Today’s podcast is the second podcast filmed at the American Dairy Science Association Annual Meeting in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Joining us are researchers with abstracts of interest chosen by the Balchem technical team.
Guests: Dr. Billy Brown, Kansas State University; Dr. Heather White, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Kelli Brost, University of Illinois; Dr. Jim Drackley, University of Illinois; Dr. Sergio Martinez Monteagudo, New Mexico State University; Jair Parales Giron, Michigan State University; Tess Stahl, University of New Hampshire; Dr. Pete Erickson, University of New Hampshire; Dr. Vinicius Machado, Texas Tech University
Today’s podcast is the second podcast filmed at the American Dairy Science Association Annual Meeting in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Joining us are researchers with abstracts of interest chosen by the Balchem technical team.
Our first guests are Dr. Billy Brown, Kansas State University, and Dr. Heather White, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Brown said results from feeding choline in utero showed no differences in the weight of the animal or ribeye areas, but they did have greater marbling, which is exciting. (4:19)
Dr. Brown’s poster title is: Effect of in utero choline exposure on Angus × Holstein carcass characteristics
Our second guest is Dr. Sergio Martinez Monteagudo from New Mexico State University. Dr. Martinez Monteagudo mentioned that while upcycling is not new and is used in other industries, it is more difficult to do in the food industry. Dr. Martinez Monteagudo turned lactose into something more used, sweeteners.
Dr. Martinez Monteagudo’s presentation title: Upcycling strategies of dairy byproducts and waste for value-added applications.
Next up is Kelli Brost and Dr. Jim Drackley, both from the University of Illinois. Kelli found in her research that there is an effect on cow’s milk protein and fat percentages when looking at summer versus non-summer seasons. When you look at winter versus non-winter or winter versus summer, she saw the exact opposite. (27:50)
Kelli’s Poster title is: Relationships between birth and calving season on first lactation performance of Holstein dairy cows in the Midwestern USA
Now, we’re hearing from Jair Parales Giron from Michigan State University. Jair’s research showed that fat has different effects from a low or high-starch diet. He also recommended that if you can’t have a high-energy or low-starch diet, fatty-acid supplementation could work.
Jair’s presentation title is: Fatty acid supplementation interacts with starch content to alter production responses during the immediate postpartum in dairy cows
Joining us next are Tess Stahl and Dr. Pete Erickson from the University of New Hampshire. Tess studied the effects of a DCAD diet on Jersey cows. she found that minus 40 cals without and with nicotinic acid or niacin were equally feed efficient. And then there was a decrease with the minus 80. So she assumes that minus 80 is too harsh of a DCAD. (54:24)
Tess’ poster title is: Evaluation of colostrum quantity, quality, and bioactive compounds from Jersey cows fed two concentrations of dietary cation-anion difference with or without nicotinic acid and its effect on calf performance
Lastly, we have Dr. Vinicius Machado from Texas Tech University. Dr. Vinicius didn’t have any solid conclusions in his research but did notice that raising beef-on-dairy calves takes a different focus and approach than dairy cows or traditional beef cows. Throughout his portion, he hypothesizes what some options are. (1:38)
Dr. Vinicius Machado’s presentation title is: Management of beef-on-dairy calves: Should we raise them differently?
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Scott (00:00:13):
Good evening everyone, and welcome to the Real Science Exchange, the pubcast. We're leading scientists and industry professionals meet over a few drinks to discuss the latest ideas and trends in animal nutrition. We're here at the ADSA scientific meetings in Ottawa, Canada this week, and we've been having conversations with students all week about the abstracts that they've submitted. Now, this is part two of two parts, so if you've missed part one, please go back and listen to that. My co-host for this session is gonna be Dr. Pete Morrow. He's a tech service representative for Balchem. And my guest today is Dr. Heather White and Dr. Billy Brown. Heather, you really need no introduction, but if you wouldn't mind, give an introduction to our audience, and then also tell us a little bit about Billy, how'd you get to know him, and some of the work that he's done for you.
Heather (00:01:00):
Yeah, great. Thank you first of all, for having us here and for your interest in the research. I'm Heather White. I am faculty at University of Wisconsin Madison in the area of nutritional physiology. So I'm professor there. Just hit my 10 year mark earlier this year, so that's good. Do teaching and research there and serve as the faculty director for the Dairy Innovation Hub. So, as a part of my research program, always looking for great additions to the lab grad students, postdocs Billy joined the lab and bravely joined without ever having met any of us in person. Is that right? Thanks to Covid. So Billy and I met by Zoom and we just had a lot of trust in the situation there. He may or may not tell you that was well placed, trust but he came to Wisconsin and jumped right into a cow study. It was in fact the cow study that yielded the calves we'll be talking about today. So he spent about a year and a half with us in Wisconsin and is now faculty at Kansas State. So let him tell you a little bit more about himself.
Scott (00:02:02):
Yeah, yeah. Go ahead, Doug.
Billy (00:02:02):
I was really grateful that they weren't all holograms. They were real when I moved to Wisconsin. But no, I'm a faculty member at Kansas State University. I'm primarily teaching 60% teaching, but do have a research appointment. So we're trying to get that off the ground by launching that now, and we'll be starting a calf starter grain study with my first grad student here in a couple of weeks. So we're excited about that.
Scott (00:02:22):
All right. Very well. Hey, would you mind giving us then an overview? The abstract that was presented here, was it, was it a presentation or a poster? A poster?
Billy (00:02:30):
It was a poster, yeah. So we're really excited about those results, but we've had a number of abstracts that have resulted of that. But to kind of give you some cliff notes we fed several varieties of, of choline traditional reassure, and then a, a prototype of that more concentrated prototype to prepartum dairy cows for three weeks prepartum. And then we took the resulting cows from those cows and tracked them through a period of time and spec specifically for this poster that we're talking about. We were looking at Holstein and Angus cross calves. And so we tracked their growth for a number of months, and then we fed them a finishing diet, and then we took them to slaughter and looked at carcass characteristics of those animals and how that changed their carcass overall. So really the first of its kind research in this area, and we're really excited to be able to be a part of it.
Scott (00:03:23):
Okay. Just to kind of to kind of summarize, so, so these animals were, the mothers were fed the choline Yeah, prepartum and then the calves, then no choline or what was the
Billy (00:03:34):
Yeah, they all had a standard diet. They were raised similarly. So all the treatments were really based upon the dam feeding while those calves were in utero. So this is, so this concept, epigene
Scott (00:03:45):
Epigenetic
Billy (00:03:46):
Thing, this concept, developmental programming, which is starting to gain more traction. And we really have the perfect environment with the dairy industry to, to really isolate these gestational effects of the things that we do, can do through nutrition or management and really isolate those compared to other species because we do raise those calves on a bottle with in a very homogenous way throughout the rest of their lifespan. Yeah. So great a model that we can, we can leverage.
Scott (00:04:12):
I'm kind of curious, did you have a hypothesis ahead of time of what kind of results you would see, or were you just kind of going into to see what you would see?
Billy (00:04:19):
Well, one of the things that we did know was looking at some past literature from Florida, we had a good hunch that calves might have a little bit of a growth advantage. And, we did see that in, in the first 10 months where there was some growth advantage. But other than that we didn't really know what we were going to see. And so one of the big things that we did note, I'll go ahead and jump into some of those results if sure, if that's okay. Is that at the time of harvest, at least, that didn't appear that there was any change or, or evidence of difference in, in the weight of those calves or the rib eye area. But we were seeing some differences in, well, appears to be fat metabolism. So they had greater kidney, pelvic and heart fat but they also had greater marbling. And that's the part that really excites us, because there's very few ways to influence that marbling outside of genetics or just feeding them a higher energy diet right. We know that Wagyu and Angus are great at marbling but nutritionally speaking that's a little bit tough, tougher nut to crack. And so we did see an increase there, and I think that had had some pretty big implications long term for the beef and dairy industries. And we talk about beef and dairy animals.
Scott (00:05:29):
Heather, I'm just kind of curious, see if you've got a hypothesis as to what the mode of action might be.
