This episode was recorded in Fort Wayne, Indiana, during the 2025 Tri-State Dairy Conference. Dr. Boerman notes we know cows experience a negative metabolizable protein balance in early lactation, which means they’re mobilizing skeletal muscle to make up for that. Dr. Boerman and her group have been interested in strategies to measure how much muscle they’re mobilizing, when they’re losing it and when they gain it back. (3:51)
This episode was recorded in Fort Wayne, Indiana, during the 2025 Tri-State Dairy Conference.
Dr. Boerman notes we know cows experience a negative metabolizable protein balance in early lactation, which means they’re mobilizing skeletal muscle to make up for that. Dr. Boerman and her group have been interested in strategies to measure how much muscle they’re mobilizing, when they’re losing it and when they gain it back. (3:51)
Cows are ultrasounded during the dry period to determine longissimus dorsi muscle reserves, then divided into low vs high muscle groups. Weekly ultrasounds follow them through lactation. Animals with high muscle reserves during the dry period mobilized muscle before calving, which resulted in increased calf birth weights. Animals with less muscle during the dry period can gain muscle during that time and have more muscle reserves at calving than they had in the middle of the dry period. Dr. Boerman discusses possible nutrition interventions to manage muscle depletion and accretion, as well as timing of muscle loss and gain. (5:14)
The panel discusses how cows were assigned to high- and low-muscle groups and how representative those groups might be to the general population of dairy cows. Dr. Boerman mentions they’ve recently started evaluating primiparous cows as well to see if they perform differently than multiparous cows. (10:33)
Dr. Boerman notes that cows are mobilizing between 30 and 35% of their longissimus dorsi depth during lactation and muscle biopsies have shown a reduction in muscle fiber size. They also measure 3-methyl histidine and creatinine as biomarkers of muscle loss and gain. The panel discusses increased calf birth weights and impacts on colostrum for high-muscle groups. Body condition score is not a good predictor of muscle depth. (16:52)
The group discusses how parity might impact protein loss and gain, the influence of genetics on these muscle measurements, how health events might affect muscle mobilization and what kind of hormonal regulation might be occurring to control muscle losses and gains. (23:41)
Dr. Weiss shares about a project from his group where muscle and fat losses were measured by dilution. They fed 20% protein diets using soy alone or with supplementation of rumen-protected amino acids. He emphasized the differences between heifers and cows, similar to what Dr. Boerman’s group has observed as well. (29:54)
Dr. Boerman shares some ideas of what kind of experiments she’d like to conduct next to continue this line of research. (33:42)
Panelists share their take-home thoughts. (35:29)
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Scott (00:07):
Good evening everyone, and welcome to the Real Science Exchange, the pubcast where leading scientists and industry professionals meet over a few drinks to discuss latest ideas and trends in animal nutrition. We've got a real interesting one here. We've been banding about, uh, prior to starting the cameras here. Um, we're gonna be talking about the impacts of skeletal muscle depletion and accretion across lactation. That's gonna be led by Dr. Jackie Boerman from Purdue University. So Jackie, welcome first time to the pub, I believe. Yes. So welcome. Uh, do me a favor and just kind of give the, the audience a kind of a thumbnail sketch of who Jackie Boerman is.
Dr. Jackie Boerman (00:46):
So I am a, as you said, I'm a faculty member at Purdue University. I grew up on a farm in Western New York and that kind of informed some of my interest in dairy nutrition. And then I went to graduate school at the University of Illinois and at Michigan State. And after that worked for Cargill Animal Nutrition for a couple of years. Okay. Before coming to Purdue.
Scott (01:08):
Oh, excellent. Excellent. Co-hosting is, uh, Dr. Zimmerman, just glad to be here.
Dr. Jim Aldrich (01:35):
I, dairy nutritionist, I work for a company called CSA Animal Nutrition. We're based in Dayton, Ohio. I overlapped with Jackie when she was in industry for a few years and went to Cornell, got a couple degrees there, came out to, uh, here in 1991 and started working for a company called Carl Zeki and had been here ever since with a transition to other ownership and now with CSA.
