doesn't expect us to change overnight, but they expect us to get better every day. And those are two very different things.

Timestamps & Summary 

Dr. Greg Eckerle (02:01)
In your opinion, what can we expect to see numbers of dairy and dairy and beef crosses in feedlots in the future?

Dr. Pedro Carvalho
That's really a hot topic right now. I've been working with Holstein since I started grad school, and in the past few years, we've seen this increasing the utilization of beef semen in the dairy cows. […] There are a lot of factors that are affecting that. The increasing use of sex semen and the decrease in the beef cow herd, probably pushing that a lot. And I think it's something that came to stay. I think a lot of people are learning how to do that in the dairy industry. We still have to remember that the main goal of a dairy farmer is getting their cow pregnant. But I think that it's a great opportunity for dairy farmers to increase their profitability. And the data that we've seen right now also shows a really good opportunity for feedlot producers. […]

Total numbers might still be the same because basically, the number of dairy cows is still the same. But what has changed is basically the genetics of those bull calves that are coming to our feedlot.

Dr. Greg Eckerle (05:09)
As we're pushing the supply chain and looking at these genetics of transitioning the dairy to utilizing more beef semen, can we expect to see specific British breeds? Or is it just going to be predominantly black Angus? Or would you propose that maybe if we want to look at some other traits, some continental or some exotic, for southern calf markets would be included in the mix?

Dr. Pedro Carvalho
That's an excellent question. For the past year and a half, I've been talking a lot about this. When we look at the numbers before 2017, we used to have about two and a half million doses of beef semen on the market every year in the US. From 2017 to 2021, we had an increase from two and a half to close to 9 million. And that's how much we're expecting. So, over 6 million doses of increase. […]

About half of those are coming from Angus. So, we expect that the majority of those crosses are going to be black-headed animals. In second place, we've seen a lot of Limousin crosses and then Simmental. And the Charolais breed is the one that has increased a lot. They went from less than 25,000 doses being sold in 2017 to close to 600,000 in 2021. So that's a huge increase. […]

So, we've seen a good increase in continental breeds, but Angus is still the majority of them. One thing that I can tell you, Greg, for sure, I don't think we are going to be talking about a specific breed. We've seen more variation within breeds than when we compare between or among different breeds. Even the Angus breed. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (15:02)
[W]hen is the most critical point of the feeding of the dairy beef Holstein or dairy beef animal. And then what would be their typical starting period? Or do they have two?

Dr. Pedro Carvalho
It always depends. And it's going to depend a lot on the time of the year. We've seen California during summertime. That creates a much bigger challenge than during the wintertime. […]

But on the diet aspect, another thing that we've done over the years, and Dr. Richard Zing, who I had the pleasure to work a lot with while I was in California, we would divide the feeding system into three different phases. The 300 days. we would divide into three groups of 100 days. So, those 1st 100 days on feed would be the most critical ones, I would say, especially in the protein requirements. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (24:21)
And then to wrap up today, what would be three of your top take-home messages of working with dairy beef crosses or straight Holsteins in a feeder situation?

Dr. Pedro Carvalho
I think on the Holstein side, I would push them from start to finish as much as we can be consistent. They have good genetics, they marble well, and they can produce a really good quality on the beef. On dairy, I think right now there are more questions than answers. I do think that instead of looking for the best breed, we may be looking for the best bull in each breed. […]

Something that we are planning to be doing in the near future is, and we didn't touch on that at all, understanding how much the early life management of those calves can impact later. […]

Timestamps & Summary 

Chris Gwyn (01:28)
Can you explain what brought you to the study of cow handling specifically?

Dr. Jennifer Van Os
I started here at UW Madison about five and a half years ago, and as you mentioned, I'm in an applied research and extension outreach role. And so, I think it's really important that all the work that I do resonates with my dairy stakeholders. And so, when I was new, I went around and met with a number of Wisconsin dairy farmers and other people in the industry to ask them what are the challenges they face when it comes to animal welfare on their farms and what are their needs, how could my research and extension program help? So, one of the most popular requests that I got at the time was, could you please come to my farm and train my employees on the proper handling of dairy cows? And I found that a bit surprising that that was a need that kept coming up again and again, and unfortunately, it was not efficient for me to go around and fulfill this request. But it really got me thinking, how can I direct my research program to try to fill this need that people are asking for better training resources?

Chris Gwyn (02:33)
Recently in a presentation you did, you showed some older data from 2018 on what the status of training at the farm level for farm employees interacting with cows was. And you quoted 55% of US dairies providing training on moving or handling dairy cows. And I found this surprisingly low. So, I'm wondering in your work and extension, do you feel in 2023 that this number of 55% is still pretty relevant?

Dr. Jennifer Van Os
I agree with you, it's surprising. So, those data were from the United States Department of Agriculture and they are now about at least five years out of date. […]

But to your question about whether this landscape has changed, I would say I hope so. […]

Now the Farm Animal Care Program, in which 99% of our US. Dairy farms participate, they have an explicit expectation that anyone who works on the farm in an animal touch role, whether they're a milker or calf care staff, need to show annual continuing education in cow handling or calf handling. […]

I know that in the past years, this has been a significant area of noncompliance where people are still struggling to find the time or the right resources to be able to do this sort of education.

Chris Gwyn (05:04)
The concept of low-stress cow movement and working in flight zones […] is pretty well established, yet I understand from some of your work that applying this concept is a challenge. I'm wondering why this is and what can be done to improve this adoption.

Dr. Jennifer Van Os
I think that's a great question. And that was part of why I was so surprised when I moved here that farmers were asking me for more resources and more training. Because you're right, these principles about the flight zone and using the cow's natural behavior to move them. It's very well established, and we know that it works. […]

There was a way I learned in the classroom and in theory, and then there was a way I learned on the farm. And those things didn't always match. […]

There has been a trend in the last few years towards what's called active learning. […]

You might understand the concept of the flight zone, and be able to answer a quiz, but then when you are actually out there with the cows, these other real-life factors come into play. And so, I think that maybe we need resources that are more engaging, more active, and not just passive learning.

Chris Gwyn (07:18)
I believe you're in the process of developing a tool for cow handling training, the Moving Cows educational video game. I'm wondering if you give the listening audience an overview and an update on this project.

Dr. Jennifer Van Os
Yeah, I'm so excited about this. So after dairy producers asked me for better training on cow handling, I kind of put this on the back burner and thought, I can't be going out to every farm and training their staff how to do this because I need to run a research program. But then inspiration kind of struck out of the blue. I'm not much of a video gamer myself, but my father-in-law is a retired commercial airline pilot. And I think most people are familiar with the idea that before a pilot can fly a plane, even if they're very experienced if they're flying a new aircraft, they have to go through the flight simulator. It's too expensive and too dangerous to put somebody in the cockpit of a plane unless they've had some kind of practice. So, this was the idea I had for cow handling, that we have these passive resources like books or videos that teach you the principles of the flight zone. But to be able to actually put those practices into action, maybe we need a simulator. […]

Moving Cows, version one was finished earlier this year, but we kept it private […] But in the meantime, we've compiled a lot of feedback from people who work on farms, dairy employees, dairy owners, consultants in the industry, veterinarians to get their input and make sure this game is relevant for them. And so, we've now compiled that feedback and we're working on version two of the game. So that's currently in process and we're hoping to have a public release by early 2024. So, you can look for it in the Google Play Store as well as iTunes for Apple devices. […]

Chris Gwyn (14:25)
Some key take-home messages that producers, nutritionists, and veterinarians, and industry influencers you feel should have taken away from today's podcast?

Dr. Jennifer Van Os
I think the first takeaway is something we didn't explicitly discuss, but I want to make it explicit, which is a lot of people don't realize that animal welfare is a science. […]

The second take-home message is about learning, which is there is definitely a place for traditional or passive learning. Those resources are very valuable. We're producing some of those ourselves. But when we're thinking about people being able to retain concepts and practice them and learn by doing, that's where active learning comes into play. […]

And then the last one is: if you would like to test out the game, hopefully, that will become available soon, my door is always open. Please email me if you have any questions. And I really can't wait to put this out there and hope that it can help the industry and help people feel more confident in their jobs.

Timestamps & Summary  
 

Dr. Greg Eckerley (01:59)

Looking at muscle development, what roles do we see coenzymes play in upregulating energy to help with growth?

Dr. Bradley Johnson

[…] [the] energy needs for both postnatal muscle growth as well as the functionality of skeletal muscle that being contraction, we need a lot of ATP. And of course, we know that the coenzymes are going to assist with this. All the way from the shortest burst of energy that we're going to get to produce ATP and muscle is the ATP-PC system, which is the phosphocreatine system, which within seconds can produce ATP. […]

From thiamine to niacin to riboflavin, pyridoxine, biotin, cyanocobalamin, pyridoxine, and pantothenic acid, all these are coenzymes. Very important for energy metabolism for every cell. But it becomes very critical for postnatal muscle growth because protein synthesis is so demanding that we have ATP.

Dr. Greg Eckerley (06:37)

Can we hypothesize and think that genetic development and advancement have placed a higher demand for certain nutrients that were historically not apt to look at?

Dr. Bradley Johnson

[…] Our thought early on was: if we have aggressively implanted cattle then they must have higher nutrient needs. Certain nutrients like crude protein or specific amino acids or even calories, do they need more energy. And in reality, those growth-enhancing tools did not change the needs for some of these. They made them more efficient. And so today, our cattle genetically and the way we feed them, nutritional management, we have some of the best feed conversions we've ever had in our beef cattle industry worldwide because of our advancements in genetics, feeding strategies, and total nutrient requirements. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerley (16:24)

Can we utilize certain vitamins like biotin […] in certain feeding period roles to maximize this potential, to alter program metabolism for these animals as they go through the feeding period?

Dr. Bradley Johnson

I tell you what, biotin is so intriguing to me. I think there's a lot of anecdotal work out there and I think it started in Australia, but a lot of people on the Wagyu cattle, the heavy marbled side, felt they could increase marbling by feeding elevated biotin to ruminants. […]

If we feed a high grain diet to finishing cattle, the one B vitamin that's probably going to be compromised the most in the rumen is biotin. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerley (25:55)

So, in conclusion, would you mind sharing three of your main take-home messages that we talked about today with the audience?

Dr. Bradley Johnson

First off, I think we often forget the energetic cost, not really cost, but protein synthesis is not a spontaneous event. And we think of muscle as the main protein reservoir in the carcass, obviously. And that comes at a cost. It takes a lot of ATPs […]

The other big take-home that I think the one molecule that I'm the most excited about of having direct effects both on muscle growth and marbling is biotin and knowing that biotin affects enzymes similarly to a beta-agonist, I think there are opportunities to enhance muscle growth. […]

The final take home is our US. Food and Drug Administration, I think, is going to continue to offer regulatory oversight […] on some of these medicated feed additives, over-the-counter antibiotics, normal growth promoting techniques like implants and beta-agonists that we've become used to using. And, obviously, the more natural alternatives that we can seek and find and utilize in our industry, I think the better off we're going to be in the long run.

Timestamps & Summary 

Dr. Greg Eckerle (01:24)
Do we normally call that intestinal acidosis outside of the agricultural university complex?

Dr. Greg Penner
I think probably the most common term that's used is hindgut acidosis rather than intestinal acidosis. And it probably makes sense given where we think most of that fermentation activity would occur and where the primary reduction in PH would be localized.

Dr. Greg Eckerle (02:02)
What can we do with the hindgut intestinal acidosis? And how is that having an impact?

