RumiNation

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.

Timestamps & Summary 

1:24

Dr. King, we would be interested to know what your research interests and projects are.

Dr. King

I have been working with different provinces, getting producer feedback on how I can assess what stresses them out. What is influencing their mental health and their physical health? How is this related to farm management? And I also want to look at connections to cow health, because everything on the farm is connected.

2:54

Mental health is so important in our world today. And not effectively investigated nor dealt with at the farm level. Therefore, we need to make that change.

Dr. King

I think it is up-and-coming. People are more willing to talk about it. I am hoping not just to look within dairy farming families, but we are going to do a study with beef producers, and hopefully go out to some other commodity groups as well.

3:25

Regarding the health and well-being of cows, a lot of your research has been looking at the impact of stressors on production, whether it is lameness, overcrowding or feed delivery. What have you discovered when you have looked at these stressors or how they can be identified using position technology?

Dr. King

Most of my studies were on farms with robotic milking systems. That does not mean that those are just specific to robotic herds. Many of the factors that go into making cows lame whether you have a robot or not, are the same. 

I can tell you that a lame cow will produce less milk. Even cows with a moderate limp will have reduced milk production by 1.6 kilos per day. Minimal limps are going to impact lameness cow by cow.

Farms that had a greater percentage of lame cows, at a herd level, whether it is measured per cow or per robot, were also producing less milk.

8:20

You said it is important to look at behaviour and not just production to single out sick cows. Does that data need to be strengthened along with some activity monitoring, combined with the rumination or some of these systems coming up with their own algorithms that have a scoring assessment could tell you which cow is healthy?

Dr. King

There are different activity monitors out there, so I cannot say for sure. The ones on the legs, that are more of a pedometer, might be better for looking at health status and heat status. Whereas I think the neck collars, they rather show certain illnesses, but they do not really show lameness. However, they certainly do work for heats.

10:00

Maybe some take-home messages for the audience of what you know of the negative impacts of stressors and how precision technology can help you monitor and pick them up.

Dr. King

My first take-home message would be whether it is lameness, ketosis, or maybe mastitis, just because it is not severe, does not mean it does not have negative effects on cows. So, whether it is subclinical ketosis or moderate lameness, it is definitely worth doing something about it.

My second take-home message is I think it is good to look at multiple sources of information. So, have rumination or activity information and look how it relates to production. Have a holistic picture of the barn to see how cows are doing in order to make the appropriate decisions.

Timestamps & Summary 

2:04 

What are some of the common stressors that cows may experience daily on a dairy farm? 

Dr. Devries 

The one that gets the most attention is probably heat stress. 

But there are other stressors that cows may face regardless of environmental conditions throughout the year. The biggest one that we know is social stress. And that social stress can come from a variety of places. 

Other kinds of stressors: Nutritional stressors. They are not only a stress on the cow physiologically, like a change in diet. Just from a perception standpoint, the cow may also view a big change in diet as a stressor. 

Finally, just physiological events, like calving itself could be viewed as a stressor. 

5:18 

Could you expand a bit on how these stressors do affect the cow's physiology? 

Dr. Devries 

For example, a stress that causes cortisol spike in cows may lead to a block or reduction in oxytocin release, which may limit milk let down in cows. Probably one of the clearest examples of that is bad handling of cows in the milking parlor. 

We also know that many of these stressors are more chronic type stressors. If a cow has chronic stress, a physiological response to that would be an increased blood cortisol level, which can have negative impacts on the immune system and even reproductive hormones, leading to reproductive problems. 

9:32 

How do you successfully measure stress at the farm level? 

Dr. Devries 

Our biggest challenge is identifying through research known stressors and being able to walk on a farm and identify those stressors. From a prevention standpoint, or at least an identification standpoint, our easiest thing to do is probably just identify those known stressors and take care of those. We can also look to what the animals are doing. 

To measure the behavior of the animals, we have lots of opportunities, different activity monitors, behavioral monitors, look for changes in activity, lying behavior, rumination, chewing, all those things could be indicative of stress. But the challenge there is that some of those are nonspecific. 

12:18 

How do we evaluate that at the farm level? What could be the impact of a single stress versus multiple stresses and do cows hit tipping points of stresses? 

