This episode was recorded at the 2025 Florida Ruminant Nutrition Symposium. Dr. Johnson and Dr. Felix begin with brief descriptions of their background. (1:26) Dr. Johnson’s presentation at the symposium focuses on beef quality aspects of using beef sires on dairy cows. Using the same Angus semen, his research model compared Angus-sired beef calves raised in a conventional cow-calf system, Angus x Holstein calves, Angus x Jersey calves, and Angus-sired IVF beef embryos transplanted into Holstein and Jersey cows. The model evaluated how the management impacted feedlot performance and carcass quality. (6:37)
This episode was recorded at the 2025 Florida Ruminant Nutrition Symposium. Dr. Johnson and Dr. Felix begin with brief descriptions of their background. (1:26)
Dr. Johnson’s presentation at the symposium focuses on beef quality aspects of using beef sires on dairy cows. Using the same Angus semen, his research model compared Angus-sired beef calves raised in a conventional cow-calf system, Angus x Holstein calves, Angus x Jersey calves, and Angus-sired IVF beef embryos transplanted into Holstein and Jersey cows. The model evaluated how the management impacted feedlot performance and carcass quality. (6:37)
Dairy-influenced beef is tender and highly marbled. It also has more oxidative fibers prone to lipid peroxidation and higher myoglobin content which gives it a redder hue. When high-myoglobin beef is in retail packaging, it goes through discoloration faster than traditional native beef, and retailers shy away from that. Beef on dairy products have a retail display life more like native beef, and large retailers are embracing that product. (10:12)
Ribeye size was not different among any of the cattle groups in Dr. Johnson’s study, including straight calf-fed Holsteins. Beef on dairy calves have similar ribeye area and 0.15-0.20 inches less backfat than a straight beef calf, so their yield grades are lower, implying more red meat yield. In practice, however, they don’t have increased red meat yield compared to native beef because they give up so much muscle in their hindquarter. (14:14)
Dr. Felix asks if the selection criteria of the Angus sire Dr. Johnson used may have limited the findings from a yield standpoint. Dr. Johnson agrees that was definitely the case, as they chose a high-marbling sire on purpose, and he happened to be fairly light muscled. Dr. Johnson feels that improving the plane of nutrition of beef on dairy calves in the hutch for the first 60-70 days could vastly improve hindquarter muscling later in life. (19:39)
Muscle biopsies from the ribeye and hindquarter of hutch calves on low and high planes of nutrition found no difference in muscle proliferation in the ribeye. Hindquarter muscle proliferation was improved in calves on the high plane diet. Dr. Felix reiterated that there is a lack of literature in this area. (25:35)
If beef on dairy calves have less backfat, does that mean they have better feed efficiency? In Dr. Johnson’s study, the best feed efficiency group was the Angus x Holstein F1 cross. Dr. Felix and Dr. Johnson discuss changes in feedlot practices and days on feed and how the industry is moving to carcass-adjusted average daily gain and feed efficiency measures. (31:14)
The panelists discussed the impact of gut size on carcass value. In the dairy industry, we want cows to have high intakes for high milk production, which requires a large gut size. Dams of beef on dairy calves may pass on these traits. Dr. Johnson describes a beef calf and a beef on dairy calf out of the same sire where the beef calf was 40 pounds lighter at the end of the feeding period, yet both calves had the same hot carcass weight. That 40-pound difference was gut size. Dr. Felix and Dr. Johnson share their experiences with differences in fat and trim between beef and beef on dairy carcasses. (39:25)
Dr. Felix asks Dr. Johnson how the valuation of beef on dairy calves drives marketing decisions. Day-old dairy calves are extremely valuable right now. A high index beef on dairy calf will bring $800-$1100, depending on what part of the country you live in. If a dairy producer only has $200 in that calf, they should take the money and run. There is no way they will make $800 per head feeding out those calves. (47:30)
In closing, Dr. Zimmerman urges ASAS and ADSA to bring back Joint Annual Meetings so more cross-species interactions can be fostered. Dr. Felix notes there is a tremendous gap where the dairy nutrient requirements end and where the beef nutrient requirements pick up. We need to fill that gap to better target optimal muscle development in beef on dairy calves. Dr. Johnson is enthusiastic about the amount of progress the beef on dairy sector has experienced in a short period. We’re one or two tweaks away from beef on dairy carcasses rivaling native beef in quality. What we’re learning in this sector can also be applied to the native beef sector to improve meat quality and red meat yield. (56:52)
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Scott Sorrell (00:00:10):
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. Hi, I am Scott Sorrell. I'm gonna be your host here tonight, and I'm as always with Dr. Clay Zimmerman, my trustee, rusty co-host Clay, welcome. Good to see you again. Yep. Good to be here. Yep. Today we are at the Florida Ruminant Nutrition Symposia, and we're recording a series of podcasts on beef on dairy, and this is the second of three. So if you miss the first one, please go back and listen to the first one of Dr. Tara Felix. It a great podcast and it'll help. And this one will build on that one. This our featured guest for this session's gonna be Dr. Brad Johnson from Texas Tech, and he's going to give a talk here at the conference called Beef on Dairy Cattle Advancing Beef Quality to the Next Level. So this is gonna be all about all about muscle and carcass. So welcome Brad. Welcome back. This is officially your second time back at the Real Science Exchange, so we always like to see people returning. Would you mind just kind of, I know you did it the first time, but give us another real quick overview of, of yourself. Sure.
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:01:26):
I really appreciate the opportunity to be on your podcast, Scott and Clay. So, again, my name is Brad Johnson. I'm a professor at Texas Tech University. I've been I'm in Gordon w Davis Regents Chair of Meat Science and Muscle Biology position. I've been there at Texas Tech for 17 years native of South Dakota. I grew up on a, on a family feedlot and farming operation in northeast South Dakota. Did my undergrad work at South Dakota State University a long time ago. And then did my master's in PhD at the University of Minnesota and on St. Paul campus. And actually was office with a lot of dairy nutritionists that are still actively involved in the industry today. So it, that was fun to kind of get, get some hybrid thoughts with, with them during my grad time. So I've had three faculty positions.