Scott (02:01):
Yep. You grew up in New York as well, right? Yep. Upstate Western New York.
Dr. Jim Aldrich (02:04):
Upstate Upstate New York, Amsterdam, New York. Okay. You know where that is? Yep.
Scott (02:08):
Alright, Bill, just a thumbnail sketch of who you are.
Dr. Bill Weiss (02:12):
Uh, Bill Weiss, a retired professor from the Ohio State University. I've worked there about 35 years, been retired the last few years and becoming more retired every day. So.
Scott (02:25):
Alright, good. Well, glad to have you here, Jackie. Um, so have you given this presentation yet, or is it tomorrow?
Dr. Jackie Boerman (02:32):
It is tomorrow. Yeah.
Scott (02:34):
So if you would just kind of give us the tree tops of what the presentation's going to, uh, involve Tomorrow.
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Dr. Jackie Boerman (03:51):
I think for big picture, we've been looking at skeletal muscle for several years now, and I've been interested in kind of inspired by some other work where we know that there is a negative metabolizable protein balance in early lactation. Uh, so as a result they're mobilizing skeletal muscle. I started getting interested in understanding could we measure how much they're mobilizing? What are some different strategies we could use to try to quantify the amount of skeletal muscle that they are losing in early lactation and maybe even losing before calving to supply amino acids for the fetus and for colostrum synthesis. So started thinking about how much are they losing, when are they losing it, how we can quantify that. And then, uh, some research that finished up last year was really looking at when are they gaining it back. Yeah. So this is very much ongoing research and I don't have a whole lot of answers. Hopefully, uh, we can get to some answers moving forward, but just trying to understand what is happening to the cow and then if we can nutritionally manipulate when she can gain muscle through diet and then, um, maybe even the extent of how much she's losing through diet and management.
Scott (05:04):
Okay. So you said there's a lot of research yet to do. Maybe a good place to start is maybe kind of talking through some of the research that you have done and some of the first, uh, key findings.
Dr. Jackie Boerman (05:14):
Yeah. So we started looking at how much muscle cows have around the dry period, so how much muscle they have. And we've split cows into groups, so those that have more muscle reserves versus less muscle reserves. And we're doing that based off of ultrasound imaging of the longus doc saying like, these animals look like they have more muscle and these animals have less muscle.
Scott (05:37):
So you said you, you start in a dry period when, uh,
Dr. Jackie Boerman (05:40):
Usually we're starting 42 days to 35 days before expected calving. Got it. So kind of, you know, middle of the dry period. And then we are following them into lactation. So we're doing weekly ultrasounds. And some of that was to understand how dynamic is that muscle tissue at that point. When are they losing muscle, when are they gaining muscle during that time point?
Scott (06:03):
Okay. Any findings yet?
Dr. Jackie Boerman (06:04):
Yeah, so we found that animals that have high muscle reserves during that dry period can actually mobilize some muscle, uh, before calving. And when that happens, we're seeing that that results in increased birth weight of the calf. And then animals that have less muscle reserves during that drive period are actually able to gain some muscle during that time. So they end up, uh, at calving to have more muscle than they had in the, in the middle of their drive period. Yeah.
Scott (06:34):
And any thoughts toward, you know, maybe altering the nutrition, uh, during the dry period for those cows to help them put on more, more protein? Yeah,
Dr. Jackie Boerman (06:44):
I think there's plenty of thoughts. I haven't done any research. I'm really open to doing research in this area, but I think that there's, to me, it's logical that increasing metabolizable protein makes sense at this time point. Um, especially in that far off dry period where maybe we are historically feeding quite a bit less, uh, because we've done some studies where we looked at how much muscle they had at the very end of lactation and we know it's less than they have in the middle of their dry period. Yeah. So I think that they're gaining muscle at that point and I think that they're able to potentially gain muscle. So can we feed increased metabolizable protein during that far off and close up dry period to try to gain muscle? And would that be beneficial for the cow?
Scott (07:29):
Any thoughts around amino acid?
