Guests: Dr. Bill Weiss, Ohio State University; Dr. Jim Drackley, University of Illinois This journal club episode comes to you from the 2024 Tri-State Dairy Nutrition Conference. The paper is “Major Accomplishments in Calf Nutrition and Growth” from the conference proceedings.
This journal club episode comes to you from the 2024 Tri-State Dairy Nutrition Conference. The paper is “Major Accomplishments in Calf Nutrition and Growth” from the conference proceedings.
Accelerated milk feeding of calves results in about a thousand-pound first lactation production increase. The mechanism is unclear: it could be isolated to the mammary gland or related to the functional ability of the digestive tract and liver to support lactation. Economic analyses have shown an advantage of $205 per calf. (6:04)
Regarding amino acid requirements of dairy calves, whey-based milk replacers require additional methionine; lysine is also common. Threonine can be limiting in soy-based milk replacers. Establishing amino acid requirements was beyond the scope of what the NASEM committee could do, and more data is probably needed for calves. However, CNCPS has amino acid requirements defined, so it’s possible to get in the ballpark for amino acids. (12:00)
What about feeding hay to young calves? The latest research has shown calves only over-consume alfalfa out of all the common forages. A study in Spain showed when offered alfalfa, calves consumed 14% of their total dry matter from alfalfa, decreasing the amount of starter they consumed. When offered grass hay or straw, calves only consumed 4-5% forage and they actually boosted starter intake and overall feed efficiency. Dr. Drackley recommends starting grass hay, wheat straw, or similar forages at 2-3 weeks of age. It should be just a sprinkling top dressed on their starter, or about 5% of the total if you’re feeding a mixed diet. (15:08)
Dr. Drackley covers five major accomplishments in this paper. (18:06)
From a welfare research perspective, Dr. Drackley thinks cow-calf separation and group vs hutch housing will continue to be issues of concern for consumers. In Europe, there’s demonstration research keeping calves with cows during the milk-feeding period. (20:44)
What about the post-weaning slump? The big issue is weaning too early before starter intake has increased adequately. Weaning at eight weeks instead of six weeks results in an improvement in total nutrient intake. A gradual step down in the amount of milk provided will also stimulate starter intake. Starter quality and composition is critical, and water availability can be an issue for many farms. (23:29)
Concerning colostrum, a big advancement has been a better understanding of what colostrum does in addition to establishing passive immunity. The nutrition aspects of high protein, vitamins, minerals, and growth-promoting ingredients like hormones, growth factors, and cytokines all play a major role in calf health and development. Measuring colostrum quality is better and easier with the use of refractometers. Recent emphasis on how easily colostrum can be contaminated and how that negatively affects the calf has also been crucial. As much as we know about milk synthesis, we know very little about colostrum synthesis. Adequate metabolizable protein is important for quality and quantity, and immune-related vitamins and minerals are important. Beyond that, we do not have a good understanding of what regulates colostrum, particularly volume. (25:50)
What’s next in calf nutrition? Establishing a good amino acid model and trying to minimize both costs and nitrogen excretion, colostrum quality and quantity from the cow side, continued research into workable systems for accelerated milk feeding with a smooth weaning transition, and post-weaning feeding programs are areas where Dr. Drackley predicts fruitful research opportunities. (31:36)
Please subscribe and share with your industry friends to invite more people to join us at the Real Science Exchange virtual pub table.
If you want one of our Real Science Exchange t-shirts, screenshot your rating, review, or subscription, and email a picture to anh.marketing@balchem.com. Include your size and mailing address, and we’ll mail you a shirt.
