This episode was recorded at the 2025 Western Dairy Management Conference in Reno, Nevada.
This episode was recorded at the 2025 Western Dairy Management Conference in Reno, Nevada.
Dr. Sabine Mann, Cornell University; Dr. Will Mustas, Progressive Dairy Solutions; Dr. Don Niles, Dairy Dreams LLC; and Joey Airosa, Airosa Dairy Farms, introduce themselves. (0:48)
Dr. Mann outlines the high points of her presentation. Giving an adequate amount of high-quality colostrum quickly after birth is essential to equip the calf with the best chances to stay healthy. Colostrum is more than a solution of water and immunoglobulins, and we are continuing to learn more about other nutrients and growth factors that colostrum contains. (12:03)
Dr. Niles and Mr. Airosa talk about colostrum and maternity protocols on their dairies. Each has dedicated maternity staff in charge of postnatal calf care. Don mentions they often have public tours of their dairy and shares some anecdotes. Joey’s maternity staff try to get colostrum in calves within 30 minutes of birth and have worked out a good communication system to ensure seamless calf care when shift changes occur. (13:57)
Dr. Mann emphasizes the timing of colostrum delivery is critical. But what about the amount? Should every calf get four liters? Joey notes they bottle feed and have settled on three quarts for Holstein calves and two quarts for Jersey calves. Sabine says research backs that up - calves will not voluntarily drink much more than 3-3.5 liters. Using esophageal feeders to give four liters could be overfeeding in some cases, which could cause slower emptying of the stomach and thus slower arrival and uptake of immunoglobulins at the small intestine. The four liter recommendation came from the idea that good quality colostrum probably had about 50 grams per liter of IgG, and at that time, we wanted to get 200 grams into the calf. Perhaps making a sheet with recommended amounts based on calf weights could be helpful for maternity staff. Dr. Mann also clarifies that the 50 grams per liter of IgG is not really good quality colostrum. Most herds average about 90-100 grams per liter of IgG in colostrum. She recommends every farm find out how good their colostrum is and optimize feeding amounts from there. (22:45)
Dr. Mann notes the importance of making sure dry cows are not deficient in protein supply and ensuring the dry period is long enough to create high-quality colostrum. While it’s commonly thought older cows have better colostrum than young cows, she underlines again the importance of measuring colostrum quality to know for sure. She also highly recommends measuring colostrum quality from individual cows before pooling so that poor colostrum does not dilute good colostrum. (31:04)
Dr. Mustas shares some of the challenges he’s seeing on dairies where he consults. What can we do to control the bacteriological quality of colostrum? He notes there’s no reason we can’t get very low bacteria counts pre-pasteurization. Making sure maternity areas are clean and sanitary, udders are prepped very well, and harvesting equipment is not neglected are all great strategies. (35:53)
Dr. Mann talks about individual cow variation in colostrum production and some factors that might influence including placental interactions, hormones, and genetics. (38:04)
Scott and Sabine discuss some of the research around supplementing with choline during the dry period and subsequent colostrum production. (41:28)
Dr. Niles comments that pasteurization of colostrum has been one of the most exciting technologies to come along. On his farm, the pasteurizer has given them much more control over colostrum quality and delivery time. Dr. Mann agrees storage of colostrum has given dairies the ability to be strategic about how they use colostrum, what colostrum they use, and to also plan for seasonal colostrum shortages. She agrees with Dr. Mustas that clean colostrum harvesting equipment is key to low bacterial counts. (44:13)
Dr. Mustas talks about how the beef-on-dairy phenomenon has altered colostrum protocols. Calf ranches are giving deductions for poor colostrum scores when calves are received. Some operations even offer premiums or discounts on daily yardage depending on individual calf colostrum scores. (50:21)
Joey, Don, and Sabine comment on the importance of finding the right people to work in maternity and instilling the idea that taking care of cows and calves is both a great responsibility and a great honor. (52:56)
The panel wraps up with their take-home thoughts. (58:31)
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Scott Sorrell (00:00:10):
Good evening everyone, and welcome to the Real Science Exchange, the pubcast where leading scientists and industry professionals meet over a few drinks to discuss the latest ideas and trends in animal nutrition. We've got a real nice topic tonight for us. Sabina Mann gave a presentation today titled “Mining Liquid Gold Strategies to Supercharge Colostrum Production”. So I'm assuming we're gonna talk about what can we do to increase colostrum production. So first of all, Sabina, I'd like to ask you just kind of introduce yourself and give us an overview of who you are and some of the, the research that you do.
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:00:48):
Yeah, sure. Scott, thank you for the introduction. As you mentioned, I was presenting on colostrum, the topic of colostrum today. The interest in this topic comes from my clinical work. I'm a veterinarian. I work for Cornell University. I spend about half my time going to farms in the area around Ithaca. And we had these questions coming from producers that mentioned that they don't have enough colostrum all year round. And so I also run a research program, and I thought it was intriguing that we've talked about colostrum forever, longer than all of us together probably have been alive, and we still have these issues. So as part of my research program, I picked this up and we did some studies to try to figure out what could potential reasons be for local colostrum production. And from that, a few more spinoff studies just in the general area of colostrum management and the role it plays for the calf how we can preserve it on farm. And so, et cetera.
Scott Sorrell (00:01:47):
Where are you from? And kind of with that, since this is a, a pub theme, what's in your glass tonight and why?
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:01:54):
Yeah. can't hide that accent. In my glass today is a pigeon head coach. And so that gives you a clue of where I might be from. And if you know coach, you know, it's mostly water. So I'm not actually drinking beer. I'm drinking an electrolyte solution tonight.