Heather (00:05:35):
Yeah, so we measured quite a few metabolites along the way. So Billy talked about the carcass quality and, and carcass characteristics, but we also took blood samples, and we found some differences or tendencies for differences in things like insulin and glucose. And so when we're thinking about that, marbling plays into that. And like Billy said, we think this is probably related to glucose and lipid metabolism. That doesn't surprise us if we think about what we've seen in the lactating dairy cow pre and postpartum. And when we think about some of the cell culture work we've done to look at the mechanism of action when we supplement cells with choline or in vitro we tend to see changes in differences in glucose metabolism and lipid metabolism that support milk production through in increased gluconeogenesis increased oxidative capacity, increased VLDL export.
Heather (00:06:25):
So it wouldn't be surprising to think that that could be a hypothesis. For mechanism here, we talked about epigenetics earlier. We were also really interested to see if methylation patterns had changed, because that's with cooling being a methyl donor, that's also something that we would suspect. We looked at global methylation patterns in blood samples, so not targeted, not single gene up or down regulation, just global methylation patterns. And we did observe an increase for that in the male offspring. We did not observe a difference in female offspring of either the Holstein or the beef cross. Now, at first, that's a little surprising because we saw changes in growth across all of the offspring, but we have to remember, first of all, that there were a lot of metabolic changes as well, and metabolites that were changed. So there's probably more than one mechanism of action here.
Heather (00:07:15):
But also we know that across species, rodent models, sheep, humans, that the male offsprings are more likely to have increased global methylation and be able to detect that the females are much harder to detect the difference in methylation pattern, even if there's a difference in the growth outcome. So again, this is consistent with that across the board. So at this point, I think there's probably a little bit of both of those, both through methylation pattern changes, and we should definitely dive into those more in the future. And then maybe directly through changing glucose or lipid metabolism pathways,
Pete (00:07:50):
Do you think this you'd see similar results from feeding choline to finishing cattle, or is it just an epi epigenetic response?
Heather (00:07:56):
Yeah, I mean, that's, that's a little bit of a tough one to guess, right? Because we probably have the opportunity for a big impact through the fetal programming, like Billy mentioned earlier, that's an opportunity for us to impact the animal when it is both growing through a big growth phase in utero, but also setting kind of the stage for lifelong growth and metabolism. And so if we have an effect there with something, we don't always see the same effect depending on what nutrient we're talking about later, by feeding it directly. But to my knowledge, we haven't fed, or at least in the published literature, you know, maybe there's some stuff hiding we can dig out. But in the published literature, there's not cases where we fed choline in the finishing stage and can control randomized studies. So we either need to go back and see if we've done that in the past, maybe in beef animals, and we can look at it again here in the future. So I think it's probably worth exploring.
Scott (00:08:52):
Yeah. Thinking about a future. So I guess there's a lot more things to understand. What does the next step in research look like?
Billy (00:09:01):
Yeah. Well, I think the world is our oyster at this point. You know, these are exciting results, but they're, you know, in a way fairly preliminary results too. So I think, you know, some of this is just maybe taking a different approach at it, maybe looking at a different stage or a different species and, and trying to see if we can replicate this at least. And, and and, and then I think diving in into some specific tissues and, and understanding what's happening in those tissues metabolically what's happening from DNA methylation standpoint and, and trying to get a better picture and, and digging down deeper into those a little bit better. So it is one of those situations where there's so many different avenues you can start with where do you start to narrow it down a little bit. Yeah.
Heather (00:09:43):
So I think if I can add to that, one thing to point out is that this is a fairly small sample set. By the time we break it down, we had four maternal treatment groups, each of those. So even though there was 24 cows in each treatment, which is powered for that, then we have offspring. Half of those are Holstein heifers, half are beef crossed, half of those were female, and half were male. So by the time we get to those final carcass characteristics, some of the treatment groups maybe had 12 animals in those groups, right? So, first and foremost, we've gotta recognize that this needs to be repeated, just like Billy said, we, we need to make sure that this can be replicated across, and that we observed the same thing. But I think that goes back to the original reason why we did this.
Heather (00:10:24):
So the beef cross animals following to slaughter was never a part of the original experimental design. In fact, we were only ever planning to follow all animals to weaning. But one thing for me is that it was really full circle. My master's is in, I had a meat science component, and lip and metabolism component spent a lot of time looking at both swine and beef carcasses. And we saw that out in the real world, people are breeding these beef cross animals, and they, there's a complete dearth in benchmarks, right? There's not those average metrics for people to look at and say, okay, these beef cross animals are growing as we would expect. I'm meeting the benchmarks. I'm not, I'm average, I'm below, I'm above. And people really needed that data. And so we had an opportunity to do that. And for me, it was kind of full circle To go back to something I had looked at years ago with Billy joining the lab and some background in beef and the ability to add capacity to the team, we were able to look at that.
Heather (00:11:18):
So a big part of it was just to add baseline data, right? To get some data in the literature and to start building that database on what's there. The fact that we observed differences in slaughter from a prepartum maternal treatment was really rather exciting to be able to see significant differences from something we never fed to the calves themselves. So that was really a pleasant surprise because we really were just looking for some baseline data. So first and foremost, I think we've gotta make sure that this is repeatable across, and then dig into it and see what kind of nutritional power is there, right?
Scott (00:11:53):
Yeah. Very exciting. You know, choline is one of those compounds. The more we learn about it, the more we learn that we don't know a lot about it. So there's a lot left to know. I really appreciate you guys stopping by and spending some time with us today. So thanks a lot. Thank you. Thanks for having you
Sergio (00:12:06):
Guys. Yeah, thanks.
Speaker 6 (00:12:07):
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Scott (00:12:36):
Welcome back to the ADSA here in Ottawa. I'm here with my co-host Dr. Ryan Norway. He's the Director of Strategic accounts for Balchem. We also have a guest here, Sergio Martinez Monteagudo from New Mexico State. Was that close enough? All right. Good. Good. Sergio, you were an invited speaker here. Can you give us a little bit of background on yourself, and then talk a little bit about the presentation that you gave? Okay.
Sergio (00:13:02):
Well, I'm originally from Mexico. I born and grew up in north part of Mexico, just right at the border between Mexico and Texas.
Scott (00:13:10):
Okay.
Sergio (00:13:10):
Then I did graduate school in University of Albertan, Canada. Okay. And then I moved to Ohio State, the Ohio State University.
Scott (00:13:18):
So I also went to Ohio State University. Graduated way before you did though. Okay.
Sergio (00:13:23):
So, and then after, after that, I start my career as a faculty in South Dakota State University for four years in dairy manufacturing. And then I moved to, I went to get a little bit closer to family, and then I saw the job description in New Mexico and
Scott (00:13:39):
Excellent. Yeah.
Sergio (00:13:40):
2020.
Scott (00:13:40):
Yeah. Good for you. Good for you.
Sergio (00:13:42):
I move in the middle of the pandemic. Oh my gosh.
Scott (00:13:45):
Well, tell us a little bit about, have you given the presentation yet? Yes, yes. Okay. what was that all about?
Sergio (00:13:51):
The presentation is, well, the name is upcycling and, and one way to look at it is upgrade and reuse. Just not materials, but also services with the idea would create a lot more sustainable industry. Okay. Now, the concept is not new. The concept has been for a while now, where we play a lot in, in the literature is just common with new terminology, sub cycling and, and valorization. And, but the concept is the same. It has been used in other fields as well. So how we can take at something that is usually a waste converting into a valuable product, that, that, that's essentially the whole idea. Okay. And what I do for that is when I focus on my research is, for instance, we take lactose and nobody wants lactose anymore and converting into sweeteners Okay. That you can use in beverages or other products. And they come internally from lactose. That's one of the attractive parts of what I'm doing. And, and the whole principle is you, the way I look at it is use chemical engineering principles to convert materials that will be a waste into upgrade and reuse.