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:02:21):
I was an extension, my first faculty position. I went home to South Dakota. I was a extension beef feedlot specialist for three and a half years in Brookings. Worked with the local beef producers of South Dakota. And, but when I was in grad school at Minnesota, I did really basic muscle growth and muscle biology research, and that was my passion and still my passion today. So Kansas State had never had a person in that area. And so I, I moved, I had no ties to K State, but moved our family to Manhattan, Kansas in 2000. And I was on faculty in a research teaching role for eight years in Manhattan. The neat thing there, I was in call hall with all the ruminant nutritionists again. So even though I was doing muscle biology work, I had a really strong ruminant nutrition cohort and background as well. Had no reason to leave K State, we love Manhattan. But the opportunity to take this chair position was just professionally too, too good of a deal. So I, we've lived in Lubbock, Texas now for 17 years, but I'm basically doing the same research in Lubbock that I started doing in Manhattan. Hmm.
Scott Sorrell (00:03:34):
Well, welcome back. Looking forward to the conversation today. We've got a special guest, Dr. Tara Felix from Penn State. Welcome back. This is officially your second time back here at the the pub cast. And if you'll do the same, just kinda give us a real brief overview of yourself.
Dr. Tara Felix (00:03:50):
Yeah, thanks Scott. Happy to be here today as well. So my background is, I, I left Pennsylvania, so, so Brad talked about going home. I I left Pennsylvania after my undergraduate degree from Penn State. Came down to to University of Florida and studied Trace Mineral Nutrition with Dr. Lee McDowell. And then went up and got a PhD at Ohio State, which I don't share around Pennsylvania too much 'cause they get a little, little upset about that. Went to Ohio State and got my PhD in feedlot nutrition and management right around the time that the energy department increased distillers grain. So I'll give you three guesses what my PhD was on. Right. I was on faculty then at the University of Illinois for about four years when Dr. Terry Etherton called me and said, Hey, would you like to come back home to Penn State? We have a, an extension position open. Took that opportunity to move my family back home and, and have been there since 2016. So now in a predominantly extension and teaching appointment at Penn State and, and get to do a lot of work with producers throughout the state. Yeah, really enjoy my time there.
Scott Sorrell (00:04:54):
While at Illinois, did you do any work with Dr. Jim Drackley?
Dr. Tara Felix (00:04:57):
I did some work. Now Jim did a lot of dairy work and I was heavily focused on the feedlot industry while I was at Illinois. Okay. So we didn't cross paths too much.
Scott Sorrell (00:05:06):
Alright. Very well, we, we just honored Dr. Drake Lee in our legacy series on the podcast. Right. So that just was published the other day and he's here at the conference as well. So yeah,
Dr. Tara Felix (00:05:16):
Looking forward to catching up with him.
Scott Sorrell (00:05:17):
Yeah, yeah, he's a good man.
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Scott Sorrell (00:06:29):
Brad, why don't we just jump right into it? Just give us a brief overview some of the key points that you're gonna be talking about in your presentation later today.
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:06:37):
Sure. So I really wanna focus, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna build on what Dr. Felix is gonna talking before me on beef, on dairy from both a dairy and feedlot perspective. But I really wanna build on the meat quality aspect of this product. So, so as, as we talked about on the earlier podcast and, and listeners might want to go back and listen to that, we had, we were, we kinda had a transition time in 2017, as Dr. Felix said, where some of the packers would no longer accept straight calfed Holsteins. They put a, they put a height limit on it. And and that really forced the industry, I think, to look at alternatives. And that was probably the genesis of, of the beef on dairy aspect. So what's interesting is, I think early on we wanted to show that beef on dairy, the, the carcass quality and the, the ultimate meat quality, the beef quality of beef on dairy that maybe we made improvements above a straight dairy influence animal, either a calf Holstein steer or a jersey steer or, or something like that.
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:07:47):
And, and in fact, I'm gonna show we've, we've more than surpassed that both from a red meat yield standpoint, total pounds of red meat yield. But more importantly, there's aspects of beef on dairy from a, from a very fundamental muscle fiber type that is different from a straight dairy animal, but also different than a straight beef animal. And it lends itself to really high quality beef both from a marbling standpoint, that's the amount of intramuscular fat, but also from, from a tenderness and color standpoint. So, so I'm gonna share, I'm gonna go through some data of a former grad student of mine, Dr. Luke Furnace, his dissertation work where we looked at half siblings raised in a conventional beef system. And then that same, that same Angus semen was used to breed Holstein cows to get an F1 of an Angus Holstein cross.
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:08:46):
We had a dairy right across the street, a father son dairy in Eastern New Mexico that we bred Jersey cows to the same, same bowl. And then we worked with the herd flex group, the Simplot group, and we used the same semen to generate IVF embryos and put all beef embryos in either Holstein and Jersey cows. And so it was a great model to look at how, how calf management e either at the calf ranch or in a commercial cow calf situation, how that could impact feedlot performance and ultimately carcass quality. So I'm gonna use that model and then take it all the way down to the individual muscle fiber level and, and talk about how changes in the fibers that make up the muscle that ultimately make up your ribeye steak or your strip loin steak. The beef on dairy does that when we combine the beef genetics with the dairy it has a very positive impact on the meat quality. And I'll, I'll spend most of my time talking about that. So
Scott Sorrell (00:09:51):
Yeah. So why don't you dig into that right now. Tell us what, what are some of those differences and Sure. What are you seeing and, and when, what causes some of these differences?
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:09:59):
So historically, I talked about how the packers started pushing back on, on some of these straight Cafe Holsteins about 10 years ago. Yeah.
Scott Sorrell (00:10:11):
Because of frame size
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:10:12):
Eight to nine years ago. A lot of it due to frame size. But, but all along there's been pockets in the United States of feedlots and packers that have embraced, say, Cal Fed Holstein beef. Right. For many years. And in fact, a large pocket of feedlots are in southern California in the Imperial Valley. And they, these feedlots built their own packing plant called Brawley beef. And then National went on to buy that. But there's a JBS plant very close to it outside of Phoenix TAES in Arizona. And, and they've, they embrace those animals and they found markets for those. And it, and a dairy influence beef is very tender. It's highly marbled. So it's a very high palatability traits.
Scott Sorrell (00:10:58):
And I think you said in the last podcast, it's kind of the right size too for a lot of restaurants.