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 the latest ideas and trends in dairy nutrition. Hi, I'm Scott Sorrell, gonna be your host here this evening, and I'm joined by Dr. Clay Zimmerman. He'll serve as my co-host, and we've got our resident professor emeritus, Dr. Bill Weiss from the Ohio State University. And we're also joined by our guest Dr. Jim Drackley. Jim's giving a presentation here at the Tri-State Nutrition Conference this week, and the pre presentation is titled Major Accomplishments in Calf Nutrition and Growth. Bill, I want you to take it away and find out what this presentation's all about.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
New research is changing everything we thought we knew about choline impact on the cow and her calf and top scientists have a lot to say about it. They're presenting new research that supports choline as a required nutrient to optimize milk production choline as a required nutrient to support a healthy transition choline as a required nutrient to improve calf health and growth and choline as a required nutrient to increase colostrum quantity. This new research is solidifying choline’s role as a required nutrient for essentially every cow, regardless of health status, milk production level, or body condition score. Learn more about the science that is changing the game and the choline source that is making it happen. Reassure precision release choline from Balchem. Visit balchem.com/scientistssay to learn more.
Bill (02:01):
I just need to preface this that I am by no means a calf expert. I can tell you they're more than just little cows. So, I guess, Jim, what I'd like to start with is, and this I was kind of a bias of mine, but you know, you spent a lot of work on NASEM. Yes. can you kind of summarize the big, big picture things that changed with respect to the start with the young calf?
Jim (02:26):
Sure. Thanks Bill, and I'm glad to be here, Scott, today. So the NASEM publication was a major revision over the NRC 2001. We developed a completely new requirement system for the calves both energy and protein. We, with your help developed a new mineral requirement estimation using the factorial approach where we could, which was a big change over previous additions. And of course, the model changed with the new equations for the requirements. I think the model does a better job of predicting growth in, in calves, and the literature review was extensively updated as well. So those were the big picture items that changed. So
Bill (03:18):
How with stick with the big, big nutrients, energy and protein? How is this gonna change the feeding of, again, these young calves, this model?
Jim (03:26):
Yeah, I think the NRC 2001 did a fairly good job of estimating the, the feeding level and, and the growth that would be produced from that feeding level. The NASEM model is as, as I said, more accurate and the requirements for the highest level of gain are a little bit lower than with the NRC 2001. The protein requirements also have, have edged downward a little bit so that the maximum protein concentration in a milk replacer is about 26%, which is pretty close to the protein level in whole milk.
Scott (04:07):
Jim, I was wondering the, with genomics, we've changed the genetics of the dairy cow quite a bit, and I'm kind of curious how that has impacted the calf and and has their requirements changed because of that? Yeah.
Jim (04:21):
Well, we don't really know for sure. I think that the systems have changed. With the new Nassim system, we're actually using data from Holstein calves that were slaughtered in, in comparative slaughter experiments to actually determine the composition of the body. We know that the cattle are leaner than they used to be, so that's one change. But, you know, it's, we just don't have enough data to say specifically how the calf requirements have changed. But undoubtedly, as the Holstein cow has gotten leaner, we're, we're making a, a leaner calf too, and changing the, the requirements for energy and protein res respectively.
Scott (05:06):
Alright. You know, I'm kind of curious as well. We've seen an acceleration in the change in the animals, the, the, the lactating animals. Are we gonna have to change the SSO a little quicker this next time?
Jim (05:16):
Well not with my help, that's for sure. Yeah, I think that's a problem with the NRC or NASEM system, is it, it's hard to keep it up to date. Even if we do it more often, we're always working from behind because you know, we're using data that's been published. So you're looking at data that's probably a minimum of 10 years old by the time you get the committee gets used to it. So it's, it's tough to keep it updated, but I, I think we need a new one, probably a little sooner than the 20 years it took to get the NASEM out.
Scott (05:51):
Yeah, makes sense.
Bill (05:53):
How do you, and I don't know if you have stats in this or not, but how common is this accelerated system and has that, does the NASEM do pretty well with that feeding system?
Jim (06:04):
It does, it does predict very well. The last noms survey, national Animal health monitoring system survey was in 2014, and the average amount fed in that survey was 5.7 liters. So it's somewhere in between what we call conventional and intensified or accelerated. So I think the last 10 to 15 years has really seen the amount of milk being fed increase. I, I don't really have a good feel for how many are feeding a, you know, a real aggressive intensified formula. But certainly producers as a whole are feeding more milk than they used to.