Scott (00:15:03):
Interesting. Yeah. So you mentioned lactose just kind of off the subject, maybe it is on the subject since we are in a virtual pub, but they are turning lactose into alcohol in the form of vodka. There's a company here called VodCow, and also know that they put it into beers to kind of smooth it out, kind of create a different texture. So,
Sergio (00:15:25):
Yeah. Well, that product is pretty good. That
Scott (00:15:27):
Is pretty good. It's pretty good.
Sergio (00:15:29):
Yeah. Well, and, and, and that's the thing, if we all want it to be lactose free Yeah. And then we focus on protein, we focus on fat. And the lactose is just getting accumulated and accumulated and accumulated. Cause it's not going anywhere. Right. And we, we, we has an engineer that so has a raw material. What is my raw material is milk. I cannot get milk without lactose coming out of the cow. So the moment we remove it with technology is just surplus fluid. Yeah. And then we have to do something without surplus. and in, in a similar way happened with the fat fat-free movement. Yes. And that run in the nineties, that nobody wants fat, and then we have a lot of fat, and we don't know what to do with that fat. It's similar in, in this sense with the lactose. Now maybe in the future we will have a surplus of proteins, who knows?
Scott (00:16:13):
Yeah. Are there other byproducts other than lactose?
Sergio (00:16:15):
Yeah. I also focus on phospholipids. Okay. And dairy phospholipids specifically. And the, the motivation behind that is the health benefits that is related with the consumption of phospholipids, specifically dairy phospholipids, because the distribution of those materials is different from the ones and c plant. Now, the issue, and with the dairy industry, there are concentration is very small, and there's diluted streams. So usually it's a byproduct from bottle milk from milk, from butter and, and, and similar products. So essentially, it's a lot of water and a small amount of phospholipids. If you think about it, you have to remove all the water. You have to remove lactose, you have to remove several to get a small portion. So that is not really attractive in terms of large volumes. But part of the reason they're doing adapt from, from material science is using different solvents that you can extract the, the phospholipids and also separating so you don't have to do the multiple steps.
Scott (00:17:14):
Interesting. Sorry, Ryan. I invited you here for a reason, so, well,
Ryan (00:17:19):
No, I, I so I, I lead our sustainability program for our animal nutrition health group. And I was at a sustainability conference a couple of weeks ago. And upcycling was the topic to discuss cuz the same exact thing. You know, in a rendering industry, meat processing, they have all these trim meats and all these hides and things that have been traditionally get thrown at landfills. And now they're looking for how can we change our processes? Really, as you said, it's really an engineering thing to overcome. And as we can utilize more of those, less goes into not only does less go into the landfill, which is a cost Right. To the producer of the processor. But it's actually getting value added to it, and then being turned into companion animal treats and, and food and things like that.
Ryan (00:18:19):
And I was thinking as you were talking that, you know, when I was a real dairy nutritionist before I, you know, retired from that to join ball camp Scott, you're supposed to laugh at that comment. But you know, we, I was dealing with way all the time, Right. And it was something that was just getting thrown away. And it was a byproduct, it was a waste product. And that was probably the, you know, as I think back, that was probably one of the original upcycle Yeah. Products. And now, I mean, way has more value for the most part than Casey.
Sergio (00:18:54):
Yeah. Or even what you mean, she's Yeah, exactly. But at that time, we didn't know upcycling exists. Right,
Ryan (00:19:00):
Exactly.
Sergio (00:19:00):
That's what I'm saying an old concept. Yeah. But the other part, if you look at the literature, what is scientific literature? Upcycling, other fields are more progressive for several reasons. I took a look at the, the cycling in, in construction, and it's a lot more sense grabbing a plastic and design a plastic that can actually couple like a legal pieces and then build some materials and, and, and small houses and things like that. Or, or even clothing. It's a lot easier. But when it comes to food, how you gonna design a food to be reused is hard to do in that way. So if you, if for instance, IKEA design wooden stools, that after some time you can turn into a bike but those are designed with that purpose. Yes. Now, with a food, how you gonna design this cow bot cow to reuse somewhere else? It's hard to do in that way. Yeah. So in, in that sense that the, the idea in other fields that design for second use is not applicable at this moment in food products. Now you can take advantage of byproducts waste. Yes, yes. And using technology, but the idea you, you simply designing to be reuse, that's, that's a big challenge. Yeah.
Ryan (00:20:13):
Interesting. And you've got the shelf life stability issue as well, where
Sergio (00:20:18):
Safety issues,
Ryan (00:20:19):
Plastics, you don't have a problem, but, and it could be a regulatory challenge. Yeah. There's all kinds of other things that are coming into play with you know, dairy products and, and really across all the animal ag space you know, byproducts that you're trying to upcycle
Sergio (00:20:34):
And in general, any, any food material, even agricultural waste, it needs to be, if you're gonna add it into food, you have to get rid of pathogens.
Ryan (00:20:42):
Yep. Right. Exactly.
Sergio (00:20:44):
Or even allergens.
Ryan (00:20:45):
Yep. Is so good question is turning waste oil from cooking things like that into biofuels, is that considered upcycling?
Sergio (00:20:58):
I would say yes.
Ryan (00:20:59):
Yeah, I would too.
Sergio (00:21:01):
Now there are, there are already some organization that upcycling the Food Association, and they had their own manifesto, I'll say manifesto because it is written in a way, like, yeah, this is what I wanted to do in my life. But, but the, the, the issue to me is as long you are helping, not going into directly to landfill, I should be up cycling Now the rules Yeah. Those are just technicalities that what flavor you like. But the moment you are extending the life of that product, that should be upcycle. Yeah. And that is directly related to sustainability. And that's another issue that we don't have. What is the right metric to see? We are, are we upcycling enough? Do we have enough metrics? Because normally when sustainability, we come with carbon footprint, what a footprint, energy use, so and so on. So what about in this topic? I don't think we have metrics.
Ryan (00:21:55):
Yeah. I I think the sky's the limit at this point. I agree. I don't think there are any metrics.
Sergio (00:22:01):
So we can create our own metrics of cycling.
Ryan (00:22:04):
Yep. And I mean, you know, Scott, Scott leads our marketing. It, it really is marketing. I mean, it's a great story. coming out of the dairy industry, you know, that's, that's continually seems to be under fire for, for whatever reason, , for whatever reason. Right. Methane, carbon emissions, you name it. And, you know, this is a really good story because in the past, I mean, we talked about, oh, we use citrus waste and things like that, but there's not, you know, that's done behind the scenes, right? , we're feeding a cow or we're feeding up the pig or something. The citrus you know, rinds, but it doesn't really get into the public or something like this. Something like the , you know Cow Vodka it, there's, there's something you can get in front of a consumer . And it's a really great, great opportunity for us as an industry to sort of raise that awareness that, hey, we are doing our part. You know, there's, there's things, we have a long ways to go, but it's a great thing that we're trying to do for the, you know, the world.
Scott (00:23:05):
Yeah.
Sergio (00:23:06):
Well, the, the other thing, for instance is if, if you think about the, the, their industry under fire and all that, what would be this country without the data industry,
Ryan (00:23:15):
Right? I wouldn't have my belt. Yeah. I wouldn't have my shoes. Yes.
Sergio (00:23:19):
Jobs. Jobs,
Ryan (00:23:20):
Taxes.
Sergio (00:23:21):
Exactly. What is wrong in creating jobs and paying taxes? Yeah. Since, since when That was bad. Yeah.
Scott (00:23:28):
That sounds like a great place to stop, man. We need the dairy industry. Yeah.
Sergio (00:23:32):
We need
Scott (00:23:32):
It. Yeah. Sergio, this has been a fascinating topic one that I think we could talk on for hours, especially with Ryan here. He's passionate about sustainability, upcycling, all of that. This has been a very interesting, looking forward to your talk tomorrow. I'm gonna attend. So thank you for joining us today. Thank you.
