This episode was recorded in Fort Wayne, Indiana, during the 2025 Tri-State Dairy Conference.
This episode was recorded in Fort Wayne, Indiana, during the 2025 Tri-State Dairy Conference.
Dr. Grant gives an overview of his presentation at the conference, highlighting cow time budgets and the importance of natural cow behavior to health, welfare and productivity. The impacts of overcrowding, including rumen pH and de novo fatty acid synthesis, are a key component of his message. (7:07)
Eating, resting and ruminating are the big three behaviors we’ve studied for decades. In addition to their obvious importance to cow welfare, they have a real health and performance effect. Dr. Grant suggests the recumbent rumination - just lying down and chewing her cud - is really the cow’s superpower. Cows with the same rumination time who accomplish more while lying down have less subacute ruminal acidosis, greater dry matter intake, and higher fat and protein content in their milk. It all boils down to the balance between eating time and recumbent rumination time. (12:15)
The panel discusses the definition of overcrowding. Spoiler alert: it depends. (15:50)
Clay asks Rick if overcrowding of beds or feed bunks is more important. The easy answer is both, but Rick acknowledges he’d say beds if he were pushed for an answer. Resting is a yes or no; she’s either lying down or she’s not. From the feed bunk perspective, a cow can alter her behavior to a point for adjusting to overcrowding - eat faster, change her meal patterns, etc. A hungry cow will walk by the feed to recoup lost rest time. Cows should be comfortable enough to spend at least 90% of their rumination time lying down. (17:50)
Dr. Grant thinks of overcrowding as a subclinical stressor. A cow has different “accounts” for different activities: lactation, health, reproduction, etc., as well as a reserve account. To combat the subclinical stress of overcrowding, a cow uses her reserve account, but that’s hard to measure. If the reserve account gets depleted and another stressor comes along, the overcrowded pens are going to show greater impacts. The panel brainstormed ideas for how to better measure a cow’s reserve account. (19:39)
Clays asks if overcrowding is affecting culling rates. The panel assumes it has to be, though no one can point to a study. Dr. Grant notes there is data from France that shows decreased longevity in cows who don’t get enough rest, which is a hallmark of overcrowding. Given the low heifer inventory, the panel muses if the industry ought to pay more attention to the culling impacts of overcrowding and have a more dynamic approach to evaluating stocking density as market and farm conditions shift. (25:10)
Bill asks about nutritional and management strategies to reduce the stress of overcrowding. Rick notes that overcrowding tends to make the rumen a bit more touchy, so he talks about formulating diets with appropriate amounts of physically effective fiber, undigested NDF, rumen-fermentable starch, and particle size. (29:21)
Dr. Grant talks about the differences in rumination when a cow is lying down versus standing. The panel discusses cow comfort, preferred stalls, and first-calf heifer behavior in mixed-age groups with and without overcrowding. Bill and Rick agree that having a separate pen for first-calf heifers on overcrowded farms would benefit those heifers. Dr. Michael comments on evaluating air flow and venting on-farm. (33:49)
The panel wraps up the episode with their take-home thoughts. (47:55)
Scott invites the audience to Bourbon and Brainiacs at ADSA in Louisville - a bourbon tasting with all your favorite professors! Sign up here: https://balchem.com/anh/bourbon/ (52:02)
The paper referenced in this conversation from Dr. Bach can be found here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022030208711226
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Scott Sorrell (00:10):
Good evening everyone, and welcome to the Real Science Exchange, the pubcast we're leading scientists and industry professionals meet over a few drinks to discuss the latest ideas and trends in animal nutrition. Hi, I'm Scott Sorrell, gonna be your host here tonight. We've got a nice one teed up for you. We've got Dr. Rick Grant from the William H. Miner Agricultural Institute. He's gonna be reviewing a presentation he's given called From the Cow's Perspective, two Decades of Management at Minor. So really looking forward to this one. Dr. Grant, welcome. This is the first time thank you at the Real Science Exchange. Appreciate you stopping by here at the pub.
Dr. Rick Grant (00:45):
That's my pleasure. Yep.
Scott Sorrell (00:46):
You know, to get us started, why don't you just kind of give us some background on yourself for the folks that may not know you out there. I think most people do, but might be a few people that don't. Sure.
Dr. Rick Grant (00:54):
Well, I grew up on a dairy farm in New York State. Went to Cornell as an undergrad and actually went to Purdue a few years behind the fellow to your right. Okay. Same advisor, I think Bill. Yep. Vern, Colin Brander. I got a PhD there eventually. And then spent a couple years at UW Madison with Dave Mertons, who's a name like people know. So kind of thinking a little bit more about fiber digestion and so forth.
Scott Sorrell (01:20):
But he spent time at Cornell as well, I believe right?
Dr. Rick Grant (01:22):
As undergrad. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And actually just by random chance, I got the great good fortune of having Pete Van as my advisor, which was pretty mind expanding for a young man and never left the farm right at that point.
Dr. Rick Grant (02:12):
Yep. In the broadest possible sense, it's right there where those two spheres overlap. That's where the questions were coming from. And so I kind of jumped into that at Nebraska and then you know, in the early two thousands moved to Chazy New York where the institute is, and I could just had the resources then in the team, right? A wonderful, talented team there to to really dive in and kind of see how does management compare to the formulated ration? How do they influence each other to determine the performance of the cow? And so, yeah. And so really to the topic for later, you know, for this meeting for me is just what have we learned? Yeah, right? From the cow's perspective, what has she told us Yeah. Relative to how you, how you manage her successfully.