Bill (06:42):
And what, what intrigues me a lot is the effect on the cow. The cow, once the calf can, what's the mode of action and how big is that effect?
Jim (06:52):
Yeah. Well, the effect is about a thousand pounds in first lactation. As far as the mechanism, we don't really know. There's been three or four studies that have looked with at gene expression changes in the developing mammary gland and shown a lot of changes. Of course, it's hard to relate those to the adult cow that's producing milk. Whether we're changing something in the mammary gland specifically, or whether it's a greater development of the, the, the functional ability and the digestive tract and liver and everything that supports lactation we, we don't really have a good explanation for it. Does,
Bill (07:33):
Does it, I wanted to just follow up and then does it, you said first lactation if people looked at second and third lactations and it continues, or?
Jim (07:41):
Yeah, so the effect is, is additive so that the second lactation yield would be correspondingly increased as well.
Bill (07:51):
So that's a lot of milk. It'll pay for a
Jim (07:53):
Pay for a lot of milk replacer.
Jim (07:54):
So, yeah. Mike Overton did a nice economic analysis several years ago for the Western Dairy Management Conference, and his dollar value that he put on it as an advantage was $205 per calf.
Scott (08:11):
Jim, in retrospect, it seems like almost intuitive that yes, we should feed to meet that calf's requirements. And I'm kind of curious, how did the paradigm come about where we have restricted feeding?
Jim (08:24):
Well, I think it it, a couple of things. Of course, the milk is what's being sold. So producers have an economic incentive to, to sell all they can rather than feed it to the calf. With the development of the early milk replacers, they were pretty nasty things, to be honest, and, and they couldn't feed much more than a pound or, or so of, of the solids without causing problems in the calf. So I think it was a combination of those factors. The mindset was always let's feed 'em a limited amount, so that'll encourage them to eat more starter at an earlier age, and we can get them weaned and, and get, you know, do away with the extra labor of feeding the liquid diet. You know, the, the, the likelihood of scours goes away when you get 'em off milk and, and just several reasons like that. So it just became ingrained in the dairy management system.
Scott (09:20):
Yeah. Do you have a feel for what percent of the producers out there are are feeding an adequate plane of nutrition to the calves?
Jim (09:27):
Yeah. Well, as I, I said in the answer to Bill, the, you know, the average is 5.7 liters, so we're somewhere between the, the four quarts or four liters. It was traditional and the six to eight liters that we'd think is more adequate for the calf. As far as a percentage, I, yeah, I, I really don't know. Half, I'm, I'm guessing that a third at least are, are feeding what we'd consider an adequate level. Maybe it's closer to half now.
Scott (09:56):
Okay.
Clay (09:57):
It's in, it's interesting. I've been in the industry 33 years now, and the changes that have taken place on the calf side, I remember the change from the pound feeding rate, milk replace, or to 20 ounces. Yeah. And actually when I first started in the industry, it, there was still the paradigm of trying to wean calves even earlier. Yes. Right.
Jim (10:22):
Yeah. Same when I started
Clay (10:23):
Some of those three and four week weaning programs. And so what's the typical weaning age now?
Jim (10:31):
I think in the NOM survey, the average was still between eight and nine weeks of age. You know, so the farmers never really adopted those early weaning programs. They're just, I mean, everything has to go right and you have to be really aggressive in management to, to make that work at such an early age. And, and I think most, most farmers wait till the calf is a little bit older and, and ready to wean and void some of the problems of weaning,
Bill (11:00):
You know, there's a lot of beef on dairy now. is, as there've been research on those calves, or do you think they'd be different than, than a dairy calf, or,
Jim (11:10):
I think there's just research starting to come out now. We've done a little bit, a couple studies with the, the crossbred calves, and they do very well on the dairy programs. But I think there's well, I know a couple of the companies have some, some more in-house data on 'em. I, I think that they grow pretty similar to a dairy calf in the, the milk fed period. And then the question is, you know, how do you feed 'em after that? Because they're still young relative to a typical beef calf at that point. So, we'll, we'll see a lot more information coming out in the next few years on how best to handle them. Okay.