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:11:02):
Exactly. Yeah. So the ribeyes a little bit smaller and, but one issue that retailers have had with, with be with dairy influence beef, so like calf fed Holsteins, is because the fiber type is different, they have more red fibers or oxidative fibers. Those fibers are prone to lipid peroxidation. They have more myoglobin content. That's why they're redder. The, the muscle looks red. That myoglobin will go through a discoloration when it's in a retail package in the supermarket. And in fact, if you compare cal head Holstein beef to traditional native beef ribeye or strip steaks might discolor two days faster from calf fed Holsteins. Retailers don't like that because if they can't sell that at a, at a, at a high wholesale or retail cost for a ribeye steak, which is really high, they have to end up grinding it for ground beef. And obviously there's probably about a four to $5 pound difference in, in, in, in just their wholesale cost by doing that. So many retailers would stay away from dairy influence beef because of this discoloration issue in the retailer. Does it
Scott Sorrell (00:12:16):
Turn, turn brown or what's it, what's it like? What's that? What, what color does it, does it turn brown? Yeah,
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:12:20):
It turns brown. So myoglobin goes through many phases of, of reduction. And so the average consumer, if you, if you ever go into a large supermarket chain on a Monday morning, they will have rib eyes and strip loins marked down 50%. Right. And that's when I, that's when my wife goes and she buys every one of those that she can find because people, the average consumer thinks this discoloration may be contamination, but in fact it's, there's nothing wrong with that stake. It's a conversion of different phases of the myoglobin over time in the retail package. But the average consumer doesn't realize that and, and thinks there's something wrong with the stake. So they, they choose not to buy it and ultimately they'll have to grind it into ground beef and, and mix it, mix it together. And so what's interesting is what we have found with the beef on dairy from a meat quality perspective, their retail display life is more like native beef than it is calf, calf fed Holsteins. And the retailers have realized that now and have embraced that and, and realize that hey, this, this meat will stay in the retail case just as long as native beef will. And, and so I'll share some of that data in my presentation as well. So that's been a positive, that's been a huge positive aspect of beef on dairy beef from a, from a whole supply chain standpoint. 'cause These large retailers have learned that the discoloration is less with that compared to, to more traditional cat fed Holstein beef.
Scott Sorrell (00:14:04):
And so then what can you tell us about the differences in whether it's frame size rib eye area round? What kind of differences are you seeing there?
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:14:14):
So, so another, another big part of my talk. It's amazing what the genetic companies have done. How they can use tools like ultrasound. So every, you know, they will use ultrasound to generate EPDs based. Instead of waiting for progeny data, they will start ultrasounding both cis as well as progeny. And so one thing we learned in our study, and we see this across the board, that rib eye size on a actually in our study, there was no difference in rib eye size at the 12th rib measured in square inches or square centimeters between any of our cattle groups, including a straight calf fed Holstein. They all averaged about 14.2 square inches. Okay. So those of you that remember the, that maybe had selection livestock and meat valuation classes as an undergrad. We've been using the USDA yield grade equation for several years.
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:15:19):
And, and the main determinant of muscling in that equation is ribeye size. So we will measure ribeye at the 12 rib, we'll measure fat thickness over the 12th rib, we'll take hot carcass weight, and we do an estimate of kidney pelvic and heart fat or internal fat. And so basically what happens with beef on dairy, they have the same rib eye size. They're actually leaner, they have less back fat, which is a positive. They, they will consistently have 0.15 to 0.2 inch two tenths of an inch less back fat than a native beef animal. So there's less waste subcutaneous fat. So their yield grade always comes in lower number, which is a positive more red meat yield. But in fact, we've learned that they don't have more red meat yield compared to a native beef because they give so much up in their hind quarter.
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:16:21):
And, and so another focal point of my talk is I'm gonna talk about how, what can we do genetically or management or nutritionally to try to increase the muscle development in the hind quarter. I think the last frontier for beef on dairy is if we can get more muscling in the hind quarter, they will ride, they will be identical, or I would say they'll even be better than native beef if we can increase the red meat yield in the hind quarter. All the other traits of the meat quality aspect are so positive for beef on dairy that I think we will have a better carcass then we could potentially get with native beef if we can fix the, the red meat yield in the hind, the, the lower half or the hind quarter you need, you need the Belgium blue in there. So in fact I've, I've seen some pictures I, I'm sure I'm sure this individual has, has graced you on your podcast, but Dr.
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:17:25):
Lance Bomgar was an undergrad at Minnesota. Man. He was, you know, I, I love that guy. And, and I was a graduate student at Minnesota when he was an undergrad. And he and I were on a program a couple years ago and I was talking about beef on dairy. He was talking about transition cows or gut health. But later on he sent, he was in Italy and he sent me pictures of Belgium blue on Holstein cross calves. And beautiful Dr. Felix talked about the, the hide color, right, the beautiful looking calves. But you could just see on in the hutch the muscle development due to the double muscle breed Belgium blue. The problem with those kind of breeds the reason they have twice as many muscle fibers at birth. They have a mutation and a protein called myostatin. And that job of myostatin is to limit muscle growth.
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:18:18):
So if you mutate that protein, you get twice as much muscle at birth. So not only do you have a calving difficulty problem because they're such big calves, there's a direct link. When you mutate myostatin and you take away myostatin, you also take away marbling. Wow. So those breeds, they essentially have no marbling. And so I talked a little bit about fiber type myostatin or double muscle breeds like Belgium, blue and Piedmont teas, they're all glycolytic muscle fibers. They have no oxidative fibers. And that's one reason they don't have marbling. You have to have the oxidative fibers to have the marbling. But so you might think, well, then they're gonna be very tough because they have no small fibers. But in fact, because they have twice as many muscle fibers, even though they're glycolytic, they're very tender because the cross-sectional area of those fibers, there's only half the size as native beef. And so that's a positive. But the, one of the problems is marbling is so valuable right now, the, the value of prime over choice, as Dr. Felix said in her podcast, the export market so the, the double muscling gene will basically deplete these animals of marble. So
Dr. Tara Felix (00:19:39):
Brad, you talked about the difference in the hind quarter. And, and Blake for Acre had done some work on that where he separated breeds out. Right. He separated those beef on dairy crosses out into high yielding and low yielding and, and talked a lot about the hindquarter. In your particularly study you had, you had one Angus sire. Is that correct? Yep. Do you think selection in that Angus sire or selection criteria of that Angus sire maybe limited your findings from a, from a yield standpoint?
