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 (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 (17:10)
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 (18:48)
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 (21:48)
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 (01:50)
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 (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 (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.