The Balchem technical team selected abstracts of interest from the 2024 American Dairy Science Association meetings to feature on this episode of the Real Science Exchange.
The Balchem technical team selected abstracts of interest from the 2024 American Dairy Science Association meetings to feature on this episode of the Real Science Exchange.
Whole Cottonseed and Fatty Acid Supplementation Affect Production Responses During the Immediate Postpartum in Multiparous Dairy Cows
Guests: Jair Parales-Giron and Dr. Adam Lock, Michigan State University (0:58)
The experiment had four treatment groups: no fat supplement, 10% of the diet from whole cottonseed, a 60:30 mix of calcium salts of palmitic and oleic acid at 1.5% of the diet dry matter, and a combination of both whole cottonseed and fatty acid supplement. Energy-corrected milk was increased by almost six kilograms in cows fed the whole cottonseed diet, with a similar increase of more than five kilograms in the fatty acid-supplemented cows during the first 24 days of lactation. However, no further improvement was observed when both whole cottonseed and fatty acids were fed together. The increase in milk production was not accompanied by increased weight loss or loss of body condition.
Effect of Close-Up Metabolizable Protein Supply on Colostrum Yield, Composition, and Immunoglobulin G Concentration
Guests: Dr. Trent Westhoff and Dr. Sabine Mann, Cornell University (17:06)
In this study, cows were assigned to one of two diets 28 days before expected calving: one that provided 39 grams of metabolizable protein (MP) per pound of dry matter and one that supplied 51 grams of MP per pound of dry matter. This represents about 100% of the MP requirement and 140% of the MP requirement, respectively. Diets were formulated to supply equal amounts of methionine and lysine. Cows entering their second parity who were fed the elevated MP diet produced two liters more colostrum than second parity cows fed the control MP diet. This effect was not observed in cows entering their third or higher parity. Overall, higher MP supply did not impact colostrum quantity or quality. Dr. Westhoff also highlights an invited review he authored regarding nutritional and management factors that influence colostrum production and composition. The MP research has also been published; links to both are below.
MP paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022030224010774
Invited review: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022030224000341
Colostrum—More than Immunoglobulin G (IgG): Colostrum Components and Effects on the Calf
Guest: Dr. Sabine Mann, Cornell University (41:23)
Dr. Mann presented this abstract at an ADSA symposium titled “Colostrum: The Role It Plays In Calf Health, Development, and Future Productivity.” Her focus was to give credit to the importance of IgG while reminding the symposium audience of the importance of other colostrum components like bioactive factors and nutrients. There is potential that measuring IgG could be a marker for all the other colostrum components that have been transferred as well. We have excellent and cost-effective ways to measure IgG calf-side, but very few bioactive factors can be measured as easily. Heat treatment of colostrum to control bacterial contamination has a detrimental effect on many of the non-IgG components of colostrum. More data is needed to learn how impactful this may be to the calf. Dr. Mann details parts of the heat treatment process that farmers can check to make sure heat treatment is having as little impact as possible. She also would like to have a way to measure the antimicrobial activity of colostrum and the concentrations of insulin and IGF-1 in colostrum on-farm. Lastly, she reminds the audience that we can focus a lot on making the best quality colostrum via transition cow management and best management practices for colostrum harvest, but we still need to get it into the calf. Colostrum must get into calves cleanly and safely, at an adequate amount, and at an optimal temperature.
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Scott Sorrell (00:00:07):
Good evening everyone, and welcome to the Real Science Exchange, the pubcast where leading scientists and industry professionals meet over a few drinks to discuss the latest ideas and trends in animal nutrition. Now, tonight's gonna be a little bit different. In this episode, we're gonna be reviewing some presentations that were given at this year's ADSA. Now, the problem with the ADSA is there's such great content and, and presentations there that you just can't get to all of 'em. So with that in mind, we ask our technical team to scour the booklet and come up with some of the best content out there that we could share with you, our audience. And so that's what we're gonna be doing in this episode. We're gonna be going over four or five different presentations and papers that were presented at this year's ADSA for your Enjoyment. So, enjoy. Clay and I are here with a couple Spartans. Today we've got Dr. Adam Locke from Michigan State, and Jair Parales-Giron, who is a a PhD candidate at Michigan State as well. We're gonna be reviewing, was it, was it a a presentation that you did? Jair?
Jair Parales-Giron (00:01:23):
I did both, but the abstract of the will be checking today is the overall presentation. Nevertheless, we can go through some results of the, that I present in the postal session if you want to as well.
Clay Zimmerman (00:01:36):
So this was one of the Spotlight poster presentations? Correct. Where you, where you did the three?
Jair Parales-Giron (00:01:41):
No, I didn't do the three minutes, the spotlight presentation, but I didn't, but I present, the poster in the, I was part of the competition. I was in the semifinal
Clay Zimmerman (00:01:55):
Oh, okay.
Jair Parales-Giron (00:01:55):
For the poster competition. So that's why probably you are remembering the, the poster.
Clay Zimmerman (00:02:00):
Okay. Excellent. Okay,
Scott Sorrell (00:02:01):
Nice. Now, the the title of your poster was “Whole Cotton Seed and Fatty Acid Supplementation Impact Production Responses during the Immediate Postpartum in Multiparous Dairy Cows”. And so why don't you set that up for us? What was the hypothesis behind the study and the methodology you used in the study as well?
Jair Parales-Giron (00:02:24):
Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. And it's great to be with you guys again. This is the third year in a row. It's, it's, it's pretty, like a regular in the podcast. So our idea was revisiting some concepts because, eh, the latest or the new report checking oil seed supplementation in rehabilitation cows is from the nineties. And especially they were using cotton seed after the first three weeks of post Calvin. So we are trying to supplement fatty acids to increase production responses and reduce negative energy balance, especially during the first three weeks post carbon. But also, we wanna check if there were any potential for using full cotton seed during that period with its own preliminary studies and some studies here checking different inclusion levels, both in mid lactation cows. And our idea was giving continuity to that work, but also using oil seeds.
