This episode was recorded in Reno, Nevada, during the 2025 Western Dairy Management Conference.
This episode was recorded in Reno, Nevada, during the 2025 Western Dairy Management Conference.
The panel discusses their individual experiences with outbreaks in different states. Beth talks about her group’s microbial surveillance technology they used to compare rectal swabs from positive and non-positive herds. They noted elevations in specific virulent E. coli, Salmonella spp., and Clostridium perfringens in the HPAI-positive herds. Enrique noted that in California, the outbreak began in the South Valley during periods of heat stress, which exacerbated symptoms. He also felt that some dairies panicked a little and moved cows too much, which did not help. In the North Valley, the outbreak happened in cooler weather, and dairies purposefully did not move cows out of their pens and provided supportive therapy within the pen. (5:25)
Dr. Schcolnik emphasized making sure i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed in your nutrition program to help manage through an outbreak. The immune system is an obligate glucose utilizer, so energy is key, as are protein and trace minerals. He noted they also added binders to diets, and either probiotics or double doses of yeast to keep the rumen healthy. Decreasing intake is a big symptom, so he recommends vitamin B supplementation to stimulate appetite. (12:30)
The panel discusses how the Texas and California outbreaks differed from one another, including heat stress, recovery in milk production after infection, bird migration and cattle movement. Enrique notes that in California, it seemed like transmission was going downwind. Animal movement, wild birds and milk trucks were also implicated. (14:31)
Several companies are investing in vaccine development, but the virus mutation is a challenge. Dr. Spencer wonders if the vaccine will end up resembling the human flu vaccine where you hope to target the general structure of the virus to reduce impact. The panel talks about natural immunity and how cows will be impacted in the lactation after they were ill. Dr. Schcolnik has observed that a percentage of cows who were dry during the outbreak aren’t performing as well after freshening. He hypothesizes this could be due to mammary cell death during infection, as the virus lyses the cell as it exits the cell. (24:41)
The panel discusses practical recommendations for dairy producers to prepare for or help mitigate during an outbreak. Biosecurity is key. Vaccines are hopefully on the way, but until then, minimizing cattle movements within the herd, post-dipping cows as soon as possible after the machine falls off and minimizing splashing of milk are all good practices. The panel looks forward to more research about all the different ways the virus transmits. They’re also eager to learn more about treatment plans and what has worked for different dairies regarding giving fluids, altering rations, boosting the immune system, managing co-infections and impacts on calves and heifers. (29:18)
Lastly, panelists share their take-home thoughts. (37:33)
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Scott Sorrell (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. We've got a special treat coming to you this week at the Western Dairy Management Conference in Reno, Nevada. And we've got several presenters that we're gonna be interviewing. But before we get into our, our, our current presenters, I'd like to first introduce my, my co-host for this session, Dr. Jeff Elliott, you don't need much of an introduction because you've been here several times.. Just tell us a little bit about yourself though, Jeff.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:43):
So, out of Amarillo, Texas, and with our talk today, it was about 1st of March when I first heard about this, and we didn't know what it was at the time. Yeah. We thought it was Winter dysentery, but Amar, Amarillo, Texas Tech support mainly for Scott.
Scott Sorrell (01:00):
Yeah. So Jeff, I remember you gave me a call and said, you know what, we ought to do a podcast on this H five N one stuff. And so we had a conversation with Dr. Hoor. And we were thinking about doing that. And at the time, there was nothing known about it. Right. And, and, and to Dr. Hoover's credit, he said, you know what? You guys are known for real science, and there's no real science in this stuff yet, . So we should probably just step, step back and, and wait until there's some stuff known about that. So, and never was there a wiser word said. So that, that, that was good. Color commentary for this session is Enrique Schcolnik with PDS. Enrique. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Yes.
Dr. Enrique Schcolnik (01:42):
Hi. I'm a veterinarian by training. I went to veterinary school at University of Illinois, and then spent 10 years in clinical practice, dairy practice in California. And now the last 17 years I've been doing nutrition for dairy in the San Joaquin Valley.
Scott Sorrell (01:59):
Yeah. Good. Were you at Illinois when Jeff was there?
Dr. Jeff Elliott (02:02):
Actually, we've talked about that. We didn't know each other, but we did kind of cross overlap. Yeah.
Scott Sorrell (02:06):
Okay, cool. And we have two featured guests this time we've got Dr. Jennifer Spencer. Tell us about yourself.