Dr. Devries 

That's a really good question and I'm not sure I have the exact answer. What we do in science is we isolate individual factors. In an ideal study, we control everything except the one factor that we're really interested in studying so that we can isolate the effect of that. However, when we go out into the fields of commercial systems, we will often see examples of some of those stressors, but not necessarily see negative effects of those on some operations. Then, we'll go to another operation where it's obvious there is some negative effect going on. 

So, the question becomes: is there an additive effect, or a compounding effect of some of these individual things? And I would say that that's likely the case. But we just don't have really good data today to support that. 

18:41 

What are the take-home points related to stressors and dairy cows you would like to leave to our audience? 

Dr. Devries 

Well, again, we know that stressors can negatively affect cows. And I think our challenge is identifying those that probably have the biggest impact on our farms and identifying how those might interact and compound. We can do that already, I think to some degree, but we would like data to be able to support some of these things. In the meantime, recognizing that stressors are there and looking at whether there are opportunities to minimize those on our farms and find solutions to those is where we've got to be moving within the industry. 

1:30

Tell us more on your journey in creating success strategies. How did you get there, and what you found along the way?

Dr. John Ellsworth

I’m happy to share. Success Strategies is actually based upon a business plan that I wrote with a team of fellow students at Duke University when I was working on my MBA, and in which I finished in 1989. Great program. I had a really good team of people around me that worked with me on developing this entrepreneurship business plan. It took me 10 years to get it off the ground. 10 years of fantastic learning in corporate America. And what it really helped to do was position me to understand both sides of the equation: The borrower, the dairyman, whom I was very familiar with from prior career roles, but also from a lender's perspective.

4:43

When it comes to financial management, what are some of the challenges that you see when working with your clients that are fairly common?

Dr. John Ellsworth

One of the biggest is literally understanding your cost of production. Not just as an accounting function, but rather being able to anticipate future trends. It's thinking about things before they happen, because the reality is things change, and we need to move forward.

Along that same line, knowing your breakeven levels for milk production, feed costs and milk price are crucial.

Setting objectives for your business driving forward with a plan that we are pretty certain will work.

Working closely with your banker to get the intended objectives and keeping them in the loop, keeping them informed.

7:24

You wrote a paper about the top 10 Things Every business person should know. And one of those points was knowing what your banker is thinking. Could you tell us more?

Dr. John Ellsworth

It's required that we keep the banker in the loop at all times, about three items in particular:

First of all, what you're planning to do, how you're going to do it, the steps you must take, the plans you have, and when you hope to complete it.

Second, you need to come to grips with your banker. What you need in terms of financing, and does it make sense for your operation.

What are the costs versus the potential benefits of this change?

9:41

What would be the key take home messages about working with a bank relationship and enhancing that, that you'd like to leave with our audience today?

Dr. John Ellsworth

Number one: As a former bank manager wisely advised me, if it were easy, everyone would be doing it.

Number two: It really doesn't matter where you start, what matters is where you finish.

Number three: I would say use your advisors wisely.

1:42

John, in your experience, what are the top three characteristics of the most profitable dairy farms?

Dr. John Ellsworth

I would say number one, high milk production.

Number two, I say a successful strategy is limiting the ratio of heifers to cows to 80% or 85%.

And number three, solid cost control. When we talked about the high milk production, it doesn't matter how much you make. It's how much you keep.

4:33

Can you expand a bit more on the link between profitability and herd-level production?

Dr. John Ellsworth

Let me over simplify this: If we are at 65 or 70 pounds on Holsteins. We just don't generate enough revenue to cover the costs. And I'm not talking about the period in the last two years of high commodities and high feed costs. I'm talking about in general. If we don't have the cash inflow, we're not going to cover the cash outflow. And that is never a good thing.

10:11

I was hoping to talk about was the concept of measuring things so that you can control them. Could tell us more on that concept so that it continues to gain traction it deserves?

Dr. John Ellsworth

The whole concept really holds for almost anything in life you want to measure, or that you can measure. It basically says, if you can measure it, you can understand it. And then some. Think about that. If we can understand it, then we can control it. And ultimately, if we have control over it, we can improve it. So, if you can control something, you're able to make it better.

16:00

What were some of the other key points that you'd like to leave with the audience today about profitability and milk production on their dairies?

Dr. John Ellsworth

I think if you really step back and look at any operation, I think just about everything's going to go up. So assuming the milk prices stay up, the profits are going to be based on how well you do control these costs. 