Dr. Greg Penner
First of all, one of the things we need to recognize is rumen acidosis and hindgut acidosis often occur simultaneously. And in fact, we probably should reclassify ruminal acidosis to lumenal, so that it encompasses a broader area of the gastrointestinal tract. You're right, from a challenge or mitigating response, it's not easy to deliver compounds that are going to be released to buffer in the large intestine. So, we're really needing to focus more on strategies that promote ruminal digestion efficiently while minimizing or managing the risk of fermentable materials that reach the large intestine.

Dr. Greg Eckerle (05:19)
Is there any sort of mitigation practices that we could utilize to help keep that intestinal junction and intestinal villi healthy?

Dr. Greg Penner
Certainly, our data as well as others have shown that if PH is too low for too long, again, we don't have good thresholds characterized for the hindgut, but we do see a leaky gut, or at least increased permeability of the gut. Our work has been able to show that both outside of the animal using ex vivo conditions and also inside the animal using in vivo markers, we actually see greater permeability responses in post-ruminal regions rather than the ruminal region. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (08:27)
What can we utilize and look at when we see animals undergoing a medicinal acid challenge?

Dr. Greg Penner
I think it's really hard to differentiate ruminal acidosis and hindgut acidosis. And as I mentioned earlier, they often occur simultaneously. I think in many cases, we've looked at indicators of hindgut acidosis as evidence for ruminal acidosis. And so we've probably been looking at it backward. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (11:56)
Do we see an alteration in more pathogenic bacteria or harmful bacteria to the animal which could lead to increased ailments, transition of other things that enterotoxins, and things like that?

Dr. Greg Penner
There was some nice work done by Dr. Kees Plaizier at the University of Manitoba where they did some grain versus alfalfa induction protocols for ruminal acidosis. And fortunately, they have both ruminal microbial changes. And in some of those studies, they also have hindgut microbial changes. And if I recall right, I believe E. Coli abundance, I think they stopped at a genre level, but E. Coli abundance was increased. And so certainly we get concerned about E. Coli from a potential contaminant of meat or meat products and not something we want to increase concentration of, recognizing not all E. Coli will be harmful or truly pathogenic. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (13:48)
When we look at the terminal carcass evaluation of these animals, do we see an increase in liver abscess scores from Fusobacterium that may cross this damaged intestinal?

Dr. Greg Penner
That's a great question, and that's the hypothesis we have. But unfortunately, I have not seen any data that confirms whether fusobacterium is crossing the rumen, crossing regions of the intestine, or both. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (16:15)
Are there certain production periods for either both beef and dairy that we need to be paying more attention to with those management practices to help reduce those risks?

Dr. Greg Penner
Let's start on the dairy side. I think probably the greatest risk factor is early in the transition phase. And the reason I say that is there's a number of changes that have likely occurred during that time. […]

In terms of feedlot cattle, I think any factor, again, that leads to a reduction in feed intake, even a transient reduction, probably increases risk for rumen and hindgut acidosis. So, these could be things like respiratory disease, it could be heat stress events, they could be transportation events. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (21:52)
What would be three of the main take-home messages that we have for nutritionists, veterinarians, and producers when we want to help mitigate or strategize systems on farms?

Dr. Greg Penner
I think the first one is […] that what happens in the rumen influences the more distal parts of the gastrointestinal tract. […]

The second one is when we look at the responsiveness of the intestinal regions, they're probably regions that are more prone to leakiness. […]

The third one goes back to good standard practices, and I think this will never be eliminated from core tasks or core skills of a nutritionist bunk calling. […]

Timestamps and Summary 

1:54

How do you feel about Meatless Monday?

Jess Pryles

I don’t feel much about Meatless Monday. It’s more of a fad […]

3:23

What can we be doing as an industry and as individuals, family-owned operations to impact our consumer demand more positively?

Jess Pryles

I think just telling the story, there are a lot of great social media platforms at the moment: Instagram, obviously big but particularly for AG, Tiktok has been extremely successful. There were a lot of big agriculture producers, […] I mean, big accounts on Tiktok, but small, independent ranchers, both on the dairy and the cattle, beef production side, who have hundreds of thousands of followers. […]

5:23

What’s one thing about Australia that you miss, and would love to bring back or have here in the States more often?

Jess Pryles

You know, I would bring back meat pies. That’s a very classic Australian thing, and the first thing that I did when I landed and got off the plane, I drove to this little pie shop that’s very famous. […]

6:32

What's your all-time favorite beef cut?

Jess Pryles

I think the point is, we do say for certain cuts to just buy the best you can afford. […]

There are other times when you can really afford to get a bit more creative. You know, in Texas tacos, […] I frequently buy select skirt steaks. […]

I think if I had to choose my favorite cut, this is very controversial in beef worlds because obviously, I feel like my death row meal would be a ribeye but one of my very favorite steaks, the one I just keep coming back to is top sirloin and top sirloin cap.

Timestamps and Summary  

Vicki Brisson (01:56)

Can you share more about the role and importance of amino acids to support the dairy industry’s sustainability initiatives?

Dr. Izabelle Teixeira

I think balancing for amino acids is really important and can play a very important role in improving sustainability and can be a way of leveraging nutrition to enhance their sustainability. […]

Vicki Brisson (04:28)

What should [nutritionists] keep in mind when they’re formulating for individual amino acids? Or perhaps should they be looking at them as groups instead?  

Dr. Izabelle Teixeira

I’m biased, right? But certainly, we have the literature support to see that when you look at individual amino acids, we don’t really fully explain the cow’s response, so the lactation performance response. So, looking at the amino acids as a group, we have a better understanding of those responses or why the cows are responding in a certain way. […]

Vicki Brisson (06:46)

Is there a reason why you looked at these specific groups of amino acids? So let’s say methionine, lysine, and histidine, and then leucine and isoleucine and you referred to the roles as well. So what might be the key differences between these groups of amino acids?

Dr. Izabelle Teixeira

There were some responses in the literature that we could use. We know that methionine plays a role in there. Lysine plays a role in there. We know that when we look at those amino acids and were, for example, decreasing the protein in the diet, but adding those amino acids, histidine was missing, and then could impair some of the response. So, it’s sort of the basis behind that first group. The other one is we also had in the literature some effects from the brain chain amino acids. So, we know that leucine plays a role in the mTOR pathway that we know is behind the milk protein synthesis. We also use the same basis for our hypothesis on the role of amino acids in milk fat synthesis. […]

Vicki Brisson (10:06)

Since you’ve done lots of work on dairy goat nutrition in the past, can you please share some of the key nutritional considerations that ruminant nutritionists should account for when they're formulating rations for dairy goats, especially when it comes to energy, protein, and mineral requirements?

Dr. Izabelle Teixeira

Thank you for bringing that up, Vicky. For me, it was fascinating. I have always looked at small ruminants as a model, […]. But when I started working with small ruminants, especially goats, they opened so many opportunities and created so many opportunities for me. So, throughout my ten years plus experience with small ruminants, I realized some similarities that we can definitely use small ruminants as a model for […] lactating cows. […]

Vicki Brisson (15:39)

How can we successfully integrate precision livestock measurements and management tools such as precision livestock farming and digital livestock farming?

Dr. Izabelle Teixeira

I think this is a hot topic. So, pretty much everybody is pointing their eyes on precision livestock farming and there are so many tools out there that can be used, that can be applied. The industries are offering us some possibilities and I think that's great because we need to improve. And we need to understand this precision measurement which is what is there that we can measure but also the precision management. So, how can we implement some tool that can be useful, but also it’s profitable? […]

Vicki Brisson (20:42)

What nutritional solutions are you currently investigating or looking forward to investigate as strategies to enhance the sustainability of those dairy production systems?

Dr. Izabelle Teixeira

When I arrived, I was asked to look at two main nutrients, nitrogen, and phosphorus, because that's something important here with all the environmental concerns, and I use different strategies for them. Regarding nitrogen, we are developing a mobile-friendly web-based tool that we can refine the use of mun, so milk urea nitrogen to really understand the response of the animals […]

Vicki Brisson (27:49)

To wrap up our discussion today, can you share your three take-home messages when thinking of practical solutions to improve the dairy industry’s sustainability?

Dr. Izabelle Teixeira

I would say the first one is to look at nutrition not as specific boxes like protein or amino acids or energy but in a more interactive way. […]

The other take-home message would be to look at sustainability in a holistic way. […]

And I think the last one is […] the importance of training because you can formulate the best diet ever if you don’t have the workforce prepared to use that diet for feeding the cows in a proper way, it doesn’t matter.

Timestamps & Summary  

Chris Gwyn (02:09)

So John, in your work in advising agricultural businesses, and perhaps dairies in particular, talk to us about the strain that the current financial stressors of higher interest rates, softening milk prices and continuing high commodity prices cause at the farm level.

John Ellsworth

I think with inflation that we're fighting, not just in the US but Canada, everywhere, we have just higher-level inflation than we've seen for probably 40 years. And for our younger listeners, they probably never even experienced this before. And so, I was fairly young the last time we had this kind of event with inflation. But costs, the pressure on costs are crazy high and unfortunately, it's being compounded by, I think, out-of-control spending, at least in the US. […]

Chris Gwyn (04:57)

Talk to me about the practices that you're advising your clients and general producers to put in place to minimize that financial strain and that stress that it's going to cause.

John Ellsworth

I have really felt in the good times and the bad times, number one, that people need to know their costs. The reality is every operation needs to know what it costs them to produce. If it's dairy, for example, what is your cost to produce 100 pounds of milk? What are the break-even levels? If we measure something, we can understand it and we understand it, we can control it. If we can control it, we can make improvements in that area. […]

Chris Gwyn (07:34)

Is there anything unique with the current strain or stress that producers need to consider or is it just a matter of if you haven't done it now really is the time to get it done?

John Ellsworth

I think what's happening is a decrease in revenue on the revenue side, particularly milk specifically and the cost side is happening. I mean, it happens in every downturn, but this has happened a lot faster. […] It's happened at a more rapid pace, which makes it more difficult, more challenging for people, I think. So the speed at which it's happening is pretty daunting I guess is a good word for it.

Chris Gwyn (08:46)

In the past, you've written and you've spoken a lot about putting in place a business system that will help to manage financial strain and I’m wondering if you could expand upon that point and what it is.

John Ellsworth

I think it's a good time to use not just financial advisors but all your advisors very closely. […] I think it's time to use your advisors wisely and maintain focus. […] It's important to follow the advice of your advisors, your legal advice, your accountants, financial advisors such as myself, and your nutritionists. I think we have to look for ways to not just cut costs because we never want to cut costs to the point of hurting the performance of your dairy herd, for example. But I think we've got to turn over every stone that's out there, everyone that's available to us. […]

Chris Gwyn (14:48)

What would you leave with producers and their advisors, some of the key take-home messages key points that you would recommend that they implement or work on today in order to get to the next really positive milk price?

John Ellsworth

I think you always want to focus on the goal and the goal is to become more profitable, of course, in a difficult time like this. But remember that ignoring the problems doesn't make them go away. And especially on the financial side when you're dealing with bankers […] you got to plan in the good times to overcome times like this. […] So, on the feed side, for example, we try to prepare by having better contracts. That's not always possible, but one of the things I advise people, now, we're seeing feed costs come down. So, should I run out and contract everything? Not necessarily. […] I think it's important to think about laying in tiers. So, if corn is going from $300 a ton to maybe it ends up to 240 or something a ton lay in those tiers. So, if it bounces back up, you've got some locked at the decrease in cost, but you're not trapped with all of it at 275 when it gets to 230. […]

I would end with this this too shall come to pass. This is a difficult time we're going through. The bankers know it, the producers know it, and we all understand it. But I suggested to a client recently that they should talk to their vendors, but also talk to their bankers because it's not an unreasonable request in my mind if you have a $400,000 line of credit for feed in a time like this, you may need to increase it to $500,000 or something of that nature. Not an unreasonable amount, even if it's a temporary increase for six months or twelve months, and then go back to the more normal level, I think people overlook that.