Dr. Jackie Boerman (07:31):
Yeah, I, I mean I think that some of the other guests can answer those questions better than I can, but I, I have some thoughts on what I think could be important. I know there's been a lot of work done, um, by others on methionine and lysing supplementation and feeding it. Prepartum tends to have some carryover effect into lactation. There's been a just one study that I know of looking at branch chain amino acids and supplementing those, uh, could also have a positive effect. And I think that the thought process there, at least for me is sinking that muscle is pretty deficient in branch chain amino acids compared to what the mammary gland takes up. So can we feed cows, uh, either a room protected product or an ingredient that's gonna contain more branch chain amino acids and would that be beneficial? Yeah. But again, these are all questions and thoughts, but I haven't done the research to confirm that that's what's gonna actually happen. Yeah.
Scott (08:29):
Got it.
Dr. Bill Weiss (08:30):
When, when mobilization starts a few days a week before, when does it, when do you think it reaches Its na and, and starts gaining back?
Dr. Jackie Boerman (08:39):
So when we looked at cows, we have some that are mobilizing three weeks before calving and then some don't really mobilize at all. So if they don't have a lot of muscle reserves, they're not really mobilizing before calving all that much. And then the low point on some other people's work is saying maybe four weeks we're, when we're following cows out, and it could be our herd too, but the low point is maybe closer to 60 days in milk. And then we followed them through an entire lactation and just measuring once a month. They're not appreciably gaining muscle back until the very end of lactation. So 240, 270 days in milk is when they start gaining. And to me that's really interesting because they're in a positive metabolized protein balance. Yeah. So you would think that they should be able to gain muscle back, but they're not until the very end of their lactation.
Dr. Bill Weiss (09:34):
So in, in, in early lactation, you know, there's a lot of these amino acids could turn into glucose essentially. So is this a, you think it's an amino acid as using amino acids as amino acids? Or do you think a lot of mobilization is just to provide glucose?
Dr. Jackie Boerman (09:50):
Well, I think prepartum, I think that those amino acids that are mobilized from muscle are amino acids. 'cause they, they're, they don't need additional glucose. So I think that that is an amino acid and I think it's a combination afterwards. So some of it is going to be glucose and some of it is going to be for amino acids. It's not the most efficient way to get glucose. Um, but I, I think likely we're short on glucose. It makes sense. We've seen also that our high muscle cows tend to have higher glucose concentrations as well. They're mobilizing more muscle cows that have more muscle, mobilize more muscle and tend to have higher glucose concentrations. So it's likely a combination.
Dr. Jim Aldrich (10:33):
You mentioned, uh, you had the, in your studies you cut these high and low muscle cows by their, um, depth of, of muscle. Right. And um, it's 4.6 I think it
Dr. Jackie Boerman (10:47):
Depends on the study, but yeah.
Dr. Jim Aldrich (10:49):
What is that, is there a population out there that is that representative of the population? We have high muscle cows and low muscle cows.
Dr. Jackie Boerman (10:57):
Dr. Jim Aldrich (12:12):
But were they, I I assume these were from the university herd would, would be fed the same. Yeah, raised the same. So the differences weren't necessarily be 'cause they were fed different?
Dr. Jackie Boerman (12:25):
No, they're not fed different. Yeah. And I think that's an interesting thing as well is these cows are, and especially on our university herd, they're fed the same diet from when they calve to when they dry off and then the, you know, so it's not like we have big differences in what they're being fed and that's, that is, um, causing the changes in the amount of muscle they have. That's not the case on our farm. So there could be a genetic effect that's there as well that we're hopefully exploring soon as well. Mm-hmm
Dr. Jim Aldrich (12:59):
And the high muscle cows, I think at least a couple of the trials you reported, or at least one they had beer calves, you said that, and they also made more milk right? Early for the first four, six weeks,
Dr. Jackie Boerman (13:10):
Yes. On a couple of studies we have seen that they make more milk as well. And we can explain some of that by saying, well, if they were mobilizing more muscle in, uh, early lactation, supplying more amino acids, then maybe that was helping to drive milk production.
Dr. Jim Aldrich (13:29):
So are we, sorry, are we selecting cows when we're selecting cows for higher production? Are we selecting higher muscle cows?