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:20:08):
Oh, absolutely. 'cause What we did, Dr. Felix, is we selected a bowl that was in the top 1% for marbling. And if you look at a picture of this bull, it was momentum Angus Bull auto gardeners called momentum that selects sis owns, he's very light muscled himself. Okay. So we purpose, you know, we, we did it for the marbling aspect to, and we had seven, almost 65% prime carcasses in our study. So we achieved our goal, but we selected a probably very light muscle Angus sire to put on dairy animals. And, and so I think you're exactly right, that impacted and I'll show our data where the beef on dairy actually had smaller round circumferences than the native beef. But universally as you look at, we've scored, I've, we've sent graduate students across the country to score some of these beef on dairy cattle in the feedlot right before they go to harvest.
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:21:12):
And even in like a sim Angus Holstein cross, we see tremendous variation. And I'll show a picture of that. And it's Dr. Cher's picture, Blake's picture where half sib standing next to each other in a commercial feedlot in southwest Kansas. One one, it looks like a beef animal, you know, very wide hind quarter, and it's, it's half brother right next to it looks like a Holstein. That's the variation we need to fix. And we have some preliminary data that I'll actually end my talk with today where I think the nutrition of those animals in the, in the calf hutch, in the hutch I think we can actually improve hind quarter muscling by the plane of nutrition that we feed those calves the first 60 to 70 days in the hutch. So, so that's what I'll end with this, this this afternoon.
Dr. Tara Felix (00:22:02):
So yeah, I remember Blake's picture, in fact, I think I pulled it outta my slide deck this morning, so that's good. You'll have it in yours. His calves, if I recall correctly, that paper was one of the earlier beef on dairy papers. And in the previous podcast we talked a lot about that variation. Are we making any progress, do you think we're making any progress in in that round in particular?
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:22:24):
I, I think so what it's gonna take kind of kind of a sidebar comment to this discussion today, and I'm not on this committee, but two of my colleagues, Dr. Blake Forker was a PhD student under Dr. Dale Warner, who's one of my colleagues at Texas Tech. And Dr. Forker went he's actually a case Stater did his undergrad at, he's from Wichita, Kansas. But he was on faculty at Washington State for a couple years and just came back this past summer to be a colleague or a faculty member at Texas Tech. So what was interesting, or what, what I want to go with is I talked about how the USDA yield grade equation that was set up to measure red meat yield to beef carcasses the main determinant of musing is ribeye. And these breed, these genetic companies, we, we have normalized ribeye size.
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:23:19):
I think they, it proves to me that they can, they set out on a mission, they can uniformly get all these animals to have the same ribeye size, but that's just a section of the carcass, right? So what, what they have shown, there's, there's a think tank through NCBA where they're trying to come up with alternative ways to predict red meat yield of a beef carcass. And, and the main thing is that because of the beef on dairy, I think we've learned some of these animals are really light muscled in the hind quarter, and there's a lot of pounds of red meat in that, in that round or the red hind quarter. And so when we, they're looking at, you know, scanning techniques, CAT scan, MRI techniques other laser type technology, taking certain measurements of, of the round and putting that with the rib eye size, for example.
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:24:15):
So I think we've made progress, but as you, as you talked about in the earlier podcast Tara, we have so many different breed combinations, right? There are certain niche markets where they'll put a wagu on a jersey and, and have tremendous marbling, but you talk about light muscled animals, they, they define it. And and so I think if you're, if you're, if you're feeding into a certain ni niche beef market, you know, that's really high marbling score, then that's, you can get away with less muscle. But one thing that Blake's dissertation work from Texas Tech showed is that the highest 25% of beef on dairy were as good or better than native beef. Right? But the lower 25% were about the same as a Cal Fed Holstein. And so that's the variation you talked about. And I think we have made improvements, we gotta get the genetic companies to help us, and we need some more basic data to understand why can the rib eye be the same size, but yet the muscles that make up the hind quarter don't get the same proliferation or muscle hypertrophy. And I'll share some of that data this afternoon.
Scott Sorrell (00:25:35):
I wanna circle back, Brad, on a comment you made about being able to change how much muscle's deposited in that hind quarter through the nutrition of that calf in the hutch. So that's gonna impact, right? Our, our, our customers out there listening to this. So what does that look like?
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:25:52):
So the, we had an opportunity to go in to a large feeding feed company one of the largest in the country. And they have a research facility in the middle of the country. I won't mention any names, but they allowed us to take muscle biopsies on calves in the hutch where they were looking at what they called low plan in nutrition versus high plan in nutrition. And I'll show the average Jayla gain. It was substantial differences in the average Jayla gain of, I think, I believe almost a half a pound per day in the hutch for a, about a 56 day window. And it really focused probably on proteins, amino acids. So this is at a time where you kind of have room development going on. Our last biopsies were taken at 56 days, so still probably a pre ruminant calf for the most part, but starting to get some room and function.
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:26:48):
And, and so the key was probably protein, specifically amino acids. And so what's interesting is we were able to get muscle biopsies on these light calves from the longissimus muscle, which makes up the rib eye in the strip loin. And the bicep fioris in the hind quarter, which is noted for in animals that are a little more heavy muscle, we get a lot more muscle hypertrophy in the bicep femoris in those animals. And so, just like our carcass data of all these other studies suggest, so we took muscle biopsies and I have a new procedure in the lab where we can take individual muscle fibers out of that muscle biopsy mix, put 'em in a dish, and, and you can, and I'll show pictures of these individual fibers in a, in a Petri dish or a tissue culture dish after a couple days.