Scott Sorrell (00:02:10):
But it, it is a German beer. It is a German beer. Yeah. Okay. All right. Very well. And I understand German beers have three ingredients, right? Water, which is number one, good water, yeast and barley. Yep. All
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:02:23):
That's great. Have a whole law about how to make beer. Yeah,
Scott Sorrell (00:02:25):
Exactly. Yep. And so think that's a good thing. None of those nasty preservatives. Yeah. So thank you for joining us. Got a star-studded panel with us tonight. Down on this end. I got Dr. Will Masti Masis. Yeah, there we go. That's better. Will, tell us a little bit about yourself and what's in your glass tonight? So,
Dr. Will Mustas (00:02:47):
I'm from Wisconsin, southeastern Wisconsin, originally graduated from University of Wisconsin Madison for undergrad and continued to Madison for veterinary school. Graduated in 2016 and moved to Central Valley of California. Been in clinical practice for about eight eight years now. And I'm now working transitioning on to the dairy management nutrition and management consulting side with progressive Dairy
Scott Sorrell (00:03:18):
Solutions. Oh, excellent. Consider yourself a native Californian yet.
Dr. Will Mustas (00:03:21):
I still have not gotten used to the heat. Not, not there yet. It was, it was nice seeing snow on the drive over here.
Scott Sorrell (00:03:25):
Yeah. All right, good. And to my right here is Dr. Don Niles. Don, thank you for joining us. You and I met several years ago. I know you don't remember it. I, I remember it well, but you're a classic guy. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Dr. Dan Niles (00:03:39):
Well, thanks for inviting me for one thing, I, I appreciate being here with the, the group. I, I'm gonna listen more than talk, I think, which is not characteristic for me,
Dr. Dan Niles (00:03:48):
But I come from Wisconsin also. And I was raised in a non-farm community. I remember going out with a veterinarian when I was in high school to, because I was interested in being a veterinarian, riding with one and asking him what kind of cows the black and white ones were. 'cause I didn't know,
Scott Sorrell (00:04:07):
Is that right? So it was
Dr. Dan Niles (00:04:09):
Starting from a, a suburban kid and went through veterinary school in university of Minnesota. We hadn't had a school in Wisconsin yet at that point. Graduated in 82 and practiced in Casco, Wisconsin, Northeast Wisconsin for several years. Had an opportunity in 98 to go to California and worked with Monsanto in the large herds out there. And that was a phenomenal opportunity because I, I'd heard about 'em and understood they were really big herds out there, but it really didn't know anything about managing herds that are of that size. Enjoyed that very much for three years. And then my my best client and best friend from practice called up and said it was time for me to stop clowning around and, and California and come back to Wisconsin and build a dairy together. So,
Scott Sorrell (00:04:51):
Oh, nice. Yeah,
Dr. Dan Niles (00:04:52):
That's what we did with dairy Dreams also in Kewanee County. And John is no longer with us a after having an accident, but his family and I are partners there, and they're doing a phenomenal job of representing the dairy industry. And yes, they are taking care of cows. And our, our, our whole focus is for us, has gotta be convincing the public or reassuring the public that the care our cows get is, is top-notch and would be the kind of care we want our own children
Scott Sorrell (00:05:20):
To get. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, thank you for joining us tonight. Looking forward to the conversation. Our color commentator tonight is gonna be Joey Roso from Tulare County, California. Now, Joey, this is not your first time to the pub. You've joined us one other time back it's been a couple years, but had the opportunity last night to have dinner with you, share a few stories. And for those listening, he, he's, he's a great ambassador for the dairy industry, and so I appreciate you and appreciate you joining us tonight. With that, why don't you go ahead and tell us about yourself and what's in your glass? Well, your bottle tonight.
Joey Airosa (00:05:57):
Well, somebody mentioned the heat in California and you know, after a hard day's work in the summer, I got to where I like these Michelob ultras. They're, they're easy drinking, probably just a step away from water, really. But they, they go down good away from colts. Yeah, they go down good when it's about 115. Yeah. And so yeah, we, that's kind of what I drink. And I like wine too. My wife and I enjoy a good glass of wine now and then, and you know, it puts us both in a better mood sometimes.
Scott Sorrell (00:06:27):
You got some nice wines out there, Joe. Yeah, I,
Joey Airosa (00:06:29):
A little bit about our family. You know, my, my great-grandfather came to California in 1912 and settled just about where we're at actually. And he my grandfather came with him. He was 12 years old. And my grandfather started a dairy in 1938. He bought his own little farm. They had been milking about 10 cows a piece by hand for about 30 years. And I think they my grandfather was the only one that was really interested in staying in the business. And he bought a little farm, which we still own today. And he started his own dairy. And then unfortunately, he died at a young age of he died in 1963. So my dad took over when he was 25 years old, took over the farm, and he grew the farm and really gave, gave me the opportunity to to be in the business.
Joey Airosa (00:07:19):
It's a, this, the dairy farm in generally it's a, you know, clear across the country. It's a family owned business mostly, and takes really generations of people who have been dedicated to it to kind of keep it going. We probably the value added side of our businesses. We started when I started four H in in 19 69. We, we had bought some registered Holsteins in 1967, and we started kind of growing the herd with registered Holstein. And, you know, so for, you know, 50, 60 plus years we've been kind of, kind of working with genetics and trying to make our cows better. And I think we to my dad's credit, and, and really my grandfather too, I think he started using registered bulls in the forties. We were lucky, we had some really great herds in our neighborhood, Sutton Oaks and Rocky Hill and Cal Clark was just down the road.
Joey Airosa (00:08:12):
So we kind of had the blessing of having some great genetics you know, that we could implement into our herd early on. And I think my dad, I give him a lot of credit in the early eighties, he he wanted to really emphasize protein in our herd. And this was kind of before the cheese thing really took off. And so we started kind of looking at protein and type and good cows, the cows that could enable us to to be competitive and, you know, keep our family farm going. Because I think one of the things that in our neighborhood, especially Tore County the number one dairy county in the United States is that people figured out early on that it takes good cows to survive in this business. It's really competitive. And so I think it's important that you gotta have good cows and you gotta take care of 'em.