Jair Parales-Giron (00:03:29):
And in our case, well, cotton seeds, that that's something that can be obtained and use really here in the, in the Midwest. So our intention and our plan was feeding well cotton seed and fatty acids as well. So for that purpose, we use 52 multiple cows in a randomized block design with a two by two factorial arrangement of treatments. So we have a control treatment without any supplementation. So no fat, no cotton seed. We have a treatment that include 10% of cotton seed in the diet. Other treatment that was, eh, eh, supplemented with fatty acid, eh 60 30 mix of tic oleic at 1.5% of diet dry mi. And our lay the, the last treatment was the combination of both 10% of whole cotton seed and 1.5% of, eh, the fatty acid mix. So our idea was delivering the same amount of fatty acids coming from the whole cotton seed or coming from the fatty acid supplement. So we've been working with, with those mixes, and we have seen that those mixes could increase production responses, and especially the 60 30 T could have some positive effects. Also, not only increasing meal production responses, but reducing body weight loss. But also we wanna check if there is, there's any potential for checking and including consistency during those periods. And that was our, our, our hypothesis. So having increase increases in production responses and probably obtaining an interaction between those two, improving production responses.
Clay Zimmerman (00:05:21):
What were the differences in dietary fat levels between these, these four treatments?
Jair Parales-Giron (00:05:27):
The control diet was about 2%. And because we went to allele, like 1.5% coming from ton seed or a fatty acid supplementation. So the ton seed diet was about 3.5%. The fatty acid, about the same content, and the combo, the combination was about 5%.
Scott Sorrell (00:05:49):
And just for my clarification, were those free fatty acids or in the form of triglycerides, and does it matter?
Jair Parales-Giron (00:05:55):
No, it was a calcium salt. It was a calcium salt of palm and oil.
Clay Zimmerman (00:06:02):
Yep. So what what were the results of this study?
Jair Parales-Giron (00:06:07):
Eh, we found some pretty cool results in terms of interactions between eh, fat seed supplementation and whole cotton seed supplementation. We see an increase feeding them individually, well, cotton seed or fatty acid, but in some meal variables, we see an improve afforded improvement. We went, eh, fat both, so eh, alco seed increased energy corrected milk by almost six kilos compared to the control diet. The fatty acid supplementation, the energy corrected meal increase was around five kilos. But when we fed together the, we didn't see any further improvement.
Clay Zimmerman (00:06:53):
So how does the, how is the fatty acid profile of whole cotton seed compare to your fatty acid supplement?
Jair Parales-Giron (00:07:02):
Yeah, whole cotton seed is reaching linoleic acid, and I think that the second one is tic and later goes the oleic. So our fatty our fat supplement was 60% tic acid and 30% ole. So there are some differences in the, in the fatty acid profile of the, of the feeding ingredients that we use to test our hypothesis.
Clay Zimmerman (00:07:27):
Were you surprised by any of results?
Jair Parales-Giron (00:07:31):
I am is a little bit surprised about not seeing further improvement using both. But we've been discussing with Dr. Doc about it, and there are some logical explanations for not seeing further improvement. And nevertheless, we are still exploring and checking some, some, and doing and running some other analysis that could give us a, I know a better idea what could happen there. But we, but we have some, some, some good explanations for, for tackling those results.
Dr. Adam Lock (00:08:05):
I, I think some of the, the interesting things are, if you look back, sort of like dogma or historical thoughts on this, is about don't feed fat to fresh cows. And I think we, he has done a series of studies now showing the potential benefits of specific fatty acids in that transition or early lactation cow. And related to that was one about, you know, lower fat diets or oil seeds maybe being a concern. But when, hi, hiya fed 10, this was 10% whole cotton seed in the diet. We got six, six and a half percent six, six and a half kilos of energy corrected milk over the control and similar amount, look about five and a half to six, I think, on the, with the 60 30 supplement, which we've done a lot of work with that 60 30 coming to collect. So there's some very good potential benefits there. Of course, one of the questions then is, what happened to body weight? You know, did the cows lose more body weight? Remind me, Jair, that they didn't, we didn't see any differences in body weight loss in this study.
Jair Parales-Giron (00:09:12):
And I have the answer for you. We didn't see any effects on, on, on boy weight loss and boy condition score loss.
Clay Zimmerman (00:09:19):
What about dry matter intake?
Jair Parales-Giron (00:09:22):
Dry matter intake? That, that was something that was pretty interesting as well, because usually, and I always had the idea idea like what cottons it could be depressing dry matter intake and your relaxation cost. And actually we observe a main of, well, cotton seed increasing, eh, dry intake by two kilograms per day compared to the diets that were un supplemented with cotton seed.
Clay Zimmerman (00:09:47):
So, so a six kilo fat corrected milk response and energy corrected milk response. Small differences in dry matter intake, no difference in body weight change. Where, where'd the milk come from?
Jair Parales-Giron (00:10:03):
We are still feeling more energy and more and more fatty acids coming from the cotton seed diet compared to a controlled diet. So that's part of the, of, of the, the explanation.
Dr. Adam Lock (00:10:16):
I think that's the, that's the big part of the explanation. I think the poster that Jair presented was on the digestibility results from this study. His oral presentation was the production results. You know, if you feed a supple additional fatty acids in the diet that are highly digestible, which I, such as these two sources then you are going to get more nutrients into that cow right. As well. So I think that's where we're getting the explanations there. You know, there are some examples in the literature where you may feed a supplemental fat fatty acid in the diet, but not get more energy into how, if they're not absorbed or, or they have a very poor digestibility. So in this case you know, fatty acid absorption went up, Jair, showed that in his poster which is probably one of the big reasons that we're seeing those benefits here as well.