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:27:45):
Satellite cells that are associated with those fibers that are the rate limiting step of postnatal muscle growth these are cells that are able to divide yet certain factors like steroid hormones impact their rate of proliferation. But these satellite cells start falling off these fibers, and then we can do a, we can measure, we have markers to determine how many of satellite cells there are per fiber. And interestingly, regardless of low versus high plain and nutrition, the longus cells acted the same mm-hmm. Just like we see. Now, rib eye size is the same in beef on dairy compared to beef, right? But the differences were in the hind quarter muscle, the high plain nutrition cells that came from those fibers were much more active at proliferation compared to low plane of nutrition. We actually tr they just harvested those animals. They were fed out, Dr. Paul Beck at Oklahoma State fed those out. And so we're interested in we weren't able to get any more tissue samples at the packing plant, but he took a bunch of measurements of, of like the round circumference. So it'd be interesting to see if that difference was carried all the way through to harvest. But I think it's knowledge like that of knowing the fundamentals of the muscle growth and then how certain nutrients like maybe amino acids and, and other nutrients can impact the development of those cells that ultimately are gonna lead to an increase in muscle mass in the hind quarter.
Scott Sorrell (00:29:22):
Yeah. You know, related to that, Tara you're a nutritionist, right? How much do we really know about the nutritional requirements for maximizing performance in that young calf, right. In dairy cattle, we're not trying to do that. We're just trying to grow the frame. When the young calf beef cattle, they're on mama out on pasture. So has there been a lot of research related to understanding those requirements for those calves?
Dr. Tara Felix (00:29:45):
Unfortunately, not much at all, Scott. Right. We, we've done a ton of research on, on how do we optimize dairy calf growth for milk production. And in that system we're looking at 900 grams of average daily gain, right? Yeah. Now we're trying to maximize growth and we're trying to optimize growth for meat production, and it's a totally different system than, than the dairy system. And I think I think that's where the literature is really lacking. I did a, a study similar to what Dr. Johnson's describing with some muscle biologists outta Yukon. And in our study what we looked at was just different milk replacers, right? We weren't even all the way to to, to calf starter nutrition, but just different milk replacers, one that mimicked closer the concentrations of protein and fat from the beef animal, and one that was more of what we would call a conventional milk replacer, right? And those calves that got closer to what the beef mama would produce had a greater cross-sectional muscle fiber area than those calves that got conventional milk replacer. And, and so our data would also suggest we're we need better nutrition, we need more research on what is the best nutrition for those calves in order to stimulate that muscle development. Early
Scott Sorrell (00:30:58):
On, you signed up to do that research.
Dr. Tara Felix (00:31:00):
I'll tell you what I told my graduate students after the last round of baby calves, and I thought I could sling weigh baby calves because I, I realized I'm not as young as I was in grad school. And, and I'm ready to keep my research in the feed feedlot. I think
Scott Sorrell (00:31:14):
Very well. Brad, I wanna circle back on something you had mentioned before, and that's the fact that these bees on, on dairy crosses have less back fat and so or external fat. And I'm wondering, does that make them more efficient right? If they're not putting that energy into, into lipid?
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:31:33):
Yeah. So, so historically, when you, when you think about what, what affects feed efficiency or feed to gain conversion, composition of gain is what really drives that so late in the feeding period, most feed lock cattle are deposited in the, you know, the carcass transfer could be as high as 90%, but almost all that is adipose tissue or lipid very little muscle at that point. That's why fee conversion traditionally gets worse. So subcutaneous fat is, is a large component of fat. In fact, the most abundant adipose tissue in a beef carcass is not back fat, it's seam fat or intermuscular fat. Got it. So we've probably done a poor job of assessing how much seam fat is in some of these beef on dairy compared to native, but historically calf fed Holsteins would have a, an acceptable marbling score with very low back fat.
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:32:30):
Right? And interestingly breeds in Asia that are noted for marbling like the Wagu and the Korean hannu cattle, Chinese yellow cattle, they have tremendous amount of intramuscular marbling with very little back fat. So Holsteins and jerseys, for the most part, are very similar to that. So what we found is in our study, and I'll show the state of this afternoon, historically, the beef on dairy, if you get a really good, say Angus Holstein or Sim Angus Holstein or a Charla Holstein, Charla jersey they're gonna be leaner. They're gonna have less back fat at that 12th rib. And their feet conversion generally is very favorable throughout the entire feeding period. In fact, our best feed, our best conversions in all of our comparisons in Luke's study was an Angus Holstein F1. They, they had they had the, the lowest feed to gain value or the best feed efficiency.
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:33:29):
And I think most of that was because they had, they were, they had less back fat mm-hmm
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:34:27):
Number two is what you sell the animal for. So those are marketing decisions that you, you choose to pay for the feeder calf, you choose what you're gonna sell that for. Number three on the profit index is feed efficiency. And it is so critical. I'm gonna show some data on Wednesday in my other talk where basically a 10% change in feed conversion, which isn't that much from a, a ratio standpoint, at $250 a ton feed on 250 day fed feed lock cattle was $56 a head difference. So that's, that's huge amount of money. So fee conversion is so critical, and, and so anything the dairy producers can do from a genetic standpoint that's gonna have a favorable impact on lifetime feed efficiency, especially the feed efficiency of those animals in the feedlot is, is a huge deal. And I think that's something we need to focus more on. So how,
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (00:35:27):
How does days on feed impact that profit? Yeah,
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:35:31):
So it's generally in, oh, on the profit equation, uhhuh, so generally as days on feed that's an interesting deal. Historically, when we sold cattle on a live weight basis, generally days on feed started having a negative impact on profit because it followed feed conversion precisely. But now that we sell almost all the beef that we sell today, clay is on a carcass basis. And very few cattle get marketed on a live weight basis. Earlier on I mentioned something called carcass transfer. So what, what happens, and, and I lectured the, my undergrads about this in a class as animals mature, especially cattle, any animal, any mammal, the percentage of what I call non carcass components, the the high the blood, the GI tract anything that comes off on the harvest floor goes into the off all co off all barrels is an early maturing tissue.