Clay (11:51):
Jim, I, I, I'm curious about amino acid nutrition Yeah. Of these young calves. What's, what's the status of that right now?
Jim (12:00):
Yeah. Well, again, I think that there's private corporate research with a, with a, a couple of the companies that have some pretty good ideas. In general, if we're using whey based milk replacers, which is the, the most common protein source now we need to supplement with methionine. It's typical to add some lysine just to, to make sure we're, we're meeting the the the requirement for that, probably limiting amino acid three anine is a can be a limiting amino acid, particularly when we start to get into soy-based milk replacers. So I, I think we know quite a bit about 'em. We, the committee just to be honest, we ran out of time and trying to push that. It just was beyond the scope of what we could do. And I, I think that the data are still, they're not real strong yet in the calf, at least what's available in the, in the referee literature. So we declined to establish amino acid requirements. But I think there's the, the c on CPS system is, is going to have or does have amino acid requirements defined. So I think we can get in the ballpark.
Bill (13:19):
Do you think the, if we balance for amino acids, 'cause these don't have to be room and protected, do you think it's gonna be cheaper or better, or?
Jim (13:27):
I think one of the, one of the strategies is to say if we need a 26% amino acid protein re re milk replacer, we could drop that say to 24% and supplement the key amino acids, methionine, lysine, and, and end up with a, a cheaper formula than the
Bill (13:46):
What would make 26. You know, if you drop protein a couple points, something has to go up. So it just be lactose or
Jim (13:51):
Probably lactose. Yeah. Yeah.
Scott (13:57):
So I'm kind of curious. We've talked a little bit about the accelerated nutrition having an impact on milk production in later life. What do we know about the impact on perhaps cow's health and longevity?
Jim (14:11):
That's a really good question. I don't think we know enough about the long-term effects of the cow. We're still working on kind of associative studies where we can show that if, if calves were fed more milk in early life, that they have more milk production. But we don't have data for multiple lactations for very many studies to look at health or or longevity. Again, I mean, the general principle that a calf that is healthier and doing better in early life will be a better milk cow, I think holds. And so there's no reason to think that it's gonna be an adverse effect. If anything, it should be a plus.
Scott (14:52):
Yeah, makes sense. Seems intuitive. Yeah.
Bill (14:55):
And, and I can't remember how long ago this was and what popular press, but there's quite a debate on feeding hay. Yeah. So do you kind of give us your point of view on these young hay feeding of these young, young calves?
Jim (15:08):
So the, the argument against it is that one, it's very poorly digested in, in an undeveloped or, or not mature rumen. So they're not gonna get very many nutrients out of it other than the easily solubilized nutrients. The second argument against it is that the idea that it would decrease starter consumption and starter is readily fermentable in what's needed to get the VFAs to develop the rumen. So the, the later, the latest recent research has shown that calves really only over consume alfalfa out of all of our common forages. So there was a study in Spain where they offered different forages free choice along with free choice starter, and the calves consumed 14% of their total dry matter from alfalfa hay. And that did decrease the amount of starter that they consumed. But when they offered them other forages like grass, hay, or straw the calves only consumed about four to 5% of their total dry matter. So they didn't decrease the starter intake. And actually, the, the addition of those lower quality forages boosted the overall starter intake and the feed efficiency of the calves. So I think a small amount of forage can be wheat straw or grass hay, something like that. Just a small amount is probably beneficial for the calf, but we don't want to be feeding ad libitum alfalfa hay to young calves because they will consume too much.