Joey Airosa (00:09:06):
And I always say the showing part of the equation is what kind of helps us take care of better care of our cows at home. 'cause Our employees see the extra care we give to some of the cows. And I think that really spreads into the rest of the herd. And the other thing that we noticed was that if you take really good care of your cows at home, they give a lot more milk on a lot less, you know, 'cause the environment really can take a lot away from them if you're not paying attention to that. And so that's really where their profit center's at. The other thing that I think is a big deal, and this kind of goes with the calves, is that I think when you work with your animals the way we do with the showing and helping kids show heifers and things like that, it really helps your cow care and the people that we have really good employees on our farm, and I think it really, really spreads to the calf care where you have people that really want to take the time to take care of calves, 'cause calves in, in our opinion.
Joey Airosa (00:10:06):
And I think most really good dairy farmers have figured out that the day that cast's born, that is the beginning of your profitability for the next five or six years or however long you can keep her. And so the better you can take care of her you know, the chances are your herd's gonna just be that much more you know, profitable. So,
Scott Sorrell (00:10:25):
Yeah. Well, that's a great segue into the conversation. So being able to kind of ease into that conversation. So mining the liquid gold that's provocative. So give us kind of the, the, the, the high points of the presentation and how do we mine that? Liquid gold
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Dr. Sabine Mann (00:11:53):
Yeah, it, it is indeed a very good segue because that day that the calf is born you have a very important job to make sure that that calf gets equipped with the best chances to grow. Well stay healthy not leave the herd prematurely. And giving good quality and an adequate quantity of colostrum quickly after birth is the key component in, in assuring that. And we talked a little bit earlier on and how you manage colostrum in your herd and, and how important you think it is. And we consider it the liquid gold, not just because it's yellow-ish but because it has such an integral function in making sure that that calf will be healthy in those first few weeks of life when it has the highest chances of getting sick. And, and the key component of that, and we've known about that for a long time, is immunoglobulin antibodies.
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:12:47):
But we're extending our understanding of why it is so important and why it is so valuable like gold. Because there's other components in colostrum, and maybe when we're managing for high IgG transfer, we are also by proxy managing for the transfer of all of these other components, or at least the, the supply to the calf of these other components. And those can be nutrients that are important that we shouldn't forget about to deliver some energy to the calf, but then also other bioactive components in colostrum, such as growth factors that make the, the guts mature better that make this fluid that, you know, is not just a solution of IDG and water. So valuable.
Scott Sorrell (00:13:28):
Yeah. Interesting. So I kinda like to swing over this side of the table and kind of get maybe Donna start with you. What, what is your perspective of colostrum? How do you treat it at the dairy? How, how do you guys value it manage it, et cetera? It's kind of an open-ended question, but
Dr. Dan Niles (00:13:47):
It's, it's a, a good open handed question. And it's changed dramatically over the years as technology has has come along for us to process the colostrum. We since we built air dreams we've had a large enough herd that we could afford full-time maternity staff. And I think that's a a critical aspect of what we wanna do as, as dairy producers is have specialists working in maternity who are dedicated to that job. And I think the other thing we've gotta keep in mind is in places like Wisconsin, we have an entire state that was used to 30 cow dairy farms. And the tendency was to be very suspicious of the thousand cow dairies being built now as they thought of them as factory farms and not good places for cows to be. And having been a veterinarian in large herds and small herds, I I realized that there is no correlation between size and, and management attention.
Dr. Dan Niles (00:14:53):
You're either focused on that or, or you're not. So we've taken a great focus on maternity. We have the, as I mentioned, the dedicated staff. As we grow larger, we've got two people on each shift instead of one. And their entire job is devoted to maternity work, colostrum handling, processing those, those fresh calves and trying to do it in a way that that's acceptable to the non-farm public. We have a lot of tours coming through. We, one time actually had a we were out for dinner and there were four of us with our wives and dairy farmers talking about dairy stuff. And there was a couple at the next table, and I could see they were listening, but it didn't make too much of it. And finally one of them went over or leaned over and said, are, are you dairy farmers?
Dr. Dan Niles (00:15:43):
And I said, yeah. She said, well, I'm a nurse. She said, and I've been listening to you, but I'm wondering how you can take care of, of all those animals properly. And that was a, a wonderful challenge. And we started talking about maternity. And as a nurse, she was, did a lot of maternity work herself. So she was interested in that. It, it turns out that she told her husband the only thing she wanted for her birthday was to go and see a cat be born. And these are people that had never been on a farm before, and they're educated people. But that whole act of how does that new life come into the the world and how is it, how is it handled by us and, and cared for by us? That was very important to her. And I said, well, any, anytime you'd like, gimme a call and you can come out and come to maternity, somebody's gonna be calving every couple hours.
Dr. Dan Niles (00:16:32):
So, so they came out and of course it was 30 below that day in Wisconsin, and they were watching for about three hours. And of course all the, all the animals in maternity were just looking at her like, why are you here? We're nothing's going on today. So she and her husband went off to get lunch and they came back afterwards just as a cow was calving. And it was, it was one of those calvings where the cow is smiling and the baby calf is born smiling. Everything just went beautifully. And she wrote a thank you letter later said, that's one of the best days of her life is getting to see a calf be born on a dairy farm. And that just helped me focus on the idea that people really do care. We can sometimes be focused on protocol and not on the reasons for the protocol. And I think we just have to continue to stimulate that and, and realize that this is our future that's being born, and it's our responsibility to, to give it all the care possible. So we focused on that as a we think as part of the, the fee that we have to, to pay. I mean, being a large farm and still being welcome in the Wisconsin community. So it's a big focus of ours.
Scott Sorrell (00:17:41):
Yeah. Very, very interesting comments. Great story. You know, he was talking about protocol, and I think we were talking about that a little bit last night, and, you know, having the right people that can carry out that protocol. And I love what you said about, you know, having kind of the objective in mind. It's not just about the protocol, it's about the outcome. And, and maybe I'm paraphrasing, but you said it better than I did. Well, I, but, but it kind of correlates with some of the things that we were discussing last evening. So maybe that's a great segue to, to you, Joe. And I don't, we'll get, we'll get to you Sabina
Joey Airosa (00:18:33):
So, you know, I'll back up a little bit. We built a new farm in 2006 and we we kind of I'm kind of a nibbler. So we built the cow, the milking portion of it, which was basically a $10 million deal. And we turned my, our, my grandfather's facility, my dad's facility into a a, a place where we would milk some cows but also calve there. And that worked, that kind of satisfied us for a little bit. And thank God we probably did it. 'cause Then oh 8 0 9 came and it actually probably was a blessing that we didn't have quite a bit more debt. And so then in 2016 we built a new maternity facility, calving area. We have a separate calving area for cows by lactation. So older cows are, are come into the closeup pen and they stay in a certain area.