Scott Sorrell (02:57):
Interesting. Yeah. Looking at, looking forward to getting into that co-host and the co-host chair is Dr. Clay Zimmer and Clay probably don't need an introduction, but why don't you just tell us a little bit about yourself. What do you do for biochem? What
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (03:08):
Do I do? So I'm the Director of Science for Animal Nutrition and Health Group, and I also oversee our US ruminant technical service team.
Scott Sorrell (03:18):
Yep. And as a director of science you get involved in doing a lot of the research you've done quite a bit of research and just tell us how many peer-reviewed publications you've had since you've taken over here.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (03:31):
Oh, wow. So we've had, we've had 18 related to reassure actually. Yeah. Since Good deal. Since 2020. Yeah.
Scott Sorrell (03:39):
A lot. And a few on amino acids, a few on amino amino acids. Yeah.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (03:43):
Yeah. Yeah. Good. And, and other species.
Scott Sorrell (03:45):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nice job. Clay. to my right, here's Dr. Neil Michael. We met many, many years ago. I don't remember what year it was. I think you were with a BS at the time. You're now with PDS. Right. Why don't you give us some background on yourself and tell us a little bit about what you do for PDS? Sure.
Dr. Neil Michael (04:04):
Sure, Scott. First of all, I it's good to be with two boiler makers here. I spent a lot of time at Purdue. I got a veterinarian degree there. First started I practiced for quite a few years in Wisconsin and actually fed, and that was a long time ago too. Fed cows, yeah, 25, 35 years ago in my practice. Once I realized that as a young fledgling veterinarian I wasn't making, I could fix broken cows, but I wasn't making my customers a lot of money. And that, you know, is, was really the start of me, you know, getting interested in, in nutrition and feeding cows. Left practice, and I've been with a couple different companies. You, you mentioned a BS, but I'm now with Progressive Dairy Solutions, back feeding cows full circle. Progressive dairy solutions obviously feeds there's about 53 of us feed a lot of cows across the US and globally. But as in my current role, I feed cows around the Midwest. A few heifer lots, but mostly have mill cows in Michigan Wisconsin, South Dakota. And it's, I love the introduction. Rick is that's what I face every day, is trying to, you know, I read the research and then I go to the farm and it's, you know, it's a constant trying to manage the, the management of all the other factors besides what I've formulated. So yeah, excited to be part of the panel. Thanks.
Scott Sorrell (05:56):
Yeah, great having you here today. And the other gentleman, to my right, most people's gonna know you Bill as the the leader of our journal club, but today you're in a different role, color commentator. So, ,appreciate you joining us in this role. Again, no introduction needed, but why don't you go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself.
Dr. Bill Weiss (06:15):
Well, as a professor of dairy Nutrition at the Ohio State University, another alumnus for about 35 years, I retired three or four years ago. I'm keeping a, a little bit active and more active in golf and hiking now,
Scott Sorrell (06:29):
But yeah. Yeah, no, you till enjoy cows though.
Dr. Bill Weiss (06:31):
Yeah. Yeah. So you recently tell us a little bit about the trip you took to Patagonia. I went
Dr. Bill Weiss (06:36):
To, went to South Southern South America, which I wanted to do since my first visit in South America 25 years ago. Finally got there, went hiking for about five days and learned, learned what my legs feel like after about 20 miles of hiking. So it was a lot of fun. Beautiful country. Wow.
Scott Sorrell (06:54):
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Bill Weiss (06:54):
Highly recommend going.
Scott Sorrell (06:55):
Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks for joining us. Rick, given the presentation here later today, why don't you kind of give us kind of the, the, the key pillars to some of the things you're gonna be discussing during the, the presentation?
Dr. Rick Grant (07:07):
Sure. well, I hope to say
Dr. Rick Grant (07:59):
And that's gonna be my kudos to Jack Albright. And it's wonderful to be able to mention his name here at Tri-State, because he was at Purdue forever with his groundbreaking cattle behavior work there. But then you kind of leapfrog into the two thousands. And the first thing that we, we really noticed once we understood the importance of natural behavior was overcrowding 20 years ago. That was already a challenge. And we spent, you know, really even today, we're still doing some of that work. It's almost like the questions shifted. Initially it was like, why are we overcrowding, maybe we shouldn't, right? And from a welfare standpoint, certainly we shouldn't. But really, realistically, when you look at the industry, the question is how do we manage it right? To mitigate negative consequences for the cow to the best extent that we can in some of that's ration formulation.