Clay Zimmerman (00:11:18):
Excellent. Do, did you follow the cows? This is first 24 days had milk, correct? So did you, did you follow the cows longer? Did the, did those did the production differences continue?
Jair Parales-Giron (00:11:35):
Yeah, we, we, we check our carry over effect. We check carry over effect of treatments. I think our carry period was like three weeks after seizing feeding the treatments, but we didn't see carrier effects of the diet.
Dr. Adam Lock (00:11:54):
And that's actually different to other studies. So, you know, it, it is interesting to think through some of those differences. You know, when we've looked at that 60-30 Pika Lake blend before we saw like four kilos of energy corrected milk carrier through the next seven weeks of lactation. And we seen benefits again of it if we continued with the, that that fatty acid supplementation, we got added on effects again. So trying to think through why we may not have seen carry over effects in this study. That's something we need to need to dig into more. But of course we pulled back, you know, if we'd carried on with these supplements or the, or the cotton seed in, into that peak diet, I think we would definitely continue to see production benefits.
Jair Parales-Giron (00:12:44):
Yeah, I, I think, I think that's, that's an important thing. The lo because our carryover diet was saying this like fat free because we didn't have any whole cotton seed and any fat supplement during that carryover period and that carryover diet, usually our diets have some whole cotton seed, but we couldn't include whole cotton because it was one of our treatments. So we want to take that, that effect out from the equation. But yes, probably we have seen the 60-30 having carrier effects and probably having a, a carrier diet with a higher, eh, content of fatty acids. We could see that, that as well.
Dr. Adam Lock (00:13:28):
So for me, clay, the biggest head scratches still right now is why we didn't see an added benefit of having boat, you know, when we fed the cotton sea down the fatty acid. Right. we thought initially we'd get an added on benefit, but there's a number of things there to look at more, whether it's on the digestibility side or whether I, you know, one thought I have is we're maybe limiting on other nutrients to help continue to drive more milk fat. There's a, there's a whole host of interesting areas of research there, even around, around the am the amino acid side as well. What other op you know, what opportunities do we have to, to maybe try and work out? Could we have got more of a response? But right now, you know, there's some good choices there depending on, you know, what market you're in, what availability you have of different supplements or, or oil seeds. I think, I think, you know, this work and other work we've done has helped to sort of revisit the whole oil seed area in general here as well.
Clay Zimmerman (00:14:31):
Yeah. Yeah. Excellent.
Scott Sorrell (00:14:36):
Well, Jair, yet another very interesting topic. And I want to thank you for joining us once again. Before you go though, I understand that you'll be hopefully graduating with your PhD next summer. And so I'm just kind of curious what your plans are after that.
Jair Parales-Giron (00:14:55):
Okay. If everything goes well, and if doctor, doctor doesn't have any new ideas for testing in the future. So that's, yeah, that's the plan, eh, but yes, I, I really like, I don't know. I am, I am a passionate person about research, so probably doing research and development, but also I like work with the, with the producers and visiting the producers and solve problems and doing troubleshooting at, at the farm level. So that's something that I really like. I am passionate person about research and development, but also I love, I love applied nutrition. So probably those two be those two would be like the two areas that I, I am interested in, in, in continuing my, my professional life.
Scott Sorrell (00:15:46):
Well, I'm sure you're gonna be successful, whatever it is you choose to do. So thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I appreciate you once again. And, and, and Adam, thank you for joining us as well.
Jair Parales-Giron (00:15:55):
Appreciate it. Thank you.
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Scott Sorrell (00:17:14):
And in this segment, we're here with Dr. Sabine Mann from Cornell University and Dr. Trent Westoff from Cornell University as well. Now Sabine, I'd like to start off, why don't you just tell us a little bit about yourself.
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:17:28):
Yeah, thank you for the invitation for today's recording of those ADSA presentations we gave. Always glad to talk about, about one of my favorite topics. I'm an associate professor here in the veterinary college at Cornell. I lead my own research program, but really the predominant time is spent doing clinical service to farms in the surrounding areas and teaching veterinary students, which is a great way of always knowing what the questions are out there. And that's one of the reasons why we're researching colostrum because it's commonly something that is brought up on farms as a topic that folks want to know more about. It's an old topic, it's been around forever. We've talked about colostrum for a very long time, and still we find that there is more to learn. And Dr. Westoff recently graduated PhD in my lab took some of this research on and has developed a very keen interest in this topic as well. And I'm glad that he's able to join us today as well and talk about his research that contributes to the knowledge in this topic.
Scott Sorrell (00:18:29):
Yeah, perfect. Speaking of Trent, would you mind telling us just a little bit more about Trent and, and, and how he came to your lab and maybe some fun, fun facts about Trent
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:18:40):
While I like to swim in lakes and don't want to know about the fish that are in there, Trent likes to fish in the lakes and he continuously wants to tell me about how big they are, and I have to always stop him 'cause I really want, don't wanna know about the fish. How did Trent come to my lab? He, I reached out to a few of my colleagues in the field including Dr. Lance Bomgar, who I have to credit with finding Trent. Trent was very adventurous in becoming my first PhD student. And we kind of developed the program in my lab together. It's fantastic to have a a partner in crime to focus on what is, you know, what is relevant, what can we work on, what is applicable in the field. And he's been in my lab as a PhD student for five years and has recently graduated as a postdoc now finishing up some of the work that we've done together. And then he will go on to do great things in the industry. And I look forward to watching, watching him grow in that role as well.