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:36:39):
And so as we feed cattle longer now, and, and the genetics have come, when I, when I was a young person on the feedlot and high school and college age, you could tell when cattle were done because their intake dropped, they quit gaining, it was time to sell 'em. These cattle today they're weighing 1500 pounds, they're still eating, you know, 23, 24 pounds of dry matter. They're still gaining two and a half, three pounds a day, all that, let's say they gain 2.8 or three pounds a day and they're weighing 1500 pounds the last two, three weeks. Of that 90 to 95% of that two to three pounds goes right on the carcass. Now, unfortunately, most of that is fat or adipose tissue. Okay? So what what has happened is we can no longer look at fee conversion on a live weight basis. We need to adjust it for this carcass transfer because so much of that pounds is going out, albeit it's adipose tissue or fat, but we're still getting paid for that. And we're get, we're at record beef prices. A a pound of hot carcass today is what, three three and a quarter, $3 and 25 cents a pound. And so that has changed the economics of, of how we, that's why we feed cattle so much longer. So because of carcass transfer,
Dr. Tara Felix (00:38:04):
Do you think I I'm baffled by it, you know, like it took us this long to figure that out, right? I I would dare say it took us covid to figure that out when we were forced to keep 'em on feed longer. Yeah. And now we see, I mean, back in the day we always talked about in, in grad school we always 150, 160 days on feed. That's, that's the feedlot period. Now you're mentioned over 200 days on feed and it's not all just beef on dairy, right? No, we're keeping native cattle on that wall.
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:38:30):
You know, conventional beef calves that say are weaned at heavy weights, 650 pound weights they're feeding them 240 days. So they, they'll, they'll go right into the feedlot way and say 600 pounds. They, they, they'll put a thousand pounds on. I mean, some of these calves go out at 1600 pounds in the northern plains, so they'll feed them 220 or 260 days. They're gaining four pounds a day. But yeah, we, we feed cattle longer today than I think Covid was at when, when we first started talking about carcass transfer. Tara was when ZPA oil was on the market, right. And we learned that we had to feed these cattle an extra three to four weeks to get the quality grade where we needed to. That's where we really started understanding carcass transfer and
Dr. Tara Felix (00:39:23):
Presenting carcass adjusted average daily gain
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:39:25):
Exactly. And feed efficiency. Yeah. So what's interesting is here's where the be here's where the dairy influence comes in Clay and, and Scott, the one non carcass tissue that will continue to grow throughout the feeding period until later and finally plateaus is the GI tract. And, and obviously whatever we do in the life of a bovine to, to get too much gi tract mass, that generally has a negative impact on, on dressing percent or the percent yield of the carcass to live weight. And so you can just follow the dry matter intake curve of a, of a pen of feedlot steers or heifers. And I can, I can tell you exactly that as if it's still climbing. The GI tract mass is still increasing and that's gonna have a negative impact on carcass transfer. It's gonna have a big negative impact on maintenance requirements for those animals.
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:40:23):
But also that's gonna have a negative impact on dressing percent because we do not want the GI tract mass to get too, too big in these feed luck. And that's a function of age. It's a really, I think a function of dry matter intake. Got it. And a function of roughage in the diet, roughage will stimulate. And, and so you guys got these mama cows holing cows eating what, 55, 60 pounds of dry matter, that's not helping us. Right on, on the feed efficiency side with the beef on dairy offspring, because they're, to get that level of intake, you have big gi track mass. So see what lower, lower raw markets are. Well, it's all in relationship, right? It's all relative. It we want cattle to eat because here's the other thing is where I grew up in the northern plains, we had big, we still have big eating cattle, just like you have in Pennsylvania, Tara. And there's still a relationship of, of intake above maintenance is still the most efficient growth you will ever get. So we, I I'm not a big fan of low intake cattle. There's certain feedlots nutritionists that promote really low intakes and steady growth. So they're very efficient. But I, I'm a proponent of productivity too. And to get productivity, you gotta have cattle eat. So, so I'm, you know, I'm not afraid of that. So
Dr. Tara Felix (00:41:52):
Do you think some of these challenges on, on gut size though, you know, we talk about challenges. Most of the cattle are sold on the grid, grid marketing and yield grade and, and producers complain about the packers always because that's what producers complain about, right? But part of the challenge in these beef on dairy crosses and, and previously in the all dairy crosses, all purebred dairy animals was, was dressing percentage. Yep. Do you think you, you talk about how these cattle can eat. Do you think that's some of the challenges that gut size in these animals because of their history in their, their dams?
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:42:26):
Yeah, I think it's partly genetic and partly management. That's a great point. Dr. Felix, and I'll show this date of this afternoon, I'll have pictures of, of a Angus Holstein F1, a tremendous beef looking animal right next to a straight all beef animal out of the same sere, right? The Angus Holstein is actually 40 pounds heavier, the shrunk body weight. At the end of the trial they average 40 pound heavier shrunk weight. So from a live standpoint, they did phenomenal. Then the next slide I'll show the carcass weight, the carcass weight between those two animals is identical. So the 40 pound heavier beef on dairy Angus Holstein cross yielded the same hot carcass weight as the all beef animal that was 40 pounds lighter from a chunk body weight. I tell people that's all GI track mass difference, the majority of that. So through selection back to you want cows eating a lot of dry matter, right? From a milk production standpoint, the collateral effect of that, the unintended consequence is I think we do have animals in the beef on dairy mix that their GI tract mass is a tick higher. The other thing Luke's data showed, and I won't show any of this, they have heavier livers. They have, there's a relationship between dry matter intake ask and liver size. You're gonna get a bigger liver with a beef on dairy feedlot animal than you do a traditional beef animal. So yeah.
Dr. Tara Felix (00:43:57):
The one, the one pocket of fat you didn't mention yet was, was KPH, kidney, pelvic, and heart fat. Have you monitored any of that in your, in your simplest cross breeding trials and
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:44:11):
How
Dr. Tara Felix (00:44:11):
That play in? So we have,
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:44:12):
That's a great point. Generally speaking, 'cause we've gotten a lot of cutout data from large packers. They'll let us in to do fabrication yields all the way through. And, and that's a great point. Generally speaking, this is a very generalized comment. Beef on dairy carcasses are gonna have a higher percentage of internal fat, kidney, pelvic and heart fat. I said they're leaner but the fat's coming in somewhere. So, so they will maybe in some cases have one to one and a half percentage more internal fat than, than traditional beef. And I, and I think that, that's, that's bore out in both the commercial data as well as some of the research findings. So and then the other fat adipose tissue store that we've kind of neglected through the years, and I think we need to assess this for beef on dairy is seam fat, the fat between the muscles, because that's actually the most abundant adipose tissue in a beef carcass. And so some people have thought that certain beef fond dairy crosses, certain beef sis will yield animals that have a little bit more seam fat compared to a native beef animal. So
Dr. Tara Felix (00:45:29):
I'm curious about that. In the plant that I work in predominantly, they're pulling that KPH out. And so that's been a a a point of I won't say contention, but it's a point we can't measure, right? It's, it's a, a data point we're missing. And so in your comments, I'm curious how much more trim and is that impacting these dressing percentages at all when you look at that KPH and, and the higher KPH in those crosses?