Sergio (00:23:49):
My pleasure. You're welcome. Thank you. Nice to meet you. Yeah, nice to
Scott (00:23:58):
Welcome back to the ADSA. I'm here with my co-host Dr. Jeff Elliott, along with Dr. Jim Drackley and Kelly Brost. Kinda the one neat thing that we were talking about early here is that Jeff was actually Dr. Drake Drackley’s very, very first grad student. And so far Kelly is the last, so we got the alpha in the Omega going on here right now. So yeah. And, and all from the University of Illinois. Jim, what I'd like to do is to have you just start off by telling us a little bit about yourself. You probably don't need a, an introduction, but there may be somebody out there that doesn't know your credentials Well,
Jim (00:24:34):
Yeah. I've been at the University of Illinois for 34 years in research and teaching and work in the areas of dry cow nutrition and management and baby calf nutrition.
Scott (00:24:47):
And I think we were on a podcast. I don't think it's dropped yet, but somebody referred to you as one of the icons Oh, in the industry. Yeah.
Jim (00:24:54):
Another word for old, I think
Scott (00:24:56):
Would you mind introducing your student for us?
Jim (00:24:59):
Sure can. Yeah. Kelly Brost is a graduate student with me. She started out in a master's program, but now is working in a direct to PhD program and working in the area of calf nutrition.
Scott (00:25:14):
So now is the, are you given a poster or presentation?
Kelly (00:25:18):
This is a poster.
Scott (00:25:18):
And it'll be tomorrow. Tomorrow, yeah. Okay. And that's title, the relationships between Birth and Calving Season on First Lactation Performance of Holstein Dairy Cows in Midwestern US. Is that right? Yes. Yep. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that. How'd you, how'd this project come about?
Kelly (00:25:35):
Sure. It actually developed from a project I had done last year, an analysis looking at average daily gain with calves and the season they were born in. And I wanted to take that a little bit further. So I did this analysis from data that our dairy had had, and I took it back to 2009. So we had about 13 years worth of cows, first lactation cows that were used. And
Scott (00:26:03):
And how many did that represent?
Kelly (00:26:05):
It was over 500. Okay. Around 520 . and of course that was pulling out quite a few that we didn't have all of the data on, but we wanted to look at how those cows performed based on the season that they were born in. And then I went a little bit further and wanted to look at the season that they calved in, which can range a little bit depending on how old they were when they were bred. And look at basically their performance with milk components as far as percent fat, percent proteins also when, how long they might have lasted, like their production life within the herd.
Jeff (00:26:46):
So just give us an overall view or summary of those results. Sure. And you did, you've already explained to us kind of, you looked at it from a birth season and a calving season and those differences were a little bit different. Yes. Yes. So kind of make sure you define each of those.
Kelly (00:27:02):
Overall, there was a correlation between both the first time lactation cows calving season, I'm sorry, their season of birth as well as calving season. There were minor differences between the reproduction aspect and the milk component aspect. But again, that goes into that, how they overlap somewhat, but can also be in different seasons. I think this could be applied towards looking at the management practices when cows experience both of these, or either one during an extremely hot summer season.
Jeff (00:27:44):
We could, and so most of the, let's say detrimental effects were for those summer, it was
Kelly (00:27:50):
Season, for the summer season, even when we looked at summer versus all non-summer seasons, you could also see an impact on many of those areas. When we looked at winter versus summer or winter versus all non winter seasons, we would see the exact opposite. So those winter cows might have better milk components, they might be staying in the herd longer being bred fewer times. So there was, it was just the opposite effect there.
Jeff (00:28:20):
Okay. And, you know, we talked earlier, do you think there is a colostrum effect as well as a in utero effect? Meaning are we seeing different quality colostrum in those summer season animals?
Kelly (00:28:37):
Sure, I have, I did not personally look at that, but I have read about there being an effect. It seems like the more you layer on heat stress at different times, the harder it is for that cow to keep up. So there could definitely be a colostrum effect there. Yeah.
Jeff (00:28:55):
Jim, do you have any comments on from the colostrum effect?
Jim (00:28:59):
No, I think that that's very possible, and it might be embedded in what Kelly's looking at. There are data to show that colostrum quality suffers during heat stress. So it's a possibility.
Scott (00:29:14):
And we talk about quality. You're talking about just lower levels of IgG mostly, correct. Yeah. Yeah.
Jim (00:29:19):
Correct.
Scott (00:29:21):
The other question I had real quick, I'm sorry. And so we talked about this is an in utero effect or is this just an, an impact on the animal after birth?
Kelly (00:29:30):
This was an impact on the animal? I have read quite a few papers on the in utero effect. I think it's very interesting and I think it could also play into, again, those layers. Right. But I only looked at the effect on the animals. So whether it was the season that they were born in or the season that they were, that they first calved in.
Jeff (00:29:49):
Got it. But wouldn't, we'd almost have to imply there's a utero effect in that seasonal, it's just they didn't look at that to see if there were differences. Right. But
Jim (00:29:59):
Right. It would have to be a part of it, or, or likely is a part of it.
Jeff (00:30:02):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Scott (00:30:05):
It'd be hard to separate it, I would think. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff (00:30:10):
So another question I've got, let's assume there's some in utero effects or whatever's causing that. We observed those effects from management practice. We see nutrition practices, we see, we know that's in utero effects there. So is environment, what we're talking about here, is that an additional potential cause or is it part of management in the sense of heat stress? Cuz you mentioned heat stress several times.
Kelly (00:30:42):
Sure. I, I think you could really look at it either way, but I do think it all comes together because that animal, whether it's the calf or right before that, that dry cow before she calves in the environment is playing a huge role. So whether it's even just in the Midwestern USA or if it's a management practice where the animal's just not being cooled efficiently. So it could kind of go both ways. I think you really do need to look at the management for the season. It just all ties together.
Jeff (00:31:17):
Yeah, it does for sure.
Jim (00:31:18):
And it's, if you think back farther, you know, if there's effects that occurred during the first trimester, that puts it in a totally different season where, where you would have possible impacts on the, of the very early development of the, the fetus.
Jeff (00:31:34):
Sure. Yep. Does, you looked at birth season calving season , do you feel like those each stand alone or are they related?
Kelly (00:31:47):
I do think they can be related. Just because the birth season, once the calving season comes around, it might be, it might line up towards that same season. Otherwise, I think that they could also stand alone if there's not as much, if there's not as much impact in utero or in calving season that might be applied. That heat stress that's happening right before the cows giving birth. If we didn't look at them, that in depth for me to tell you which one, it just seemed to line up to where the seasons, the way they flowed and the way the results came out that summer was the big hitter there. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah.
Scott (00:32:35):
Kelly, I understand you just started your PhD program, so you've got some studies ahead of you. What do you plan on looking at in the future? Perhaps I should ask that of Jim. What’s the research look like going forward?
Kelly (00:32:47):
We actually have two trials lined up that are kind of flowing into one another. The first one, looking at vitamin B complex and a milk replacer. And following that in the post weaning part, we're gonna be looking at the use of plasma proteins in calf grower.
Scott (00:33:04):
Oh, very interesting. Well, listen, I appreciate you guys joining us here today. This has been a lot of fun. Wish the best with your future education and then whatever you decide to do after that. Thank you.
Welcome back to the ADSA Scientific Sessions. I'm here with my co-host Dr. Pete Morrow and Dr. Jeff Elliott. Also our guest is Jair Parales Giron. This is your second trip to the Real Science Exchange. Thank you very much for coming back for us again.
Jair (00:33:38):
Yeah, no, thanks for having me.
Scott (00:33:38):
Yeah, no worries. So listen, you gave a have you given your presentation yet or
Jair (00:33:44):
Yeah, I gave my presentation
Scott (00:33:46):
So can you kind of give us an overview of the objective of that presentation? Yeah. Or the trial Yeah. That led to the presentation. Sure.
Jair (00:33:53):
So we were focused on checking if there could be any interactions between starch content of the diet and fatty acid supplementation in the lactation cows. So we used to different starch content, 22% as a lowest starch content and 28% as a highest starch content using dry ground corn for, eh, playing with the, with the starch content of the diet. And we fit as 70-20, eh, fatty acid supplement, 70% fatty acid and 20% lactic acid at 2% of the dry, the diet dry matter. And we did different treatments. We need like the lowest starch, no fat, highest starch, no fat, lowest star plus fat, and highest starch plus fat. So those were our four treatments.