Joey Airosa (00:19:29):
And then the, the first calf heifer, the heifer's calving have a separate pen. And then we put a, we call it like our calf calf, a maternity area calf kitchen where we put in a pasteurizer and we were already pasteurizing it, our, our, my my our home farm. But we kind of upgraded that and we really, you know, put the freezers in and got everything set up where we can really try to do it right and went round the clock maternity. And you know, I I I think that the calf thing, the raising your own calves, whether you raise 'em or not, but it's the most important thing you can do. It's the beginning of success really on your farm. And so trying to make sure that we get the protocols right. Dipping the navel feeding, you know, we try to feed within 30 minutes.
Joey Airosa (00:20:23):
That's our, that's our goal. I always say in a perfect world, if we could have 10 calves every day, that'd be awesome. But you know how it goes. We get three and then we get 23, you know, and so it, it changes. And that's the, you know, as dairy farmers, we deal with a lot of things like that. The unpredictables, whether it's weather or, you know, weather causes different calving cycles. The other thing that we, in the last couple of years we've tried hard to work on is it's kind of like a track race where you hand the baton off to somebody and making sure our employees are communicating with each other about when one comes and one goes, there's a little bit of overlap and making sure that they know if a calf didn't drink all its bottle, we were talking about that earlier, or, you know, making sure that, that we have a protocol sheet that they write down what time they feed the calf.
Joey Airosa (00:21:17):
And that's really it's gotten buy-in to them. How, how, you know, I, one of the things that my calf people have figured out is that if you do everything right, it's a lot easier and it's fun. And if you don't do everything right that first day, you got, you kind of have hell to pay. You know? So just trying to instill that, that mindset into 'em. And, you know, I I ran a 40 cow dairy and I ran a, I run a 3000 cow dairy. And to be honest, I have a lot of respect for people who run 40 cow dairies. 'cause They're, they're, they're just as demanding is, and it's because you don't have the ability to have the extra people to have the overlap and things like that. And so, you know, I always, I always have a lot of respect for, I don't care what size dare you have, it's a lot of work. Yeah.
Scott Sorrell (00:22:10):
So Joey, you mentioned that you try to get the colostrum in within 30 minutes. And one of the things I learned today, Sabina, from your presentation is that that that's probably pretty good objective, right? Yeah. So, but you, your si your, your presentation was very scientific. Why don't you kind of talk through some of the science that you've done and, and where you think that sweet, sweet spot is? Yeah,
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:22:31):
I'm a science geek. Yeah. That's usually what happens. Talking about the, the timing that colostrum goes into the calf is, is critical. We've known, actually we've known a lot of things about colostrum for a very long time. And I think protocols have been in place for a very long time. Just wanna back up a little bit from both what both of you said. It, it needs, people need to understand why it's important to follow these protocols. And whenever everything else happens on the dairy, it still has to be a priority number one to, on that day one to to care for the calf, right? Yeah. We, we look at many different factors. We have looked at how much colostrum to give calfs. That's one of the, the latest things that we have done. And that was a consequence of folks asking us, well, should we feed every calf for liters?
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:23:21):
Where, where I work it, it's quite common that everybody gets fed four liters or, or a gallon 3.8 liters, but calf sizes are different between herds. And, and you probably notice that that u calf sizes even change a little bit by by year. And there are some concerns that maybe, although we want these calves to eat colostrum, drink colostrum very quickly after they're born within 30 minutes, within an hour we also may want to make sure that we don't overfill them with colostrum. And that also gives us the ability to have potentially extra colostrum to store and, and use on an on for another calf. Right? so we, we looked at that and I think you feed three liters. First feeding,
Joey Airosa (00:24:04):
We feed three liters. And it was because, like we discussed earlier, we, we bottle feed everything, and so we tried four, but that last little bit was just like, it was, it was, it took a long time. And so we, we kind of settled in on three three liters for three quarts for Holstein calves, two quarts for Jersey calves.
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:24:27):
And, and there's actually research, excuse me, research out there that suggests that calves will not voluntarily drink much more than three, three and a half liters on average. And there's probably a reason for that because we, we have only a certain capacity of the, of the stomach to hold colostrum. And when we feed them, not by bottle, but maybe with an esophageal feeder feeder in general, then we might actually be overfilling them a little bit that slows down some of their emptying of the stomach. And that's very scientifically now, but that will slow down how colostrum gets into the intestine and how the good stuff out of that gold is actually taken up into circulation. So we, we think that we have to get a little bit more refined on how much we offer these calves in the first feeding and maybe preserve that leftover colostrum and give them a second feeding when their stomach has had a chance to, to empty out. So that, that is one of the areas of research that we're really interested in. And it does turn out, if you don't give them too much, they actually are able to extract more of the, of the immunoglobulins from that colostrum. So we've, we've been able to show that, and I don't know how much you feeding on in your herd and, and how you strategize.
Joey Airosa (00:25:39):
We feed four liters, but I, I'm
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:25:41):
Afraid to say that now and, and I'm not saying four liters is bad. A lot of calves are good, decent size, and four liters is probably the appropriate amount. What I'm saying is that we probably need better understanding of the choices we make for how much we feed. And the four liters really came out of the consideration for good quality colostrum probably having 50 grams per liter of IDG. And we wanted to, at the time, get 200 grams into the calf. And so the easy math was 200 grams equals four liters, and conveniently, most calves do pretty well with that. But I think each producer has a chance to make decisions on how much they wanna feed and if they wanna feed once or twice. And I think I would just invite the thought to challenge the idea of everybody gets four liters and maybe that's the best. And, and even maybe making a, a sheet or something that says, you know, these calves at this weight might wanna, you know, have the four liters, but then when they're smaller, maybe we can feed less. And and so on. And I think your observation that most calves won't drink much more than three liters is is something that is often shared with us.