Dr. Jennifer Spencer (02:14):
All right. Well, I'm an extension and research dairy specialist for Texas A&M AgriLife. I'm based out of Stephenville, Texas. My background is more reproductive physiology, but I've had to learn a lot with this job. Moving into extension. You have to know a lot about Yeah. A lot of things. Yeah.
Scott Sorrell (02:34):
Yeah. Good. Thank you. And Beth, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Beth Galbraith (02:37):
Sure. My name's Beth Gebra. I'm a research manager at Microbial Discovery Group. I our, our company's based in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, so I'm come from the Wisconsin area. We are the microbial arm for United Animal Health, and my background is ruminant microbiology. So I'm a microbiologist by training.
Scott Sorrell (02:57):
Oh, excellent. Good stuff. So you guys gave a presentation earlier today called H five N one outbreak Challenges and Opportunities. Now, that last part kind of threw me a curve opportunities. Are there opportunities in H five N one? Why don't you kind of talk, talk through that for me.
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Dr. Jennifer Spencer (04:25):
There are some opportunities, and I think a lot of it lies within what's gonna happen. So there's opportunities to get ahead. Okay. What are the things that we know, but what are the things that could be happening? I guess more of the research side of what could come of all this. Yeah. What's the economical impact? What's the impact on the dairy cows for the rest of their lives? And I think there's a lot of interesting stuff that best done looking at co-infections and some of the opportunities there lying within what is HPAI, but what other diseases are actually impacting the severity of that
Scott Sorrell (05:16):
HPA
Dr. Jennifer Spencer (05:16):
Okay. H5N1.
Scott Sorrell (05:17):
Okay. All right. Very well, Beth, why don't I have you just kind of give us kind of an overview some of the key points that you guys talked about today. Sure.
Beth Galbraith (05:25):
So, so we started out with a little bit of background information about HPAI and, and where it started and how it's, how it began in poultry and the first, the first crossover to dairy cattle, and really a little bit about what that early day of the outbreak looked like. And we had Dr. Jen here as well as the other vets in the, in the Texas area who were dealing with this hands-on. And we were lucky enough to, to get some insights from them and understand what they were dealing with and, and some of the challenges in the early part of the outbreak. So, taking and building upon that, we decided to build a little bit more about what are, what were the key learnings and what do we, where do we have opportunity to go from there? What can we take from that early experience and build upon and make ourselves more prepared as an industry to, to both mitigate this virus, but also any other future outbreaks.
Scott Sorrell (06:19):
Yeah. Now Jeff, you were kinda on the ground out there and in the beginning, 'cause it started in Texas, then now it's in California now. So kind of gimme your perspective on you know, what was your first introduction to this problem and some of the things that you were hearing in the field?
Dr. Jeff Elliott (06:36):
We were actually at a dinner with some clients and they started talking about, man, something's going on with the cows. And actually, I thought it was winter dysentery and silly until they started talking about the manure, which was totally different, but there was no explanation. And, you know, then they started talking about, well, it's not the heifers, it's just the older cows and it's the kind of mid to later lactation per se. So there were a lot of interesting things going on. Yeah. And I, I think there's a lot of unknowns. Yeah.
Scott Sorrell (07:14):
A lot of politics going on in the beginning as well as I recall. Yeah. Yeah. So, Beth, you talked a little bit about the first crossover. What did that look like? What was, you know, how did you first become aware of this and what were some of the things you guys were dealing with? Well,
Beth Galbraith (07:28):
I think our group became aware of it with almost with, with the rest of the general public. But, but with the connections with the veterinary community in Texas, we, we started hearing a little bit more about this lactating cow syndrome. That's what, that's what it was called at first. And we didn't know what was going on, and they were testing for everything. And so our group has a, has a rectal surveillance program that looks at different pathogens and quantitate those pathogens in a high throughput manner. So we, we took some samples, we took some swabs to see if maybe we would see something. This was in the very early days of the outbreak, so, so no, we didn't, we didn't have a marker for, for HVAI on our panel at that time. But turns out we had some other interesting findings around co-infection, so.
Scott Sorrell (08:16):
Okay. Yeah, you wanna talk a little more about that?