Scott Sorrell (00:19:43):
Yeah. Excellent. Yeah. So welcome Trent. Trent, you gave an oral presentation at this year's A DSA and that was titled Effects of Close Up Metabolizable Protein Supply on Colostrum Yield Composition and IgG concentration. Can you kind of give us just kind of an overview of that trial? What was the hypothesis, protocol, et cetera?
Trent Westoff (00:20:08):
Yeah, thanks for the invitation to be here today, Scott. Super excited to be talking about colostrum transition cow nutrition as it's really two of my passions and something that I've really enjoyed learning about over my time and my PhD and something that we continue to work on now. Yeah. So when we think about CLO management programs or how much colostrum Macau gives, we know that there's variability associated in it throughout the times of the year, especially going into the fall and winter months in North America. And we come and hear that, commonly hear that as an issue this time of year. So we are really interested over the course of my PhD and this probably started even before I arrived here at Cornell of understanding what are some of those factors that influence claustrum production, primarily the yield and composition of the claustrum that those cows give.
Trent Westoff (00:20:56):
And we wanna be able to create strategies to be able to implement or impact colostrum programs on farm. So over the course of my PhD, we started in an observational study where we worked with farms around the state of New York and we looked at all these different factors, nutrition management, individual cow factors, and we started to learn very quickly that there's so many different variables that are associated with colostrum production. And that's something that we knew from the literature, but we just provided additional evidence on multiple dairy farms in a different geographical location. And it's really started to expand our knowledge of different factors that influence colostrum production. But now to take that next step forward, I'm primarily interested in, in very passionate about finding solutions that can be implemented on farm to make ground level impacts on farm. And that's kind of why we've focused more towards the, the management of farms as well as the nutrition.
Trent Westoff (00:21:50):
So in this specific abstract that we presented at ADSA, we were interested in looking at the effect of metabolizable protein supply fed during the closeup period. So we hypothesized that increasing the metabolizable protein supply of this study would alter the colostrum yield as well as the composition that those cows are given. So it'll just give us a brief study design. So we enrolled multiparous Holstein cows, 96 of them, and at 28 days before expected calving, we randomly assign those cows to one of two prepartum diets. So those diets were formulated to supply 85 grams of metabolizable protein per kilogram dry matter, or 39 grams per pound of dry matter, or an increased supply of metabolizable protein at 113 grams of metabolizable protein per kilogram dry matter, which would equal approximately 51 grams of metabolizable protein per pound. So we're also interested in, in removing the confounding effects of methionine and lysine supply. As we know the importance of methionine and lysine, there's tons of great literature. I think our nutritionist and our people in the field understand the importance of methionine and lysine throughout lactation. But, but definitely during this transition period. So we went ahead and removed those confounding effects by balancing both of those diets to supply equal amounts of methionine and lysine. And we formulated those at 1.24 and 3.84 grams of grams of, of methionine and lysine per ml of metabolizable energy
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:23:26):
Tr before you, before you go further, how do those numbers compare to what would be, what most people would do in the field or maybe look at as required for the lysine and the timing?
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:23:37):
And, and just because we're hot, can you also a little bit talk about why we chose the levels of MP that we chose? Just to give a bit of background for those that are listening?
Trent Westoff (00:23:48):
For sure. So to, to answer your question, Jeff, those are probably a little bit higher than would typically be seen in lactating diets. But when we were going and designing these diets, there's not really good recommendations or requirements for prepartum cow. So we went ahead and balanced our control diet or the lower MP diet at that 85 grams of MP per kilogram dry matter. And we did that to meet the Cornell, the CNCPS MP requirements during that closeup period. So we're at around that a hundred percent of MP requirements. So we're not shorting these cows metabolizable protein by means of our models. And then we went ahead and increased that to an elevated level, and that's gonna be approximately 140% of model requirements. Which is thanks to being for asking that question. That's really good to help people understand those differences between those two diets.
Trent Westoff (00:24:44):
And we did that with two main sources of protein. He treated soybean meal and a blood meal based protein supplement. And then we took the high level of that high diet and we just took the, the, the lower diet and added room protective methionine and lysine into those diets to match that of the high diet. So to directly answer your question, Jeff, that's probably a little bit higher than what we would typically see in lactating cow diets or those values that we're, are, we're typically talking about but in our diet formulation strategy. And because we don't have good recommendations at this point for that prepartum cow that's how we went about the, the diet formulation.
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:25:26):
Yeah. So when we tried to come up with useful levels of MP to test, we wanted to make sure we are not actually restricting these cows on protein. 'cause We, we know that there is detrimental effects. So that, so we knew that our control group was gonna be approximately a hundred percent of estimated requirements, and then we wanted to see if we elevated the supply of MP to, you know, having a step that's significant to observe a biological effect here would we then see what we thought in our hypothesis was gonna happen? So trying to make sure we weren't gonna supply just a hundred and 105 or 110%, which is maybe too small of a step to see this biological effect. And then if we were to see the outcomes we're hoping for, then we could work on titrating down worse potentially, you know, that, that that point where we would see the biological effects. And dialing back a little bit on that MP potentially. So that's how we came up with the original levels. There's kind of older research focusing not on mp 'cause that's a, a newer concept, right? So we really thought we needed to focus on MP and and providing people with, with newer information on the relationship between colossal synthesis and protein supply and a transition cow.