Dr. Jackie Boerman (13:37):
Potentially? Yeah.
Dr. Bill Weiss (13:40):
There, there was a meta-analysis from Florida a couple years ago that found, I'm paraphrasing a bit, but basically they found almost no relationship between MP intake and the resh and production by, by mature cows not,
Dr. Jackie Boerman (13:57):
But Prima Harris was different. Yeah.
Dr. Bill Weiss (13:59):
Yeah. So do you, does that mean that if we wait till the prefers to get muscle back on these, these animals that's too late or,
Dr. Jackie Boerman (14:07):
Oh, I don't know. So I, I like that meta-analysis as well, but I think one of the challenges was with looking at MP is like, well, you know, the challenge is more than I do, but it depends on what model you're using. It depends on a whole bunch of things. So MP is, I think, uh, yeah, I, I know that Dr. Cardoso talked about how we should be talking about mp, but you go to other countries and you talk about MP and they're using a completely different model. So we're talking apples and oranges. Um, but I do appreciate that meta-analysis because they are differentiating between Prima Paris cow or Noll of Paris cows really and multiparous cows. And I, I think that they're different. They're, they're such, such different animals and we have to be treating them differently.
Dr. Bill Weiss (14:55):
Do do you know, with two year olds, you know, hopefully they're still growing, but would they also be depleting protein and accreting growth at the same time? Or is it for the first few weeks after Calvin? They aren't growing true, true growth.
Dr. Jackie Boerman (15:11):
Oh, that's interesting. They definitely deplete, they, they're definitely depleting muscle and I'll show some stuff tomorrow that's saying they're depleting at similar rates as multiparous cows. Um, but there's constant accretion in depletion that's going on. So, um, that's, that's always going to be happening. It's just if net accretion is higher. Yeah. Okay. Then there'll be accreting.
Dr. Bill Weiss (15:33):
Okay. And one, one last question is, is you pick, why'd you pick that muscle mm-hmm
Dr. Jackie Boerman (15:43):
Yeah. So originally, this goes back to my time at Michigan State. I was working with Adam Locke and we were interested in, uh, if different fat supplements would, uh, creep body fat. So we started talking to beef people that did beef research and say, and then we learned that that's the location on the body that's pretty representative of whole body fat. And then also looking at some of the research, it's thought to be that that's pretty representative of whole body protein as well. There's been some other work that's been done in other locations, but I'm, I don't know, I, I know how to do that location and it's thought to be fairly representative of whole body. So that's kind of where, uh, we're going to be assessing. Yeah.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (16:30):
So Rich Erdman did, he did some work a number of years ago right? Looking at, at protein mobilization and early lactation. What kind of, I'm curious in your work have you been able to, um, to measure how much protein mobilization you're getting in early lactation?
Dr. Jackie Boerman (16:52):
So we're not measuring it in the same way that Dr. Erdman did for sure. Uh, but we're trying to do, we're trying to get some assessment by looking at serial ultrasound imaging. So we're looking at the amount of muscle depth, and that's again, a, an approximate measurement, uh, because within that muscle there's also intramuscular fat. But we are able to see visually a reduction in that longus doci depth over time. And we've done a number of studies, we've ultrasounded a lot of cows, and on average they're mobilizing between 30 and 35% of their muscle depth. So it's a considerable amount of that muscle depth. Again, some is fat, but a lot of it is muscle. We also know from taking muscle biopsies that we do have a reduction in the muscle fiber size. So from biopsies, prepartum to postpartum, when we compare those, those postpartum samples have a reduction in muscle fiber size. So we know we truly are reducing the muscle.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (17:54):
Is there a biomarker you could measure to look at this three methyl histamine or, yeah,
Dr. Jackie Boerman (18:00):
Yeah. So we also
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (18:44):
So what I'm curious, when you were talking about the difference in calf birth weights between the heavier muscled cows and less muscle, how much of a difference is there?
Dr. Jackie Boerman (18:54):
So we've done a couple of studies where we saw that, and I believe it is three kilos in one and four kilos in another. So that's a pretty, pretty large amount.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (19:04):
What are the, so in, in the, in the university herd, what are the MP levels in the far off and closeup diets?