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:45:53):
Yeah, so that's, there's, there's one major packer in the US that has been pulling the KPH out for many years. And now adjusting on a payment standpoint, I talked about this task force that's rewriting the red meat yield equation. They, they have already made a recommendation, I think in the next five years, all the packers are gonna pull the KPH out. So what's gonna happen is if you have certain genetic law, or if we produce cattle that are really heavy on the KPH side, they're, they're gonna, they're gonna get discounted from, from a carcass value standpoint because that's not gonna be in the carcass when it goes across the scale. So I think we need to be cognizant of that and try to kind of make consistent, make that more consistent. But so I think that's one thing that's gonna go away is they're, I think they're gonna try to get all the packers to strip the kidney pelvic and heart fat off prior to going across the hot scale. And, and that's gonna be probably a game changer and, and may, may impact some of these breed combinations more than others. So
Dr. Tara Felix (00:47:08):
Yeah. And our, and our, our, our contracts, right? Yeah. We get paid on dressing percentage, so Exactly.
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:47:14):
So they'll, they'll adjust that, but there's easily what, you know, you could go from a 65.5% dress easily down to a 62%, right? Because some of these animals easily have three and a half percentage units internal fat. So
Dr. Tara Felix (00:47:30):
Brad, you, you spoke about the project where you use the same sire. Could you talk a little bit about the difference in the value that you got from those calves that were, were sied from the simplot embryos versus those beef on dairy crosses and, and how that the valuation of that beef on dairy calf right now drives some of our, our marketing decisions?
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:47:52):
Yeah, so we, in that particular study, and, and I'm not gonna show any of the calf data today in my presentation, but we had access, I mean, we actually measured gestation length and everything in that study because we were involved in the genetic decisions of, of the breeding of the, of the Holstein and Jersey cows. And then a big part of that, and all that work's been published, but the calf, the calf data is published in translational animal science. So we were interested in knowing, you know, how when you raise like an all beef calf from a dairy in a hutch, does that change the lifetime productivity? And, and the, the, the easy answer is it really didn't change it. The, but the value the, the value, we still had the highest beef value in the all beef embryos. If we just compare the embryos to the F ones, like the Angus Holstein F ones I, I said earlier, the, the best feed efficiency on a live weight basis was the Angus Holsteins. They were 40 pounds heavier at harvest, but they yielded the same hot, exactly the same hot carcass weight as the all beef embryos that were 40 pounds lighter at harvest. So that 40 pounds of carcass really drove the value of the all beef embryos in a dairy model system very high. But now the, these, these, these Dale calves are just extremely valuable right now, right? So a really high genetic index beef on dairy cross will bring, what, 800 to $1,100, depending on what part of the country you're
Dr. Tara Felix (00:49:41):
In. In Pennsylvania, I'm paying a thousand dollars for calves this week.
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:49:44):
And, and, and i, I, clay and Scott would know, but I'm guessing these dairy producers have $200 in them. So they're, they're netting $800 from a beef on dairy Holstein bowl calves are probably $600, right? And, and that's an all time high. And remember what I said earlier, the number one rea way to lose money feeding cattle number one on the list is we pay way too much for feeder cattle. So now we're starting with a calf that's worth a thousand dollars or more. And, and we're trying to make money. So, you know, over my whole career of 30 years, the last couple years I've had more dairy producers call me and say, Hey, Dr. Johnson, we wanna retain ownership in East cattle. We have, we have a beef on dairy symposium every other year at Texas Tech. And so we bring in a lot of dairy producers and they see these carcasses and they get enamored with the, the cowboy image probably, and, and they wanna, they wanna feed cattle. And I'm like, you want to, I said, wait a minute. You're making $800 a head right now selling a a day old wet calf. You will never, you will never make that much money feeding that animal take, take the money and take it
Dr. Tara Felix (00:51:04):
To the, take the money and run, take
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:51:05):
The money and run. But yet we wanna do it. And it's like, no, you don't understand the, you got such a value to that. You will never, you will never get more than you're getting on day one. And, and and, and there may be opportunities if they fed 'em on the dairy, if they built a feedlot, they probably have economy of scale of, of feed production, right? That they, they might, they might make a little bit more money. But I tell 'em what, what happens when that a thousand dollars calf dies, right? When it is not so bad when it dies, when it weighs 300 pounds. But what happens when it dies, when it weighs 1,452 weeks before harvest when
Dr. Tara Felix (00:51:47):
You've 500 days into it already? Exactly.
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:51:50):
And then they kinda like, yeah, maybe we should sell these day ones. It's sad. But, but the truth of the matter is, the value these feeder cattle today is un off the charts. We've, it's unprecedented. We've never had feeder cattle prices. The, and we've never had beef prices as high either. So, but I think it's a great opportunity for the dairy. It's another source of income. Yeah. Where that's, that's eight net and $800 a head. And, and the embryos, back to your question on the embryos there's obviously significant more costs with the, with the in vitro fertilized embryo. There's a debate about the conception rate of those embryos, and I'm not knowledgeable enough to really address that. But but I think there's, there was still some, some opportunities to add value to put in an all beef embryo in, especially in the Jersey side. We, we did that study to add value to the Jersey cow because the, it's because of the stature and the muscling degree of the jersey. So I think the embryo calves that came out of the jerseys look the best economically for that, for that dairy. So
Dr. Tara Felix (00:53:00):
I think it's critical. You know, we, we think and, and in the previous podcast we talked about beef being a commodity business and the variation these animals bring, we look over the last 25, 30 years and, and we talk about the, the breakeven nature of cattle feeding, right? And I thought, dear God, who's paying a thousand dollars for these baby calves? I don't wanna buy it. I have to 'cause it's research, right? But I don't wanna buy these baby calves for a thousand dollars. So being the good nutritionist that I am, I made a spreadsheet, right? Get out your spreadsheet and you pencil in the, the, the calf starter and the milk replacer and, and there is money to be made in them. Where prices are right now, I think the thing that we tend to forget is we buy that calf today, we're five, six, maybe even 700 days away from, from reaping a return on that investment. And our return, our, our net profit in the cattle feeding section or segment, if we buy the calf today and use the sale price today is $600. Yep. But I don't have a crystal ball. Brad, Scott Clay, I don't know if you do under the tablecloth, I can't tell you what those finished prices are gonna be two years from now when we breed that cow. Right. And, and finally get the progeny out. Yeah. Because I think that's key.