Bill (16:51):
And when you start this hay feeding right away, or
Jim (16:55):
I’d say a week or two, or I'd say probably two to three weeks of age would be a good time to start that. And again, it's just a, you know, a, a sprinkling on top of the starter or if you're mixing it, just about 5% of the total. Okay. Total formula.
Bill (17:10):
What, and again, I don't know calves, but what about silage feeding to these young guys?
Jim (17:14):
Yeah, the argument against silage has always been the, the high moisture content would limit intake, and the, some of the volatiles might, might not be the best for the young calf. But again, there's been some more recent research that shows that calves do pretty well on silage. And again, it's just a small amount. My bigger concern with silage feeding is that producers won't be able to keep the, the bucket or the, the, the bin cleaned out and, and it goes bad, it goes moldy and so on, which we certainly don't want for the young calf.
Scott (17:54):
Jim, the title of your talk was Major Accomplishments in Calf Nutrition and Growth. I'm gonna assume that the accelerated replace milk replacer is one of those major accomplishments. Yeah. Yeah. What are some of the others?
Jim (18:06):
So my five main accomplishments, other than just the general proliferation of research that's happened over the last 25 to 30 years with calves, but the first of those is colostrum knowledge about colostrum. And I highlight the, the recent paper that's established, the different categories for passive transfer, rather than just having a, a yes or no at 10 grams per deciliter. We've got it broken down into four categories now of excellent, good, fair, and poor. And that relates very well to the, the mortality and, and morbidity associated with young calves. So I think that's gonna be a real, real help for the industry in evaluating passive transfer at, at the very early stage in life. The second thing that I'll go over is the, the feeding of more milk. And I highlight a paper published by Carolina Diaz and Mike Van Amberg in, in 2001, which was really the eye-opener for the industry and, and generated a huge interest in feeding more milk.
Jim (19:14):
The third was the publication of NRC 2001. I think that was the first time when that people started to think seriously about calves. There was a separate chapter for them. So, you know, it must be important. And the model with that has been pretty widely used in the industry to, to demonstrate and calculate calf growth. Fourth is the explosion of behavior research in particular related to feeding behavior and, and showing that calves that are fed conventional limited amounts of milk are hungry as demonstrated by vocalization and, and increased restlessness. And then the fifth would be the Nasem 2021. I think that as people get used to that it, it's gonna be a big help to the industry. Unfortunately, there's still a few bugs in the computer model that, that we're, we're still trying to get worked out. Hopefully this summer we'll have those last computer bugs out of the system, and it'll be fully up and running. So I just encourage people to, to keep checking back with the, the national Academy press site to get upgrades on the, on the software.
Scott (20:32):
Kind of circling back on number four, the behavioral research. And can, can you talk a little bit about some of the welfare issues and consumer perception and some of those things? Yeah.
Jim (20:44):
So I, I think the we're, we're coming up on several issues with young calves. I think the big one right now is cow calf separation. And in Europe, there's quite a bit of research actually demonstration systems now of keeping cows with the calf during the milk feeding period. Obviously that has huge ramifications for the industry, and I, I can't even get my head around how that's gonna, how that would work in a practical system. But that's a, a hot button issue for consumers. I think some of the other issues they're, they're all kind of related to that cow calf separation and, and the idea of group housing versus individual housing is another big one. People just don't like to see calves in their isolated hutches. So those, I think are the, the big ones. Of course, there's things like dehorning and, and use of anesthetic and so on that are just kind of common sense issues that the industry's already handling. But I think the, the group housing and the cow calf separation issues are, are really gonna be important.
Scott (22:01):
I'm curious how they're handling that in Europe where they're, where they're trying that out. Do you have a, a feel for how they're managing that?
Jim (22:08):
Yeah. I don't have a, a very good understanding of the system. I've not seen it in practice, but it's similar in a way to the idea of a, a beef calf with a, a creep feeding system, that they're able to separate the calf at the time of milking and, and still allow the calf to be with mom the, the rest of the time.