Scott (00:34:49):
So what was the hypothesis what led you to believe that there might be an interaction between starch and the fatty acids? Yeah,
Jair (00:34:56):
Our idea was checking, checking those possible interactions. And we were trying to prove the hypothesis that fatty acid supplementation will increase or would increase the yields of fat at meal in the lowest star diet because that diet was like, had a lower energy, energy content energy level. And on the other side that the fatty acid supplementation would increase the energy partition into body energy reserve in the highest star diet because of the high energy content of that diet. Okay. Yeah.
Jeff (00:35:34):
So did you see that
Jair (00:35:38):
We did see the fat in the lowest star diet, both in the highest sta in the highest starch diet is like we didn't see any fats on body weight, but also those results are, eh, in line with some previous results that we have shown from our lab using that 70-20 fatty acid supplement compared to control diets because Jonas and Dr Log, they did an study checking the fed of different inclusion levels of of lactic acid in one in one, in a fatty acid blend. They check the 80-10 lactic acid, eh, 70-20 and 60-30. They found that increasing the oleic acid in that blend has a linear effect increase in body weight loss during that period. But if you see the means from the control treatment and the 70-20 they were the, the lines and how, how the variable behave in those treat in those two treatments were, were pretty close.
Jeff (00:36:46):
So do you have a high hypothesis on your results where you saw the tendency for the fat to increase milk in the low starch? Yeah. But no effect on the high stroke?
Jair (00:36:56):
Yeah. What idea? It was that probably there could be an increase in energy partition or probably in our case there was no effect of, of, of the treatments on body weight loss. And that for instance, with something that we have seen before as well. So always we are trying to see, okay, probably there could be an negative effect and both treatments, I dunno, both inclusions could, I dunno, improve potentially the animal response. But in our case was like, okay, we didn't see any effect on body weight loss. And I think that's something that is positive as well.
Scott (00:37:30):
Okay. I here real quick. I did you disservice. I failed to mention that you are from Michigan State University. Yes. Working out of Adam Locke's lab. Yes. So I wanted to make sure I got that in there. My apologies.
Jair (00:37:40):
No, it's okay. Go green worldwide
Pete (00:37:44):
Can you comment about the high levels of really fat milk, fat percent in these cows? Yeah. It was almost shocking when you read the abstract.
Jair (00:37:51):
Yeah. Yeah. It's shocking. But actually in msu we've been working a lot on doing genetic selection and improving our her and those are the results that we, that from that, that kind of work that we've been doing as well. Yeah. Also, yes, our diets, and that's something that my, our, our farm manager is always happy when we are gonna do and study transition cows, because always our diets are rocking compared to the diets that they usually use, even our control diets. Oh. So yeah. But that's the result of the selection that we've been doing and also the help of our nutritionists as well. So we've been doing the war too, not only genetics, but also nutrition.
Jeff (00:38:44):
Yeah. So Scott, you may not have seen it, but I think the milk fat was 4.6%. 4.7. Yes. Yes. So they were extremely Yes, extremely high, yes.
Jair (00:38:52):
And
Pete (00:38:53):
Had high proteins. Your proteins were three, three plus
Jair (00:38:56):
Protein levels. Yes, those were high. But also those results are consistent with the results that I have been seeing in all my studies because I am focused on transition study studies and I did a previous study check increments, supplementation and fat supplementation and the levels, the, the protein levels and the fat levels similar levels. So it's consistent.
Pete (00:39:21):
Were you surprised at the starch level, the higher starch level didn't affect milk protein more? It said there was no difference. Yeah, in milk
Jair (00:39:28):
Protein, yeah. No protein. And actually there is a, there is a tendency to reduce the, the protein, the protein content with the, with the starch, the highest starch diet. And with, we think that it is just a dilution effect because the main effect of a starch was in favor of increasing gel.
Jeff (00:39:50):
Okay. So I've got, I've gotta ask, we talked earlier before we sit down, but you said you got this question yesterday as well, the starch content of your closeup
Jair (00:40:02):
Ration. Yeah, yeah. We try to keep that thing as low as possible. So it was ranging between 18-19%.
Jeff (00:40:08):
18 and 19. Yes. Okay. Yes. So do you think there's any effect going from a 18 to a 22% starch ration and 18 to a 28 was your other starch, was there any interaction there? I,
Jair (00:40:24):
I think that there probably could be an effect, but unfortunately I don't recall studies doing like that kind of arrangement of treatments for seeing the timing of supplementation on of higher starch and lowest starch. But also you want to keep lowest starch as low as possible during the closeup period. You know, because everything related to the apathetic oxidation theory, if you are gonna have higher starch, you could increase eh, propionate and you could, you could decrease dry intake. And that's something that we don't wanna have during that period. So, yeah. So I think we play safe.
Jeff (00:41:10):
Yep.
Jair (00:41:10):
Because yeah, we were having cows that would be eating right, a high amount of starch during the treatment period. So it was playing safe or avoiding any confusion effects as well.
Pete (00:41:22):
When you're enrolling these cows, do you get a say over what this transition diet is or is kind of the standard MSU diet until they freshen? Yeah,
Jair (00:41:30):
Usually we do some tweaks. We, we, we asked our, our nutrition is, okay, what are you doing right now? So, okay, if we, if we seeing that historically there is something that is not working correctly with the close diet, if we need to, I don't know, decrease phosphorus increase, so the dec cut or something like that, that's the time that we do the adjustments. And usually when do those adjustments, the farm keeps using our adjustments for the closer diet.
Jeff (00:42:03):
So my last question, I'm going out to a dairy tomorrow, let's say it's 5,000 cows . And they're, they wanna know what's the guideline on starch and fat in those fresh cows? Where do I need to be?
Jair (00:42:16):
Yeah, I guess, I guess the most important result is the interaction and seeing that fat is having different effects in a lowest starch and in a high starch diet. So if you are, if you are not able to have, I don't know, too much energy or, or high in a lowest starch diet, yes, fatty acid supplementation could work for June because it was an increase in fat. And yes, we had a tendency for increasing energy corrected milk, but also is because having a two to factorial is bringing more noise. And probably that that result, that was a tendency just having two treatments could be could be significant, you know? So in a lowest star diet, I would, I would say yes, use what in a highest star, highest star diet. I would say you need to check the fatty acid profile as well of the, of the, of the supplement that you'll be using.
Jair (00:43:13):
We did use a 70-20, so we had a, like, and calcium salts are not complete rumen and protected. So you are gonna have some degradations on ion of fatty acids. And we know that unsaturated fatty acids could have some effect on rumen fermentation parameters. So you need to exert or be careful with your choices. So yeah, if you have high starch, keep working with the highest starch because we saw a benefit of, of higher starch. But if you are in some circumstances that you don't have the opportunity to have higher starch. But yes, its implementation could be a, a tool for, for increasing allergic corrected milk. Yeah.
Scott (00:43:57):
Here, thank you for joining us. Once again, this is your second trip here as we mentioned before. So what are you working on now and what can we what kind of a preview can you give us for next year?
Jair (00:44:07):
Eh I, I just finished my theorist story, part of my dissertation. We were checking I competency inclusion and fat supplementation, because everything in my dissertation is based on transition cow. So I, my first story was checking chromium and fatty acids, supplementation, and seeing if there would be possible interactions. My second story is the one that I just talked, the starch and fatty acid supplementation. This one was like two different ways for feeling fat and see if there is an interaction there. And the upcoming story, I think is the most ambitious one because we'll be checking essential amino acids and three different inclusion levels of fatty acids. Good. So it's gonna be a big one. So yeah, I am excited.
Scott (00:45:00):
I'll be looking forward to it. Yeah.
Jair (00:45:02):
And probably next year I'll be here again. All
Scott (00:45:05):
Right. Thank you.
Jair (00:45:05):
Looking to you guys. All right.
Scott (00:45:06):
Thanks. Thanks for joining us.
Jair (00:45:08):
Yeah, no, thanks for having me.