Dr. Rick Grant (08:49):
And a lot of it is trying to really optimize her, her management environment, aside from the fact that she has to compete for everything, right? So that's gonna be a big part of it. But then parts of that then would be the interactions I said, between formulation and overcrowding. And we did spend quite a bit of work in the last maybe five to 10 years, focused on how overcrowding and the diet effects, certainly the rumen conditions, rumen pH let's say most notably but particularly how things like stocking density can drive down rumen pH. And in our hands, at least with our model, we were able to show that overcrowding to the, say, 140% stocking density of stalls, right? Which is high, but
Dr. Rick Grant (09:45):
Which is, I didn't expect that kind of blew my mind to be honest with you. But that puts it in perspective. So, and then certainly that's consequences for milk composition. We found that feed bunk stocking density is a single variable, a single factor, probably explained the greatest proportion of the variation in de novo fatty acids, which we all know now due to the Cornell work, right? That that drives milk fat de novo fatty acids do. So I'm gonna hopefully hit on some of those and build up to the point. Now we can model some of this. And as we look to the future, you know, what, what's coming down the pike? Where, where, where do we take this beyond today, we know the consequences of the management environment in terms of cows ability to respond. Stocking density is a big part of it. There's other components as well. Where do we go from here? Yeah. And that, that's sort, I'll leave it as an open question. Yeah. I don't have blindingly, don't have those answers, brilliant answers.
Scott Sorrell (10:45):
Good idea.
Dr. Rick Grant (10:46):
No, I should say when I hear something good, not if for sure you go, because
Scott Sorrell (10:49):
I know, Anyway. So you settled, we've learned a lot over the last two decades. So how, how, what's the scorecard look like? How are we doing compared to what we've learned and what applying in the field and where are the gaps?
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Dr. Rick Grant (12:15):
Yeah. Well, that's a big question. And certainly I think we've, we're applying a lot, and I certainly would look to some of the other folks here to chime in who are in the field, right? 'cause Sometimes as a researcher, even a place is applied as minor institute, right? Where we try to think whatever we do is, has got immediate applicability somewhere in somebody's management scheme. But still, you sit there and you wonder, does it matter? Right? Is it making a difference? And I, you know, I I think one of the biggest things is forever we've looked at the, the behaviors of eating, resting and ruminating, right? Those are the big three these from a dairy cow standpoint. And I always thought from a welfare standpoint, it's pretty clear that you want to have normal behavioral routines there. It's almost inarguable natural, but the research has come out from our group and then say, people like Trevor Reik wealth in the last few years has driven home to me that there is a real health and then performance component to that.
Dr. Rick Grant (13:10):
And you're never going to be able to have things implemented well in the field unless you really respect that. And I'll just say, and I've been jokingly thinking that recumbent rumination of all things just lying down and chewing or cud is really the cow's superpower. It's her signature behavior for sure. But you know, we, we, I just kind of mentioned, we, we found that cows with the same rumination time that accomplish more while recumbent have less c subacute rum acidosis. And I didn't expect to see that when the grad student did it, Matt Campbell, maybe seven or eight years ago, 10 years ago. And for a long time I held onto that. I said, well, what does that really mean? I mean, I know the consequences of lower lower pH and fiber fermentation and all that, but, you know, what's that really mean for management?
Dr. Rick Grant (13:54):
And then Trevor came out with this wonderful work that showed all things being equal cows with the same rumination. Those that accomplish more rumination, lying down recumbent, have greater dry matter intake and higher fat and protein content in the milk. And I was like, wow, you know, this has economic consequences. So going back to that old tired phrase, cow comfort economics, right? It breathed new life into it to me. And it said, kind of, it all boils down to the balance between eating time and recumbent rumination time. And you think about management, but you also think about forages and time at the bunk eating versus time left for rumination in the stalls. Hopefully they're comfortable. I'd say in the last several years, that's really where I am with the recognition. I don't think I'm overinterpreting it. This is everything to the cow, right?
Dr. Rick Grant (14:41):
In terms of, and it is her natural behavior. So why wouldn't it be, it just took me a long time to figure out we have to, there's reasons for doing this. And so if you're out in the, in the field, if you have farms that can get that done, hopefully they make it easier to feed. You know, I'll say one more thing. Years ago when I first started, you know, this was in the nineties, I ran into a, a, one of the most brilliant nutritionists I ever met told me there's an easy way and a hard way to make a hundred pounds of milk. Right? And you can imagine the hard way, the easy way is recognizing what the cow needs and doing it, right, which is forages, forge quality, cow comfort, all those tired out expressions, but they're there for a reason, right? So mimic the cow, you know, make your job easier. So I, I guess to answer your question, I'm being long-winded, but hopefully in the field, if that message has gotten through, the successful nutritionists and consultants are really doubling down on what can I do with my clients or, or our herds to make sure that their basic needs are met, but they're for a very practical economic reason, aside from the behavioral and welfare reasons. Yeah. So
Scott Sorrell (15:50):
Would you mind defining overcrowding? At what point does a big bomb
Dr. Rick Grant (15:54):
I don't know. I'd throw it out there. Like, I'd almost say, what, what's it, doesn't matter what I say, it's like, what does, what is the caring capacity in the industry? Right? Yeah. Maybe I'd toss the ball off a little bit. No, absolutely. Maybe, maybe loop back in on it. Yeah,
Dr. Neil Michael (16:07):
Yeah. Now, so going back to first of all, Rick, yes, research matters. That's what we go to the farm with. I mean, the research that you guys have, have done, we go to the farm with that. But that's, yeah. All of the other things like cow comfort, like keeping feed in front of cows particle length. That is why we visit d that's why we walk cows, because we don't just look at the ration. I spend most all of my time walking cows behind the cows, So I can look at waters and lying and, and all of those things. And it's, yeah, it's not that I, I think the table stakes are going to, the farm is applying, you know, making sure you've got the research there. The rest of it is what happens on those dairies. And it, it's what separates, you know same nutritional philosophy when I go to all of my dairies, but there's pretty big range on how they perform and how much money they make at the end of the day. Yeah. So, mm-hmm
Scott Sorrell (17:46):
The answer is, it depends, right? Yes. And very much management oriented. Yeah.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (17:50):
So, so Rick, which is more important? Is it overcrowding from a bed standpoint or from a feed bunk standpoint?