Beth Galbraith (08:19):
Sure, sure. So we were fortunate enough to be able to apply this microbial surveillance technology to looking at four positive herds, herds that had HPAI detected. And we had a little over a hundred swabs from individual dairy lactating dairy cows from those positive herds. And we compared those swabs to a little over 500 swabs that we took from 19 dairies that were non-positive herds. And we were able to compare those and look at markers various different bacterial and other pathogen markers in the rectal swab to see if we saw any differences. And and we did, we saw some differences, some elevation in specific vir and de coli, some elevation in salmonella, and some elevation in a clostridium PFR marker in the, the cows that were from those positive herds. Okay. So that kind of gives us another target maybe to be thinking about. And even though we may not be able to, to directly impact the HPAI right now, could we do something about some of these other factors?
Scott Sorrell (09:21):
Yeah. Okay. Interesting. Now, maybe take a little turn here, but I've heard that perhaps the disease has been here with us before and that it's, it's just now, you know, maybe a little more virulent. Can you, can you talk a little bit about that, Jen?
Dr. Jennifer Spencer (09:40):
Yeah. so I mean, there were some producers saying, you know, we've, we've probably had it before in other, you know, previous years. It just kind of showed up as more of a, a fever. So they thought that they just had like a cow fever, cow flu. Actually I think they did call it the cow flu. But I think that, you know, with everything, it probably has mutated and we have seen, you know, that now we have a new genotype that they've detected in Arizona and Nevada. So I think that getting ahead of this is gonna be really important and staying on top of the real science.
Scott Sorrell (10:24):
Yeah. Finally have some science. Yeah. A lot more to get though. I think there is. Yeah. Yeah,
Dr. Jennifer Spencer (10:29):
Definitely.
Scott Sorrell (10:31):
And Enrique, would you mind kind of sharing with us kind of your experience that you've you've had there in California?
Dr. Enrique Schcolnik (10:37):
Yeah. First of all, you know, we were the beneficiary of all the work that the people in Texas and also information that we got from the outbreaks in Colorado and Idaho. And well then we got our outbreak from, from Idaho. So we went
Dr. Enrique Schcolnik (11:31):
And but I think also we were more prepared. We did certain things nutritionally and we were prepared with how we wanted to approach treatments. I think we were a little bit better prepared than the South Valley on how we wanted to approach treatments, which we are. We were a lot more conservative trying to minimize stress on cows. I think the, the South Valley got, they got really scared and they, they had they overhand cows in my opinion down there. And we in North Valley, we focus on maintaining low stress and no moving cows around leaving everybody in their pens and doing what we could to to support them, but not, not moving cows around. Yeah.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (12:23):
So were there other things that you were doing to prepare, even if you didn't know it would work nutritionally?
Dr. Enrique Schcolnik (12:30):
Yep. Yeah, I think the number one thing is making sure that all our is were were dotted and our t's were crossed. On, on the nutrition site, the immune system you know, is a big it's an glucose utilizer. So making sure that we had enough energy in, in, in the diets. There also the immune system uses protein and, and you see trace minerals is a big thing. So making sure that we were meeting all their requirements, we is a big thing. Also yeah, on the on the nutrition side, we added some binders. 'cause We know, we knew we were gonna deal with some gut stasis. And so we added some binders and some depending on the dairy, either probiotics or double the dose of yeast, for example, just to make sure that we keep that rumen healthy as, as the intakes were, were dropping in the, in those cows. Yeah.
Scott Sorrell (13:37):
Yeah. So during COVID, there was a lot of conversation around D three and its ability to upregulate the immune system. Does that have any, any place in dairy nutrition? By, by elevated levels of D three is, is that any conversation around that? You
Dr. Enrique Schcolnik (13:51):
Know, we, we didn't do anything with D three, but we you know, our, our concern number one, number one was to keep intakes up. And vitamin B was played a massive role in maintaining intakes. We, we had used a lot of, you know, in, in, in dairy practice, I had used a lot of vitamin B pulled surgically on, on calc with different, different surgeries to get those, get that cow to eat as soon as possible after surgery, or a tough calving. Yeah. And it's that, that made a massive difference to get those cows to eat again. Also after they got hit with HBAI.
Scott Sorrell (14:31):
Yeah. Okay. Kind of question maybe for the ladies to start with, how did the California outbreak differ from perhaps the Texas outbreak? Had the virus mutated? Are there different strains? What's that look like?
Dr. Jennifer Spencer (14:45):
Right. That's a really good question. I think that it differed a lot in the sense that they saw a higher mortality rate than other states. Like Texas.
Scott Sorrell (14:57):
Texas or no. Or Texas or California had higher
Dr. Jennifer Spencer (15:00):
Mortality. California. Yes.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (15:01):
Okay.