Timestamps & Summary 

Dr. Greg Eckerle (01:34)
Do we see an increase in interest in vitamin nutrition in cattle over the past years? And if so, what has sparked the resurgence of looking at vitamins again?

Dr. Jason Warner
When we think about cattle nutrition, I think it's certainly an area that we've seen some increased awareness and interest in the part of the industry over the last four to five years, particularly. And I think when you really take a look at it, that's really primarily due to a couple of different main factors when we think about the increased interest that that's caused. And I would say one of the main factors is that when we think back to four to five years ago, the livestock industry, the animal nutrition industry, experienced a shortage in a supply disruption of vitamins on the market and as a result, there was a pretty substantial price increase. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (04:09)
I remember that period of time the market was really volatile. It hurt a lot of vitamin suppliers and getting into the product for sure. But when we've changed how we're doing that, what implications could we see due to those changes or anything in the cowherd or even in the feedlot animal?

Dr. Jason Warner
That's a great question. It kind of depends on how you're looking at the system, whether you're looking at it from a forage-based cow-calf or stalker perspective, or if you're looking at it more from a growing and finishing animal feedlot type of perspective. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (07:01)
What challenges does it come when we're formulating as well as getting the vitamins to the animal, where can we benefit or what strategies can we help to make sure we're supplying daily adequate needs?

Dr. Jason Warner 
What it all comes back to is understanding how we best properly supplement that animal and deliver vitamins back to that animal. Regardless of whatever dietary situation that we're looking at there. A big challenge that I think the industry has is understanding different sources and vitamin precursors and how those can be supplied to the animal, what the availability is, and what oxidation levels are like with those. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (09:41)
What type of things are going to be affecting vitamin stability and what were those antagonists that we mentioned?

Dr. Jason Warner
We can basically have degradation or destruction of those sources over time. The main things that we think about with respect to our fat-soluble vitamins, we think about things like sunlight, and UV radiation, and we know that those can have negative or deleterious effects on the stability of those sources. Heat is another one, and that's a big one. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (13:55)
When we think about formulating products, are we generally still going to over-formulate to account for some of that loss instead of being right on the nose? Or are we lowering that due to cost objections that we're seeing? Or how are we typically formulating those products today to account for some of this loss that we know that's taken place?

Dr. Jason Warner
I think what we would really like to do is be able to account for the loss that we have over time and be able to accurately measure it. That would give us a lot more knowledge when it comes to formulation and being able to account for some of those losses. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (16:43)
Where do we see water and other forage components […] that may get in there and affect nutrition as a whole when it comes to vitamin nutrition?

Dr. Jason Warner
Water potentially could be something that when we think about water quality, can potentially impact what we can see from a vitamin digestibility and utilization standpoint, particularly, I think about one of the most common challenges that we see with water quality is sulfates or high sulfur content in drinking water for livestock. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (20:16)
Is there a benefit in your opinion, to protecting some of these vitamins, putting them in a matrix or some form of protected form to kind of guard them through these productive processes to make sure that what we formulate for, what we're paying for, adding it to the product is getting delivered appropriately to the animal?

Dr. Jason Warner
I think that is an area that could certainly be really well utilized and would have a tremendous amount of benefit just for the industry in general. […]

Timestamps & Summary 

Vicky Brisson (01:33)
Can you share with our audience what are the main diseases you observe and what the economic impacts of these diseases are?

Dr. Jessica McArt
As a dairy veterinarian, I see all sorts of diseases, and new ones every week, I feel. But the main diseases I see working on farms or with mastitis are early lactation diseases such as hypocalcemia, and hyperketonemia, also known as ketosis. We see a lot of retained placentas. We see cows with metritis, we see lame cows. […]

Vicky Brisson (04:32)
Can you expand on the role of a proper nutrition program that supports those fresh cows’ performance?

Dr. Jessica McArt
I think the important parts are in our dry cows. It really starts there. So, it's very easy sometimes to not worry about those cows. But those are the cows that we're setting up to be successful in early lactation. So, I've really been sold on controlled energy diets in the prepartum period. […]

Vicky Brisson (05:27)
There's a lot of possible diseases occurring during this period. […] 

Can you explain how to best monitor and treat this disease?

Dr. Jessica McArt
First, I'll explain the idea of calcium dynamics. This is a term we've developed as we look at the calcium concentration in the blood of cows through early lactation. So, all of our dairy cows will experience a reduction in blood calcium after they calve because they begin production of colostrum and a lot of milk. […]

And so we can divide cows into basically four types of calcium dynamic groups. […]

When we looked at these calcium dynamics, we've seen that what's really important is that cows have increased their blood calcium by four days in milk. And so, the best way to monitor for this currently is by assessing the blood calcium status of cows around that four-day and milk mark. […]

Vicky Brisson (10:26)
Can you remind our audience what causes hyperketonemia and beyond that, what impacts it can have on the animal, including health production and even going as far as reproduction?

Dr. Jessica McArt
Hyperketonemia is a term we use for an excess elevation of ketone bodies in the blood. And that occurs in a lot of our early lactation cows as they go into this period of energy deficit where they cannot eat enough for the amount of energy they're using to make milk. 

Hyperketonemia itself is not a disease. […]

Vicky Brisson (12:36)
What impact do these sampling methods have on our ability to properly predict and address this metabolic condition?

Dr. Jessica McArt 
That's a great question and something that I think a lot of producers work with every day. So, depending on whether you're measuring urine, milk, or blood, you may be measuring different ketone bodies. […]

And like any test, some tests are better than others. […]

The cool thing in milk is that while there's some daily variation, it's way more consistent than with blood. And so, some of these milk measuring techniques that people are starting to develop may help us get a better sense of the cow's actual energy deficit. […]

Vicky Brisson (17:16)
Can you share your three take-home messages for nutritionists, veterinarians, and producers when thinking of practical transition cow management, especially when it comes to preventing and monitoring hypocalcemia and hyperketonemia?

Dr. Jessica McArt
I think the most important part first is having a good management team to help and talk over some of these things. […]

My second is to have routine monitoring. […]

And the third one is to implement management changes or prevention strategies that are evidence-based and that you can assess. […]

Timestamps & Summary 

Vicky Brisson (02:20)
In the last decade, modeling is a research method that's growing in popularity. However, mathematical modeling and livestock nutrition has been around for much longer than that. Can you explain models and what limitations they have?

Dr. Jennifer Ellis
A model can be anything from a single equation to a set of dozens or even thousands of equations, which represent, in our case, the behavior of a biological system. So, scientists will use models to help represent bits of the real world and to either aid our understanding of complex systems or as a tool to help make predictions. […]

Vicky Brisson (06:03)
How do models help us turn data into knowledge that actually helps our industry innovate in areas?

Dr. Jennifer Ellis
If you ever get the chance, you should really take a look at the Ackoff or DIKW Pyramid which essentially describes the steps required to transform data into information and then information into knowledge and then knowledge into wisdom. It's really fascinating when you start looking at that. But essentially, as you point out, data on its own is really just a series of signals. And with just data, we know nothing, right? Data only starts to become useful, or it becomes information when we provide context to that data. […]

So essentially, moving us up this pyramid is the task of research, and it's the task of models to translate data into actionable wisdom. […]

Vicky Brisson (09:04)
Your lab is unique in the sense that you use models to expand nutritional research for many different species, and that includes dairy cattle, veal, turkey, and horses. Can you share with us how that came to be and how your modeling approach is shaped by what we like to call cross-pollination of many different fields of study?

Dr. Jennifer Ellis
I started as a ruminant nutrition and metabolism modeler in my master's and Ph.D. And from there, I think, rather organically, I began to get pulled into projects for other species. And in fact, when I went into industry, I was filling the role as a poultry modeler. So, I think throughout my career, modeling has been a skill set. And it's a skill that can be applied to a myriad of problems, topics, and species. And I think across species, animals have more in common than you might think initially. And I think we too often stay in our species silos. […]

Vicky Brisson (11:50)
How can models support on-farm decision-making?

Dr. Jennifer Ellis
At the moment, many models are used and applied by what I call expert users within various companies. And those companies will support producers in making on-farm decisions. So, you think of your nutritionist, for example. And those models are used to forecast different scenarios and how suggested changes may impact outcomes such as performance, sustainability, andeconomics. They can really be used to examine, “what if” scenarios, what if we did this change? What if we made this adjustment? What kind of outcome are we expecting to see now? […]

Vicky Brisson (13:38)
Based on your experience, why do you believe that modeling is a skill that students should invest time into exploring and why has that become such a big part of what you do at the University of Guelph?

Dr. Jennifer Ellis
I think as the agriculture sector becomes more and more digitized, with more and more data being collected, it will need more and more graduates entering the workforce with the ability to analyze and interpret and service these digital tools or models. So, for me, my biggest piece of advice for students now is to actually learn a coding language. Become computationally competent. The challenge the industry has at the moment is that people with that combined skill set, a knowledge of animal production systems plus digital competency, is low. […]

I think that that's a skill that will become more and more in demand. […]

Vicky Brisson (15:21)
How would you define the future of modeling? What will be the main challenges in this area of research and innovation?

Dr. Jennifer Ellis
I think the future of modeling is really interesting. And I think what we'll see is the merging of traditional biological understanding based modeling, which we commonly refer to as mechanistic modeling, blending that with emerging data streams and the accompanying machine learning algorithms that are best suited to analyze them. […]
For all of these new modeling methodologies, I think the biggest challenge will be getting robust and variable enough data to develop them so that they become good models to make forecasts from. […]

Vicky Brisson (18:54)
Can you share three take-home messages for nutritionists, veterinarians, and producers when they consider applications of nutritional models on farms?

Dr. Jennifer Ellis
Number one: Get more from your data by leaning into modeling and data analytics. […]

The second one: Develop those computational skill sets in yourself and promote it in your employees, if not already. […]

And the third one is to communicate and get engaged with developers. […]

Timestamps and Summary 

Dr. Greg Eckerle (02:05)
When we see where we’re at with the cattle cycle, where do you think the next three to five years of production are going to go?

Dr. Lee Schulz
Just to give a bit of background, the cattle inventory cycle has three phases. It has expansion, has liquidation, has a turnaround phase. We’re currently in the liquidation phase. This cattle cycle started in 2014, inventories peaked in 2019, and we’ve been on a slide of inventories over the last several years. Most cattle cycles are nine to 14 years. And so, if you do the math, we’re in year nine of that cattle inventory cycle. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (06:33)
Have we seen any change in the way that our beef are being marketed, or what’s that in comparison to the domestic market supply?

Dr. Lee Schulz
I’ll note demand has been incredible the last several years. If you look at it internationally or domestically, it has taken a bit of a step back in the last couple of years, but you compare it to a really high base level when you think about demand. So even though we’ve taken a bit of a step back, we still remain historically in a really good demand spot. And prices reflect that along with the tighter supplies. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (08:48)
When we look at the domestic market and we see things happening domestically here: interest rates are on the rise, things that are affecting the American household, etc. What would we see at the retail side?

Dr. Lee Schulz
Well, I do need to commend you. You sound like an economist there, Greg, and because I think you highlight really the issue with demand, it’s not prices. So, the price of beef does not impact demand, it impacts quantity demanded, but it doesn’t impact demand. What we know impacts demand is income. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (11:04)
July 4 and Labor Day are historically great holidays for us protein market when we have a summer barbecue season and things like that. Have you looked at that impacting demand this year or is it going to remain relatively flat?