Scott (22:30):
Have they measured the impact on the calf as well then? Both from a, you know, a welfare perspective and also a growth and productivity perspective?
Jim (22:37):
I think there's, there's some data available that mean the calves are gonna do well because they're getting adlib to milk. So they'll, they'll do well. I think the, the milk production, the, the couple little snippets of data I've seen doesn't seem to hurt the milk production of the cow too much. And, and I think the calf is, is certainly going to benefit. The downside of that is they still have to be weaned at some point. And you're still, you know, it's gonna be like the beef system where the calf is bawling at a later age. You know, whether that'll be more acceptable to consumers or not. I, I don't know.
Scott (23:18):
Yeah, good point.
Clay (23:20):
So, Jim, talking about weaning, what are some learnings as far as trying to avoid post weaning slump? Yeah,
Jim (23:29):
I think it, you know, as we've gone to the greater milk feeding, we've actually worsened the weaning problem because we haven't changed our mindset about how to wean the calves. I think the, the big issue is weaning too early before starter intake is, has increased adequately. So weaning at eight weeks instead of six weeks, for example, there's, there's some good research showing the improvements in, in total nutrient intake at, at eight weeks relative to six weeks. So I think that's one a gradual step down in milk amount is, is another, so that it stimulates starter intake to ramp up and replace the nutrients that are being lost from the milk. The forage feeding, we, we talked about that already. We don't want to rely too much on forage around time of winning. Starter quality and, and composition are important. Poor quality starters that are dusty or a lot of fines poor quality ingredients certainly can have a, a negative effect. Water availability is, is a common problem on many farms, not having enough water. And avoiding, we've known this for years, not stacking stressors you know, not vaccinating and dehorning at the time. You're weaning those kinds of things to minimize the, the total stressors on the calf.
Bill (25:00):
What, what about all this stuff on transition milk feeding? Is that worth doing or at cost and benefits or risk?
Jim (25:09):
Yeah, there's, there's some reasonable research. There's a handful of studies that have shown positive effects of carrying out transition milk. It's, it's just a really difficult system to implement on a, a large dairy where you're, you know, you're collecting milk from cows that can't go in the tank, but it's, it's not really separated into the, the transition milk. So it's a, it's not a management friendly system, but I think there is some biology behind it.
Scott (25:40):
While we're on the subject colostrum, what are some of the best practices or, or key advancements that's been made over the last 25 years?
Jim (25:50):
I think one of the, the big advancements is just a, a better understanding of what colostrum does for us. You know, the focus has been on the passive immunity transfer. But just the nutrient composition and, and provision of colostrum as the first food for the, the calf after birth is hugely important. We know it's, it's very different than, than home milk high in protein a little bit lower in lactose. A lot of the vitamins and minerals are in really high concentrations. So the nutritional aspect is, is really important. And then the, the growth promoting effects of colostrum. There's myriad of, of hormones and growth factors and, and cytokines and other immune system components. And so the, the, there's research to show that calves won't respond to greater milk feeding unless they're adequate in colostrum status. They have to have those, those growth factors in there to turn on the, the gut and, and allow it to assimilate nutrients.
Jim (26:57):
And I think also to kind of turn on the muscles systems for, for using those nutrients for growth as well. So I mean, the, the basics haven't changed much, getting it in quickly after birth and adequate quantity. You know, the, the feeding of three to four liters by a tube feeder is very common. And then measuring quality, and, and that's gotten better with the, the use of the refractometers now that are, that are very commonly used. And probably the biggest newer development is understanding the importance of cleanliness, sanitation, and how easily colostrum can be contaminated so that the calf is, is ingesting a huge load of bacteria if we're not careful.
Scott (27:47):
Has there been any research showing the lifetime performance of animals that received adequate colostrum as compared to those that didn't or didn't get it in a timely perspective?