Trent Westoff (00:26:48):
And I think that this, that decision when we made that at the time, we had lots of conversations about trying to understand, you know, we're currently recommending around that 1200 grams per day based off of the CNCPS model as what we believe that requirement for that Prepartum cow is. And it really depends on what your outcome of interest is. A lot of times we're evaluating based off of early lactation milk production, primarily during the first three weeks of lactation. So a larger scope of this study was to really try to refine some of these MP requirements or optimal levels, so to say, to feed during that transition period. Looking at colostrum obviously is the, the topic of interest for today's conversation. But, you know, the grand scope or the greater scope of this presentation was to really evaluate that cow throughout the entire transition period and see how we transition, transition her into early lactation and then approaching peak lactation.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:27:41):
So now I've got some questions on that to what, you know, Sabine was referring to, but maybe before, can you just give us an overview of the results, what you determined?
Trent Westoff (00:27:52):
Yeah. So in terms of CLO production those cows were fed for that 28 days before expected calving. And then within eight hours of calving, we harvested colostrum. Those cows went through the parlor just as they would on a commercial dairy farm. We collected the weight and then we collected samples for fat protein, lactose and IgG concentration. So we observed an interesting treatment by parody interaction for colostrum yield, such that those cows that were entering their second parody and fed the elevated metabolizable protein supply produced approximately two liters more colostrum compared to those cows that were fed that lower control level of mp. But when we look at those cows that are entering their third or greater lactation we did not see a yield effect by increasing the metabolizable protein supply. So when we compare this to what is known we know that cows in their second lactation produce more colostrum than those older cows.
Trent Westoff (00:28:52):
However, there's very little understanding how nutrition influences colostrum production in general, but very, very little information understood about how it impacts it in different parody groups. So we find that as a very interesting result of this study but one that we would like to see additional findings or additional research be conducted to confirm whether that's true. But when we compare just the total colostrum yield across our, our sample population of animals, we're not seeing effect on colostrum yield when it comes to composition. And IgG concentration. Metabolizable protein supply did not affect fat protein, lactose or IgG concentration.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:29:35):
Before I get to my real questions, I've gotta ask, in your abstract, you measured IgG levels, they were determined by radio amino diffusion. So I've been outta the lab a while. Is that just a fancy name for bricks or is that
Trent Westoff (00:29:56):
Yeah, so bricks is a, a measurement that we're using on farm. So radio amino diffusion is measuring the IgG molecules, which is that primary molecule that we're interested in for transferring passive immunity from that cow to the calf. Now on the farm, it's not easily accessible and it's very expensive to do things like radio amino diffusion to test the actual IgG concentration. So BrickX refractometer, which we're all used to using on farms, is an indirect assessment of the amount of solids, which is highly correlated with the IgG concentration and colostrum. So in addition to IgG concentration, which we do measure to understand the exact IgG concentration of colostrum, we also commonly use B BRIX percent in our research as that is a more tangible number for those of us that come from farm backgrounds, work on farms, work with farms. And again, that was not affected. BrickX percent was not affected by metabolizable protein supply in this study either.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:30:55):
So going back to the, across the board, the lack of effects that, that you observed, I guess, I guess maybe the, that ultimate question, why do you think that is? What would you do different? You know, would you increase that spread? What, what are you thinking?
Trent Westoff (00:31:14):
Yeah, so I think this is maybe a more complex problem than just in this individual study. So when we think about cluster and production there's a lot of variability individually between individual cows. So in samples such as the one we're talking about where we have just under 100 cows, when you have a lot of variability between individual animals, you need either a lot more animals to be able to detect a difference or a smaller variability in, in the amount of colostrum that those cows are producing. So when we look across populations of animals across multiple different farms, we know that there's a lot of variability in that. Variability is influenced by tons of different things, time of the year parody the management of those cows, the nutrition of those cows. So when we're trying to isolate individual effects such as metabolizable protein supply it, it can be quite challenging.
Trent Westoff (00:32:07):
So to statistically detect differences so biologically we can think about these numbers in the sense of how many liters of colostrum do we need to feed to feed, feed to a calf, and how do our numbers compare to that? So the treatment by parity interaction that I was discussing we're talking about a two liter difference in colostrum yield, which I would consider a biologically relevant difference as that produces you know, approximately half of what you would feed to a calf at first feeding, or it could provide a second two liter meal to that calf. And, and that's part of the challenges when we go to interpret, interpret literature. We have to understand the sample size but also the absolute values to understand whether those differences are biologically relevant towards the whole program. And, and with the goal of obviously providing calves with high quality colostrum making sure that those animals are getting good clean meals and using those to starter calves off on the right foot
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:33:11):
Based on the bricks and the colostrum yields that you reported, I'm assuming this was done at the dairy at Cornell, Correct?
Trent Westoff (00:33:19):
Correct.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:33:21):
Those, the bricks and the overall colostrum mill looks pretty good all around, at least compared to what I see out west more so. And may, I know part of that seasonal, but do you think even those control cows having such good quality and quantity of colostrum may have effect? Would we see more of a result if we went, if that bricks level was lower to begin with? Because I, what is it like 26 in versus 27? I see a lot of 20 twos, 20 threes in the field,
Trent Westoff (00:33:55):
Correct. Yeah. I think that's something that we notice typically with working on the herd that we do a lot of our research on is the cluster production is, is typically quite good. So we ran the study throughout the summer months, which obviously we're gaining a bit of yield we're at, at the seasonal peak of our yield when we ran this study. But there's potential for that. I think when we think about the, the design of the study and the exact question that we were asking we're asking probably a bit of a different question. This goes back to what Sabine brought up earlier, where we were, we were not limiting these cows on metabolize protein. We were trying to understand by providing additional protein, is their effect on claustrum production, our results. And when we compare the results to literature would suggest that Metabolizable protein supply has quite little impact on colostrum production to our, to our knowledge currently. But we're not asking if we increase it to a a point where that cow is not limited so much, does it affect colostrum production? We're asking if we provide that animal more MP than what we think is required at this time, if, if that'll affect your colostrum production. Okay. But yeah, overall I think our colostrum production was quite good in this study and in terms of providing high quality colostrum and enough of it for a feeding program we, we did accomplish that in both of our treatments.