Dr. Lee Schulz
Well, I think you can look at the value of wholesale, the choice beef cut-out for this time of year, it’s a record high. I think that points to, yes, we have tighter supplies, but you need the demand to pull it as well. I think you’re seeing very strong demand within the wholesale and retail level that is really spurring prices. […]

I think it is really important to highlight it’s not a tight supply situation. The fundamentals there are a little bit easier to understand. We know that much tighter supplies will increase prices. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (12:52)
What are we going to be looking at in the fall? The best-case scenario with moisture and then maybe worst-case scenario if we maintain a drought consistency pattern.

Dr. Lee Schulz
That’s really a key question as we look at crop markets for cattle markets. […]

So, now we’re really focused on the crop development and conditions which are going to impact that new crop supply here come fall. […] If you look at the report for weekending June 12th, 61% of the nation’s crop was rated good to excellent. That’s three percentage points lower than last year. So, for benchmark it against last year, the crop isn’t as good this time of year, slightly below. It’s also slightly below the five-year average as well. […] So, we’re in a much weaker spot than we were a year ago or in really the last couple of years. […]

But I always like to remind folks we have a whole growing season in front of us. There’s a lot that has to go right and a lot that can go wrong that could impact this year’s crop. 

Dr. Greg Eckerle (19:56)
Can we have an expectation to see cows kill numbers increase, stay the same, or because we’re still in liquidation, I don’t expect them to decrease, so what kind of forecast in the cow kill numbers?

Dr. Lee Schulz
I’m glad you asked this question because I think there are a couple of keyways to really look at this data. So, as you look at beef cow slaughter year to date, we’re down about 12% compared to a year ago levels for the same period. That’s almost 200,000 beef cows over that period. This comes after last year, we were up 11%, right? Almost about 400,000 beef cows. Now you look at that and say, well, we’re killing a lot fewer beef cows this year, it must mean we may be seeing that turnaround phase. But I’ll remind us that we have a lot fewer cows than we did last year. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (25:09)
I guess the overall evaluation of the US marketplace seems to be on the upswing then what would be some of the main challenges coming within the next twelve to 18 months?

Dr. Lee Schulz
I think the big challenge for me is costs. I think when you look at it, not only feed costs as we talked about the crop market situation and potential for a lot of lower prices or at least lower prices as we get into the fall, which doesn’t mean that our cost of gains and dollars per cow are going to decrease all that much. I think they will decrease, but we’ve added a lot of cost to this industry over the last couple of years in the form of non-feed, variable costs, fixed costs, everything really has gotten much more expensive and those are rather sticky costs. […]

Timestamps and Summary 

Vicky Brisson (02:24)
Can you please explain why and how cows may benefit from an increased supply of B vitamins?

Dr. Mélissa Duplessis
I'm going to focus on two B vitamins, folate and vitamin B12, as these two vitamins have been extensively studied by our research group […]

Christiane Girard, who has tremendously increased the knowledge on B vitamins in dairy cows, demonstrated that plasma folate and vitamin B12 concentrations were at their lowest at calving and in early lactation, respectively.

 […] a few studies were conducted in order to evaluate the effects of supplementation in folic acid and vitamin B12 during the transition period and in early lactation on dairy cows’ health and performance. […] some showed a substantial increase in milk yield without affecting dry matter intake and plasma indicators of reserve mobilization. And some showed a decrease in plasma indicators of reserve mobilization without affecting dry matter intake and milk yield. […]

Vicky Brisson (05:19)
From a practical perspective, how can we ensure that the cows actually receive an adequate increased supply of B vitamins?

Dr. Mélissa Duplessis
One way is indeed to supplement B vitamins to the animals. Also, previous studies demonstrated that ruminal synthesis of B vitamins is affected by the cow diet and dry matter intake. Thus, it can be suggested that if ruminal synthesis is greater, this will benefit the cow as more B vitamins are available for absorption. Now, can we formulate a diet that optimizes B vitamin ruminal synthesis? It's a great question. […]

Vicky Brisson (06:53)
Your recently published papers collected data on mineral nutrition. Can you share with our audience what were the main findings of your study?

Dr. Mélissa Duplessis
We collected data on 100 Eastern Canadian dairy herds in order to compare dietary trace minerals in commercial settings to NRC recommendations. […]

[…] we observed that cobalt was fed at 405% over the recommendation, copper at 52% over the recommendation, manganese at 372 percent over the recommendation, and for zinc, it was 65% over the recommendation. This is important to note that these data represent the median, meaning that 50% of dairy herds were well above that. […]

Vicky Brisson (08:51)
How would a nutritionist use this knowledge to better balance minerals in their rations?

Dr. Mélissa Duplessis
First of all, forages are not routinely analyzed for trace mineral concentrations due to analysis constraints. Also, absorption coefficients of trace minerals are low. In a recent […], we obtained that more than 60% of nutritionists had intentionally formulated diets above trace mineral recommendations to ensure cow health and optimized reproduction performance. However, this is not clear in the literature that overfeeding trace minerals actually has benefits on cow health and reproduction. […]

Vicky Brisson (10:55)
Can you explain to our audience what is a living lab?

Dr. Mélissa Duplessis (11:03)
Living labs are open innovation ecosystems in real-life environments. […] Prior to the start of the project, producers and researchers should meet and discuss to create a sustainable project.

Vicky Brisson (11:45)
You recently concluded a project using the Living Lab approach, can you share what you did and what you learned so far?

Timestamps and Summary 

Chris Gwyn (04:01)
Why the advocacy for safety related to silage management has become so important to you, both personally and professionally?

Doug DeGroff
It’s because I’m a silage avalanche survivor that it’s near and dear to my heart. I was young and quite confident and with an attitude of “it can’t happen to me.” But my luck ran out on August 27, 2009, while taking a solid sample that I’d done thousands of times […]

Chris Gwyn (08:32)
What are some of the key points in the silage safety that you feel are extremely important to share?

Doug DeGroff
I think the first thing I’d like to say it can happen to you or it could happen to your dairy or your feedlot. […]

Once you know that, then you have to be intentional about it. If you’re a dairy owner or a feedlot owner, you have an obligation to those people who work on your business, whether they’re a full-time employee, a contract employee, maybe a silage harvester or your nutritionist or feed salespeople. […]

If somebody gets seriously hurt or tragically killed, it’s very bad for your business financially. So training, talking to your employees, talking to these people that are going to be around your silage piles, hanging up, putting up signs, there’s so much you can do. And either you have a good silage safety management program, or you make excuses when somebody gets injured or killed. It’s one or the other. You really don’t have both.

Chris Gwyn (11:53)
What would you define as a good silage safety program?

Doug DeGroff

It starts with sitting down with the employees and going over the risks […] with anybody who’s going to be in the feed area. And not just the risk of it avalanching. There are other risks with silage. There are gases, there’s equipment driving around it all the time. […]

Have some standard operating protocols at the time of harvest. […]

When you have new employees, make sure you don’t wait until the next training session. They should have a course of what’s going on within days of being hired. […]

Chris Gwyn (14:43)
What should employees working around silage management be thinking and what do they need to do differently?

Doug DeGroff

Certain employees are there in front of piles every single day, multiple times a day. They’re the people with the highest risk because they have the highest exposure. So, they need to be aware of what could be happening when they’re going up, removing tires or removing plastic. It comes pretty good, if the owners haven’t done it, if an employee is asking: “Hey, can you get me a safety harness?”, “Can you get a cable that runs across the length of the pile?” […]

I won’t recommend you pitch off bad feet anymore because God forbid somebody gets hurt. I’m the person who made the recommendation. I used to do that. I no longer do that. And I don’t support that. […]

Chris Gwyn (18:58)
What's your recommendation for safely sampling silage on dairies on feedlots?

Doug DeGroff
I’ll start off with what I used to do and why I did it. And then, I’ll tell you how stupid of an idea it was.

I liked to sample the pile up and down. So, I would get in the loader of the bucket, and I would go up and down. I get to the top of the feed because that feed is different than this feed down here. And if I went straight down the middle of the pile, I would get arguably a very good representation of the pile. […] I had a five-gallon bucket and I put so many handfuls in every foot to eighteen inches and I mixed that feed up and then I put it in my bag, and I had an incredibly good representation of the pile.

It was probably about as unsafe as you can get because at the bottom, the loader backs away because now I can get it. So, I’'m standing there for a few minutes, as much as I can reach, high and low. […]

Now, all my dairies, they know exactly what to do. They’ll either face it with a facer or they’ll scrape it with a payloader and knock it and then what they’ll mix it up, spit it out. Then we put another five thousand pounds in it, mix it up, spit it out in a safe place. I would argue that is the best representation of the pile. […]

Chris Gwyn (23:24)
Key points that you feel are important when it comes to safety around silage management.

Doug DeGroff
The most important part of any solid safety program or any silage program is safety. […]

We don’t spend enough time on safety until something happens. […]

But there’s nothing real sexy about safety, but it’s so necessary. And we just have to keep that in mind. […]

Timestamps & Summary 

1:56

As a young person growing up in dairy operations, tell me about the obstacles that you had to overcome in order to pursue a career in agriculture.

Vicky Brisson

I was really lucky growing up on my family's dairy farm, because I grew up with plenty of excellent role models, whether that be my parents being involved in the community, strong women when I was involved in forage as well. But I'd say also growing up in the Francophone community in Eastern Ontario, it was that language barrier. But beyond that language barrier, I'd say it's also a language barrier, that disconnect, between what we do in agriculture, and what the people who consume the food perceive agriculture as being.

So, I'd say it's really about bridging that gap. We're translating that content, whether it be from English to French or French to English, or whether it be from someone who works and lives agriculture, to someone who consumes agriculture on a daily basis. […]

3:46

Talk to me about your thoughts on the importance of youth in agriculture.

Vicky Brisson

I'd say first and foremost, youth is the future, right? So, I think it's important to have everyone who's invested in the future of agriculture at the table. And what youth brings to that table is really our passion. We bring a different perspective as well. We're, perhaps some might call us naive, but I'd say we're starting from a blank page. And that allows us to bring new ideas, new perspectives to challenges that have been existing for decades for generations. And youth in agriculture also brings another level of connection of collaboration. […]

7:22

What recommendations would you give to the youth today in pursuing their dreams in agriculture?

Vicky Brisson

Perhaps my advice a year from now will change. But for now, I'd say that one I'm most certain will not change is: don't be afraid to ask for help. I think of you, Chris. I think of all my colleagues at Jefo. These are the people that have made it possible for me to step into the different growing opportunities that I've had throughout the last few years. That comes from asking for help. We're not alone. If you don't have the answer, other people will have it. […]

You need to surround yourself with the right people, people who, again, you'll be able to go ask for help. But those people should also include a cheerleader and a hard truth-teller. Because sometimes you need that wake-up call, you need to be told the hard things. And then ultimately, in order to take action, sometimes it's easier when you're doing it with a peer, someone who will help you stretch to do those hard things to grow outside of your comfort zone. […]

12:56

What are the take-home messages you'd like to leave the audience listening today regarding youth and their journey in agriculture?

Vicky Brisson

I think between everyone there needs to be collaboration, there needs to be an exchange of experiences of perspectives. And that also comes through mentorship and learning by doing, not being afraid to take action. So really three simple takeaways, but that would be it for me today.

Timestamps & Summary 

2:59

I was wondering if you could review some of the highlights for the audience to remind us of those key important areas.