You know, it's been a year since we've seen prices as high, it may be a good time to think about some price protection. Because the fees for put options and things like that on no crisis should be lower than they have been in the recent past. And I think there's some volatility in the market. But the cost of those put options is really based on how far out they go, what price level you set, and the volatility of the market.

I think it's going to be a great year for dairymen. But it's going to be a better year for those that really watch their costs as best as they can. And you mentioned earlier, and I meant to hit on this again, I think the nutritionists, for example, and the veterinarians, they don't only offer what they did 20 years ago in terms of services. They give another set of eyes on the operation. They start looking at cow comfort freestall maintenance, etc. But I think it's going to be a very positive year. And I wish the best of everything to our listeners today and hope they have a successful year.

01:44

Has the interest in dry matter intake changed over the years, especially in the light of discussions about feed efficiency? 

Dr. Mike Hutjens

The goal on dairy farms is to have healthy cows. 

Dry matter plays an important role in animal health and immunity. 

We have to get cows pregnant in a timely manner, because that determines a peak milk production.

We are a little late in the dairy industry in efficiency of dry matter while it is a very big topic with swine and poultry. 

Things have changed over time. We used to call a maximizing dry matter; now we're optimizing dry matter. 

There are a lot of interesting new twists on dry matter intake and feed efficiency.

03:39

What do you see as the key drivers to dry matter intake?

Dr. Mike Hutjens

I like to say there are four of them:

1. We call it a fill factor. Cows can only eat so much feed in 24 hours. If we have too much straw, or too much low quality forage, the cow can't eat what she really has to have. 
2. The second one, we call metabolic feedback. It simply means that something tells a cow to stop eating. She senses it in her brain. That's why we need to bounce rations. 
3. The third one will be non-nutrient factors. It means something in her environment stops her eating. Heat stress, cold temperature or lameness as well as something as simple as an empty bunk are non-nutrient factors.
4. And finally, transition management. How we take cows through the transition program. If we don't have a good fresh cow program, a key feed additives, and B vitamins, that can affect dry matter intake as well.

05:21

Can you share some great examples of farms where they were just doing a great job in measuring and monitoring dry matter intake to optimize that feed efficiency or production?

Dr. Mike Hutjens

I'll give you two examples: 

The first one actually is here in the Midwest, they have 3600 dairy cows. And he basically knows exactly how much dry matter goes to each pen that's on the computer of his truck. In the milking parlor, they got a flow meter. So every day, he knows exactly how many pounds of milk comes out of that pen of 400 cows. Every day, he gets a feed efficiency calculation on each pen. 

Even a better example was in Saudi Arabia. There was an 8000-cow dairy herd, and they feed them 24/7. As each group of cows is being milked, the “the bump reader” would look at each pen and evaluate the quantity of dry matter left, and adjust the next quantity of dry matter to be dropped in the pen. If there was an excess of feed, he would feed less the next time. 

08:57

Could you expand on the cost of being inaccurate on our dry matter readings and our number of cows per pen?

Dr. Mike Hutjens

Feed efficiency is looking at the kilos of dry matter consumed divided by the kilos of milk produced. It's on a per cow basis. So if I have extra cows, we're going to divide that with a wrong number; therefore, that number will be incorrect so our feed efficiency number will shift as well. 

The other one is just moisture. It rains. It snows. Silage gets wetter and drier. A byproduct feeds get wetter or drier. There is some work out of Wisconsin, in which they actually track that after significant rainfalls, because they didn't adjust the amount of wet feed being added in the silage, cows went down in milk production for three or four days. And in some cases, with cows in mid-late lactation, they don't come back. 

13:39

Give us some take-home messages of the sorts of things that you would recommend a dairy producer today to get ahead on dry matter intake and how it impacts feed efficiency?

Dr. Mike Hutjens

My first take-home message is: You got to measure it. If you can't measure it, you can't manage it. 

Number two, feed efficiency has an economic impact. If I can change my feed efficiency to 1.4 to 1.5. That feed efficiency is going to make me about an extra 24 cents profitability in the program. 

Timestamps & Summary 
2:00

Dr. Lapierre, could you expand perhaps for the audience on how you arrived at looking at nitrogen and amino acid requirements of dairy cows?