Scott (00:45:17):
And welcome back to the ADSA Scientific Sessions. I'm here with my co-host, Dr. Marcos Enobi, welcome back Marcos. We also have guest Dr. Erickson from University of New Hampshire and his student Tess Stahl. So, and going to be in three weeks going for a PhD. So good luck with that. Thank you. All right. Listen Dr. Erickson, would you start us off, just kind of give us some background on yourself and who you are and what you guys are about?
Pete Erickson (00:45:47):
Okay. So I've been a professor at UNH for 26 years, going on 26 years. Professor of dairy management, extension, dairy specialist. A lot of research has been in the area of calf and heifer, and now we're getting into the transition cow work. So Tess came on board back for her masters back in 2017, and then worked with heifers there. And then we decided to go into the transition cow work primarily with jerseys because jerseys have some issues with colostrum, and that's really where we were going. Going to evaluate with us in this experiment. So
Scott (00:46:27):
Are you born and bred in New Englander?
Pete Erickson (00:46:28):
I most certainly am. I probably can tell by my accent a little bit.
Scott (00:46:33):
Exactly. Would you mind telling us just a little bit about Tess?
Pete Erickson (00:46:36):
So Tess came to us from Delaware Valley University. Did her masters with, with me studying sodium butyrate in post wean heifers. Did a large 12 week study and decided to stay on for her doctorate which the, this research was actually done during COVID, which made it another challenge for us. So we have two herds at UNH. We have a Holstein herd and a jersey herd. And this was primarily done with jerseys. Tess will be leaving us for a faculty position in a couple months.
Scott (00:47:13):
So, and you know where already, I guess? Can you tell us that? Rutgers. Oh, cool. The Big 10 School. I like that. Congratulations.
Tess (00:47:22):
Thank you.
Scott (00:47:24):
Tess, one by, by the way, I was gonna tell you, I spent some time in Bucks County, lived there for a while, and down in Newtown. So that's not all that far from Delaware Valley.
Tess (00:47:32):
No, No. Yeah. It's a beautiful area.
Scott (00:47:33):
Yeah, absolutely. Would you mind giving us kind of the hypothesis and objective of the study that we're gonna be talking about today?
Tess (00:47:41):
Sure, so Pete and I had talked about investigating this issue with colostrum yield in jerseys based on a paper that came out in JDS in 2018. The author is Gavin, and it came outta Washington State Vet School. But the cows were in Texas, and they did this very large trial. They looked at both primi, excuse me, primiparous, and YPs cows and all lot of factors that are influencing colostrum yield. And they had observed that a lot of the multiparous cows produced very low amounts of colostrum. They did see a seasonal effect of it. So primarily happening in the late fall and winter, and then picking back up again in the spring. So we, you know, they were really, weren't sure what was happening with it. They had hypothesized photoperiod, but they really weren't solid on anything else other than that. So he and I had talked about it. I had read in an endocrinology journal about the connection between hypocalcemia and the mammary epithelial cells and their ability to bring calcium into the mammary gland and how it's connected to osmolality.
Tess (00:49:00):
And so if there's low calcium, there's low yield, so not as much water coming in. And so we kind of thought maybe the dec ad diet would help, and there's really been no research evaluating levels of dec ad in jerseys, what would be appropriate for them. So we wanted to make those connections between can we really hone in on a level of dec A that would work for jerseys and help improve the yield. And the nicotinic acid part of the trial was due to work from UNH with Holsteins that saw 32 grams of day resulted in the best response for both the cows and the calves. They saw an increase in purine derivatives, so they thought microbial protein synthesis, they nicotinic acid is a known vasodilator, so more blood flow, more amino acid flow to the mammary gland. And they saw an increase in IgG concentration on that trial. So
Scott (00:50:01):
Is nicotinic acid also anti lipolytic? No, niacin is, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Pete Erickson (00:50:06):
Yeah. So this is another term for niacin.
Tess (00:50:09):
So it's okay. Yep.
Scott (00:50:10):
Oh,
Tess (00:50:11):
So with a little
Scott (00:50:12):
Different
Tess (00:50:13):
No, it's just the unprotected niacin.
Scott (00:50:15):
Okay, got it.
Scott (00:50:17):
So more of ruminal effect.
Tess (00:50:19):
Yes, yes. So a ruminal effect. Exactly. And then they saw that the calves were more feet efficient in the first three weeks of life. So something was improved with niacin supplementation that resulted in small intestine development in the calves, which was some pretty cool stuff. So we wanted to do both. Can we improve both colostrum quality and quantity? And we took the 32 and edited it for the metabolic body size of jerseys. So we wound up at 23 grams a day of nicotinic acid, and then I took the minus 80 dec ad, which is deemed optimal for Holsteins and cut it in half. No real science, just one to see if going something more towards zero would be better for the jersey breed. And that's what we had hoped would happen. Yeah. We would hope that we'd get the improvement in yield and quality. . So,
Marcos (00:51:19):
So it's pretty nice. The design that you have is pretty interesting. So especially when you talk about niacin and rolling rumen, because usually we focus more on the anti lippo effects. But getting into the results, I think that you saw some anti-politics results. Did we Less, less fat and more protein? Yes. So maybe we can go into the results and see your hypothesis behind the results.
Tess (00:51:50):
Sure. Yeah. So the, one of the first things that we did with the calves on day five of life was we did a xylose challenge. So to explain it a little bit, you supplement Delos. You take a blood sample before the supplementation, and then you put the delos in their morning milk, mix it in, remove their grain for the day, and take blood samples every few hours and until 12 hours. And we had seen the increase in circulating xylose concentration in the calves that came from nicotinic acid supplemented cows, which was pretty cool. And so now that was verifying that feed efficiency in the first three weeks that was seen with the Holstein calves
Marcos (00:52:33):
Kind of repeating the results. Yes.
Tess (00:52:36):
Yep. Just wanted to see was it true basically. And then since we had, we had observed the problem with yield as everyone else has seen, to with jerseys, and we had to put a minimum for colostrum. So calves received a minimum of two liters to enroll of maternal colostrum and up to a gallon and anything in between those two numbers. And we had to set that baseline because 10 cows produced less than two liters, so not enough to even feed the calf.
Scott (00:53:10):
And was that based on trying to get a certain amount of IGG into them? And if so, what was that amount?
Tess (00:53:15):
It was just to, yeah, so just enough to meet the baseline that they would need to meet the passive of transfer immunity.
Marcos (00:53:24):
Yeah. So we
Pete Erickson (00:53:24):
Tried, you know, standard operating procedures or give, give them four liters, give them a gallon approximately. And we basically had to go and say, all right, we had to have a cutoff somewhere because they had to get some, and some of her, one of her cows produced zero colostrum. So it was a bit of a challenge. So, and this is an ongoing problem,
Tess (00:53:46):
And we had, because of the results with the calves in the Holsteins, we had looked at a lot of the bioactive compounds that affect calf intestinal development. So lactoferrin, IGF one insulin and transforming growth factor beta one and two, just to see what did niacin do, what, what was improved. And so we really didn't see much difference in concentration, but we saw that there was a greater amount of lactoferrin fed to calves that came from nicotinic acid, supplemented cows.
Marcos (00:54:18):
Could you please educate now, give a us more background about that bioactive.
Tess (00:54:24):
Sure. Lac, why is important? So lactoferrin is causing cell proliferation, and so it's creating a more developed intestine, more absorptive cells. And so things can absorb faster in theory, and they would become more efficient, or you hope . And so that lactoferrin. And then with IGF one, kind of a similar mechanism of action we saw an interaction effect with the minus 40 with nicotinic acid cows providing the most IGF one to calves. And the minus 80 width was still pretty high. It just, the interaction was at the minus 40 width. So two things that help with calf intestinal development. So we saw that data, we were really excited, and then we hypothesize, okay, well that means they're going to be more feet efficient then. And we did not see the result in feed efficiency. So the minus 40 cals without and with nicotinic acid or niacin were equally as feet efficient. And then there was a decrease with the minus 80. So the only thing I can gather is that the minus 80 is too harsh of a DEC ad. And it we're kind of seeing some, not as bad, but some similar effects from when you feed a minus 180 milliequivalent per kilogram dry matter in Holsteins, they saw a lot of fetal programming. And so there might be something happening with that that's negating any benefits we're seeing in the intestinal development.