Dr. Bill Weiss

For most minerals, what the committee tried to do is start at the cell. And we calculate, for example, how much mineral goes out and milk, how much mineral is free if an animal is growing, how much mineral is in that new tissue, and if she's pregnant, how much mineral is being deposited in the fetus, and we start there and we sum all that up. […]

8:29

What can you tell the audience today about the impact of mineral nutrition, whether positive or negative on the gut microbiome, and perhaps where some of the research should be focusing?

Dr. Bill Weiss

Bacteria need minerals, just like humans and cows need them. And we've known that for a long time so that the fact we have to feed the rumen bugs and the intestinal bugs in cows is well established. And in general, if you feed enough to the cow, the bacteria usually add enough and that's kind of where we left it. But more recently, there's been more and more studies looking at sources, not necessarily the amount of trace minerals but the source of the trace mineral. For example, organic versus sulfates or hydroxy versus sulfates, and so on. And some things we're finding at what I call the gross level is trace mineral affects fiber digestion, and fiber is digested only by bacteria so if you're altering fiber digestion, likely you're changing the room and population of bacteria. […]

13:09

What is a nutritionist should be looking for when looking to add chromium to a ruminant diet and the sources that they're utilizing?

Dr. Bill Weiss

I don't know other countries’ rules and regulations. But in the US, chromium propionate is the only one that's been approved. This is regulated by FDA because they're worried. I think they're most worried about environmental issues. But certain terms of chromium are also toxic. The form that we feed is not or not highly toxic. Other forms of chromium can actually be quite toxic. So, it's regulated in the US at point five milligrams per kilogram is the supplemental right. […]

Chromium is one of these nutrients… We know cows need it. Because we can find proteins or substances within animals, not just cows, people, etc. that require chromium to work. But in the new NRC, which is now called NASEM, we don't give a recommendation for chromium. And people say: Well if it's an essential nutrient, why don't you do that? Well, part of the problem is no one's ever identified a chromium deficiency. A lot of cows are not fed supplemental chromium and they live very productive happy lives. So, it's if you can't produce a clinical deficiency, it's hard to say this is a requirement. Part of the problem is feeds have chromium. […] Measuring chromium in feeds is really hard. So, we have very poor data on actual chromium concentrations. […]

18:50

What are maybe three or four key take-home messages you'd like to leave the audience when they're thinking about mineral nutrition at the farm level that they need to consider?

Dr. Bill Weiss

One of the first things is, and I see a lot of diets and minerals are needed but too much is too much. And very often they're over-supplemented grossly in both minerals and vitamins. And this adds cost but these metals at some of these absurd levels are detrimental. […]

The other thing is source does matter. As we do more and more stuff, the data is I think clearer on zinc than the other trace minerals that organic zinc or zinc from non sulfate sources, does things that zinc sulfate doesn’t. […]

So, look at everything: water, mineral composition, your basal diet, and make decisions on sources based on those things. But I guess the biggest thing is: be reasonable. And both feed enough but don't feed too much.

Timestamps & Summary 

1:49

Maybe share with the audience your personal and professional journey to starting Eyes on Horizon Consulting.

Monica McConkey

I am a farm girl, I grew up on a farm in northwestern Minnesota. And when I was younger, we had beef and hogs and crops. […]

I grew up in the 80s when the farm crisis was really difficult. And I remember my parents really struggling with anxiety and depression. I remember coming home from school and mom being in tears that we didn't get our operating loan. And as a kid, my thought was, what does this mean? We're going to have to move off this farm that my great-grandfather started, and live in town, our way of life is going to change. And so that really set the tone for just being aware of mental health in general.

After school, I got degrees in psychology and counseling. And for almost 27 years I've been in the mental health field primarily in rural areas. And three years ago, I was able to become self-employed and focus on mental health in agriculture. […]

4:13

Does mental health in rural farm communities differ from urban communities?

Monica McConkey

There are definitely some distinct differences. So, we know that suicide rates among farmers, especially our male farmers, are higher than in the general population. Calls I get really speak to the difficulties that stress on the farm plays in relationships and the toll it takes on relationships. How it differs when we look at rural to urban, accessibility rises to the top of the list. We don't have the same workforce in rural areas as in urban areas, we don't have the number of counselors, therapists, and psychiatrists, for sure, providing accessible care in rural areas. […]

8:30

I guess we've focused on the male because traditionally they were running the operations, but there's a ton of role women out there, whether they're producers themselves, spouses, partners, mothers, and how is that impacting them, and maybe also talk a bit about the LGBTQ plus communities.

Monica McConkey

I work with a number of women, of all ages, some are the primary producers of their operation, and some are in those supportive roles. And, you know, they have a unique set of challenges, especially those that are the primary operators. Agriculture is still very much a man's world. And so they struggle to have their voices heard, to be seen as competent. And when I work with rural women, specifically women on the farm, there's a lot of self-doubt and lack of confidence in their abilities because they just haven't heard feedback from those around them that they're doing well, that they are competent, they're making good decisions. […]

Speaking of the LGBTQ community, they are an underserved and under-noticed population in agriculture. And, those folks are dealing with stigma from a number of issues. And their sense of isolation in these rural communities is very pronounced. I met with one young lady who was in the LGBTQ community, and she really was struggling with being the next generation on her farm. Her parents were ready to transfer the farm over to her. But the thought was, Do I want to be in this small community where I don't have a peer group and I'm not accepted? And where the political views are very different from my own. So, it's impacting even on that level of continuing the legacy of farming operations and keeping them in the family.

11:37

The stigma around mental health is still massive and what prevents people from getting the help they need. And perhaps that challenge is being exacerbated in a rural community. Maybe just expand a bit more in the hope of removing the stigmas that people are perhaps inadvertently putting there and not realizing it?

Monica McConkey

Yes. You know, my dream would be that we are able to walk into the local gas station where the farmers gather for their cup of coffee in the morning and hear them talking about anxiety and depression on the same level as they're talking about their other physical health conditions. It's not unusual for us to be very open about physical maladies we have, whether it's arthritis or kidney issues, or being a diabetic, and that information is often freely shared, put on social media talked about openly, doctors being recommended and referred to, sharing of stories. I would love to have the same type of conversation happen when it comes to our mental health and mental illnesses, which would sound something like: I saw this therapist, and they understood the stress and strain that farmers and their families go through, they would be a great help to you.

Because I think that vulnerability, is really how we start attacking that stigma, by telling our own stories. And we're getting there. I mean, exactly what you're doing here, we are making progress in that area. And so, it's very exciting to see a business, a media, being supportive of campaigns and initiatives around stress and mental health and, often even telling their own stories about their struggles. […]

16:50

What can we do to ensure that we’re healthy, and we're aware of the situations with our clients or family?

Monica McConkey

I love that question. And I'm so glad you brought it up. Because those people that work with farmers and ranchers, with egg producers, it is hard when you're working with chronically stressed people day in and day out. And eventually, it's going to take a toll on you. So self-care is very important prior to you feeling burnout and struggling with your own mental health. So, if you look at it just, baseline: drink lots of water, eat healthy foods, get some exercise, like physically take care of yourself. Sleep. If you're not getting good sleep, figure out why and fix it. So that level, and then from there, it's really about making sure that you are doing things in life that feed your soul. Like something outside of work. Are you able to leave work and spend time with family or friends or do activities that really feed your soul? Are you able to talk to people when you are struggling, whether it's a peer or a mentor or supervisor, clergy, somebody you trust, a therapist, a counselor, or a doctor? Seek out help, you don't have to struggle on your own. So those are all things we can do to take care of ourselves. And I can talk about that all day long! […]

Timestamps & Summary 

1:25

Would you share what you see as the current state of mental health in rural communities, farm communities, particularly in Canada, and in Ontario more specifically?

Dr. Deborah Vanberkel

It's really starting to be the up-and-coming sort of topic once people are starting to know about it. Even five years ago, when we started on our journeys of creating programming for mental health, people still weren't aware of even what mental health means because of the stigma that's attached to it. So, we started working towards destigmatizing that and really helping people understand what mental health is, how it impacts you. And for me, personally, my goal is to really help the agricultural community, the industry experts understand the connection between their mental health and what's going on in the agricultural world, […]

2:39

What are some of the trends that you're seeing in the mental health needs of agricultural producers? And are they changing? And what are the specific needs of those farm families as well?

Dr. Deborah Vanberkel

As we know, with farming, it's unique, based on everything that goes into working on a farm, the hours that are put into it. We all know that the weather is like the number one component of things. But there's also the little things that people really don't talk about [like] growing up on a farm is very task oriented. When you're working in the agricultural industry, there's always something to be done. […] So, the biggest thing for me is to helping people understand what that means. And then helping them really tailor whatever it is that they need, that works for them. […]

4:13

Could you expand more on the Farmer Wellness Program?

Dr. Deborah Vanberkel

In 2019, the Lennox and Addington Federation of Agriculture and myself got together. I had an idea that I thought would work and so I left my job in the public system and decided to focus on private psychotherapy, therapist services for the farming community, and I approached LAFA, and they completely agreed, thought it was a great idea and we were able to secure funding right off the cuff in February of 2019 and start the Farmer Wellness Program which was specifically tailored services from a therapist who has agricultural background and eliminate that modality. […]

And then fortunately, the Canadian Mental Health Association and the provincial government decided to launch the Farmer Wellness Initiative, which is modeled after the program and now providing unlimited counseling service and crisis service to the farming and agricultural communities.

7:12

Is delivering virtual services work in this program?

Dr. Deborah Vanberkel

Absolutely. We have clients all over Canada. And being able to provide podcasts like this, being able to have speaking engagements, really being able to connect people. And if I'm not capable of meeting with that person, or providing whatever type of service from here, I can get them connected to people that I know, in all the different areas. And so, making those connections across, it's really been helpful in the virtual world.

7:54

You've also mentioned some of the work that you've done with the Guardian Network and the In the Know mental health literacy programs. I was wondering if you could expand a bit on those two programs as well.

Dr. Deborah Vanberkel

Canadian Mental Health Association is providing three core components of services that are tailored to the agricultural industry. They have the Farmer Wellness Initiative, for one. They have the In the Know mental health literacy, and the Guardian Network, which is tailored to suicide prevention. Those programs are being offered in Ontario, but also across Canada right now for In the Know. And what we're being able to provide is specific information that is tailored to the agricultural community. The Guardian Network was piloted two months ago, and has been successfully tracking a lot of people that are volunteering to be guardians, which is the suicide prevention. So, right now there's really a lot of traction that's been gained from the CMHA folks and being able to really tailor these services to the farming community.

11:15

What would you like the audience to resonate with and think about, after our discussion here today?

Dr. Deborah Vanberkel

I really want people to have a basic knowledge of what mental health means because it's different for everybody. Mental means your mind. And so, it's just having that basic understanding of where everything's coming from, and how it really impacts you, and what a person needs in order to be able to manage what's going on. […]

Timestamps & Summary 

4:56

Tell me what you see as some of the key impacts of adopting precision, nutrition approach.

Dr. Abdallah Zankar

Precision nutrition is a way to make an animal use a diet and the nutrients in a more efficient way. How can we make these animals use the feed efficiently? This is the main target behind every farmer, every nutritionist, that is working today in the feed industry. Understanding this, we will need to be sure that we are feeding the right quality of feed and that ensured the absorption of these nutrients. […]

6:50

When we talk about absorption, there are different innovative ways that we're delivering nutrients today to the lower intestinal tract and I'm wondering if you could expand a bit more on that concept and on how it relates to delivering a more precise diet to ruminants.