Dr. Enrique Schcolnik (15:01):
The South Valley especially, right? Yes, yes,
Dr. Jennifer Spencer (15:03):
Yes. The South Valley. But they were also dealing with heat stress when they first got it. And we know that it, you know, causes dehydration. So they're already dealing with the heat stress, reducing water intake is not good. And I think, you know, some of the, the nutritional things, I mean, I'm not a nutritionist by any means, but I think some of those might differ, but it seems like the treatments are probably the same with, you know, all the states in Texas, they talk a lot about vitamin B Yeah. And getting fluids into 'em, mostly, you know, trying to get the symptoms, dealing with the fever, dealing with inflammation, kind of the supportive care. So those are kind of the things that I've seen differently. I don't know, Jeff would,
Dr. Jeff Elliott (15:52):
And Scott, so in, in Texas when it first came out, herds were losing some milk. Yeah. But they were bouncing back. Would they
Scott Sorrell (16:01):
Bounce all the way back? Jeff?
Dr. Jeff Elliott (16:03):
They'd get close. Okay. They weren't, I don't think they were getting a hundred percent, but they were, you know, they'd come back at least the herds I'd talked to, but out in California because of that. And I'm calling it a co-infection. You talked about that today, but it was heat stress. Yeah. But I mean, as the whole herd had dropped 30 pounds of milk, it was phenomenal. Mm. And a little more scary in, in my book, what they went through than what we did in Texas. Yeah. Yeah. So, and I don't know if it's a co-infection, but
Beth Galbraith (16:34):
You could be Exactly right. I think, you know, it could be this stacking, like this domino effect, right. Of, of heat stress and HPAI and maybe, you know, some immune suppression going on and maybe some co-infection going on. And then you reach the tipping point. And, and, you know, those herds were just much more dramatically affected because maybe they had more of these dominoes in a row. Yeah.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (16:56):
Have they, have they bounced back?
Dr. Enrique Schcolnik (16:57):
Yeah, they bounced back. Especially in the North Valley. 'cause It's just almost like two different states, right? The, the South Valley what they went through over there with really high mortality was completely different to what we went through in the North Valley. We had very little mortality. Some days only lost two, three pounds of milk. But I think there was a little bit of a factor there with this South valley getting hit during heat stress, but also overreacting and moving cows around. So there were producers that were making, you know, a couple 500 cow pens with all sick cows. And then doing drenching from cow to cow. So obviously the viruses in nasal secretions and, you know, maybe a cow was mildly ill, but now she's together with a bunch of other sick cows. And of course they moved her away from her pen mates as well. So that's, that's a, that, that would depress the immune system as well. So I think there was a little bit of overreaction there too due to the heat maybe that, that they just got scared and, and made some, some maybe some bad decisions on, on grouping a bunch of sick cows together and over drenching cows. There were, there is a word drenching, 500 cows a day Wow. Down, down there versus what we
Dr. Jeff Elliott (18:20):
Did. And how do you do that? Well, yeah.
Dr. Enrique Schcolnik (18:22):
How do you do that? Well, right. And maybe one guy was trained to, to drench cows and the other guys weren't. But in the, in the North Valley, we elected to keep all the to stop all cattle movement. And we wouldn't even put cows in the hospital if they had mastitis. We just leave them in their pen and just try to do the best we could to with supported treatments, but in their pan. So, so to minimize
Dr. Jeff Elliott (18:47):
The system, so could you keep it pan isolated?
Dr. Enrique Schcolnik (18:52):
You know, it spread, eventually spread. So we were noticing, you know, it would start in, in a north pan and then go to the next pen and go to the next pen. Right. So it, it would eventually spread from pen to pen, but it was kind of a slow spread. Yeah. So if you grab some, some cows and put 'em all together in a, in, in a 500 cows sick pan, and man, those cows really took a big hit, you know, even if they were mildly ill going into that pen loading those matters. Right. So if you, if they get a massive dose of viral load, you know the, the immune system may be overwhelmed. Right. So, yeah.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (19:27):
So speaking of spreading, since I've got three experts here, why have we not seen it in Wisconsin or the north like New York? I don't, I'm not sure any or at least reported it, but
Dr. Jennifer Spencer (19:40):
That's a great question because Yeah, I noticed that too, that Wisconsin, they haven't really had anything, and maybe it's, you know, they have smaller herds. I don't know if that helps with catching it early or something, and if that reduces the impact of it. That's a really good question. I think some of it does have to do with the, the migration patterns of the birds and
Scott Sorrell (20:05):
Are they different birds or different pockets
Dr. Jennifer Spencer (20:07):
Of birds. Right. And I tried to look it up and there was one like that during the certain times of the year. It was like a songbird that they traveled during when, you know, Texas had it, they were traveling through Texas, but then when California kind of had it, they were going that pattern.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (20:26):
Yeah. Those Dan Blue Birds. I
Dr. Jennifer Spencer (20:28):
Know, right.