Dr. Rick Grant (17:59):
Yeah. Well, that's the, that's a big question, right? I, the easy answer is both for sure, if you're the cow, but I think if someone really pushes me to the wall and says, pick one or the other, right? And you're a mild mannered guy, but if you're gonna go, like, you're not leaving this table till you give me an answer, I'm gonna go with stalls every time, because it's gonna vary depending on the environment, the, the, the facility, the cow's in, for sure. But resting is a yes or no answer, right? She's either lying down or she's not. She has access to that square footage or that stall or whatever, or not. Whereas within reason, a cow, if she has access to a feed bunk, and there's feed to within, you know, certain parameters, she can eat faster, she can change her meal patterns to, for some period of time, maintain intake.
Dr. Rick Grant (18:45):
But that's not possible with stalls. And we all know the fundamental importance of resting time to the cow. And, and a hungry cow will walk by feed in an effort to recoup, lost, resting. So to me, it all kind of points toward the overriding fundamental importance of lying downtime. And now, I would factor into that lying down, and hopefully being comfortable enough to ruminate at least 90% of her rumination, time remorse should be while she's lying down. Right? You know, and coming back to the question about overcrowding, you know, the, I should get on record here. You know, the answer to that is if you just talk about welfare and like the folks from University of British Columbia and others, the welfare places would say, you know, it's when you break the one-to-one barrier, and there's no doubt about that, right? And, and for transition cows under, you know, you wanna be less than one animal per whatever resource you're talking about stall or something.
Dr. Rick Grant (19:39):
And, and that's true. There's no doubt about that. The real question is what's economical and what can good managers in the field seemingly manage around the one, one thing I'll throw into the conversation for discussion is if I have time, I may not, but I'm gonna talk a little bit more about overcrowding as a subclinical stressor, which means it's, unless you really go crazy, you're not gonna kill the cows tomorrow with it. But day after day after day, say if you're running at 120, 130% overcrowding, the stalls, whatever it is the, the overcrowding concept would say, or the subclinical stressor concept would say, well, to combat that stress day over day, she's using up her reserve account, right? If there's an account for lactation, health repro and so forth, there's also a reserve account. And we can't measure that very easily. It's glycogen.
Dr. Rick Grant (20:32):
It might be some adipose stores, so maybe body condition. But she's using that, and I think a lot of our overcrowded herds are riding in that realm where some part of the reserve accounts of each cow is being compromised every day, depleted to deal with whatever level of excess competition they're, they have. But the thing is, all the things you measure, if you believe this paper by moberg, where he kind of talks about it whether it's reproduction, production, whatever, those metrics are unchanged as long as the reserve account isn't fully depleted once she gets to that point. And that varies for every farm, right? There's a, there's a ceiling for every farm. It's a function of quality of management and facilities, I suspect, and severity of the stressors. But until they get to that point, things look okay for everything that we monitor, say from a DHI standpoint, but another stressor or stressors come along, which, and, and they're always there on a farm, then the wheels begin to come off, right?
Dr. Rick Grant (21:32):
The overcrowded pens tend to be the ones that maybe react negatively to heat stress first, and they might be the ones that may be clear last if disease goes through the herd or something like that, right? So you see it day in and day out. But I think thinking of it as a subclinical stress is maybe instructive. So you don't think that with these herds that we're managing, we're not getting off scot-free. It may appear that we are, in terms of production and everything that we tend to look at that have economic value, but the cow's reserves are being negatively affected. Right. And that herd is more susceptible, less resilient to what might come down the road. I dunno if you agree with or not, but I, I, I think that's a good, good model in Neil. Yeah.
Dr. Neil Michael (22:16):
No, you, you make me think from a subclinical standpoint, and this is probably a wishlist, but should we not be able to, and I know there's people working on this, but when you look at Lance's work and the cost of, you know, inflammation or should we be, could we go in and measure that subclinical loss from either acute phase proteins or, you know, inflammatory cytokines with what we know today? And I know that's kind of a wishlist, but like you said, some herds are sitting on a lot of money or a lot of loss there. It would be great to have a definitive type of assessment, whether that's blood or what, you know, parameters.