Dr. Jackie Boerman (19:14):
So I, I don't, um, I'm a recovering nutritionist,
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (19:34):
Are you supplementing, um,
Dr. Jackie Boerman (19:37):
Ru protected
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (19:38):
Yeah. Room protected amino acids? Yep.
Dr. Jackie Boerman (19:39):
He definitely is. But I, I believe just in the closeup period. Okay.
Dr. Jim Aldrich (19:45):
You had mentioned in one of your studies you were gonna look at colostrum Yeah. Differences. Did you, did you do that
Dr. Jackie Boerman (19:52):
We did do that. We did it in the, the springing heifer study, and it was pretty small sample size because we were using it mostly for histology. So we were looking at, um, muscle histology and heifers as a seed grant for hopefully some other funding. Um, we didn't see differences, um, in colostrum, which was a little bit surprising. You
Dr. Jim Aldrich (20:14):
Just did a first lactation animals?
Dr. Jackie Boerman (20:17):
We did. That was the population that we were working with in that study. Okay. Um, but I, I have realized from that study that heifers are weird. Like they just respond differently. So we had a study where we measured all of these things in the calves, and we even have weights of colostrum, but for some reason we did not do, or we, no, sorry, we have colostrum quality, but we do not do weight. And I like cannot think like, why I did that. But at the time we de deemed it not important. I don't remember why. Um, but I wish we could go back and get those, those measurements. But we did it in Prima Paris animals. They're still, uh, the high muscle prima Paris animals are still mobilizing, but they're not mobilizing amino acid. Like the calf birth weight isn't bigger in prima Paris animals. And we also seen, didn't see differences in colostrum yield or quality, but it's a pretty small sample size. So I'm not gonna say like, that's definitely
Dr. Jim Aldrich (21:19):
Who's gonna ask is, you know, occasionally you'll hear, you'll get calls from farms that I got low colostrum. It's usually a winter thing. Mm-hmm
Dr. Jackie Boerman (21:38):
Yeah, I don't have the data, but the next studies that we do, it's definitely on the list of things to, to measure
Dr. Bill Weiss (21:47):
Is, you know, with, with mobilization of energy, which we worried about for centuries, we've got body condition score. Mm-hmm
Dr. Jackie Boerman (22:05):
No. So, when we're out there, we weigh the cows and we ultrasound at the same time. And my students get a little bored because they're weighing an ultrasounding, a lot of cows. So they'll, they'll play games with each other and they'll be like, is this a low muscle or high muscle? We're always wrong
Dr. Jim Aldrich (22:54):
And there's farms that have ultrasounds and vet veterinarians obviously could, I mean, from a practical standpoint, could you, could I think take up some cows and just check 'em on farms and see where you're at?
Dr. Jackie Boerman (23:06):
I think you definitely could. So it's just a linear probe. So if you have a linear probe that you're, you're you're using in other aspects on your farm, I think it's, it's possible. And it's pretty quick to do. Um, the ultrasound that we're doing is, you know, seconds to, to measure. Uh, so I, I think it's possible to do, and it may be interesting to see what your heifers come in at and then what are they losing over time. And as a nutritionist, it may also be kind of eyeopening to understand like how much muscle they're truly mobilizing inner lactation.
Scott (23:41):
Jackie, maybe you've, uh, addressed this and I just missed it, but so they're, they're, they're depleting their muscle, uh, uh, refresh after, uh, after calving start to, uh, accrete, um, toward the end of lactation. Do they get it all back? And if not, um, it, does it compound itself over multiple lactations and then impact longevity?