Beth Galbraith (20:29):
It is a really good, really good question though. And, you know, I think it's one that we, we really don't have the answer for. And one of the things could be that there are a lot less cattle movements too, so it's, it's a lot less likely in Wisconsin to be moving, you know, your heifers raising some
Dr. Jeff Elliott (20:44):
Else back. So I can see that in New York because, and I wish we had asked somebody, but I'm not sure how much they transfer heifers to heifer facilities. I know the southeast does, they come into different areas, and I think there's some large herds in Wisconsin that probably do, maybe not as much, but I would still think Wisconsin's got large herds going in, or heifers going into Kansas, et cetera. So, I mean, yeah, Minnesota's hit hard. It's like that Mississippi River. Yeah,
Scott Sorrell (21:14):
Right.
Dr. Enrique Schcolnik (21:16):
So yeah, there's a number of California dairymen that grow their heifers in Texas. Right. So there, there's, there's quite a bit of cattle movement between Texas and California as well. And, and same thing with Idaho. You know, there's more feed up there more he cheaper hef for feed. So there, there's, there's a lot of people that send their heifers up there as well.
Scott Sorrell (21:36):
So, yeah. So that would account, oh, sorry, go ahead Beth.
Beth Galbraith (21:38):
I was just gonna, I think that the virus knows no state, but no state boundaries though. So I think we better, we better be ready no matter where we're
Scott Sorrell (21:46):
At. Right. Yeah, no, without a doubt. I'm curious, you know, the, these transportation of animals is going to account for, you know, these gross transmissions, but what about dairy to dairy, neighbor to neighbor? What's caused that? Is that, is that still birds, local birds? Do we know?
Dr. Jeff Elliott (22:05):
I don't, yeah, you
Dr. Enrique Schcolnik (22:06):
Can go. Yeah. No, in, in, in California we, in a lot of times it seemed like all the transmission was going downwind. So, you know, for a long time we had that theory that it was downwind. My you know, I had a couple dairies that were the most upwind in Merced County, and those were the very, very last dairies to get hit. So I think it was a multiple, you know, that there's animal movement, obviously it was one. Yeah. wild wild birds is another one. And then you know some, some researchers are have pretty good evidence that milk trucks were participating in the, in, in the spread as well. And also picking up waste milk for calf ranches and going to multiple dairies. Mm-Hmm
Scott Sorrell (23:16):
Yeah. You know, speaking of birds, are, are they all equal in terms of inf effectiveness? And then secondary to that, what about mammals? Now I know that humans can get it, but can rats and mice, and I've heard that cats can get it. Can they become vectors as well?
Beth Galbraith (23:34):
I think, I think, you know, that's a great question. Birds are not all equally impacted. Depending on the species, some can be impacted much more severely. So when you look at some of our commercial poultry production, there's a very high mortality rate. And it's not just because of the culling. Waterfall also can be impacted, but you know, that is one of the theories on why it's spreading through the waterfowl was potentially less, less deadly there. So they have more opportunity to, to spread. But it's been detected across a variety of different mammals. I think Kay Russo and her talk earlier this morning said that there had been over 200 different species that it's been detected in. So it seems to, to be able to leap to multiple species.
Dr. Enrique Schcolnik (24:22):
Could it be that some birds have have had more exposure and maybe have some protection from being exposed? And like with poultry, they're completely naive, right? 'cause They depopulate those, those herds, and so they're always naive. Right?
Beth Galbraith (24:35):
Yeah, certainly a possibility. Sure. Yeah.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (24:40):
Very true.
Scott Sorrell (24:41):
Next question I've kind of got is, so any vaccines on the horizon? Or is this thing mutating fast enough that it'd be hard to keep up with vaccines? And,
Dr. Jeff Elliott (24:52):
And that's a question I had, 'cause one of you had mentioned that, that there was another genotype or Right. Is that gonna affect the vaccine? And
Dr. Jennifer Spencer (25:03):
I think it will. I mean, you know, there are companies, several that are already doing trials looking at vaccines and how well the, they'll work. But to me it seems like with the different genotypes, it's gonna be like the flu season for humans. So you're gonna have, you know, influenza A, B, C, but there's gonna be a bunch of other ones. You're just hoping that they cover the base, I guess, structure of the virus to reduce the impact overall.