Joey Airosa (00:26:47):
Our conversation today was about, because we bottle feed, if I could figure out how to make my colostrum super high quality and stronger, maybe two liters would be enough. You know, that was, I asked you that question
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:27:00):
Exactly. Yeah. the four liter suggestion is because 50 grams per liter of IgG is actually not really good quality colostrum from all the signs we've done, we most herds have an average of about 90 to a hundred grams per liter of IgG and colostrum. So I think every, every farm on every farm, there's an opportunity to find out how good is your colostrum and actually make your own guidelines of where you're gonna cut that quality. And then based on that, maybe you can optimize your feeding amounts. And we have, you know, not perfect, but we have the ability to do bricks values that let us estimate colostrum quality. And if you can prioritize that really high quality colostrum when you're bottle feeding, I think you're gonna be able to get the good stuff into them in a smaller volume, which will benefit you when, when you're relying on them to, to drink it voluntarily.
Joey Airosa (00:27:50):
One thing we notice is if you're walking your pens and you see, there's two things, if you see a calf that's super strong, there'll always be another calf next to her. Like, like there'll be right together, really strong calves. And if you ever find a, a weaker calf, there'll usually be a couple of them. Seems like, and it's because we pool our colostrum and I feel like, you know, it's the batch that was either crazy good or wasn't quite so good, you know? And so that to me, that's a sign that if we could figure out the super calves, what they got, and if we could maintain that across every calf that's born, then calf raising would get pretty easy.
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:28:33):
You'd be golden. Yeah. Yeah.
Joey Airosa (00:28:34):
Yep.
Scott Sorrell (00:28:35):
So how do we do that? Savannah, right?
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:28:38):
So that's a million dollar question,
Scott Sorrell (00:28:41):
Right? Yeah. I mean, I, I love the, i the one graph that you showed today where you had I think there was four different levels and you had the, the two middle ones were very close together, but that high level quality of, of colostrum really separated itself from the low level and the other two treatments, I guess treatment's not the right word, but yeah.
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:29:02):
For you mean for the calf? Yeah.
Scott Sorrell (00:29:04):
Morbidity, mortality I think that's what it was. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:29:09):
Yeah, so there's, there's actually data to suggest that what you're observing is, is is science based as well. Sorry to come back to the science, but yeah, we, we do know, yeah,
Joey Airosa (00:29:19):
I didn't even need the science. I know
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:29:22):
That's usually what happens. I trail, i'll trail behind what is already being observed and then I supply some data. But, but there's good data to suggest that if we have this really good colostrum and you have that batch where you see the calfs doing really well, that equates to them having excellent levels of IgG. And, and I will stress this one more time. We measure IDG, but they're probably approximating other things that are in, in that colostrum as well. And they do much better as far as not getting sick and having a much, much lower risk of, of dying. We used to just think, oh, we have to get, you know, over a certain threshold and a calves and, and once they're over that, you know, we're, we're fine. The more data we, we have and, and this came out of the NAM study, 2014 data driven by Dr.
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:30:09):
Lombard. We now understand that once you make it over that threshold, if you can climb a little higher in that IgG concentration, the calves do better. And that's the graph that you were referring to where, where those calves that have a much higher transfer of passive immunity or IDG concentration in their blood just have a much lower risk of getting, getting sick or, or even potentially dying, which is something that we don't want. On the farm, there's many factors that go into how a cow makes colostrum and how we get it out of her, and then how we feed it. One simple one maybe that we can start with is we've always worried a little bit about, we know we have to feed the calf really quickly after birth, and you feed within an hour or two and you feed within quicker 15 minutes.
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:30:55):
1515 minutes. Yeah. Or he's speeding you with 15 minutes. That's right. Yeah. Catch up on that. But the, the worry has always been, what if I can't milk the cow that quickly? Right? And, and on on many farms, cows get milked and maybe that particular cow's colostrum isn't getting fed to that particular calf. So we've looked at, is the quality of colostrum decreasing? If I wait hours after the cow calves, I've already fed their calf, that's very important. But if I wait to milk that cow to harvest her colostrum, will something happen to the quality if I wait too long? And yes, there will be something happening to the quality if you wait too long, you have some hours. And, and that's reassuring. That's, you said eight, eight hours, right? Yeah, about eight hours. Where you really see this dilution effect coming in, where the quantity will start increasing.
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:31:42):
But we won't have that 90, a hundred or even more grams per liter anymore 'cause we're starting to decrease because there will be that dilution effect. So that's one thing to make sure that you harvest the colostrum in a timely manner that will assure that you preserve that quality that the cow made in the first place. Another factor that we can look at is how we feed the cow during the dry period. And so we've, we've known for for a long time that if cows are under nutrition, you know, lack protein, lack energy, that we don't seem to get good quality colostrum. We understand now that probably having sufficient protein and then adding more won't make a difference. But we wanna make sure that dry cows are not deficient in protein supply. So that's gonna be really important.
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:32:41):
IDG our immunoglobulins is a protein, right? Somebody has to make the protein, and if cows are deficient in, in amino acids or in protein in general, they will likely not make as many immunoglobulins and they have to be taken up from the bloodstream. So we have to make sure that, that, that gets assured as well. Older cows are shared that today, you know, we, we always wanna have the older cows colostrum 'cause we think that's much better quality, and that's true, but it doesn't start until cows get into lactation 3, 4, 5 and plus. And we have a lot of cows on our farms that are first and second lactation and they have a bad rep for, you know, not having great quality colostrum, but it's actually not true that they are ap priori always worse quality. So I, I encourage producers to always check the quality of the colostrum and then make decisions based on what the quality looks like because there's heifers that can make some awesome, awesome quality colostrum.