Dr. Jackie Boerman (24:06):
Oh yeah, that's an interesting question. So, um, I was in Europe recently and um, they were kind of asking similar things and what about six lactation cows or seven? I don't have those cows
Scott (24:19):
Like, I don't know if any of those exist over here. Well,
Dr. Jackie Boerman (24:22):
We just don't have as many. Yeah. Like they exist, but we don't have access to large populations of those cows. But what I will say is at the time of dry off, they're not back to where they were in the last lactation, but they kind of get there during that dry period. So where they dry off, they're a little bit lower than when they were at calving. Okay. Um, but I will say that if they were high muscle, we looked at parody in a couple of trials and there were all multiparous cows, but we looked at second versus third plus and there's no difference there. So it appears that they are depleting and then they're gaining it at the end of lactation and then they deplete and they gain. But we also had cows that were high muscle and then just by chance they were on the study a year later, um, they were high muscle again.
Dr. Jackie Boerman (25:12):
So it appears that, you know, there's probably some genetics that are involved here with how much muscle reserve they have or how much ability they have to mobilize in accrete muscle. Um, but it, yeah, I I think that that answered what you were asking for. Yeah, I think so. I have one more thing to share on that. And this is just anecdotal, but it's interesting. I had a student out there that was ultrasounding these cows throughout lactation and she said, oh, when a cow is sick, I can tell. I'm like, well, yeah, you could tell 'cause she's sick. And she's like, no, I can tell by the ultrasound because a cow that is lame or a cow that had mastitis will have a reduction in her muscle. And I think we would expect that, but it's not something I like necessarily thought that we would see in an ultrasound measurement. So it also says throughout lactation, even like after peak milk production, if they have a, a health event and they're mobilizing muscle, you're gonna see it in that ultrasound as well. So cows are continually depleting muscle if they need to, uh, throughout lactation.
Scott (26:20):
Yeah. So why is a sick animal depleting the muscle?
Dr. Jackie Boerman (26:23):
Yeah, so lame cows do, like feeding behavior is really different in lame cows and, and, uh, cows with mastitis. So they're not eating as much, they need to draw on that for an activated immune system or because they just don't have the calories and the amino acids for intake. So they're depleting muscle as a result.
Scott (26:40):
Yeah. Makes sense. Well,
Dr. Bill Weiss (26:42):
You know, they, these cows, you know, in mid lactation probably only have to gain a hundred grams of protein a day, which is, you know, isn't very much compared to what they put out in the tank. So why does it take so long to get it? You know, this to me is really surprising that they just don't be right back up and
Dr. Jackie Boerman (27:00):
Yeah, I, I don't think I know, but I think that it's likely hormonally controlled. Like why, why would they partition that those extra amino acids to muscle and mid lactation? 'cause they know they don't really need it then. Um, so I, I think that there's likely some relationship there with Yeah, they could. But like why would they, um, if, if the mammary gland is still kind of being greedy and taking everything that it can have access to, maybe that's prioritized and then there's likely a hormonal switch that occurs where, okay, now we're towards the end of lactation, we know we want to store some amino acids for the fetus. So like then it's partitioning more to muscle.
Dr. Bill Weiss (27:43):
So maybe this idea of late lactation low protein diets and mid lactation high protein diet. Maybe we've got this switched.
Dr. Jackie Boerman (27:50):
I Dunno, we're still wanting high levels of milk production in mid lactation too, but they're,
Dr. Bill Weiss (27:55):
They're eating so much then. But, you know, maybe we can back the protein down and then, because some of these late lactation diets are 13, 14%.
Dr. Jackie Boerman (28:04):
For sure. Yeah, for sure.
Dr. Bill Weiss (28:05):
And maybe we're doing this wrong.
Dr. Jackie Boerman (28:08):
Well, and I, let's not go that far 'cause we don't have the research on it, but I, I think that we're probably not accounting for in the, we're probably not accounting for all of the protein requirements for additional muscle that we know cows are doing, especially in that far off dry period.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (28:25):
So, so in the um, an early lactation looking at the heavier muscle cows versus less, you saw a difference in milk yield. Right. Any difference in milk components?
Dr. Jackie Boerman (28:39):
Yeah. Also increase in, uh, it's, so it's all yield based, so increase in milk, protein yield and lactose and fat as well. So, okay. All of those.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (28:48):
Nothing on percentages.
Dr. Jackie Boerman (28:50):
I don't believe so.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (28:51):
Okay.