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:54:15):
The value, the, the gross value of a 1500 pound fed steer heifer, A fed steer today is what on a grid might be $3,300, right?
Dr. Tara Felix (00:54:26):
So you shoot the cow's value today, you take the cow value and
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:54:29):
You, so you got $2,300 and actually feed cost is relatively cheap Yeah. Compared to what we've had the last 10, 10 years. But yeah, one we're, you know, we're one BSE or one, you know, thing away from another hiccup that we're, we, so there's a lot of risk, but there is risk management tools that producers can use. But you're right, we're, we're well over a year away from marketing that animal, probably 16 to 18 months. There's a lot of risks that, that the biggest one is the, they're so valuable that any degree of death loss, right? It, it can really, can really hurt your bottom line on that. So those are good points. So yeah,
Dr. Tara Felix (00:55:13):
You talk about the cow, the calls from the dairy had a dairy call me last year, and they're like, we wanna get outta the dairy business and into the beef business. And I said, great breed all your cows of beef. First sell the calves, then sell the dairy cows and then go and buy back your, your beef animals, right? And they couldn't, they wanted out today. They didn't have that long term vision, right? They wanted out tomorrow, they wanna be done milking cows tomorrow. And I couldn't get them to see that investment from that thousand dollars calf was, was worth it to just keep milking a few months longer.
Scott Sorrell (00:55:46):
Interesting.
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Scott Sorrell (00:56:14):
So Brad, this has been a very interesting conversation and I'm looking forward to the presentation that you're gonna give later today. As a reminder to our audience, we will be videotaping that presentation and it'll be available at balchem.com/realscience. You know, as we close out here, guys, what I'd like to do is ask you to come up with two or three things that you'd like to share with the audience. Maybe, maybe something practical or, or, or, or some just good sound advice as in you know, sell those baby calves, right? But so if, if you wouldn't mind doing that, we'd greatly appreciate it. And Clay, why don't we start with you?
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (00:56:52):
Yeah. So I want to reiterate what Scott said. I'm really looking forward to hearing your talk this afternoon. I'm gotta get on my soap box here for a minute. I've really enjoyed this getting out of my comfort zone, being a dairy nutritionist here. So I actually wanna make a plea to the the people that are in charge of a of a SAS and a DSA, we need to get back to exam meeting. This is, we're really missing these interactions across species
Scott Sorrell (00:57:32):
That's a great point. So
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (00:57:34):
I'd, I'd like to leave with that point on this one. Yeah,
Scott Sorrell (00:57:36):
Sounds good. We'll make sure we forward to some of those folks on the ADSA and ADSA committees. Tara, any final comments?
Dr. Tara Felix (00:57:46):
I'm a nutritionist, so I'm gonna go back to nutrition. We have a tremendous gap in, in where the dairy nasem stops and where the beef naum picks up. And right now, that gap is everything that Dr. Johnson just talked about that we're trying to target to, to get optimal muscle development in these calves. Mm-Hmm
Scott Sorrell (00:58:10):
Yeah, great point. Dr. Johnson.
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:58:14):
I think as, as both of the previous podcasts in this podcast, I really think in a very short period of time, we have, we have elevated these beef on dairy crosses and I'm, now, I'm just talking, I'm generalizing everything. Right. But we've elevated some of these to the point already that they'll rival native beef and, and I grew up in a, I, I'm a beef producer, but yet it's still beef, right? It's in, in the packing plant, hanging as a carcass. It's still beef. What I said throughout my podcast, I think we're one or two tweaks away. And as Dr. Felix just said, nutrition, nutrition, nutrition of these young calves, I think is gonna be critical. And of the, of the, of the transition cows setting these calves up for success when they're in, in the uterus. But if we can, if we can tweak like the hind quarter red meat yield with everything we've done from basically the sirloin forward already, we're gonna have a, we're gonna have a very high quality, phenomenal high palatability beef animal.
Dr. Brad Johnson (00:59:23):
And, and, and that, as I said earlier, what we learn on that beef, on dairy space, we need to overlay that to the native beef herd, the other 80% of the cattle in the United States to, to improve our efficiency, improve our meat quality and our, our red meat yield of those as well. So I, I'm excited. I think there's a lot of opportunities. We've learned so much in a short period of time with beef on dairy that I got so many things in my head. I probably won't ever get to retire. So that's, that's a good
Scott Sorrell (00:59:55):
Thing. We've learned a lot and there's a lot left to learn. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. Excellent. Folks, this has been a great podcast. I, I've really enjoyed it. I'll echo what Clay said getting out of our comfort zone. It's kind of fun sometimes. So this has been very enjoyable. Appreciate your expertise, Tara. Happy to you. It's been been great. To our loyal listeners this is the second in, in three podcasts that we're gonna do. The next one, and I'll just do a little advertisement here. Be sure to listen to it. It's gonna be still Beef on Daring. It's gonna be all about economics. And that'll be with Dr. Dre Albert Dre. We hope you learned something today and we hope you had some fun, and we hope to see you next time here at Real Science Exchange, where it's always happy hour and you're always among friends.
Balchem (01:00:43):
We'd love to hear your comments or ideas for topics and guests. So please reach out via email@anh.marketing at alchem.com with any suggestions, and we'll work hard to add them to the schedule. Don't forget to leave a five star rating on your way out. You can request your Real Science Exchange t-shirt in just a few easy steps, just like or subscribe to the Real Science Exchange. And send us a screenshot along with your address and t-shirt size to anh.marketing at balchem.com. Balchems Real science lecture series of webinars takes place on the first Tuesday of every month with the top research and nutrition topics that will impact your business. We also include small ruminant, monogastric, and companion animal focused topics throughout the year. Visit balchem.com/realscience to see the upcoming topics and to register for future webinars. You can also access past webinars and search for the topics most important to you.