Scott Sorrell (23:08):
I think you make a perfect point, right? It all comes down to dollars and cents and, and they're, they're overstocking because they believe there's value there. But so how do you put a dollar on that? Neil, any ideas or,
Dr. Neil Michael (23:22):
Well, no, I think putting a dollar value on it, although if, if we could somehow correlate you know, the acute phase proteins with how much glucose we used up, and, you know, I'm sure you could, and I, like I said, I'm sure well, I know there's a couple groups working on a set of parameters to be able to go into a herd and say, okay, you're doing great, but there's this much on the table mm-hmm
Dr. Rick Grant (24:09):
Yeah. That's what's needed is something that's more maybe biologically based. 'cause Right now, I'm sure people have heard of, you know, maybe seven or eight years ago, Albert DeVries put out a nice spreadsheet where you confer individual farm, you can model the effects of different levels of stall stocking density. Basically his metric is economic, right? You know, profit per stall. But it's a pretty blunt, it's, it's useful. It's very useful, but it's a blunt instrument. And it doesn't get to some of the points you just raised that, you know, overcrowding sub clinically over time does increase acute phase proteins. I mean, the data's out there we've known forever, back to the seventies, that it increases cortisol, increases fecal, cortisol and metabolite. So it's a stressor. And I think we tend, it's become part of the background noise. It's part of our management systems, and we've kind of, at least I think a lot of people I work with have mentally tuned that part down. So they don't think about it every day. It's just part of, part of the management on their farm. But in fact, it is a stressor.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (25:10):
Yeah. Is it impacting calling rates?
Dr. Rick Grant (25:14):
Well, I, I would think it has to be. I mean, I don't, I can't point to date on that specifically, but certainly some animals would, would, would be called heavier, I think. But because of the stress of overcrowding and the negative consequences on that I can't point you to a cer any certain study, but that'd be, that'd be logical to think about that. I do know there's some French work that shows that there's a lower longevity, right, with cows that don't get as enough rest. And certainly that's one of the hallmarks of overcrowding beyond a certain point, is that it compromises resting time.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (25:52):
So with really limited heifer inventories right now mm-hmm
Dr. Rick Grant (26:06):
We might want to, Yeah. I, I think, again, the data's out there sort of refreshing your, your memory in terms of what, what are we doing to the cows? And if so, if economics in the industry change, why wouldn't we think about is this level of overcrowding does it make sense? It made sense last year, the year before. Does it make sense today? 'cause That's the other thing, going back, even simple as Albert's risa's spreadsheet, you can type in prevailing economics, like price of milk, cost to feed per pound, put in your herd metrics relative to reproduction and milk loss and so forth. And it'll say, okay, one, 1.2 cows per stall is where you optimize profit per stall. But how many, for how many herds? Is that a dynamic calculation? You know, you lock it in there and then two or three years down the road, things have totally changed, or even six months down the road.
Dr. Rick Grant (27:05):
But do you depopulate? No, no one does. So it's a very non-dynamic approach that we have. And perhaps we should be thinking more dynamically, at least to, to maybe depopulate every once in a while and not wait for something like COVID to force it onto us, right? Because people started depopulating and they, they were amazed at how many cows they could pull out of a pen before they dropped Penn production to meet this production quote as we had, at least in the northeast. Right? But now, you know, five years later, those herds are depopulated, or probably most of them are as overcrowded as they've ever been
Dr. Neil Michael (27:52):
So, Neil, I'm curious your thoughts on that. Yeah, the it's just been ingrained in people, you know, more cows are stocking, you know and profit. And I think, yeah, with time, I think we can revisit that. I try and do that every month with customers when we sit down and go through income over feed costs and say, where are we really making, which cows are really making our money? You know? 'cause We break it down into pens. Where's our weak spot? And, and I think I'm an eternal optimist. I think we'll get there, but so many people out there, it's about more cows. How much milk can I get out of that pen? But it really goes back to how much money are we leaving on the table, aren't we? Yeah. So we'll get there, but it, I think takes discussions like this to, and talks like yours to really, you know, get people to rethink. Thanks. Some of the people that need to hear it aren't here today. So that's where this comes in handy, doesn't it? Yeah.
Scott Sorrell (29:10):
So define who that is. Is that the dairy farmer?
Dr. Neil Michael (29:15):
Yes. And some of their consultants. Right. Okay. That's one. You know.
Dr. Bill Weiss (29:21):
Yeah, good point. So what, what are some, you know, if overcrowding is pretty much a fact of life, so what are some nutritional and management issues that will reduce the stress of overcrowding?
Dr. Rick Grant (29:33):
Sure. Well, there's, I've been spending a lot of time talking about just that subject bill. It's a, from the nutritional standpoint, I kind of alluded to some of Mac Campbell's work where he looked at overcrowding as a factor high and low, a hundred, 140 versus, you know, he, he had two diets differing in PE NDF 18 and about 23 or 24%. So he tried to span what's commonly considered the optimal amount. Also UNDF two 40 was higher and lower, but as I said, so as a single factor, overcrowding had the biggest effect, but there was a significant interaction. And as you might guess herds that were over cows that were overcrowded did better when they had a little higher P-E-N-D-F. So it, it, it makes sense. And subsequently, you know, he did some work looking at overcrowding. And the last thing you wanna do there is feed restrict, because actually the greatest levels of subacute rum acidosis, pH 5.8 is a cut point.
Dr. Rick Grant (30:32):
Were seen in cows. Were fed a pretty fermentable diet, but not out of bounds. Just a typical high production diet overcrowding of, of headlocks and stalls, and then feed restriction for five hours a day. So you definitely wanna feed more fiber at the, not, not, don't go over the requirements, but feed at the upper end. 'cause That does affect room and pH and you don't wanna feed restrict. And I think maybe it goes back to some of Penn's work. I'm not exactly sure of the biology there, but clearly feed restriction under the, in the face of overcrowding does bad things to RU and pH. All right. So there's that. The other thing that we, and, and ru fermentable starch, several other studies that we did when we had lower UNDF two 40, so maybe in the 7% range or so, so on the, on the low end of UNDF, on the high end of, of forged fiber degradability, we found that if cows were competing very hard, that getting around 20% or so, ru fermentable starch is really all it took to start dropping milk fat.