Jim (27:59):
Yeah. There's a, a study out of Arizona, I believe years ago that looked at brown Swiss cows, brown Swiss calves and cows. And the only difference in the study was they got two liters of colostrum or four liters of colostrum at birth. The, the animals that got the four liters of colostrum produced more milk through the first two lactations than the calves that only got the two liters. So it, it's, it does seem to have a, a lifetime altering effect. Yeah,
Scott (28:30):
It makes perfect sense. Yeah.
Bill (28:32):
This is a little bit off topic, but it's on colostrum and I, you know, when we were doing
Jim (28:48):
Stuff? Yeah, that's, that's, it's funny because as much as we know about milk synthesis Yeah. We know very little about the actual synthetic regulation of quorum. Certainly adequate protein supply, metabolizable protein supply is important for both quality and quantity. All the, the immune related minerals and vitamins are important. Beyond that, there's not a real good understanding of what regulates, particularly the, the colostrum volume. I think one of the, you know, there in the sheep literature, there's much more information about quorum and either underfeeding or overfeeding energy relative to the requirement resulted in a, a decrease in quorum quantity in, in the sheep. So I'm guessing that if we're underfeeding energy by too much, that it could have an impact. Or likewise, if cows are, are over fed and fat, they may have a lower quantity of, of colostrum. The quality, I think is, I mean, the best we can do is just ensure that we're doing a good job in, in nutrition for the closeup cows. And the, the quantity is just a big black box in, in my opinion.
Bill (30:10):
Yeah. I think I, as a, these people who do pre freshs nutrition, I'm as guilty as anyone. It's such an easy measurement. Yeah. Just, and I never thought of that for 30 years. I never measured.
Jim (30:20):
I know. And I think we're getting enough data now that somebody could do a, a meta-analysis and take a look at the factors that are, that are, are associated with the lower volumes. I
Bill (30:31):
Think that would be very valuable. Yeah.
Jim (30:32):
So,
Clay (30:33):
So Jim, in all the controlled energy research that you did mm-Hmm.
Jim (30:44):
Quality? No not quality for, for certain. There is a trend, and again, I think a meta-analysis might pull this out for the, the controlled energy to have slightly lower colostrum volume in the, the first milking. So I, I think that again, if we, if we maybe going a little too far on the, you know, controlling the energy, it, it might have a limiting effect. One nutrition, one nutritionist that have a lot of respect for suggested that it was a, a lack of fatty acids from the the, the controlled energy diets because they are very low fat. Right. so that, that's an interesting idea that that could be followed up.
Clay (31:29):
Jim, I'm wondering what's, what's next in the, what's next in the calf nutrition frontier? Yeah,
Jim (31:36):
That's a very good question. I'm getting ready to retire. So it'll be for the, the younger people that are left in the industry, but I think that the amino acid area is, is still important to, to getting a, a good system there and trying to both minimize costs and, and be good environmental stewards with minimizing excretion of, of nitrogen. I think the colostrum area from the cow side is a, a huge opportunity for, for someone to, to tackle. And I think continued research into workable systems on the, the, you know, the higher milk feeding rates, intensified systems, there's still room there to, to really define good systems that are, that are easy to implement on the farm and that result in a, a smooth weaning without loss of performance across that weaning period. I think the, the weaning areas is one that's been, been kind of ignored as far as the, the frequency with which we run into that on, on actual dairy farms.
Bill (32:45):
What, what about, you know, we haven't talked much about the wean calf post weaning Mm-Hmm.
Jim (32:58):
Yeah, so I think there's, there's a recognition there also that there's not been a lot of research in that young calf area. You know, it, it used to be very common to feed a limited amount of concentrate and ad libitum forage. I think we're, we're cheating the calf at that young age, yet by, by doing that, I think they still need more, more grain and, and a limited amount of forage up through a four to, to six months of age. So I think there's, there's a room there's room for some good research in that area. Mike Steel at, at now at Guelph has, has done some work in that area, but I think there's, there's room for a lot more.
Bill (33:41):
What about, and this is, I get this question once in a while when I was working Jersey calves do, yeah. Are they just small Holsteins or No, do we have to feed these guys differently?