Dr. Jim Aldrich (28:52):
I guess getting back to the, why don't cows mobile
Dr. Jackie Boerman (29:10):
Yeah. Yeah. That definitely, that could be part of the, part of the reason that that's happening and you
Dr. Jim Aldrich (29:16):
Don't, do we really want to change that really?
Dr. Jackie Boerman (29:19):
I don't think we do. I think it doesn't really make sense. I mean, we have bred dairy cows, right? So in a lot of ways we've selected against these animals that are acc that have a lot of muscle in our accreting, a lot of muscle, and are creating a lot of muscle. So, yeah.
Scott (29:35):
Yeah. So Jackie, Dave peppered you pretty good with some questions here? Pretty tough ones. You got any you wanna throw back at 'em?
Dr. Jackie Boerman (29:42):
Well, I Bill, you had, I'm sorry Dr. Weiss, I don't think I can call
Dr. Bill Weiss (29:46):
You Bill, that weird.
Dr. Jackie Boerman (29:48):
Uh, but you had a study with Alex Tevye. Can you talk a little bit about that and what you found there? We,
Dr. Bill Weiss (29:54):
We found, again, we measured muscle, uh, loss of muscle differently than you was urea. Dilution. Uh, they lose a lot. Heifers were so two year olds were very different than, uh, the others. But we could moderate that loss somewhat with very high, very, very high, uh, fresh cow diets. But they still lost, even though we were feeding 20% protein diets, they still lost, but not as much. And they started gaining, we, we only followed these cows out to I think 80 days or something. And by the, they were back on the upswing. They never got back to where they were pre or we didn't measure prepartum, but a few, I think we started three days post. They never got it back, but they did start going up within a few months of, of calving. Yeah. But they lost a huge amount. A huge, I think they almost lost. We measured fat as well. They lost more fat, of course, but it wasn't that much more than mm-hmm
Dr. Jackie Boerman (30:55):
So that 20%, like how did you achieve that in a diet?
Dr. Bill Weiss (31:00):
One was just soy, which they lost a lot. But then the other was a very, very specific amino acid blend as best we could match Cain. Yeah. They did the be we got more milk. They still lost, but they didn't lose as much. So we, we reduced the loss, we gained milk and, but it was a very expensive diet.
Dr. Jackie Boerman (31:21):
Yeah. And there's, I I think a set of really nice studies that infused ca Yeah. That Yeah. Yeah. And those show that the mammary gland and early lactation just takes everything gonna,
Dr. Bill Weiss (31:32):
Sucks everything it can And,
Dr. Jackie Boerman (31:34):
And I think we can't achieve, 'cause at some points they were infusing 700 grams. Oh, it was a massive amount. Massive. Yeah. It was a insane amount. So, but when we infuse or try to feed that level, like the mammary gland just takes it up so that you're not affecting balance all that much. No.
Dr. Bill Weiss (31:50):
In fact, a lot of studies, uh, feeding protein gained milk if fruit fresh, but then these cows crashed because they've lost so much body. Right. Body condition. 'cause they, they kept putting it out and then, and so you gotta, if they don't eat more, if the protein treatment doesn't increase intake, it's, it's bad. Mm-hmm
Dr. Jackie Boerman (32:10):
That makes sense. Yeah.
Dr. Bill Weiss (32:11):
But again, what you said, the heifers, I keep saying heifers, I should say two year olds, they were just totally different animals. Mm-hmm
Dr. Jackie Boerman (32:20):
No, and I think that that's a consideration that we have to have, you know, a lot that population of animals has kind of been ignored in a lot of research and some people have been doing a nice job of having both and then splitting out the effects. And that's really nice. But on farm, a lot of nutritionists are, they're feeding them the same, but the responses are really different for those animals. Very, very different. And they're still growing. I think that maybe they have like, maybe they have more muscle to begin with, but they're still having high enough levels of milk production that they have to mobilize some of that muscle.
Dr. Bill Weiss (32:54):
Because in, in that met analysis we were talking about the heifers
Dr. Jackie Boerman (32:57):
Responded more
Dr. Bill Weiss (32:58):
Yeah. Responded to increased mp. With more milk protein, even though, you know, theoretically they have more muscle to begin with, you'd think it would be less responsive. Mm-hmm
Dr. Jackie Boerman (33:09):
But still it's growth too. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That we're, that we're trying to account for. So, yeah.