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:33:34):
So parody has an effect on that as well. Dry cow length of the dry period has an effect on quality of colostrum. If you have the dry period being too short, and you probably observed this in cows or calf too early, you know, have a, maybe a still birth, that colostrum usually looks a little bit more like milk than, than anything else, and it just haven't had the time to actually make it to concentrated and, and produce what we wanna see as, as this really thick gold. So that's something to keep in mind as well. And he can quickly dilute down good quality colostrum with having one milking of a cow that's really got bad quality colostrum. So before pooling, I would also suggest to test it so that you don't mix it all together and then you are like, oh, well that pool is no longer, you know, good and, and might not serve you with the three liters. So having that bricks ref reflectometer around, which I'm sure you, you're using is really helpful for that. I'm getting carried away.
Scott Sorrell (00:34:31):
No, no, no, no. You stop me now. Carry on. Somebody stopped me.
Joey Airosa (00:34:35):
So, so based off off your off today's presentation, should we all be shooting for a 68 day dry period?
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:34:44):
That's an excellent question. So based on colostrum outcomes, yes, but there are other concerns, you know, that, that weigh in. But I'm not saying that everybody should just go to a 68 or 75 or, you know, the longer they dry, the better, you know, their colostrum will probably be. But it is something to just keep in mind, especially for, for those that struggle with colostrum quantity and quality, it just kind of check on the, the dry period length as, you know, housed on calf when they're supposed to, right? So we have to count, you know, the 10 or so days of standard deviation around or predicted calving. And if you're cutting the closeup period too short you're probably not getting the benefit of that ration and you're not getting the benefit of producing that colostrum. So that so don't quote me on saying everybody has to have a over 60 day drive period, but it's something that to keep in mind for sure.
Scott Sorrell (00:35:33):
Yeah, yeah. You know, I'd like to kick it over to Will, will, you're out there meeting with a lot of customers and, and dairy farmers. What are some of the challenges that they're running into?
Dr. Will Mustas (00:35:43):
Well, one of the challenges related to the, that last topic as far as the quality and ab and absor factors that have had absorption is bacteriologically, are we, are we doing everything we can to make sure that if we are pasteurizing, that we're starting with a good product? You know, on, on my well-managed dairies, you know, there, there's no reason that we can't get very low bacteria counts pre pasteurization. You know, there's definitely advantages for pasteurization as far as pathogen risk. So you know, that's definitely something that, you know, if it's a concern for your farm, definitely something to look into. But as far as, you know, going into that bacteriological quality, what can we do to control it? Making sure that our maternity areas is clean and sanitary, making sure that those ts are are prepped very well. Maybe even kind of do two prep sequences just to ensure that that other is as clean as possible. And also making sure that our harvesting equipment isn't being neglected. A lot of facilities have separate maternity areas or, or separate colostrum collection facilities. Making sure that those facilities and equipment is being maintained and sanitized, you know, at least as well as the rest of the farm is definitely something that, that can affect how that colostrum is harvested and, and how that calf absorbs it.
Scott Sorrell (00:37:00):
Yeah. Are you running into many of your dairies that have a lack of colostrum?
Dr. Will Mustas (00:37:04):
Generally, no. There, there is some seasonality to it. So, you know, there's, there's been some research looking at day length you know, and trying to adjust photo period and, and can, can we really move the needle? Not too much adoption in California and it, you know, maybe isn't worth the expense most of the time. I think the, the timing of harvesting is really the most important. And if if we do use that first lactation colostrum, you know, if it's, if it's good quality, there's really no reason we can't use that
Scott Sorrell (00:37:38):
Vina. One other thing I kind of wanted to dig into while I was watching your presentation is that cow variability and it seems to be pretty extreme and unpredictable perhaps. And do we have any insights as to what that, what, what's causing that?
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:37:54):
Yeah, it's a, that's a great question. So I, I shared that there's a lot of variability in colostrum production between herds, but there's a lot of variability within a herd. And, and I, I would say that I'm not very good at predicting how much colostomy a cow makes from looking at her udder. Are you sometimes surprised you think that there's a nice udder and then you can't barely get any colostrum out of there and vice versa. So what are the, there are individual factors that have to do with things that we probably don't understand very well, such as the cows and the crying status. So what are the hormones doing in that, in that period, just leading up to calving. But there are some factors that we do understand, and we know, for example, that cows carrying twins or carrying bull calves, that's so a, a bigger total fetal weight seem to make more colostrum.
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:38:42):
And so from that, we think that it has to do something with the, with the placenta, there's more, there's bigger placenta or two placenta if it's, if it's a twin calving and that there's probably some contribution from that placenta in, in the stimulus in the, in the signaling to the cow. So that has something to do with it, but don't ask me what it is because nobody really knows. But that is, is certainly one, one factor and other factors that are individual for determining how much colostomy cow makes is her own dry period length, for example. Right. Is she calving early? Is she calving late? What other individual factors are there that I'm forgetting? Cows that have dys dosha any trouble calving are typically not very good at producing colostrum. So there's probably some effect that they've made colostrum in a dry period, but because of the dystocia, maybe they're not letting it down. It's a stressful event. So that's interfering with it. And in general, stressful events around the time of first colostrum harvest are gonna be problematic and getting the colostrum out of the cow.
Scott Sorrell (00:39:50):
Yeah. Do you think there's a genetic component?
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:39:53):
I definitely think there's a genetic component, and we talked about that today in, in the presentation. I think that now that we have such a, a, a better understanding of the genetics and the herd now it takes people to measure the colostrum quantity and quality on these cows. And, and I think we can actually make big strides in understanding how much of a genetic influence is there. So would encourage those who are, who like genetics, which is not me to, to get that, get the hands on that data, and it's, it's not difficult to collect, but you would be surprised how many people actually don't measure individual cow co colostrum production and quality and, and documented so that we can do something with it. So I absolutely think there is a genetic component to it.
Scott Sorrell (00:40:35):
And what about milk production cows that are predisposed be high producers? Do they produce more colostrum or no, not so much. Yeah,
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:40:42):
So interesting question. We, we summarized this in a, in a recent review where we looked at all the factors that could be influencing colostrum production, and there's a nice big table in there that former grad student in my lab tr west of has put together. And, and there is some evidence that if a cow has high potential for milk production, that she could be making higher amounts of colostrum. But that is not true in all studies. We've seen it in one of our studies that cows have go on to make more milk in the first 70 days of lactation, also had higher colostrum production. But there are certainly some studies that don't show that at Balchem.