Dr. Abdallah Zankar

If we talk about ourselves her at Jefo. We have a technology that we have been testing for 25-30 years, and we have been successfully using it on the market. A small example: A product contains B vitamins or enzymes. This product is used in lactating cows, three grams per cow per day, 1.5 grams of these enzymes affecting an animal of 600-700 kilograms. And this is converting to around 5% feed efficiency, feed efficiency, to 3.3 to 5% more milk production. 50 grams of protein. 40 grams of fat and 20% less culling rates and expecting 9% to 10% less emissions. This is a huge three grams of products. So, I think the future will be in these technologies.

11:05

What are some of the key points you would like to leave with the audience today, when it comes to the subject of more precisely meeting the nutrient requirements of the ruminant animal?

Dr. Abdallah Zankar

I think in the coming years to be good is not enough. The challenge that we are having today in the feed industry and in the animal industry is huge. And that future will also be challenging. If we look at profitability, it has to be extraordinary. So good, as I said, is not enough. We have to be extraordinary in the future. Consumers today are not like before; they are much smarter. They look at us, and they look at the animal industry. They look at our cows, they want to know what these cows are eating, they want to know what we are injecting these cows, what we are feeding them. […] So, we have to be smarter. And we also have to look at how we can make these cows deliver and give a safe product. Safe milk. Safe meat. It's important, the safety of the food. This is the number one thing I want to raise and give to our attendees today. […]

Timestamps & Summary 

2:48

Let's remind the audience where you see the current status of reproductive efficiency in the North American dairy herd.

Dr. Eduardo Ribeiro

If we look at every metric, in large datasets from both the US as well as Canada, they tell the same story. And I think the first message that they tell us is that we are making progress. So dairy producers, they are improving reproductive efficiency in their herds, at least for the last 15 to 20 years. Another thing that we can take out of this large data set is that we still have huge variability. So, we still have herds that do very poorly in reproductive management, and herds that are excellent in reproductive management. […]

5:30

So, let's talk about embryonic loss.

• How best to measure reproductive losses after the establishment of very early conception?
• What are some of the biological minimums or key performance indicators we should be shooting for?
• How do we minimize this embryonic loss?

Dr. Eduardo Ribeiro

Excellent questions. To facilitate our discussion, I like to divide pregnancy losses in two types:

One is the early pregnancy losses that happen before early diagnosis of pregnancy. So, we're talking about the losses that occur in the first 30 to 40 days.

And then we have late pregnancy losses, occurring after the first pregnancy diagnosis, that can be measured on the farm. It is basically the proportion of cows that were pregnant in the first pregnancy diagnosis that do not deliver a calf at the end. […]

People might have an idea of the percentage that they are losing in the interval from the 30 to 40 to the 60 to 90 days but the losses after that are normally called abortion by producers. So, you have to put those out together. And sometimes the information is not entered correctly in the software that the producers use for management. So, if you put out together, it's not uncommon to see farms with 20–25% losses. So, we don't have large statistics on that number, which is a problem. So, we don't actually know what the average in North America will be. But based on our experience, there's a lot of herds on their range of 20–25% losses. And what producers should aim is to reduce that number the most they can. And if you're close to 10%, I would say that that's good. […]

On average, when we do studies, fertilization is around 80–85% for cows that have a successful ovulation around the time of breeding. So then, based on that, you could estimate how much you're losing based on the percentage of cows that are pregnant after the first diagnosis. But why you should work on is just to try to improve your pregnancy for AI. Basically, if you're doing that, you're reducing failures with time of insemination, fertilization of the egg, and also early embryonic losses or early pregnancy losses.

11:48

What are some of the things that a producer can do to minimize these losses, enhance the pregnancies through the early term, and in the end, minimize the losses in short and medium long term?

Dr. Eduardo Ribeiro

There are a few things that can be done. One is related to the genetics of the herd. It's not something that will have a huge impact immediately, but in the long term, it becomes important. So, it's important for producers to include fertility, health and longevity of traits in their genetic selection program. In the long term that will help and as more research is done in this area, more markers are included in those genomic tests. […]

25:08

So, take home messages for our audience today. What would you remind them to emphasize if they really want to try and maximize reproductive performance?

Dr. Eduardo Ribeiro

I think the first thing is to realize that excellent reproductive efficient is possible. So, we've made a lot of progress in the last 15 years. That improvement that we observe in reproduction was done in parallel with improvements in milk production, as well. […]

The second thing is, before you focus on pregnancy losses, make sure you fix everything that is easier to fix. So, then you can focus on pregnancy losses. […]

Timestamps & Summary 

2:10

Postpartum, uterine health, inflammation, immunity, impact on reproduction; what is it about this area that really intrigued you?

Dr. Stephen LeBlanc

Well, I think it is a really interesting scientific challenge. There are a lot of complexity and interest here. But more to the point, it looks to be something that has got some real practical importance. We know that calving is an inflammatory event. So, the birthing process involves setting off a bunch of inflammatory processes and cascades. And even in the best-case scenario, there is going to be some tissue trauma and some bacterial contamination of the reproductive tract after calving. And so, the cow has to respond to that. Part of that is an immune and inflammatory response to repair tissue damage, to clear up some of these bacterial contaminants and keep the load of potential pathogens in check. […]

5:06

Tell us about how well we are capturing the information and awareness of these reproductive challenges post calving.

Dr. Stephen LeBlanc

Maybe not well enough. Let us go with Metritis. That is a cow first week postpartum, a sick cow, the cardinal sign is that she smells really bad at discharge from some barnyard microbiology. That tells us that she has got an infection with anaerobic bacteria. That is what makes it smell bad. So, you are not likely to miss those as a producer. But interestingly, even if we say that that's the case definition, if detection is a little bit passive -you notice the cow when she comes in the parlor, or when you're walking the pen, as opposed to, if you're locking the fresh cows up every day or every other day, and really proactively going hunting. On one end, you might say, I have got 5% of my cows that have Metritis. With the same definition, you could easily say I have 20% of my cows that have Metritis. And I do not know which one is actually the better approach; one is probably under diagnosing, and one might be over diagnosing if you're doing that every day […]

9:38

You recently published a review on the relationship between metabolism, immunity, and the neutrophil function. Could you summarize some of the key points of that review and how it relates to fresh cow health and reproduction?

Dr. Stephen LeBlanc

By far, the number one line of defense are neutrophils. They are like the first responders. They are like little Pac-Man, and they will go around and gobble up bacteria, or even bits of dead tissue that are not normal. And probably the first big thing is that there should be enough of them, and that they get there quickly enough and in sufficient numbers and get the job done. And so that involves, again, generally feeding the immune system, because there's lots of work that shows that those first responders require a lot of nutrient inputs: energy, antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals, etc. We know from some of the work done at Iowa State and elsewhere now as well, that that is a very energy, intense process, you know, how much glucose is needed, how much calcium is needed, as well, for neutrophils to do its thing. And so again, we can add that robust, yet regulated immune response to the list of other reasons why we really got to try to dial in nutrition and management.

Last but not least, the part that we understand a lot less about is sort of the back side of that response curve. We are focused a lot on the response time, are the first responders sufficient? Sufficiently fast? Sufficiently well equipped? And so on. And clearly that has got to come first. But when we get thinking about chronic smoldering, reproductive tract inflammation in the Metritis, that probably has a lot more to do with how effectively that dial is turned back down again, in the days or weeks once that initial response is over. And that is a really hot area of research and we're just scratching the surface of with cows.

13:38

Do you want to expand a bit on that? They have this response, but then they come back to normal quickly.

Dr. Stephen LeBlanc

Exactly. We think that if you could draw a visual of healthy neutrophil response or immune and inflammatory response, it would happen very quickly, sort of hours to a day or two after calving. So, accelerate very quickly, probably hit its peak, in days or within a few days after calving and get the job done. The uterus is not sterile but reduce the level of pathogens back down to a very low kind of background level, deal with the tissue trauma, help initiate healing, regrowing a new epithelium so that over weeks that the cow is ready and able to be pregnant again. That should all happen in days to a couple of weeks. And then that inflammatory state is dialed back down not to zero but to kind of a low baseline level and we think that is by about three weeks postpartum in a healthy cow. […]

19:27

We did not really talk about the numbers, but the impact of poor uterine health on reproduction is pretty significant.

Dr. Stephen LeBlanc

Yes, absolutely. So, just to put it in pragmatic terms, for cows that have, or live through, any of Metritis, endometritis, purulent vaginal discharge a month postpartum, we are talking 20 to 30 plus extra days open, and 20% more cows that will fail to get pregnant by 250-300 days in milk by which point, it's too late. This is a meaningful problem. And again, at that prevalence of one in five, one in four cows, that can certainly start to become a meaningful thing, not just for a few exceptions, but actually a meaningful slice of a herd.

20:32

Just to summarize. If we were talking to the dairy producer, nutritionists today and reminded the importance of improving uterine health, you want to just highlight a few of the key things that you feel are really important to remind ourselves on?

Dr. Stephen LeBlanc

Yes, and again, no marks for originality here. But I do think it really does come back to some of those really fundamentally important things. So, what does that mean? Right up near the top of my list would be sufficient space for feeding and lying for transition cows. So, although the evidence base is not as big as we might like it to be, having no more than 4 cows for five headlocks, or at least 30 inches of bunk space per cow. A little bit more cows than stalls and or 120-130 square feet of lying space on a pack situation for, for transition cows, abundant water, so two sources per pen, ten centimeters of linear trough space per cow, again, no marks for creativity on any of this stuff. Heat abatement for not only for fresh cows, but also for close up cows again. You know, sometimes producers are like “Yeah, I heard all that. But you know, and I am only doing part of it, because life is difficult. And, you know, it is complicated. But, you know, what else can I do?” Well, I get it, the whole art of farming is figuring out how to get as close as possible to doing those things. But really, if you can get those things done and find creative ways to do that, you are really kind of cooking with gas. And conversely, if you cannot, boy, you're fighting with one arm behind your back, or to mix metaphors, you're pushing water uphill a bit. So yes, I think those are the things that tomorrow can really help to support uterine health via good immune response and well-regulated inflammation.

Timestamps & Summary 

1:47

You recently participated in JEFO’s annual JEFO beef Academy and presented key management and nutritional approaches to improving feed efficiency in feedlot cattle. Could you summarize what you presented during that symposium?

Dr. Katie Wood

A lot of my research focuses on feed efficiency and understanding feed efficiency. But in the feedlot, the aspect of gut health influences feed efficiency as well. So, if we have challenges with gut health related to rumen acidosis, and liver abscesses, certainly that is going to impact how those animals are performing and ultimately, feed to gaining in cost production for producers. My research in the feedlot looks at how we can improve gut health and improve production efficiency through those aspects.

8:04

I know you mentioned some other points related to feed efficiency, but I did not want to leave fecal starch in uNDF too quickly, because I am pretty sure you've done some work with some NIRS with fecal starch and that seems practical and exciting. I am wondering if you could expand on that.

Dr. Katie Wood

Some colleagues at University of Saskatchewan are looking at fecal measurements of using NIRS. We are familiar in the feed industry with using NIRS as a measure for nutrients, but the same can be applied to the feces as well, we just need to build some of those standardization curves. There was a paper put out with University of Lethbridge and University of Saskatchewan, where they were looking at using the NIR to measure fecal starch and it can be done easily. Some of these larger feedlots potentially that may have an NIR on farm could simply measure fecal starch right there rather than sending it out.

9:56

So today you would really be encouraging field gut nutritionists to make sure that they are getting a 240-hour analysis done routinely?

Dr. Katie Wood

It is certainly something that we are finding, being able to more accurately predict what the growth curve will be and how those animals will perform. So, I would encourage a nutritionist to consider adding that as another analysis.

11:23

What are the other things that you would make sure are being looked after or considered to improve feed efficiency?