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:35:19):
And to your question, why do you see, you know, colostrum being different in different regions of the country or within a region between different dairies? Trent's done a nice job reviewing the available literature on this and put that together in a review. And I know that's not part of the abstract you presented, but Trent, do you want to just briefly summarize the different factors that we consider as influential on colostrum production? As far as we know, you know, this is only what we think we know, and there likely will be more as we do more research that tells us, you know, can we manipulate certain aspects on farm and and close the gap for farms that produce really good quality colostrum and those that may have opportunity to do so.
Trent Westoff (00:36:00):
Yeah. So we in our latest review that we wrote, we kind of broke it down into three different factors that influence colostrum production and quality. The two of those factors come before the, the, the time of calving, which would be cow factors and then management and nutrition factors. And the third one we include in that is post harvest management. So when we talk about cow factors there's many of them but parity time of the year when that that cow is going to calve the temperature and humidity that that cow's exposed to, which kind of fits, fits, fits into management. On the management and nutrition side, we talk about different nutritional components. So we're talking about MP here today starch level or metabolizable energy level how long that cow is in closeup pens, depending on your study and the location that that study was performed in, you, you get a number of associations.
Trent Westoff (00:37:01):
So obviously when we think about associations, we have to consider that by manipulating that variable prepartum that might not give us a consistent effect as it's an association rather than a causation. But then within that third bucket of post harvest management, we, we talk about how quickly that colostrum is harvested, how quickly we cool it to preserve or how we store it, refrigerator, freezer, does it go directly to the calf. And when we think about all these pieces that come together that in total manipulates the, the amount of colostrum that is harvested and the quality of colostrum that is fed to that calf. And I think that goes back to your question, Jeff, of why we see that in different geographical areas is because a lot of these variables that we're talking about are affected by location. So if we go to the Southwest, obviously the environment and the management style of those dairies are gonna be completely different than we're experiencing here in the Northeast or the Midwest, or if we go to the West.
Trent Westoff (00:38:01):
And all of these things we think encompass come into affect colostrum production and the quality of colostrum, which is why it makes it so challenging for us to just give this silver bullet answer of how we can fix that problem is because we know that there's handfuls up to 20 or so variables probably that influence it in every individual farm, even if they're just down this, the road from each other could be struggling at the same time from two different, two completely different things, which is makes consulting that issue so challenging. So
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:38:35):
Is that paper, is it in process? Has it been published?
Trent Westoff (00:38:40):
Yes. it's the, the invited review that we, that we are discussing right now is published in the Journal of Dairy Science and the Effective Metabolizable Protein is also published in the Journal of Dairy Science. But that invited review goes through a lot of different factors and I think does a, a pretty good job of highlighting variability and different factors to consider. And we even have a, a little figure at the end of that, that paper that kinda pulls everything together for a, a quick look. Great,
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:39:09):
Great.
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:39:09):
And those are accessible online for free, so anybody can look those up if they want to.
Scott Sorrell (00:39:16):
We could even provide a link, I believe in our show notes if that would be appropriate. Yeah. Well, Trent when Dr. Sabine introduced you, she said she's looking for some great things from you in the future. Why don't you tell us a little bit about what the near term future looks like for Dr. Trent?
Trent Westoff (00:39:35):
Yeah, so finished up my PhD a couple months ago and in a short postdoc working in the lab, working on finishing up some of the data for my PhD as well as we have a couple other projects that we've got excited about over the last couple years and I've started so working on keeping those going and hopefully completing some of those before my short postdoc finishes. And then I'm looking for my next industry opportunity as we
Scott Sorrell (00:40:01):
Speak, going into industry. Very well
Trent Westoff (00:40:04):
Correct.
Scott Sorrell (00:40:04):
Love to see that resume when you have, when, when the time comes. Alright, very well.
Trent Westoff (00:40:10):
Glad to share it. Yeah.
Scott Sorrell (00:40:11):
All right. Thank you both very much for joining us today. This has been very interesting. We appreciate you.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:40:17):
Great.
Trent Westoff (00:40:18):
Thanks for having us.
Scott Sorrell (00:40:20):
You’re welcome.
Scott Sorrell (00:40:28):
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Dr. Sabine Mann (00:42:05):
Yeah, thank you for letting me speak on this topic. As I mentioned before, it's one of my favorite topics. I wanted to focus the talk at ESA on giving credit to the importance of IgG, but also extending our view on all the other components of colostrum. We traditionally have focused on the immunoglobulin component and among the immunoglobulins, IgG one of the subtypes is really important. We've known since the beginnings of the 19 hundreds that calves are not able to survive if they don't ingest enough IgG. But what I think we sometimes forget is all the other components of colostrum are not given in isolation from IgG. Right? So as we give the calf IDG, it also gets the benefit of bioactive factors and colostrum nutrients and colostrum. And I wanted to focus this talk just reminding ourselves of the importance of these specific components.
Scott Sorrell (00:43:03):
Alright. And then how would you quantify, you know, these, these nutrients and bio factors, their importance relative to IgG? Is it, you know, just as important or, or Yeah. How would you, how would you quantify that? Yeah,
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:43:17):
Yeah. So that's a, that's a tricky question to answer because I think we're still learning more about the role the bioactive factors have in the development of the calf and its future productivity in health. For example, we've learned a lot about insulin, for example, or IGF in the maturation of the gut and the role that these two bioactive factors likely have in the success of the, of the calf. How can we quantify that when we have almost a hundred years of research in IDG, but we're only now dabbling into the other components? I would say that it is hard to say, you know, they're equally important or more important or less important until we have research where we would give these components in isolation and study the effects. And that's, that's very academic, right? Nobody will take out IgG and give it by itself and somebody will then take out insulin and give it by itself.