Scott Sorrell (00:41:18):
We, we, we manufacture choline world's largest manufacturer of choline chloride, and we have a, a, a product we sell into the ruminant space, and there's a, a, a a ton of, of data that shows that we get five pounds of milk by feeding choline during the transition period. And five pounds is pretty standard. We did, we did three studies where we actually measured colostrum and in two of those studies we got five pounds of colostrum. The percentages was different because the starting point was different. And I'm, I'm just kind of curious if you've got, and, and you shared that data in your presentation, is there, what's a hypothesis there in, in terms of why are we seeing that?
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:42:04):
That's a good question. Yeah.
Scott Sorrell (00:42:05):
Why are we seeing, I don't know, we need a scientist, another side scientist, this philosophy who make the product. Yeah, we should, we should. Sorry, I'm just a marketing guy. Yeah.
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:42:14):
No, it's true. We, it, it's, it's good to have these studies and I would encourage, you know, to going forward to really look at colostrum as an outcome in these studies where we're doing, where we're manipulating something in a transition period such as feeding colon, because in two other studies there, there was no statistical significance. I shared that, but it's sometimes very hard in a small cal population to show statistical differences, although you might be seeing a biological effect. So we really need more studies to, to see if this biological effect holds true, which, which
Scott Sorrell (00:42:47):
We're doing now.
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:42:48):
You're doing good. And then we can synthesize those studies and, and also what it gives us as an opportunity is to understand in which studies did it come out at the five pounds and maybe were in which studies it didn't necessarily. And, and that will hopefully give us some insight and why it happening. Yeah. And I know you trust them in discovering why that is. There's just a lot we don't know about the drivers of colostrum osteogenesis. So I, I would give that question back to you and, and
Scott Sorrell (00:43:17):
No, no, it's, it's, it's a, it's a fair pushback, right? And, and it's one that we, we need to address and, and will, right? It was even the first few studies where we decided to look at it was almost serendipitous that now, okay, let's see what's going on with, you know you know, colostrum or calf growth and that kind of stuff. So, and now it's part of our protocol. We're taking a look at the colostrum as we do the research going forward. So, so
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:43:39):
I would hypothesize it has to do with energy metabolism perhaps. Yeah. But you'll educate us in
Scott Sorrell (00:43:45):
A Yeah. Maybe in due time. Yeah. Any key topics that we've not covered yet on colostrum? Well,
Dr. Dan Niles (00:43:51):
I think the big disruptor has been the pasteurizer that have come available to us. We, I was skeptical of, of the value of pasteurization because we wanted to get colostrum into the calves immediately upon birth and quickly learned that we can, we can pasteurize and bank the colostrum. And, and actually that helped us because now we weren't waiting for that cow to, to freshen and get the calf delivered and processed, and then get the cow milked out and get that colostrum to the calf very quickly. We were, we had no control over the quality of that crumb by doing that. We could get in very quickly, but we had no control. Now with the with the pasteurization, we're able to measure the quality. We have three different kinds of calves born in our farm. About 40% of them are carrying embryos for the bull studs.
Dr. Dan Niles (00:44:42):
So we don't own those calves. We, we birth them and process them and, and get them back where they belong. What percent was that again? About 40. 40. Wow. And then we have our own replacements and just a small number of, of V caps because of the embryos. But that's, that's allowed us to steer the different quatrocorum qualities to the different categories of, of animals, whether it be a a beef cross animal that's gonna be sold as a young calf or is, is gonna be one of our future animals or a, an animal. Going back to the bull studs, we we have a large number of calves that, that, that go back there. So the, the pasteurizer have given us much more control over what colostrum quality goes to, what animal in which category that might be, and how quickly it goes.
Dr. Dan Niles (00:45:33):
And now we don't have to go through all those other steps of getting through the maternity process, the, the calving process, and then harvesting later. We can be putting that colostrum into the pasteurizer while we're getting ready to deliver that calf. So by the time that calf comes out and it's, it's clean and dry and dipped and, and ready, it, we've got warm colostrum of high quality, and that that is kind of almost standardized the quality that we're able to deliver. And it's given us a much more steady results, steady control, because we have so many of the variables that used to just be up to Mother Nature are now within our control. So I think the, the pasteurizer have been the most disrupting and, and exciting technologies has come along.
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:46:19):
And, and to, to go off of the this point, whether you're doing pasteurization and storage or, or you're storing it any other way. I think storage has given a lot of people this ability to actually be strategic about how they use colostrum, which colostrum they use, and then also plan ahead for these seasonal shortages that we're seeing all over, you know the country for sure. And then outside of the US as well, where you can plan ahead for the fall winter period where colossal supply will be a little bit lower with the surplus colostomy you might be getting in the, in the spring and summer, and then labeling it with the quality, you know, makes you then be able to, to strategically use it. And the paste rises are, are great. I, I wanna come back to your point about the bacteria contamination.
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:47:02):
I absolutely agree. We have some farms that have squeaky clean colostrum and, you know, very, very low bacterial numbers. Much, much lower than the, the guidelines would suggest we should be under. And clarifying that most of the contamination does not come from the cow, but comes from the harvesting equipment, right? And, and I think that those farms will have this squeaky clean colostrum, just do a fantastic job cleaning that, that equipment yes, clean maternity pen and cleaning the tets, you know, preparing them well for, for milking, but really making sure that that equipment is as, as clean as any other milking equipment on the farm or cleaner,
Scott Sorrell (00:47:37):
You know, kind of we're on the subject of pathogens. You talked a little bit about feeding aesthetic colostrum. And so what are your thoughts, what'd you share with the audience today? Yeah,
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:47:48):
So one question that we get is if we have a cow cabin with clinical mastitis that we see, you know, flicks in there and, and abnormal milk, should we be discarding this colostrum? And what I shared is that there's very little research on the quality and, and quantity in, in cows that Calvin with mastitis, but the little bit of research we have doesn't suggest that having mastitis greatly changes the colostrum of that cow. But the concern would be, you know, we're not entirely sure what pathogen might be causing the mastitis, and so we might be more concerned from a disease transmission standpoint than from a colostrum quality standpoint to not feed that, that colostrum and so that you can't know what's in there necessarily when you look at it. Right? pasteurization is a good way of taking care care of that if you're worried about pathogens in the milk on the particular farm and, and each herd would know their pathogen status, but having mastitis per se is, is not necessarily a reason to throw away all of the colostrum now, the data on how are we transmitting mastitis pathogens to calves, and what would that do to them?