Dr. Katie Wood

The other important thing is reducing stress and improving consistency. And they go hand in hand. We know that variable intake and variation can cause rumen distress and inflammation and stress to the animal. And certainly, as we introduce more stress, that impacts nutrient partitioning, and therefore growth.

16:03

What do you want to focus on, either in your research or in the industry on improving feed efficiency and cattle?

Dr. Katie Wood

One thing I will mention is we are starting to realize that, particularly related to gut health and liver abscesses, is the longer we keep cattle on feed, and that trend towards increasing carcass weights, we know that's the end period, where we even start to see a little bit of decrease in performance of those animals. It is also a time period where we see increased risk of acidosis as opposed to earlier in the feeding period. And we know these cattle are heavy, we know that they are highly stressed, sometimes because of that weight. Sometimes we have some challenges with some feet issues. And we think that there could be some implications, again, related to insulin insensitivity and Energy Commission as well.

20:12

Is there any other points you'd like to stress when it comes to managing and improving feed efficiency and cattle?

Dr. Katie Wood

Certainly. Talking about that receiving period, which is kind of one of the higher risk time periods, you have cattle coming from all different sources, they may have been shipped across the country. So, do not forget about treating those receiving cattle well, because we know that it pays off in the long term. We do not have a good handle on how much that impacts the feed conversion over the rest of the feeding period. But certainly, we know, related to illness, it has a huge effect.

Timestamps & Summary 

1:47

What brought you to that area of research?

Dr. Lance Baumgard

When I was at the University of Arizona, we started working on heat stress. And through a series of experiments over a period of about 10 years, we middle our way down to the gut. And what we are very confident in is that most of the negative consequences of heat stress on all farm animals stem from what we generally refer to as a leaky gut. When an animal becomes heat stress, there is a diversion of blood and, the barrier function of the gut breaks down. Now, unwanted molecules, antigens and pathogens can get in and cause a host of all sorts of negative problems.

Then, we started to notice, almost by accident, that many of the negative consequences of heat stress, the metabolic, the endocrine, and the inflammatory responses are very similar to other pathologies or other negative problems that are typical on a farm. So, since then, we have looked at other very common on farm issues that cause leaky gut. And that is what we have been concentrating on lately.

4:02

In a recent presentation at the Animal Nutrition Conference in Saskatoon back in May, “when your gut isn't happy, you're not happy” was a quote that you have used. Can you explain more the biology behind that?

Dr. Lance Baumgard

It is a very common problem in humans, about 1/3 of the adult population of humans has a gut barrier problem. Crohn's disease, celiac, colitis, these are all different pathologies, but the result is too much in infiltration of immune cells into the gut, leading to hyper permeability, or in other words, more antigens leaking out, and stimulate an immune response, be it bloating or any other uncomfortable or painful situation.

6:25

I was hoping to talk about how stress relates to that. I wonder what the impact of stress or stressors and strain as in the gut health of animals?

Dr. Lance Baumgard

That is fascinating emerging area led by a good friend of mine named Adam Moser, veterinarian PhD from Michigan State University. He has done a fantastic job characterizing how emotional stress is connected to your gut. How that works is, when you get stressed, you release this hormone called corticotropin releasing hormone. Most of your neurons are in your gut. And they communicate with your immune cells, called mast cells. When you get stressed, this hormone causes these mast cells to release a variety of different compounds, and those compounds then cause the gut barrier, that would normally be tight, to be leaky. 

The immune system has a very high priority for all animals. It might even have a larger importance than the central nervous system. So, in other words, when an animal becomes sick, it will prioritize the immune system over all other functions: making of milk, making them a fetus making of wool, making a muscle. When the animal becomes sick, infected by the gut or any other infection, now the immune systems is top of the list when it comes to priorities, and nutrients that would otherwise have gone for the synthesis of milk or what other function is now being partitioned towards the immune system.

10:25

And this is the link where some of these subclinical immune challenges on a dairy farm, whether it is health, high somatic cells, mastitis, uterine infections, they are just not as productive as they could be, right?

Dr. Lance Baumgard

That is exactly right, Chris. It is probably not a problem for most of the cows. But for this small percentage of cows that are not able to eat when they want to eat, or they are not able to lay down when they want to lean down or get bossed around, they are having this emotional response. And that comes at the cost of milk.

12:07

What are take home messages for researchers, nutritionists, veterinarians, and producers in relates to gut health and ruminants?

Dr. Lance Baumgard

We are starting to realize that gut is very important. And luckily, the industry, including companies like JEFO, is trying to identify compounds and target molecules and strategies to help maintain good health. So, this is at the infancy, but I think it is just a matter of time before we start dialing in on strategies to help maintain good health.

Timestamps & Summary 

1:25

So, Dr. Azahal, I was hoping you would expand a bit for our audience about meeting the nutrient needs of early lactation cows, making sure we have high health, high component yield and successful rebreeding.

Dr. Ousama AlZahal

This is really an important topic that we always find ourselves going back to and discussing it with farmers and producers. And it is that cows have different requirements, and these requirements change throughout the whole lactation. And it is important that we ensure that these nutrients are delivered precisely and accurately. That does not only include the amount of feed that we give, but also the concentration of these nutrients and the bioavailability of those nutrients. So hence, it is important to measure dry matter intake, as much as possible, how much we are feeding and also do a frequent assessment of forage analysis and ration balancing.

7:36

Can you expand a bit more on how negative nutrient balances may play into hampering the performance?

Dr. Ousama AlZahal

Cows cannot eat enough to produce that amount of milk. And it runs into what we refer to very grossly as negative energy balance. But basically, energy itself is not a nutrient. But basically, that trend encompasses several nutrients. So, cows, during that time, are actually false negative in protein. So that will be a negative protein balance, minerals, vitamins, and some of these important molecules like the methyl group.

10:56

What role does dry matter intake play in negative nutrient balances how does it impact B vitamin synthesis?

Dr. Ousama AlZahal

That is a great question. Actually, in new research, new modeling coming out from University of Guelph geneticist’s lab, they tried to model the ruminant output of B vitamins, I think they precisely were working on B12, where they've seen that one of the biggest predictors for the output of B vitamins is basically dry matter intake. That goes back to the first point where the cows cannot eat enough during early stages to cover requirements, and they run into negative balances. Now B vitamins are unique and that dietary requirements are insufficient or basically non-existing. And the ruminant animal relies on ruminal synthesis.

16:33

You talked earlier about the role of methionine, contributing to creating methyl groups but also there is a key point where B12 and folic acid play a role as well, right?

Dr. Ousama AlZahal

Yes, that's true, methionine is an essential amino acid, but there is some misunderstanding that mammals cannot synthesize it. Methionine synthesis basically requires a coupling of two cycles. The first one is the folate cycle which folate is B9, and the second cycle is the methionine cycle. And what really couples the two is B12. Basically, if you have a deficiency in B12 it can lead to a secondary deficiency in folic acid. I think there is quite a significant amount of research from Christiane Girard’s lab, just showing how the status of these two B vitamins are basically linked. So, methionine is really interesting. How it is very well connected, and also plays a role in the transformation pathways, which is the production of antioxidants.

Timestamps & Summary 

1:50

Could you summarize your findings in evaluating impact of ruminant agriculture versus what is what we often see reported in the media today?

Dr. Frank Mitloehner

There is a lot of confusion out there. That is largely caused by people not understanding how the contributions of livestock to greenhouse gases are really quite different compared to let's say, other sources such as fossil fuel sources, because of the role that methane plays methane is the most important greenhouse gas from animal agriculture. What is often times left out of the discussion is the fact that methane, while very potent, is also short-lived. That means that once it is in the air, it stays there for about a decade or so. Then, it meets another molecule in the air that destroys it. Contrast that to carbon dioxide, which is by far the most abundant greenhouse gas, which stays in the air for 1000 years.

So, that's not to say methane doesn't matter. Methane matters and we try to reduce it. But methane is different in so far that if we reduce it, we can actually reduce warming by reducing methane and that makes animal agriculture part of the climate solution.

3:43

You have also presented on what we would call the five pillars of sustainability. I was wondering if you could review those for our audience today.

Dr. Frank Mitloehner

When people hear the term sustainability, they think they know what it means. To most people, it means environmental sustainability. Sustainability in the food sector is really broader than that. If you were to ask farmers what sustainability means, they would certainly list environmental sustainability as only one of the five pillars. The second one is animal welfare. The third one is food safety. Keeping the food that we produce as safe as we can. A fourth one is attracting and retaining a qualified workforce. The fifth pillar is financial viability.

5:24

What role can livestock producers, nutritionists, veterinarians and other influencers in the industries play in ensuring that these five pillars of sustainability are in fact respected and prolonged?

Dr. Frank Mitloehner

What is important is that the different players work together because when we are dealing with such a diverse set of objectives, we need to have experts from different areas working together to uphold sustainability overall. And it doesn’t happen enough. What is also important is that we communicate very clearly with the public, with policymakers and others as to how important sustainability is holistically, in all aspects, and what it takes those players to work together.

7:59

Are there any key other take home messages that you would like to leave with the audience today, in relation to the five pillars of sustainability?

Dr. Frank Mitloehner

What has really changed over the last few years is the younger generation which is more and more interested in where their food comes from, how it's grown, how it should be prepared, how it should not be wasted, and so on. In the past, farmers were just doing what they did best: grow food. They did not really have to worry about the rest. Now, they do. And they're not really trained to talk to people outside their profession. I think that is about to change, because people want to know, and I think that many farmers have a good story to tell, but they are too shy to tell it. They need to tell their community. Most of them have really good stories to tell and something to be proud of. In fact, our entire society should be proud of those folks, and work with them in those areas where improvements are needed.

Timestamps & Summary 

1:49

I believe the audience would really enjoy hearing about your journey as a young Oxford county dairy producer all the way to a university professor.

Dr. Michael Steele

I grew up in Oxford County, and Ontario, Canada, and I have loved the dairy cow for my entire life.

I went to the University of Guelph thinking I was going to become a geneticist. Then, I took fundamentals of nutrition and physiology, and that was it. I knew that is where I wanted to focus my energy.

The drive for research brought me to a PhD at the University of Guelph as well. I also had the opportunity to work for private industry before and after my PhD, which was great for me.

I was lucky enough to have a position at the University of Alberta, just over eight years ago. That is when I started my academic career.

I used to study transition cows and ruminal acidosis, but I switched to calf research.

I was very happy to return to Ontario, here at the University of Guelph, where I have been for over three years now.

Being a professor is amazing. I'm always surrounded by ideas and young people. So I'm very happy with where I am career wise. But I do admit I do miss milking cows.

4:06

A paper you coauthored highlighted several key windows of developmental programming opportunity that exists in young and developing ruminants, in which perhaps managing nutrition, whether it's in utero, all the way up to calving can contribute to the development of those calves and those heifers and ultimately, improved milk production efficiency and health. Could you tell us more?

Dr. Michael Steele

The focus of calf research over the last 50 years has been on colostrum feeding and milk feeding and a little bit on weaning as well. These are important periods of the calf's life. Developmental plasticity or that ability for that calf to change and be programmed is high at that time, and we have been shown on that wide variety of research experiments that if you increase growth and health during this critical window, you can improve overall production for a lifetime.

Before that calf is born, there is a lot of programming happening. We want to learn more about how feeding the dam affects the calf and following these animals for their entire life. I think that is a critical piece to understand how this early life interventions or early nutrition can affect lifetime performance.

6:04

What should we be doing differently today to enhance performance and minimize stress during those periods?