Scott Sorrell (25:32):
Yeah. And then what about natural immunity, right? Texas, right? They're coming back. Some of those cows that were infected coming back into production, have they, have they gotten infected again? Has it hurt second, the second lactations after, what do we know Jeff about Texas?
Dr. Jeff Elliott (25:53):
I'll ask Jen. Oh, what do we know? No, I, I'm not aware of any herds that have discussed secondary or the second infection you may have.
Dr. Jennifer Spencer (26:02):
I've heard of one, one that said that Central Texas, but I don't think, no. Up in the, I think up in the panhandle. Okay. But they said that it wasn't so severe, so they, they were kind of questioning, was it HPAI? Or, I mean, like you said, it could be a carryover effect. Yeah, yeah. That we don't know. I mean, it's gotta be one year until they dry off and then they come back into lactation. It replicates in the cells and it causes necrosis. So are they gonna be producing less for the rest of their life or are they gonna fully recover? That's kind of a big question on my mind. I don't know.
Dr. Enrique Schcolnik (26:44):
Yes. Yeah. We, we've seen cows that were dry during the outbreak and then they come fresh and they don't per, they don't perform. There's a percentage of those cows that don't perform. So depending on how severe the infection was in the other, and know those as I believe the virus lysis the cell as it exits the cell. Right. So it's gonna kill some of those yeah. Security cells in the other. So we're seeing some, some poor performance on, on, on fresh cow. On a, on a percent. Not on all the fresh cow, but certainly on a, on a percent of fresh cows when they, when they come back.
Scott Sorrell (27:18):
Yeah. Interesting. You know, the thought just struck me, you know, we're, we're, we're putting this on the migrating foul, and that's going on right now. Right. At least in, in my neck of the woods. I don't know about California, but, but in, in Southern California last year, that hit in the summer. Now there weren't migrating foul then. Right. And so where'd that come from?
Dr. Enrique Schcolnik (27:41):
So the first we, we inherited our HPI from Idaho and, and it was there were some some cow Idaho was going through an outbreak. Got it. In the summer. And there was a group of cows that were sent to to Idaho. And there were fresh there was, I believe there was some fresh heifers, and some of them tested positive for sta Oreos, which is a contagious mastitis. And so that dairyman rejected them, and they got a permit to go straight to slaughter. But on the, on the trip back to California, there's a dairyman that milks stuff for yous, cows. Some people elect to do that and they can manage that. Some people do it well, some people not. But they ended up still going to the slaughterhouse. There was some miscommunication there, what, what they were allowed to do or, or not allowed to do. And they went back to a dairy. And that's how the outbreak in California got started. So it was a hundred percent animal movement.
Scott Sorrell (28:42):
Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Interesting. Ladies, anything else that you guys covered in your presentation you think we need to address today?
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Beth Galbraith (29:18):
I would say maybe just a few of the practical recommendations of, okay, we, we know we're dealing with this. What do we do? What are some practical things that, that the dairyman can do to help get ready or to help mitigate I'll toss it to you, Jen. Yeah,
Dr. Jennifer Spencer (29:38):
I completely agree. You know, biosecurity measures and you know, how long does the virus live on surfaces? What different types of surfaces does it live on for longer, for example. I think that that would be really important to implement into, you know biosecurity plan or what, you know, cleaning detergent agents you should use on, you know, your milking equipment to make sure that the virus isn't there. I think there's a lot to do with mainly biosecurity is where we're at at the moment. Yeah. Vaccines hopefully on the way. But other than that, it's more, we're trying to treat it, look for some prevention plans, but I think there's still kind of a ways to go on some of it.
Scott Sorrell (30:29):
Yeah. You said vaccines hopefully on the way. Is there a light at the end of the tunnel? Is the, do you know? I think so. You do? Yeah. Okay. All right.
Dr. Enrique Schcolnik (30:36):
How long's the tunnel
Dr. Jennifer Spencer (30:38):
That's a good question. It's very black, so, yeah. I don't know.
Scott Sorrell (30:42):
Okay. Not soon. Not soon. Enrique, what are some of the things you guys are gonna do? I say next time, hopefully there's not a next time, but likelihood that there will be, what kind of practical things have you learned that you, you plan to implement next time down the road?