Dr. Rick Grant (31:34):
And, and really, I dunno, bill, but when you think about 19 20% ru that's not, that's not, that's not really high, no, it, it's moderate. But just all that to say that the overcrowding makes that rumen a little, a little more touchy, I guess I would say is the way I think about it in terms of a functioning piece of machinery. Mm-Hmm
Dr. Rick Grant (32:31):
So to your point, bill, if you can chop such that 50 to 60% of the, of the TMR is in that second tier of the Penn State particle separator, it allows her to eat quicker and have more time for everything else. But I think under overcrowding it should help because when she does get to the feed bunk, she can intake that TMR rapidly, not, not minimizing the time, but getting it done in under five hours, which is pretty critical in terms of having normal feeding behavior. So I'd say particle size chop, so have this chop length, which is dynamic and suited to the crop you're putting in the TMR fiber starch, you know, it's really nothing that you wouldn't think about, but we've gotta come back to the fact that we're feeding a cow, which is sort of being pushed toward acidosis. How can we formulate a diet that steers her rumen away from that? And then management as well. So have ample everything. Yeah. Other than bunk space installs
Scott Sorrell (33:49):
You talked a lot about recumbent rumination. Talk a little bit about the difference between recumbent and standing and, and why is it different?
Dr. Rick Grant (33:59):
Ones she's using her legs. Yes. I was looking at Bill, I just, I just, no, I'm from New York, so there's no, I'm just a smart elk. I apologize for that. But no, that's, I shouldn't blame all New Yorkers. 'cause I know some very nice New Yorkers too. But my wife would say, I'm not one of them
Scott Sorrell (35:26):
You know, kind of a follow up question to that. You had kind of seemed like you were saying that you said if she's comfortable while she's laying down, so why wouldn't she be she's in her herself, she's laying down. Sure. Well, what are some issues that's gonna make her uncomfortable?
Dr. Rick Grant (35:39):
Just all the things we've talked about. Yeah. What defines a comfortable stall? Yeah. All those decades of, or years of work from UBC and other places, right? So dimensions, right? Design, depth of depth of bedding. Is it four inches? Is it deep beded, all those sort of things. So she gets to, gets there and she has an opportunity to lie down and you're overcrowded. And let's say you're a heifer in a mixed pen, you're just a subordinate animal, right? And you're thinking, oh, and then it's not a comfortable stall, right. That just, it's just gonna make the job even harder for her to deal with that chronic stressor. Right. That makes perfect sense. Yeah. That, that's my thought on what you guys think, but tend to think about it from the cow's perspective, the resources available, it has to be high quality for her. Right? Yeah. Do
Dr. Bill Weiss (36:25):
You know, has there been research on long term effects of, like, heifers are gonna be suffering much more in an overcrowded pen, but on their long term productivity, like the next lactation and so on?
Dr. Rick Grant (36:37):
Ah, no, that's a good question though. That, that'd be interesting. I don't, I can't put my hand on that kind of data bill, because you'd expect that if they're, if they've lived through an overcrowded lactation and they're coming into their second one, there should be a penalty there, you would think. Yeah, that'd, that'd be, unless you're collecting some of that data on farm, it'd be rough to do. I, I know our farmer manager was really happy when we stopped all of our trials after several months. Right.
Dr. Rick Grant (37:24):
But some years ago the grad student looked at rumination by first calf heifers in mixed pens in the absence of overcrowding and how rumination changed in the stalls when they were lying in a preferred or a non-preferred stall. If I have time, I'll talk about that today. But preferred by the dominant cow and when the heifer was lying in a preferred stall. And so you can't get inside their head and really understand what they're sensing, but clearly they weren't at ease as telegraphed by rumination because there was about a 40% drop in rumination while she was lying there, whether she was in a preferred versus a non-preferred stall. Interesting. And the preferred stalls in our barns tended to be the ones that were closest to the feed bunk, the usual thing. Right. And so, you know, that's a, that's a big drop in rumination time.
Dr. Rick Grant (38:12):
And we would never have noticed, we didn't expect that they've all fed the same diet and overcrowding. So now you superimpose some excessive competition of overcrowding, go through a whole lactation with that drop in rumination and so forth. Bill, I, you gotta believe there's gonna be something right that, that, that's going to carry over either, either ruminal effect or something, some systemic effect that will show up in the second. And, and maybe that's been part of the unrecognized reason why heifers sometimes don't do as well, the second lactation, or even during the first, as a percentage of the mature cows, maybe it, it's not always the ration, but it's some component like this of the environment that we just have not recognized. 'cause You can't measure it, you know, you know, on the farm, you, you wouldn't, you wouldn't have an idea necessarily what they're doing rumination wise, unless you were, I guess now you can monitor it, but we never have No, in the future, it'd be nice to be able to monitor in real time lying down and ruminating together. Right.