Marcos (00:55:59):
Okay. And in the field in general, what is the recommended dose of ika for jerseys?
Pete Erickson (00:56:05):
There is no, there is no, there is not . There is no, we're recommend we're gonna say based on her data minus 40.
Marcos (00:56:12):
Okay.
Tess (00:56:12):
So, but hopefully someone looks it into it further, because I wouldn't even say the 40 was the best.
Marcos (00:56:18):
So. Okay. Is that in the plan for the future?
Pete Erickson (00:56:20):
Well, so right now we're going to continue on with this, a similar study looking at various amounts. 23 grams appears to be a little too high. . So the next study will be zero, eight and 16 grams to see if we can figure out that's, that's studies due to get going in the fall.
Marcos (00:56:38):
I know. Always unprotected.
Pete Erickson (00:56:41):
Yep. Yeah. Yeah. That's what we've been, we've been using so
Tess (00:56:45):
So, yeah, when they did the Holstein work, the, the, they did incremental dosing and the 48 grams was too much. . And we saw some similar results with the 23 in jerseys. So that's why I hypothesized it probably was a little bit too much for the jersey. So, yeah.
Marcos (00:57:02):
So I read the after it's pretty complete. And you talk about some fatty acids specific. 16-19. Can you expand a little bit on that and the benefit?
Tess (00:57:12):
Yeah. I wish I had room to put it on the poster. There's a lot of data. ,
Scott (00:57:17):
There is a backside. Oh
Tess (00:57:19):
Yeah. I should have flipped it over. . So we had help from Mike Steele. Thank you Mike Steele. And he had helped us analyze the got the fatty acid profile in the colostrum. So we had from C20, C4 to C241 double bond. And we saw a lot of the effect of the DEC ad. So the minus 80, lowering a lot of our longer chain fatty acids. Okay. so a lot of the C18 and C20 is
Marcos (00:57:50):
Oh, more essential probably. Yeah.
Tess (00:57:53):
Seems
Pete Erickson (00:57:53):
To be that way. Yeah.
Tess (00:57:54):
So I don't, there's not a lot of work with that in how that those fatty acids are impacting the calf. hopefully someone can look at that . Maybe GU is going too soon, but we really don't know. Is it good Okay. Or bad that they're lowered. But we did see the dec a really, primarily a lot of significance there in lowering these fatty acids. Very
Marcos (00:58:20):
Nice. Yeah. I do remember the trials from Dr. Staple from university to Florida. Yeah. That he got really nice results supplementing essential fatty acids. Yeah. In baby calf. Yes. Really nice. Yep. Results very good. Yeah.
Scott (00:58:34):
Tess has been very interesting. I think. Marcus, I think we could do a full episode on this..
Scott (00:58:39):
We're gonna have to wrap this one up. When do you start your career over there at Rutgers?
Tess (00:58:45):
Fingers crossed for September one.
Scott (00:58:47):
September one. Yes. All right. Well, I will be there on November 4th. Tailgating .
Tess (00:58:52):
Okay.
Scott (00:58:53):
There's an Ohio State Rutgers game that I'll be attending, so if you wanna want to come on out, you're invited.
Tess (00:59:00):
Right. Thank you
Scott (00:59:00):
Anyway, All right. Listen, thank you for joining us today, this, thank
Pete Erickson (00:59:03):
You very much.
Tess (00:59:04):
Thank you. Very thank
Speaker 6 (00:59:05):
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Scott (00:59:37):
Welcome back everyone. We're here with Vinicius Machado from Texas Tech. My co-host. I got two of them. Vinicius , we usually just go with one. This is so important. You're so impressive that we had to have two . So we're, we're going with Dr. Jeff Elliott and Dr. Pete Morrow. They're both technical service representatives from Balchem Vinicius . Would you mind just giving me kind of a little bit of background on yourself? What's your pedigree in terms of education and kind of your path to where you are today?
Vinicius (01:00:09):
All right. I'm originally from Brazil and I got my degree in veterinary medicine in the Federal University of Goaz. That was 2008, right around when I came to the US I worked under the supervision of Dr. Rodrigo Bcao at Cornell University. Got my PhD there in 20, 20 15, and then did two years of dairy medicine residency there on an ambulatory setting. And once I finished that in 2017, I went to Texas Tech to get an assistant professor position there. And I've been there since then.
Scott (01:00:55):
Okay. Yeah. Very well. So now I was looking at the title of your presentation, which was Management of Beef on Dairy Calves. Should we raise them differently? And so that's interesting. Can, can you gimme a little bit of an idea of should we, should we raise them differently? And that's
Vinicius (01:01:12):
Kind of like, once I was like preparing for the presentation, I was like, oh, that was a mistake to give that type of title. Because once you go to a presentation where you have like a question in the title Yeah. You assume that the presenter is going to give you the answer at least, like some good ideas about the answer. And then really I was like, oh, I, I don't have answers. Like, to be honest, like this is,
Scott (01:01:34):
Isn't that typical research you come back with more answers than question or questions than answers.
Vinicius (01:01:38):
Yeah. Then, but you still expect to have some answers out of it. Sure. But I think we're such an initial stage, at least on the research side Yeah. Like to learn how these caps are cuz right before you change management, like you actually have to understand what are the goals, right. Of what are the goals of raising these caps. And the co-author of the abstract and my colleague at collaborator at Texas Tech, Mike Ballou we, we talk, I talked a lot with him about this kind of things. And like calf management is not really my bread and butter. I work more on the reproductive sides, but, but Mike works a lot with calves and talking to him and we, we seem to understand that the goal of raising dairy beef beef cal beef on dairy calves, it's it's a lot more short term than like raising replacement heifers.
Vinicius (01:02:42):
because replacement, when you're replacing raising replacement heifers, you're thinking about like how they're going to do when they reach lactation with this beef on dairy calves. All you want to do is to get them on the right way at the right age so you can sell them. Right. So, the owner of the calves, like, they don't own, like, they don't retain ownership until they go to the feed lot or when they get to the feed lot. So there's really this disconnect on what can we do better or differently during the, even like pre-weaning period that you have so many early life experiences that can impact their performance when they're mature, at least in terms of dairy cow. And we have no idea how that's impacting their performance in the, in the feed lot later on. And then, like when you think about health issues, especially related to liver abscesses, which seems to be a really big concern I guess, of the industry right now. That's some of the, during my presentation, I explore some of those possibilities or some of those things that happen differently in the calf ranch that it's not happening, for example, on the cow calf operation.
Jeff (01:04:03):
Yeah. I definitely want to come back to the liver abscesses later. But first, since the dairy farmers are not retaining ownership, are they not doing things maybe from colostrum management or just when that kef is born that's affecting that kef when she hits that beef operation?
Vinicius (01:04:23):
Yeah, I think historically I would say I want to, I don't want to use this word like don't get me wrong, but like, let's say that the dairy farmer used to neglect the bulk cows, right? I think historically that was the trend. Now I think things had improved a lot more. And to be honest, like you go to dairies and the cows that are bred with beef semen, they're marked cuz now like they're, the dairy farmers are like paying lot more attention to those calves. And they're actually, I think they're doing as good with those beef calves as they're doing with their calves. So I don't think that's necessarily a concern. But again, like it, they sell them to a cap raising facility usually. Like you still see some owners, like especially larger farms retaining ownership of those beef and dairy calves. But usually they just sell to calf ranch and the calf ranch. Really what they want to do is just like get those calves to the right weight the cheapest way possible, which does not necessarily, that is the bad way of doing things, but really like, I don't know if we're optimizing or if we really understand what are the things that we can do differently so we can have those calves perform better in later on when they go to the feedlot.