Dr. Enrique Schcolnik (30:57):
Yeah, so I, I, I look at it both two ways. One is, you know, how do we slow down the spread dairy to dairy. But for, for my clients, I look at how to slow down the spread within the dairy. Right? And I, I think some of the measures that we take that, that we did actually successfully implemented, you know minimize cattle movements within the herd, right? That, that's really important what we do in the milk barn because we know that the highest concentration of viruses in the milk. So things like post dipping cows as soon as possible after the machine falls off, so we can disinfect that that teat and minimize splashing of milk the waste milk pickup, you know? And a lot of days we, we discontinued that. So we I, I think that possibly may have helped. I'd like to see more research. You know, I think there's, there's research that is cooking right now. We're waiting for results on on how this virus transmits all the different ways that it transmits. And it'd be really good to have some of that information for us to, to be, make better decisions next time. There will be a next time.
Scott Sorrell (32:15):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that, that was one of the questions I was gonna ask as well is, so what is the next step in research? What does that look like? Maybe what's already in place and in, what is it we're gonna need to find out for the, for the next time? Would like to hit that?
Dr. Jennifer Spencer (32:32):
That's a good question. I mean, I think right now the research that's going on is a lot of the vaccines and kind of trying to prevent it. I think what would be really nice is to figure out a treatment plan. How many days are you supposed to give fluids for you know, what type of nutrition or, you know, vitamins could you add to help reduce the impacts or get 'em back on their feet quicker? And then I think some future research would be what are the lasting effects? So, you know, the fresh cows coming in, not producing enough, but also, I think we forgot a little bit about the calves and the heifers. These calves are getting the milk, they're drinking the milk. I mean, are they getting antibodies from the mother during pregnancy? Are they getting it in the colostrum? So we can emphasize colostrum management more. I think there's a lot in the heifers and calves that'll probably be a little bit later. But I find that really interesting.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (33:35):
Yeah. It may not even be as much research as it is on farm observations. Exactly. You know, are they gonna get it again, the next lactation? Are they gonna produce less the next lactation? Yeah. The CVEs, the heifers. Yep. Yeah.
Beth Galbraith (33:48):
True. And that's a real opportunity I think, for data collection, data sharing and like, be so
Dr. Jeff Elliott (33:53):
Positive. Everything is an opportunity.
Beth Galbraith (33:56):
You gotta look for the silver linings occasionally, right? So watching, watching these dairies that have had it and kind of documenting how, what that progression looks like over time and, and can they get it again? Or what, what is the longevity of a milk production in the, in the affected animals? And there's so much left to learn, I think. But you're right, A lot of it Jeff could be learned, you know, maybe right on the dairies that have had the experience.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (34:21):
Yeah. Well, we've kind of always said, you know, dairymen are better, like with low milk price, they become better dairymen. Same when there's a disease or something like this. They fine tune, they're looking at things closer. They, they'll probably be dairy better dairyman at the end of it, even though it's a heck of a hurdle to get over. Yeah. An opportunity. An opportunity,
Beth Galbraith (34:44):
An opportunity to do a few of those other things too. Like manage the immune system, boost that immune system, manage those co-infections. These are all things that, you know, we, I think we're aware of, but we kind of forget about them when we're, we're, we're just pointed at HPI, but it's kind of a holistic issue that they're dealing with. Yeah,
Dr. Jeff Elliott (35:03):
Yeah. Yeah. That's,
Dr. Enrique Schcolnik (35:04):
Yeah, that's in, in one thing that I, I did I don't use binders very often. You know, I really focus on you know, doing a great job with our silages and managing the face and, and putting up good silages, having a great fermentation. But I did add a bunch of binders during the break and in a lot of hurts I left a little bit. Right. So you know, that, that kind of changed my mind a little bit at maybe I need to have
Dr. Jeff Elliott (35:34):
A little insurance. Yeah, a
Dr. Enrique Schcolnik (35:35):
Little insurance, right. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm a, I'm, I tend to be a little bit of a minimalist, but, but yeah. Yeah, I ended up leaving some of those binders and, and some of the hers.
Scott Sorrell (35:46):
Yeah. Yeah. Good comments, guys. Anything else?
Dr. Jeff Elliott (35:50):
I've got one question. Yeah. We alluded to a little bit with the people on the dairies. Are the workers, did they start giving them eyewear or protective? You, did you see it in Texas too? He's shaking his head.