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:44:11):
So that, that's probably gonna be something that in the near future we can't answer. My gut feeling, however, is that all of these components have an importance that there is a reason why they're in colostrum in the amounts that they're in there. And that we just have to get more data, especially field applied data, you know, data from, from calves in, in larger numbers to figure out what the potential biological effects could be. And those studies have been done to some extent, but mostly in smaller cohorts where we add specific components to colostrum and then try to isolate the effect of that specific component. As you can imagine, that's a lot of involvement a lot of cost in some of these components to try to add them. So it's not as easily done as, as IDGI do wanna remind the listeners though, that we use IDG as a biomarker of good colostrum management, right?
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:45:09):
So we give colostrum and we, in the end, after everything has happened, the cows been fed, we measure IDG in blood, and we then assign the health effects of colostrum to IDG. However, there is a potential that when we measure this, IDG, we're all only using it as a marker for all the other components that have been transferred as well. Right? We're just not looking for them as, as we're looking for the IDG and Jeff, you've mentioned the bricks ref reflectometer before. There are some fantastic estimations of IDG in the field that are very cost effective and you can do them calf side, there's very few bioactive factors you can measure as easily as you can estimate or measure IDG, right? So that's hampering our understanding of the importance as well. That was a very roundabout way of saying, I think they're all important, but don't give, don't ask me, which, which numbers, you know, in relation to each other.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:46:06):
Yeah. So you, you mentioned, I wanna get in the weeds just for a second before we get to more of the management things, but some of these compounds I've at least heard of cytokines and peptides, et cetera, but you also mentioned complement. What, what is that? Or what does that mean?
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:46:27):
Yeah, complement's a way to scare every undergraduate or veterinary student into, you know, having to remember all of these components. Some of us may have some PTSD having to remember all the colostrum, the complement components. If you, if you have had some of this biology in your training before you may remember there's the a few different factors that come together and they make a hole into a cell, and then by doing so, they kill that particular cell. That's the job of complement among others. And complement is just a way of the organism to perform its innate immune functions, meaning that it's faced with a pathogen, it's faced with a threat, it can immediately react to this pathogen much, much faster than a, an organism building immunity by producing immunoglobulins, for example. Right? So complement is there, gets activated a few different ways, and it kill kills pathogens, it kills bacteria. That's the most important job it has.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:47:25):
Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. So I thought, and I, I listened to your talk and I thought the interesting part was about, from a management standpoint where we heat treat colostrum on farm. And you brought up the point that when we're heat treating to remove, you know, bacterial contamination, are we potentially harming or maybe degrading some of these co beneficial compounds? Can you expand on that a little bit and, what do we do with that?
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:48:03):
Right, so as you said, part of what I wanted to bring up in the conversation was we do certain post harvest processes including heat treatments. Heat treatment has a place in controlling bacterial contamination. Heat treatment has a place in reducing pathogens that we know are potentially transmitted in colostrum. But when we have assessed the effects of heat treatment, we've always focused on IDG concentration, IDG is a protein that's very heat stable or fairly heat stable, at least at the concentrations that it, that we find in colostrum and at the temperatures and times that we expose colostrum to heat treatment. Four. But the other components of colostrum, including, for example, immune cells complement insulin, IGF, even IGA, which is another immunoglobulin that's providing mucosal defense are all less heat stable than IgG. And we could show in our research that these components are either reduced in their activity or completely obliterated, such as immune cells are dead at the end of a heat treatment process. Complement is much less effective at the end of a heat treatment process, we lose some insulin and IGF one concentration. And all of these together may change the way that colostrum exerts its biological function in the calf. Again, we have a lot of research on IDG many, many years of research, but we have much less research on the impacts of these other components and how when we change their function and their concentration by heat treatment, we may change the biological effects in in calfs.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:49:51):
Yeah. So, yeah, my, my first thought was let's assume that we are changing those biological effects of these other compounds by heat treatment. You know, what does that mean on farm? You know, is it gonna be less heat treatment of colostrum? So we're gonna have to get really, really good at controlling contamination by other management means, but, you know Right. That that'd be a huge bear, you know, trying to convince, figuring that out and getting better than what we are.
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:50:22):
Right. And you know, I, I go to lots of farms and it's a very hard thing to do. Harvesting colostrum in a clean fashion is, is not easy as we know, and then we store it, right? And we have to rely on the bacterial numbers to be low for the storage. And so heat treatment helps us, it's a little bit of a bandaid for some of the management processes that we have. And I would not suggest we stop heat treating. I think what I'm suggesting is we need to be aware of potential effects we're we're having from the heat treatment process. And if, if these are of significance, if they turn out to be of significance, maybe we need to figure out either ways of then adding these components back into colostrum if we can, finding other ways of getting these biological functions or, you know, giving people the information of you get the benefit of heat treatment, but you also get a detriment.