Jeff (01:05:52):
Do you think there's any opportunity for these dairies to hang on to the kef, maybe through weaning? And I don't know if you've looked at the finances, but could they get more for those calves? Because if they haven't transported them, they know they've got good colostrum into 'em. Is there an advantage to doing that? Or
Vinicius (01:06:11):
I wonder, I really don't know if that would be something they would be, because like from what I know, most people, they just run out of space in their dairies. I think they would have to put up a lot of like infrastructure to hold, like more of those calves. I've seen, like I was in a dairy the other day that the guy just built a bunch of like group pans. So instead of having individual hutches, which is what he has been doing for his heifer calves, he just built up like he has like those super hutches and have group pans of like, I think it was like five or six calves per pound. And that's like a little less costly. And he's holding for on those calves. And I think he's actually holding until selling to a feedlot. I don't think it's just, just through weaning. I think he holds until like the calves is about like I don't know, like six months of age and then sells to a feed lot.
Pete (01:07:10):
In the traditional beef industry agent source verification has become very important. Do you see that coming as a possibility for these dairy calves?
Vinicius (01:07:18):
What do you mean by that? Like
Pete (01:07:20):
Where they'd be born and you know, what, when, how old they are versus, you know, just a guest birth date?
Vinicius (01:07:29):
Well, I think this is like, I feel that like if we go use the word traceability, I guess I think that's way easier to do that in the dairy farm than in the beef, right? Because on the dairy that we just collect data all the time. Like in the dairy farm, like there's data collected on like in some areas they even do like what was the total total serum protein of that calf all the way through all health related events. Some farms they collect like birth weight, winning weight. So they know like what was the average daily gain, different times of the of the lifecycle of the cal. So there's so much data and I think that's one of the big advantages of the beef on dairy calves versus the traditional beef animals is just the traceability, at least on data.
Vinicius (01:08:20):
It's very strong on the dairy side and not so much on beef. So I, what I like to say is that like we have to find a way that we can correlate, not correlate, but like link all the information that we have during that like calf hood part of the life cycle with the performance later on in the feed lot cuz the feed lot also collect a lot of data, but I don't think they collect and it's just hard to collect data like on individual animals just because they're all in group fans. Like you might have like some health real health related events, but not so much on like feeding take or individual weights. Right? But once we, that's probably how research should go towards that, that path that we can understand what are the, if the performance during your early life and health events and so on is associated with the performance later in life. And so if so, like how can we change to optimize the production of those animals
Pete (01:09:26):
So we could use the abundant data available and then, and in case of dairy, they would even know the sire. Yeah. They'd have sire information, which would be pretty unique. Absolutely. Use that to create a more valuable product, even if it's just to the feedlots. or if they could retain ownership possibly the end product.
Vinicius (01:09:44):
And again, like I feel that it's understanding what is the, what is being valued, right? Like on, if I'm on, if I'm a dairy farmer, right? Like my priority it's to milk cows to make those cows get bread or get pregnant on time, get get good milk production and then dairy, or at least in the past, like I wanna say like maybe five years you have this opportunity with those beef on dairy calves that they can get like a better price for those one day old cabs. And that's kind of, but that's the value they're getting. Like if they're gonna get any more value on all the data they are collecting, I really don't know if the beef part of this cycle is really interested in that. And that's when I was like, they're probably not interested because they don't understand the value.
Vinicius (01:10:39):
And I think only third research that we can really say like, all right, so these calves here, they don't have like let's say they double their and that's like a, a benchmark that we use for replacement hackers. Oh, we have to double their birth weight by weaning, right? Is that really relevant for beef from dairy calves? If it is like, I think then we can market those animals a little better and maybe like holding them like until their winged might be something that's gonna be of an economical advantage for the dairy farmer as well. Almost like a certified preconditioning program. I guess that would be like the way to go, right? Because right now, like we really don't know what to value cuz we don't understand what's important. Yeah.
Jeff (01:11:23):
Ish. Just one last question before we go. You talked about liver abscesses and of course we're, we're kind of in that business . Are you finding the liver abscesses, is it greater in these beef on dairy animals versus regular beef? What's
Vinicius (01:11:41):
That? That’s my understanding that those beef on dairy calves, they have a higher prevalence of liver abscesses at it's laughter. And any thoughts on greater why that is? Yeah, so it's greater than just hosting steers, for example, and greater than traditional beef, right? So those purebred, let's, let's say Angus just for the purpose of this. So, and the, we really don't understand exactly where that's coming from. So it became like a game of like, oh, let's blame the calf the calf ranches because they're raising, cuz if you compare the differences, there are so many differences. So those calves are transported early in life. They are usually on a restricted liquid feed diet, right? So they're not drinking milk as much as they could if they were just with their dams, right? Those calves are weed, or at least they stopped receiving milk about like, let's say 60 days of age.
Vinicius (01:12:47):
Some people even do like 35 days of feeding milk. And if you compare that again, like to the traditional beef system, they stay with their dams for like the first six months and they're eating pasture while those calves in like those beef and dairy calves they're eating they're eating cap starter as solid feed and they're eating more cal starter than hosting calves and earlier too. So they're eating a lot more of that and cap starter, like a capstar like me. I'm not a nutritionist, so don't get too hard on me on this. But my understanding, like the capstar, is like pretty comparable to a finishing diet in terms of energy. So I think a lot of people just think that we're preconditioning those calves to develop room no acidosis when they get to the feed lot.
Vinicius (01:13:46):
And because like, oh, they get, and we know ru no acidosis is a risk factor for liver abscesses, but again, like we don't know any of that. Could, could it be genetics? It can be that too. So we're still like trying to figure out and understand what's making that be such a problem. But again, I was talking to a professor, he was at uc Davis, so he, a lot of his current data is from de at Pedro CarVal and he's now in csu Florida State. He is we a beef guy and he is doing some work with beef on dairy animals as well. And while we hear about like, oh, 60% of some 50 like 60 50% of beef on dairy animals are having like liver abscesses his incidents was like 2%, 1% of beef on dairy.
Vinicius (01:14:43):
So it's seems to have like some regional differences too that we really don't understand where that's coming from. We know that the feeding behavior of those beef on dairy animals, at least compared to Holstein steers, it's very different. So they drink more, like during the pre-weaning period, they drink more milk, they grow more, I, I'm not sure if they're growing more because, only because they drink more milk. I think they're also like are eating more capstar and that's just based on what we hear. But we just did a study and those were we animals and only 10 animals per group and that we were not even like interested in comparing those. There were just like two different studies. One was with beef on dairy cat I was gonna call it steers cuz they're a little older, like four months of age.
Vinicius (01:15:40):
And we had some hosting steers as well. And we were like, the study was we were developing, not developing, but testing some different diet testing some different diets on development of liver abscesses. And it was with a model to it is a challenge model for the induction of liver abscesses. The beef on dairy calves had 80% liver abscesses. By the end of the study. The hosting steers only 30% and they were on the same diet. We knew that those, like, then the data showed us that those beef and dairy steers were eating lot more dry matter than the whole steers. And because the challenge model you have like different cycles of like changing from a basal diet to a seddon diet and then basal diet again, you see that in the first change from basal to a seddon diet, both groups of animals, they decrease dry matter intake and then they recover. And then once, once the diet was changing again, only the hosting steers were dropping dry matter. The beef on dairy steers kept eating and they never dropped again until they were orally inoculated with bacteria. So I think they're just like, it's just a, not gonna say like completely different animal, but they have different behaviors. There's definitely some unknowns to this. Yeah. And we are again, like, we're pretty much like managing them the same way. Yeah. And I think we should manage them differently, but I don't know exactly how.
Scott (01:17:33):
Well, I'm sure you're gonna figure it out one day and guess very important subject and obviously more to know. Benicia, wanna thank you for joining us today. This has been very interesting and it's a great one to end the week on. All right, this is the last one this week. It's been a successful week, right? We've heard some great scientists, we heard from some great science, great scientists, great students. It's just been an amazing week. Want to thank our loyal listeners for coming along with us this week on our journey. Hope you learned something, hope you had some fun. And I hope to see you next time here. It's real science exchange where it's always happy hour and you're always among friends.
Speaker 6 (01:18:12):
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