Jim (33:52):
In the, in the Nas a publication, we kind of punted on that, again, for lack of good data to, to model the energy requirements. But there's enough information that, that seems that they may have a slightly higher maintenance requirement, and they certainly, because of their small size and, and high surface to mass ratio, that they, they take more feeding relative to their body size to keep them healthy and and growing. So you know, there are some commercial milk replacers that are designed for jerseys that are high protein and high fat. Years and years ago when I was just starting out, we did a little experiment with, when we still had jersey cows at the University of Illinois, and just to get a control calf that would survive in cold weather, we had to feed 12% of body weight as milk. And that was only to keep them alive. Keep them alive, you know, so I think that they're, they're very sensitive to the energy side of things, particularly in adverse weather environments.
Bill (35:01):
And these Holstein jersey crosses the best would be a half and half or something
Jim (35:06):
Probably. Yeah. Yeah. They seem to be pretty hearty in, from what I've seen. And, and maybe grow more like a Holstein than a Jersey, which is probably good.
Scott (35:17):
Well, Jim, this has been a great discussion. I've really enjoyed it. As we get ready to close things out, I'm gonna turn to Dr. Zimmerman and Clay, is there any key messages kind of caught your attention today?
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Our last call question is sponsored by AminoShure XM Precision Release methionine, the next generation in amino acid balancing with AminoShure XM. You can save up to 5 cents per cal per day on your methionine investment. Try it today and receive an additional 2.50 cents per cal per day savings with Balchems limited time rebate offer, contact your Balchem representative to learn more.
Clay (35:52):
Well, it, I mean, it is, it, it had me, you know, thinking back over my career actually, right. And, and how much things really have changed on the, on the in calf nutrition. So there's been some pretty amazing changes here. Yeah. So for sure. So yeah, there's, there's been a lot, a lot to ponder here. Some, some really, some really good moves forward. Yeah. From the, from the, from the starvation strategy basically. Right. Yeah. To really more efficiently growing these calves.
Scott (36:26):
Yeah, absolutely.
Clay (36:27):
At a young age.
Scott (36:28):
Very interesting. Bill, any key takeaways for the audience today? Well,
Bill (36:33):
Almost all this is new to me, so lots of tough, but I think, you know, as we get these cows are producing more and more and more, we, we've gotta treat the calves better if we're gonna keep getting more from the cow. And, and it's amazing to me how much progress has been made for someone who doesn't follow this literature, but yet there's still a lot of unknown. There's, we still have, there's job opportunities for calf
Scott (36:57):
Researchers. Yeah. So, Jim, you're gonna be given the presentation here in just a couple hours, I think in your presentation, what's some of the take home messages that you've put together for the audience? Yep.
Jim (37:09):
Well, I think, again, just emphasizing the importance of colostrum, that it's an old story, but it's still vital to the success of the operation. We're gonna talk about the, the greater milk feeding rates and how it, it results in, in better cows. It seems to have impacts on, on health and growth and even reproduction as well as milk production. We'll talk about practical implementation of the strategies and we'll talk about weaning as a, a barrier to the, the success of the program. And again, some of the things that we talked about here as far as, as easing that weaning transition. So those are gonna be my main messages. Alright.
Scott (37:53):
Great. Well, Dr. Drake Lee, this has been a joy appreciate having you back here at the Real Science Exchange. I think this might be your third trip, if I'm counting correctly.
Jim (38:02):
I think so, yeah.
Scott (38:03):
So I wanna thank you very much for joining us. You are welcome. Yeah. Also like to thank our loyal listeners for joining us Once again, hope you learned something. I hope you had some fun. And I hope to see you next time here at the Real Science Exchange, where it's always happy hour and you're always among friends.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
We'd love to hear your comments or ideas for topics and guests. So please reach out via email to anh.marketing@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@balchem.com. Balchems 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 balchem.com/realscience to see the latest schedule to register for upcoming webinars.