Dr. Bill Weiss (39:10):
But, Anyway, so, so do you think separating two year olds out from cow, older cows would be almost a, a requirement for overcrowded
Dr. Rick Grant (39:19):
Farms? Wouldn't you Sure. Like to see that at least, at least through the first part of lactation? I mean, that's clearly, I think if I had to guess, that's where the biggest effect is. But for sure, yes, because if they're competing and you have all that voluminous data, which tells you they're not so competitive at a hundred percent stocking density, and now you're overcrowding, you know, boy, if you could put 'em in a separate pen, at least they're, at least they're fighting with people their own size.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (39:53):
So what kinds of observations have you made about where, where the stalls that are preferred, and you talked about preferred and non-preferred. So, so what, what kind of observations have you made within the pens as far as stall use?
Dr. Rick Grant (40:11):
We've, we've just dabbled in that to be clear, but the people who have published it would, would say that the preferred stalls tend to be those clay, which are closest to the feed. And if there's anything, say in, on a commercial farm where there's light coming in on the side or something that would make the, just from an environmental stand ventilation standpoint or heat, those would be less preferred during certain times of the day. But it tends to be closest to the feed. And if there's anything relative to air movement and so forth, it's probably not those ones. Right? So all the metrics we can use to classify stall, the ones which seem to be the best and closest to feed. And I'd say also to water, those are the, tend to be the preferred stalls. The only, the only thing I'd add to that would be we've just some recent work would say that say if they're a little bit lame or something like that, the preferred stall for them is the one that's closest to the entrance into the, into the pen, right? Mm-Hmm
Scott Sorrell (41:28):
I know if anybody's doing any work, any engineers out there looking to optimize or, or maximize the, the number of preferred stalls.
Dr. Rick Grant (41:35):
Yeah. No, I don't, I think that's up to management a little bit. 'cause Hopefully they're, hopefully all the stalls are built with similar comfort, right? Yeah. And if a barn is positioned right, and if you've taken advantage of all the knowledge we have fans ventilation, everything should be good. Right? You know, heat stress is still heat stress, but everything should be good. And the only thing you can do from there, if you have a well done barn it's management, right? That would make some area or some group of stalls less desirable, right. And really accentuate the fact. But I'd say just in general, one thing I would say is that stalls closer to the feed alley tend to be preferred. I think that's a safe statement. Yeah. Even if they're all equally deep bedded sand comfortable, and you have like, think about a four row head to head, you've got a backside and a front side, all things being equal, the front side might be more preferred as long as you have a nice wide alley. So they're not being interfered with as other animals eat and move around. Yeah,
Scott Sorrell (42:36):
That makes sense. Yeah.
Dr. Neil Michael (42:38):
Scott, you've your question about preferred stalls, and one of the things we do on walkthroughs is smoke a barn, take a smoker out there, and that, you know, most of us, especially in the dairy industry, we're visual. And when I go smoke a barn, I make sure I take that manager or that owner along with me because you don't need, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out where those dead spots are, you know? Yeah. So that's, that's like you, like Rick said, it comes down to management of that barn and air flows.
Scott Sorrell (43:18):
Take that to the next step. So let's say you've identified a dead area. What kinda steps do you take to to, to get rid of that? What can you do?
Dr. Neil Michael (43:26):
Yeah, so tunnel barns are, I was just thinking when you were talking tunnel barns, especially retrofit tunnel barns you know, it really comes down to you can have a perfect tunnel barn, but then you have a return in the middle of the barn from the parlor. Well, you just blew everything you did, you know, from an engineering standpoint, unless you put some kind of baffle there or a door. But the rest of it, at the far end of the barn, I mean, fans being on this end, is just managing vents. I mean, just managing, you know, inflow a lot of times is pretty easy. You, you can't make 'em perfect. But those are the two big things that stick out on those cross vents are a different deal, but, you know,
Scott Sorrell (44:19):
Yeah. Great insights.
Dr. Neil Michael (44:20):
You, you have to see it to go fix it though, right?
Scott Sorrell (44:25):
Good. Bill, have we missed any big, big issues we need to cover? I just, yeah.
Dr. Bill Weiss (44:31):
One, one question, Les, what do you think eventually we're gonna maybe reach a biological maximum milk production? Is it gonna be time? In other words, they don't have enough time to eat or rest or whatever, or would be something else?
Dr. Rick Grant (44:49):
Hmm. That's,
Dr. Bill Weiss (44:50):
Or may, maybe there's no limit. I don't know,
Dr. Rick Grant (44:51):
But yeah, genetically, right? Who knows? Yeah. Yeah. well if, if genetics sets the limit, the real I'm interpreting the question is what, what's fundamentally, is there always gonna be something that holds 'em back? Are we gonna get to some nirvana where, you know, nutrition is perfect? You know, I, I think, you know, nutrition continues to pace our models keep getting more sophisticated, right? There's a long way to go. But I, I guess my bias would be today the perfect model
Dr. Rick Grant (46:03):
Right? I don't know if you agree with that, but I guess that's the best answer I can give. Unless, you know, we begin to think, you know, of, of something some something from outside the, the system that comes in and saves us all. But may, we may be growing meat and milk in a lab in the future. None of this matters, but I hate to think that would be the case,
Dr. Bill Weiss (46:25):
We've all been to farms where you look at the diets and they're all the same, and this guy's milking 35,000 pounds and this guy's 20,000 pounds and it's all this other stuff that Right. Really makes the difference.