Dr. Michael Steele

I think it all starts on the first day of life with colostrum. A lot of our research has shown that some of the recommendations we have today are still not ideal. Ten years ago, it was 100 grams of IgG and colostrum in that first meal. Now we are at 150, some people are saying 200. I think our lab has produced results, saying that it is actually double that. So, I think we have still a lot to learn with respect to colostrum management and also that transition from colostrum to milk happening in that first week of life. I think that is something that we have really focused on just showing what that does to the calf with respect to health in, in gut function.

8:01

You talked about intestinal development, gut health development in the colostrum period, as well as the weaning transition. Could you expand a bit more on that and the development and physiology of the rumen and lower gut during that transition?

Dr. Michael Steele

Maintaining proper gut health is critical for this calf. 

If you look at the morbidity and mortality, it is really stemming from gastrointestinal dysfunction and pathogenic diarrhea. So, anything we can do to improve the gastrointestinal microbial community, as well as the health and barrier function can have a positive impact on this calf.

We have been looking at different colostrum feeding strategies like extended colostrum feeding, looking at different milk compositions, really focusing on fatty acid composition within the milk, as well as lactose concentrations to see how that affects gastrointestinal health.

It looks like some of the things that we were doing naturally in management, like an abrupt transition from colostrum to a whole milk, or feeding milk replacers that are high in lactose could actually stimulate some gut dysfunction during this pre-weaning period. Some of our recent research has really challenged some of the dogma that we have in our industry of how to feed a calf in the first day of life and even during this entire pre-weaning period.

12:13

Back to some of the things you mentioned about colostrum feeding and transition milk. Those would be some things that could be implemented today, right?

Dr. Michael Steele

Absolutely. I think just feeding as much colostrum as the calf can consume is the takeaway. But, if you're limited through economics, then I would be shooting for over 200 grams, but even closer to 300 grams of immunoglobulins. Making sure you have a gradual transition from that colostrum to a whole milk or milk replacer. Feeding a lot of milk and milk replacer in the first three to four weeks is what I would recommend because they do not consume starter, at least enough starter to grow. Then having this really gradual and late weaning program on farm, so after eight weeks of life, and trying to have a step-down program of close to two weeks or even longer, I think those would be my big take-home messages for your audience today.

Timestamps & Summary

1:36

Tell the audience about your journey and the research you have been doing for your master’s degree.

Vicki Brisson

I grew up on a dairy farm, and I really had an interest in Animal Health. So starting in grade 8, until the beginning of my master's, I spent lots of time shadowing large animal vets; they were probably tired of me by the end. 

It allowed me not only to deepen my knowledge of animal health, but also to learn how to establish meaningful relationships and collaborate with the key players that make up a farmer's support team.

I think I found the right path when I discovered a special interest for the role of nutrition and how it can have an impact on animal health.

In the summer of 2019, I started my master's degree with Dr. Jenn Ellis at the University of Guelph. Since starting my master's, I have done a deep dive into both mathematical modeling and the importance of B vitamins for dairy cows.

Since then, my curiosity about these topics just keeps growing, it really feels like we have only touched the tip of the iceberg.

9:40

Is there some common drivers regarding B vitamin synthesis that you can share with the audience?

Vicki Brisson

There is still a lot that is being studied when it comes to the ruminal synthesis of B vitamins.

Over the last few years, many studies, including a Meta analysis, has demonstrated that positive milk production response to rumen protected B vitamin supplements. There is something happening here in the rumen. There are factors that affect how much B vitamin is reaching the cows’ duodenum. It tells us that while we know that the rumen's microbes can synthesize B vitamins, which responds to supplementation really indicates that the rumen microbes probably do not produce enough B vitamins to support the cow's needs.

Your question was about those key drivers that are constant throughout or that can link all the B vitamins together? My first answer to that would be dry matter intake. Because we know that dry matter intake affects the rumen microbial population.

16:59

What would be some of the key points that you would really remind people to focus on?

Vicki Brisson

I think one of the biggest things, and if you talk to Dre Christiane Girard, she will mention this over and over again, we know that B vitamins are essential coenzymes to support the cow's metabolic needs.

We know that whether it be cows that stress during transition, during heat stress or at their peak lactation, we need to support those metabolic needs.

We also know that dry matter intake, digestible search, and digestible NDF are likely key drivers.

However, the positive production, reproduction, and health responses to supplementation, which represents just a direct increase supply, have been widely demonstrated. They suggest that the cow's needs for B vitamins simply cannot be met only through ruminal synthesis. So those cows need a bit of help. They need vitamin supplementation.

Timestamps & sommaire 

1:45

Est-ce que tu peux nous parler du parcours qui t’a menée à étudier la nutrition animale à l’Université de Guelph ?

Vicki Brisson

J’ai grandi sur une ferme laitière familiale dans l'Est ontarien. Mes 2 parents viennent de fermes laitières eux aussi. Je me suis toujours intéressée à la santé animale. Depuis la 8e année où l'équivalent au Québec (secondaire 2) jusqu'au début de ma maîtrise, j'ai passé beaucoup de temps sur la route avec des vétérinaires de gros animaux. Ça m'a permis non seulement d'approfondir ma connaissance de la santé animale et des principaux défis auxquels font face les producteurs, mais aussi d'apprendre à établir de bonnes relations avec les partenaires de l'industrie laitière et de collaborer avec ces partenaires-là qui composent l'équipe de soutien des agriculteurs.

J’ai décidé ensuite d'aller à l'université de Guelph pour obtenir mon baccalauréat en sciences animales. J’y ai rapidement découvert un intérêt particulier pour le rôle que la nutrition peut jouer dans la santé des animaux. 

J’ai commencé ma maîtrise à l'université de Guelph en septembre 2019, avec la Dre Jennifer Ellis. Quand j'ai commencé, je savais que c'était un gros défi devant, mais ça m'inspirait, ça m'énergisait. Je n’avais aucune idée ou ça m'apporterait, mais je découvrais un domaine de la nutrition laitière que je n'avais pas beaucoup exploré avant. 

00:04:16 Vicki Brisson 

Ouais donc je vais, j'ai, je me suis plongée dans, c'était la modélisation mathématique, puis l'importance des vitamines B dans les archives laitières. Je me suis plongée dans, c'était la modélisation mathématique, puis l'importance des vitamines B dans les vaches laitières.

9:58

Dans la recherche, vous et d’autres chercheurs avez trouvé des éléments moteurs pour la synthèse de la famille des vitamines B dans le rumen. 

Comment est-ce que cette synthèse peut satisfaire les besoins ou non les besoins des vaches laitières, des veaux, des génisses et des bovins ? 

Vicki Brisson

Avant de répondre à votre question, je vais rappeler qu’il nous reste encore beaucoup de choses à étudier en ce qui concerne la synthèse ruminale des vitamines. Je ne m'avancerai donc pas à faire des hypothèses qui n’ont pas encore été confirmées. 

Par contre, au cours des dernières années, une méta-analyse de 50 troupeaux a vraiment démontré une réponse positive à la production laitière quand on supplémente des vitamines B protégées. Qu'est-ce que ça veut dire ça ? En gros ça nous indique que si tous les microbes du rumen étaient déjà capables de synthétiser les vitamines B, quand on le supplémenterait, il n'y aurait pas de réponse. Mais là, la quantité qu’ils produisent n’est pas nécessairement suffisante pour répondre aux besoins de la vache parce qu'on observe une réponse.

18:25

En terminant, pouvez-vous partager avec notre auditoire les points clés de votre étude ?

Vicki Brisson

En gros, on a encore beaucoup de questions, beaucoup de recherches à faire. Par contre, on a quelques certitudes. Entre autres, les besoins métaboliques qui ont augmenté à travers les années et ça, ça vient vraiment remplir le besoin des vitamines B. Les vitamines B, ce sont des coenzymes essentiels. Ils contribuent à répondre à ces besoins métaboliques.

On étudie encore les facteurs qui affectent la synthèse apparente ruminale, puis la part des vitamines B qui en résulte. Mais on sait aussi, selon nos modèles empiriques, que la consommation volontaire de matière sèche, l'amidon et la NDF digestible sont probablement des facteurs clés qui affectent la synthèse apparente ruminale des vaches.

Quand on supplémente des vitamines B protégées, ça représente une augmentation directe à l'apport de la vache. Ces résultats-là ont été largement démontrés. Puis, ils suggèrent que les vaches ont en effet besoin des vitamines B et que ces besoins ne peuvent pas être satisfaits uniquement par la synthèse ruminale.  

Timestamps & Summary 

1:41

Could you give us an overview of the biological impact of stress on the dairy cow reproduction?

Dr. Matt Lucy

I think stress is a big factor in our ability to get cows pregnant. Traditionally, we always thought about the effects of stress on ovarian function. Whether or not the cow had started cycling and come into heat. But more recently, what we work on now is trying to understand specifically how stress affects uterine function and the preparation of the uterus for that pregnancy.

3:12

I'd love you to expand a bit more on that in relation to reproductive outcomes.

Dr. Matt Lucy

It is important to understand the difference between stress and strain. Are dairy cows stressed? Yes, they are. But it's really the strain that matters. The strain is how that cow responds to that stress. So let me expand upon what that means. If we think about different stressors, a stress is applied to all cows. For example, we have a lot of cows in our herd that make 100 pounds of milk per day. That is the stress. The stress is the production. However, the strain is how she responds to that. And we want our cows to have very little strain.

4:52

There are some in-depth biology and physiology going on behind this, right?

Dr. Matt Lucy

When we talk about the production of milk, there is just tremendous metabolic shift that occurs in response to it. It just comes down to how cows respond. There is a debate right now among nutritionists involving questions like: Do postpartum BHB really matter? Is it important? Do we need to measure it? Do we need to be concerned? BHB can be a toxic molecule for cows, obviously. We are trying to understand how cows respond to these metabolic changes and figuring out which cows are going to stay healthy in the face of a similar sort of challenge.

6:55

What do you think producers and nutritionists can do to manage those stressors?

Dr. Matt Lucy

I will start with genetics. We want cows that can handle these stresses. That has been a big change mentally because for many years, we only selected cows for milk production. Now we have probably too many traits. You want the best possible cows on your farm. And genetics really make a difference. But, I would also remind people that the genomics revolution that we're in now is a very young revolution, so we need to keep our eyes on the ball and make sure we got the cows going in the right direction genetically.

Once we have the right kind of cows, then, as a producer, you have to manage the remaining strain. You cannot fix everything with genetics, you have to be a top producer and manage the remaining strains like heatstroke, nutrition, bunk space and so forth. 

Third thing I would say is when we talk about reproduction, people often try to manage itn during the breeding period. But, reproduction doesn't start during the breeding period. Reproduction starts in the transition cow pens. The reason that transition cow pen is so important is because if they get a reproductive disease, or if they get sick, there is always going to be a long-term drag on that cow. 

14:49

One topic I wanted to address is glucose. Could you take a couple of minutes just to highlight how that affects the reproductive fitness of a cow?

Dr. Matt Lucy

Glucose is a really tough molecule for ruminants, because they take on all these nutrients, and they metabolize them. They break them down into smaller molecules. Then they have to resynthesize that glucose in the liver. And of course, that glucose is made for its use for lactose synthesis. Glucose is the master regulator of all the metabolism of a cow.

21:50

If we could just summarize, what would be the take-home points to veterinarians, nutritionists and dairy producers around the world when it comes to stressors and strain?

Dr. Matt Lucy

I would say, number one, is getting your genetics right. There is no substitute for good cows.

But you also need good management and there's no magic, there's no easy way out of good management.

The transition cow pen has to be right.

And the other thing I failed to mention; the parlors got to be right. The fact that if a cow gets mastitis, from three weeks before to three weeks after breeding, she has lower fertility.