Dr. Hélène Lapierre

Well, it has been a long road. And I did my bachelor’s degree at Laval University. Then I went for a master but I was still not decided. I went to work in finance for a while and got attracted back into research. I did a PhD at Sherbrooke University in animal physiology, and then get the opportunity to work with Henry Tyrrell and Chris Reynolds at the USDA in Beltsville, Maryland. Then I got a job at the Research and Development Center. 

04:35

You said 30 years in amino acid research has come a long way. And as you mentioned, learning techniques and discovering the techniques were probably a key part of that.

Dr. Hélène Lapierre

Absolutely. That was a combination of different techniques. The purpose was to look at what was going on within the animal. So we had different techniques, we could use nutrients that were labeled with stable isotopes, which are different from the radioactive isotopes. That allowed us to follow the fate of this amino acid that the cow was eating. Was it going towards milk? Was it going to be oxidized? Was it going to the muscle? What was the trade between the different amino acids in terms of nitrogen shifts? So, yeah, I can talk for the whole afternoon if you want!

05:52

If a nutritionist asks you, what are the key points that they need to think about? What would you relay to them from that?

Dr. Hélène Lapierre

We really wanted to start with what we thought were the biological concepts that should be underlying all those estimations. So the supply of protein was being revised. To be more specific, the protein that the cows are digesting, more than half are from microbial protein, the other 35% will be from the dietary proteins that are not degraded within the rumen. And about 15% of what's arriving at the entrance of the small intestine will be just what we call endogenous proteins, that are being secreted by the animal within the gut lumen. There was a computer vision of each of those different factions. So microbial crude protein, that was defined based on the nutrient that we digested across the whole tract in the previous system, which is not truly biology because it's occurring within the rumen. We don't want to look at what's occurring across the whole track. So now it's really focused on how much starch is being degraded into the rumen, how much NDF and nitrogen is degraded. 

10:18

How well these models are predicting the needs of high producing cows that we see more and more abundantly in the industry? Are we predicting those requirements well? And is there anything different that the new model does to adjust for that?

Dr. Hélène Lapierre

Well, the prediction of nicotine yield is totally different from what it has been. And in addition, when we develop those models, actually, we do use published values in the literature. But these are cows that have been there before, they are not cows that we want to feed now in the future. So to adjust for that, what we did is that we included what we call the rolling herd average, which is basically the average meal protein yield for a 305 day of production. So we have to input that number into the model. And that changes, just through maths, the different coefficients predicting meal protein yield, so that way, it's being taking into account the fact that the model has been built with cows that have been there, but we focus on the cows that we want to feed in the future. So this is quite a new approach for this model.

11:57

Could you give us an update on your thoughts with that particular amino acid?

Dr. Hélène Lapierre 

We began to be interested in that amino acid maybe 15 years ago. And when we looked at the literature, at that time, we could find a requirement, that was as a proportion of metalloprotein. But this number varied a lot among the different studies that had been conducted, and we wondered why. So then we conducted other works with cows that were fed with corn silage. And we found the consumers ask for animal production that does have a lower footprint on the environment, they really want to see the producers and nutritionists to decrease the pollution that we do have with animal production, including the dairy sector. And actually, what we realized is that, when you want to decrease the protein concentration of a diet, what happens is that the proportion of what is coming from the microbial protein is increasing. About 50% of the protein digested by the cows are of microbial origin. But if you want to decrease the crude protein that you feed the animal, then this proportion might increase to 60–65%. Although we have learned in our classes that microbial protein has a very good profile of amino acid, if you really look at the numbers, histidine in the microbial protein is lower than in the feed ingredients. So when you decrease the total amount of protein that you feed, you increase the proportion of microbial, so you decrease the quantity of histidine at the higher rate, then you decrease what is being fed for the other amino acid. […]

16:04

What would be your take-home recommendations related to amino acid balancing?

Dr. Hélène Lapierre

I would say to really balance their ration for amino acid. It has been working for poultry, it has been working for pigs, there is no reason why it wouldn't be working for the ruminants. Obviously, the challenge is larger because we need to determine what's being supplied through the microbes to what's not being degraded within the rumen. But I think we have made really huge progress over the last two decades to develop rumen submodels. So really, to focus and forget a little bit about protein metabolizable protein, and look for essential amino acids. And please do not balance diet for crude protein. It is like so outdated.