Dr. Bill Weiss (33:14):
Yep.
Scott (33:15):
Jackie, if we missed any key points that you're gonna be presenting?
Dr. Jackie Boerman (33:19):
I don't think so. I think we covered, well, I don't know. I haven't made it yet but I'm pretty sure we'll go back and make it after this. But I think we got the highlights.
Scott (33:28):
Good. Good, good, good. So I, I got one last question for you is you mentioned in the beginning, you know, there's a lot of research that you have liked to do yet. So if you were to prioritize one or two kind of key researches, what, what, what would it be?
Dr. Jackie Boerman (33:42):
Yeah, so I have a study that, you know, is kind of in limbo right now with federal funding, but that's my next one 'cause I already wrote it. So that's the one I wanna do next where we're feeding high amounts of metabolizable protein in the far off period. So we see if we can gain muscle. And then I continue to get questions about the genetic relationship with the muscle. So in that, um, proposal as well, we're looking at Ultrasounding, uh, on a commercial farm, a thousand cows. So looking at the act dry off at calving and 60 days in milk, and then they already, uh, genotype those animals. So we would have the genetic markers as well. And I'd have to partner with a geneticist here and she's actually here, um, Hania Rojas at Purdue. And we think that maybe we can tease some of this out to understand the genetic relationship for some of this ability to accrete and deplete muscle as well. So those are the studies I'd like to do, focusing on Metabolizable protein during the whole dry period and seeing if we can appreciably gain muscle in the far off drive period. And then what are those carryover effects into lactation? And then looking, exploring the genetic relationship with muscle.
Scott (34:54):
As we get ready to wrap up here, I'd like for you guys just to kinda give the audience just a couple key takeaways. Uh, clay, I wanna start with you over there.
Speaker 5 (35:03):
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Dr. Clay Zimmerman (35:29):
Yeah. So this area's a big interest to us. We actually had a lot of people that wanted to participate in this particular podcast because it's a, it's a very interesting area. So I'd be very curious, you know, moving forward, you know, some of the nutritional interventions that you would look at here. So a lot more to come on this, I think is a very exciting area.
Scott (35:54):
Yeah, you're right. It's a lot different than, than what we most usually hear. Clay, Jim, any final comments?
Dr. Jim Aldrich (36:01):
Yeah, I think this is really a, for me, novel research. I mean, we knew that, we know, we always talk about mobilizing fat and early lactation, we sort of knew some of the other stuff. Yeah, they're gonna mobilize some protein, but now we've got a little better handle on how much, and there's a population of cows that mobilize more and some that mobilize less. But the big one is that flat lining after 60 days and not accreting until late lactation. That has a lot of implications. You mentioned it in your
Scott (36:56):
Yeah. Dr. Weiss,
Dr. Bill Weiss (36:58):
I think this, this, and I've never heard of, uh, other than what you, you've presented the last couple years and using ultrasound, uh, look at mobilization. It's, it's not easy, but it's a whole lot easier than a lot of things. And I think that opens up a whole, whole array of new research that we can, now we have something we can measure that's related to something. So I think this is a very active, or should be a very active area of research. I think we have potential to learn a lot here.
Scott (37:25):
Sure. Dr. Borman, final thoughts?
Dr. Jackie Boerman (37:28):
Yeah, and I think one part that interests me in this is we learned that muscle maybe acts a little differently than fat across lactation. So they start to accrete fat right after they get to their bottom point. So as a recovering nutritionist thinking about this, the body composition of that cow is different then is it progresses through lactation. So I, I, to me, that's really interesting. And how can we feed that cow most appropriately because her body composition is changing and can we manipulate that? So I think, again, very new area of research for me and trying to learn a whole lot in the process.
Scott (38:05):
Yeah. Interesting topic. And thanks for coming by to share. It's been fun. Clay, thanks for stopping by once again. Certainly you gotta live here actually.
Speaker 5 (38:31):
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