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:51:14):
So, you know, you have a choice then to, to pick a route of your colostrum management on farm. And if you don't need to heat treat because maybe you're excellent in your colossal harvest and you need, you don't need to control pathogens on farm, maybe then for those producers, it's a, it's a better way to just not go through the heat treatment process. I think we don't have the data yet for me to, you know, be here and say, let's not heat treat because there is lots of benefits to heat treatment and, and all of us are aware of those, but I think we have more to learn about the other effects of heat treatments.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:51:49):
Well, and it might just be fine tuning our heat treatment processes 'cause been a lot of farms where colostrum quality is good, but there's some mortality and morbidity and it's because of the heat, you know, maybe overheating with
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:52:02):
Yeah, this, this is an excellent point you bring up. The IG molecule is, I said before is quite heat stable, but just a few degrees centigrade difference in the heat treatment process will render this protein inactive. So you have to really make sure you're tuned in with the heat treatment equipment. And I recommend that once in a while you check the temperatures in your water bath or you check the temperatures in your equipment, maybe get the help of the company that provided this equipment to you and make sure that you really are doing the right thing with your colostrum. Because as I said, just a few degrees difference might actually inactivate IDG to, to a large extent.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:52:44):
So, so I've gotta ask, because I've ran across this recently, what is a few degrees? Is it two degrees, three degrees?
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:52:53):
Yeah. So our recommendations based on good research solid research are 60 minutes at 60 degrees Celsius. Right. We know that the IG molecule is starting to degrade at 63 degrees Celsius.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:53:07):
Okay.
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:53:08):
If, but you also have to keep in mind, you know, we usually treat a bigger amount of colostrum either in a bag or in a batch. And sometimes we have problems with that colostrum not evenly being exposed to the heat. And if you have heat exposure in some parts of the colostrum and not in others, then you're undertreating parts of it and you're overheating others. So it's very important that you get good agitation of the water bath, you get good mixture in a batch pasteurizer so that you prevent certain sub parts of that colostrum being under or overexposed. That makes sense.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:53:45):
So Scott, I could ask a 10 more questions, but I've just got one more then we'll let you take back over. So, Sabine, as far as you know, we're measuring IgG via bricks on farm and, you know, technologies keep improving and, you know, few years ago we figured out how to test BHBA for, you know, for transition cows. So that technology's gonna improve. So what would be the next component do you think we might be able to measure? Or maybe the better question is, which one would you like to be able to measure from colostrum?
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:54:22):
Yeah, that's an excellent question. So it, it's, again, it's important that we know how much IDG is in colostrum. No, no doubt about it. And so if I, if I had a a wish, I would like to assess the enteral activity of colostrum. I think if I had a way of, you know, on the farm being able to say the antimicrobial activity of this colostrum is in with all the components that are in there is X, that would be fantastic. Another thing, 'cause I can never only, you know, have one wish. Right. Another thing that I would want to know is what is the insulin IGF components? So the growth factors, right? We, we are still working on an understanding of can a cow have colostrum with high IDG but low growth factors or is good quality colostrum measured by IDG usually an indicated that she would have all these other components as well. We don't have a lot of research on that yet. So I think it would improve our understanding of judging good quality colostrum versus poor quality colostrum extending that beyond just IDG.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:55:30):
Okay. Great.
Scott Sorrell (00:55:31):
Yeah. Great questions. Jeff Dr. Mann, you know, your presentation was part of a, a larger symposium. I'm kind of curious were there any key takeaways or, or any big ahas that you came away with from listening to some of the other presenters?
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:55:51):
The biggest takeaways are usually the great questions we get from the audience, right? Reminding us where we really need to put our focus. I think that one key takeaway is that we, we are working on some of these nitty gritty ingredients and maybe we still have to work a little bit more on understanding what holds people back in on-farm, excellent colostrum management. You know, we, and we've known what excellent colossal management can look like for a long time, but I think we need to focus maybe, and this is a good reminder for myself on providing easy ways for producers to implement the, the things that we put forward in research, right? So what are easy ways for somebody to harvest very clean colostrum? What does that mean? You know, can we, can we find some more recommendations? Can we provide some more data on how is the cool down process done the best way?
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:56:46):
You know, what are the storage lengths that we suggest? Are there other additives than the ones we're aware of right now that could help folks extend this, the shelf life of their colostrum? As a simple question as should every calf be fed a gallon of colostrum? You know I think we still have some things to, to focus on that the audience reminded us. In, in that nice symposium where a lot of us were focusing, as I said, you know, on, on kind of the smaller molecules, et cetera, that, that are not inherently useful for somebody making decisions on farm, but all contribute to this understanding of the importance of colostrum.
Scott Sorrell (00:57:26):
Yeah. Great input. And then just kind of in closing, is there any kind of key takeaways that you'd like to leave with our audience from your presentation specifically?
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:57:38):
Yeah, I think I, I would remind the listeners that IDG is important, but for a long time we have measured IDG transfer as the sole way of, of establishing good colostrum management and wanna really focus with the thought what if IG is also a marker for all the other things that are in colostrum and we've just used it. Thinking that IGG maybe is the one important component and maybe a second thought is that we can focus a lot on making the best quality colostrum, changing how we manage transition cows, changing how we harvest it, but we still need to get it into the calf, right? We need to get it into the calf. And sometimes when we see breakdowns of colostrum management on farm, it's not that we don't have good quality colostrum, but that somehow we have a breakdown in in getting it into the calves in, in a good clean, safe fashion, in an adequate amount and in at a good temperature. And this is a good reminder for us who live in colder climates in the winter, we have to make sure colostrum is an adequate temperature so we don't provide a bunch of cold colostrum to a calf that makes it harder for it to take up the good nutrients and the good bioactive factors in IgG from that colostrum.
Scott Sorrell (00:59:05):
Dr. Mann, this has been great information and I want to thank you for joining us here at the Real Science Exchange. It's much appreciated.
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:59:12):
Thank you very much for the invitation.
Scott Sorrell (00:59:14):
You're very welcome. And, and to our loyal listeners thank you as well for joining us here. Once again, it's real science exchange. We hope you learned something, we hope you had some fun, and we hope to see you next time here at the Real Science Exchange, where it's always happy hour and you're always among friends.
Commercial (00:59:30):
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