Dr. Rick Grant (46:37):
I think now Alex Bock has that beautiful paper from like 20 years ago. Now, every time I give a talk, I try to mention it 'cause I want people to read it if they haven't, but yeah, exactly that management aside from nutrition, all the cows all in these herds were fed the same diet, 47 herds and management explain like 56% of the variation when you took nutrition off the table. So it's huge. It's huge. Yeah. Not nutrition's huge as well, but we, we've gotta feed it in the right environment. Yeah.
Scott Sorrell (47:06):
Yep. Yep. Rick, it's been a, a great great conversation. Look forward to, to your presentation coming up. Thank you. What I'd like to do is just kind of give the audience just a couple key takeaways that, that, that from the, from the discussion today or from your presentation, but I'm gonna give you some time to think about that. I'm gonna start off with Dr. Zimmerman over here.
Moderator (47:28):
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Dr. Clay Zimmerman (47:55):
Yeah. So first of all, Rick, I I really wanna say how appreciated is by the industry. All of the work you and your group have done it minor institute through the years. Certainly all your work with the time budget of the cow, and you've addressed a lot of really key feeding management questions that have come up in the field through the years that, that other people weren't addressing. So really wanna thank you for all the work that you've done through years.
Dr. Rick Grant (48:23):
Oh, I appreciate that. Well, it's the team for sure. I'll be the first to say that none of this could have happened if we weren't all at minor institute with the facilities there and the, the knowledge base and, and having the farm right there is kind of nice. You can try things on the farm.
Dr. Rick Grant (49:21):
And it's not just welfare, like, oh, it'd be good if she could do it, it is good, but it has real economic con consequences in terms of intake room and function and milk component output. So I think that's where I am today. We've gotta keep doing that kind of work and we've gotta get these, if we can, embedded into models so that this sort of thing becomes hardwired into some of our nutrition models going forward, right? So it'll still be an art and, and good nutritionist, consultants and farmers bring it to the table, but it will be part of, I hope, routine ration formulation sometime in the future. Yeah, that would be my hope. Yeah.
Scott Sorrell (49:58):
Makes sense.
Dr. Rick Grant (49:58):
Yeah. Yeah. Someone smarter than me's gotta do it, but I hope that's what will happen.
Scott Sorrell (50:02):
Yeah. Great comments. Yeah. Dr. Michael, any any final takeaways?
Dr. Neil Michael (50:08):
Yeah, it's just refreshing. That's, like I said, that's reality for us when we walk on dairies. Just if we can just let a cow be a cow and let her express what you know, her drive to eat and to produce milk that'd be a perfect world, you know? And it's really our job to like you said, that's why we walk cows. My son asked me a couple months ago, are you worried about ai? You know, is it gonna replace you? And I said I, they may come close, but I'm I believe that there's a lot of value in just looking and seeing and putting the pieces together every day. And yeah, so well said. Yeah.
Scott Sorrell (50:59):
Yeah. Good insights, bill.
Dr. Bill Weiss (51:01):
Just, you know, we look at diets to the third decimal place and it's all this other stuff now that really matters more than what's on that piece of paper. And Rick and other people really brought that to the attention of how, how important cow comfort, feeding, management, all this detail stuff. It's not, not just the milligrams of selenium fed a day, even though that's extremely important. So
Scott Sorrell (51:25):
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Weiss (51:27):
Yeah.
Scott Sorrell (51:28):
Great points. Good. Anything else you wanna add?
Dr. Rick Grant (51:31):
No, I, I think we've covered a lot of ground. Thank you for having me here today.
Scott Sorrell (51:35):
Wow. Thank you for coming on. It's been a great discussion. It has been a good discussion. I want to thank, I can't believe it's taken this long to get you on or here to the pub, but we'll have to have you back. Had a good time. Yeah. Thank you. No, it was awesome, clay. Thanks for joining us, gentlemen. Great job today. Great conversation to all you out there in cyberspace. Thanks for coming along again. Hope you learned something, hope you had some fun. Hope to see you next time. Here's real science exchange where it's always happy hour and you're always among friends. Hi, I am Scott. I'm here to invite you to a very special event at the upcoming ADSA conference in Louisville. It's gonna be a bourbon tasting. We're calling it bourbon and brainiacs. Now, why do you call it bourbon and brainiacs?
Scott Sorrell (52:15):
'Cause we're gonna have all your favorite professors there doing a bourbon tasting. We're gonna have six to eight bourbons there. We're gonna be recording a podcast and doing the tasting. While we're there, we've even got a a bourbon, a barista, which I'm not sure exactly what that is, but we're gonna have one of them there. Now, listen, this is only for 120 of our favorite friends. That's all this place holds. We're gonna have it at the Fraser Museum. It's a bourbon museum there in Louisville, and so only 120 people can fit in there. And so we want you to be one of them. And so to become one of the one 20, all you have to do is go to alchem.com/bourbon and register. Once those 120 slots are gone, they're gonna be gone. But I hope to see you there.
Balchem (53:08):
We’d love to hear your comments or ideas for topics and guests. So please reach out via email to anh.marketing at balchem.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. Balchem's real science lecture series of webinars continues with ruminant focused topics on the first Tuesday of every month, monogastric focused topics on the second Tuesday of each month, and quarterly topics for the companion animal segment. Visit bal chem.com/real science to see the latest schedule and to register for upcoming webinars.