Dr. Jennifer Spencer (36:06):
I haven't seen much like eyewear, but they've been, you know, reemphasizing change your gloves some of that wash your hands after your handling and going back and forth, but specifically eyewear, I haven't seen. Yeah,
Dr. Enrique Schcolnik (36:23):
I saw a lot of eyewear in and, and at least in the North Valley where I work. Yeah. So the, the they were distributing a lot of eyewear. Okay. The, the, the county was, and people were using them. So I saw quite a bit of that.
Scott Sorrell (36:39):
Did you see much human infection in, in your area?
Dr. Enrique Schcolnik (36:43):
Just a few cases of conjunctivitis. Yeah. You know, one of, actually one of my, one of our clients there you owner Yeah. Got conjunctivitis. But other than that, that, that, that was pretty much all, all I saw.
Scott Sorrell (36:57):
Okay. Yeah.
Scott Sorrell (36:59):
Very well. We've learned a lot. There's a whole lot more to, to learn. Got some people, good people on top of it. And so we'll probably be visiting this again and then, and, and a couple more years. What I'd like to do as we kind of get ready to close out here, is just kind of share some final thoughts you know, whether it be for other consulting nutritionists or other researchers or dairy farmers or other industry people. Jeff, just feel free to, to share your thoughts. And, and, and I'd like to start with you, Jeff, if you don't mind. Well,
Dr. Jeff Elliott (37:33):
I think the key word we threw out several times was biosecurity. I think that potentially could be good for the industry. Just that protection of not just a bit, but maybe some other diseases, some other things going on. So I think biosecurity is, is huge and, and just we gotta continue to learn.
Scott Sorrell (37:54):
Yeah. So, yeah,
Dr. Jeff Elliott (37:56):
I'll leave it at That.
Scott Sorrell (37:56):
And Enrique, anything you'd like to share with the audience?
Dr. Enrique Schcolnik (37:59):
Yeah, nutritionally, you know, don't cut corners. You know, usually we look at a, you know, when we cut corners nutritionally, we look at possibly a little lower performance and, you know, little milk production or lower components or whatever. Some, some of these things we, we measure. But it becomes really evident when you have an outbreak like HBAI, which there is our you know, they're cutting more corners than others. Yeah. So look at a, look at the entire ration, you know, the immune system needs energy, needs protein needs amino acids and needs minerals. Yeah. So make sure that all those things are are balanced and, and I think that that really made a big difference. Usually the, the, the highest performing hertz, I think did better.
Scott Sorrell (38:52):
Is that right?
Dr. Enrique Schcolnik (38:53):
During, during the HPAI outbreaks, yes.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (38:55):
So I was actually, if I can come back and ask Absolutely. It made me think about, if you looked at all the dairies you work with, were the better managed dairies? Did they, even though they got it, they dropped in milk, did they? Or is it less detrimental to 'em?
Dr. Enrique Schcolnik (39:13):
Yeah, yeah. The, the, the, there is with the lowest call rates with excellent, fresh cow health those, there is definitely the better.
Scott Sorrell (39:23):
Yeah. Yep. Interesting. Jen, any final words from you?
Dr. Jennifer Spencer (39:29):
I think communication. I think that a lot of the times we're getting, you know, different information. Beth and I kind of talked about it this morning, but, you know, communicating with each other, but also also communicating with the dairy producers. They're the ones that are seeing the symptoms, they're the ones working with the cows. So I think it's really important to listen to the dairy producers and listen to what they're doing. That's probably where we're gonna be able to find, are the vaccines working, what treatments are out there, and how long you should be treating 'em for. So really mine is communicating.
Scott Sorrell (40:07):
Yeah. No, great comments. Appreciate it. Beth, we're gonna give you the final words. Sure.
Beth Galbraith (40:12):
Yeah, no, I, I would reiterate all the comments here. I think the biosecurity is key. The prevention is key. Preparation is, is the next best thing. So what can we do to prepare as an industry as, as we know this is coming and managing, managing it the best we can through communication and through these best practices that should already be in place, but maybe just need a little more attention.
Scott Sorrell (40:36):
Yeah. Thank you Beth. Okay. Thank you Jeff. Enrique. Jen, appreciate you guys time today. This is a timely topic and important topic, and I appreciate you guys sharing your expertise to our loyal audience. Thank you once again for spending some time with us. Hope you learned something. I hope you had some fun, and we hope to see you next time here to Real Science Exchange, where it's always happy hour and you're always among friends.
Balchem (41:00):
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