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:48:57):
It is very sparse. So I think we need probably more understanding of that as well. Similarly to that people ask, what about bloody colostrum? You know, can I feed bloody colostrum? And it's not necessarily poor quality, but the concern again, would be potentially in that blood, you can have some pathogens from that cow that might have a higher risk of transfer again, might be a reason for heat treating the colostrum and, and reducing that transmission risk.
Scott Sorrell (00:49:24):
I got a question for will are you seeing many of your dairies that are using the beef on dairy? And the reason I ask is I, so we did a series of podcasts about a month ago where we talked to Tara Felix from Penn State, and she was talking about the fact that this phenomenon of these, these, these beef on on dairy calves now are very valuable and people are paying a lot better attention to them and giving them them more colostrum, and now there's kind of a lack of colostrum out there. And so have you seen any of that, any of that going on with your clients? Yeah,
Dr. Will Mustas (00:50:00):
Colostrum management has definitely become more of a concern because historically, you know bull cap bull Holstein calves didn't have a significant value as a day old versus these beef crosses, you know, 800 to a thousand dollars. So depending on the calf buyer there's definitely, you know, premiums or deducts, mostly deducts as far as colostrum scores when those animals are received at the, the calf ranch or the, the raising facility. And some, some operations even offer discounts or premium charges on their daily yardage depending on that calf's, individual calf's glostrum scores. So there's, there's definitely more interest in it. But that's because, you know, the, the end person is, is demanding that from, from the
Scott Sorrell (00:50:47):
Producer. Yeah. Is that putting more pressure on the volume that's available for your, your heifers? Yeah,
Dr. Will Mustas (00:50:52):
De definitely. You know, so more, more people are using the the first lactation colostrum nowadays than, you know, even just a few years ago it was very common that that just went into the the waste milk that's gonna be used for rearing calves on farm or sold to a calf ranch or sold to a, a colostrum manufacturer for supplementation purposes.
Scott Sorrell (00:51:15):
Another thing I've heard recently that's putting pressure on the colostrum volumes is it's being used in humans. And I don't know how big that is, but it's, it's, it's, it's a thing that, that I hear in my podcast that I listen to
Dr. Will Mustas (00:51:27):
The there's definitely more, more my my Facebook and LinkedIn feeds are, are filled with advertisements for colostrum supplements. And it's not just in people too, you know, there's more research and more people using colostrum as therapy for calves you know, making their own transition milk using colostrum supplements or second or third milking colostrum. And then also calves that if they do get scours adding colostrum into to those calves rations as a therapy is, is becoming quite common nowadays.
Scott Sorrell (00:51:59):
Any things that we've left uncovered yet, the
Dr. Dan Niles (00:52:02):
People we put into the maternity teams
Scott Sorrell (00:52:04):
Okay. Absolutely
Dr. Dan Niles (00:52:06):
A critical thing. And we've, for now, for some years, we've made it a an honored position for somebody to get so that they're, they're selected If we have somebody leave the maternity team, we have the maternity manager select from the milking crew who we think should be somebody who's reasonable and responsible and, and conscientious enough so it, it, they're picked over by their peers to, to, to earn that position. And that has been very valuable for us. And then for a teaching tool with those people will use the image of if they had taken their wife to the hospital to have a baby, how would they like that to be handled? So if, if they, then you look at their tools that they're using to deliver the calves and their, there's placenta on them, they're kind of dirty and they're not well cleaned up.
Dr. Dan Niles (00:52:53):
You said no, if your wife went to the hospital, would you want this equipment to be used to deliver your baby? And they kind of, they look sheepish and they know that. So what we're, we're trying to instill that mentality that this is the equivalent of the human, human maternity care that we're trying to give to the animals that it and set the standard. But I think the big thing is having the, the maternity manager pick the next person to work in there instead of us really not knowing the guys and knowing who's more conscientious than, than the others. I, I think that's been a a good tool for
Scott Sorrell (00:53:23):
Us. Yeah. You know, that kind of goes back to the, the first comment you made about getting the people that understand the why and not just the protocol. And so yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So you're putting maybe the best of the best there in the, in the maternity. That's our intention. Yeah. Yeah. Great.
Dr. Sabine Mann (00:53:40):
And we talked about how you have to have patient people when you're bottle feeding cast for the very first time. And those of us who have done that know you have to be gentle and patient and detail oriented and conscientious. And, and you have good success with that, right? Because you trust the importance of,
Joey Airosa (00:53:57):
You know, and I think it actually the temperament of your animals, it impacts them from day one, how you treat 'em. We use a similar analogy I love your analogy about that, by the way, the maternity but we use a similar analogy for getting cows mixed up. How would you like to go home tonight and find strange people in your house? That's a good point. You know? Yeah. And it's like, you know, these poor cows, they get put in the wrong pen and then they don't all their friends, you know, they're, they get used to each other, you know? And so yeah, it's, it's it's an ongoing battle, especially with a rotary parlor because, you know, I've pushed cows many a times and what happens is you have the, you have the fast cows come in first and the slow cows come in at the end, and then, then when you're pushing the slower ones back to the crow, the fast ones are right behind you. You know, so it's, it's complicated.
Scott Sorrell (00:54:48):
This has been a great conversation. I've thoroughly enjoyed it. And it's getting time where standing between you guys and maybe another cocktail or still got you's there going my solution subpoena.
Joey Airosa (00:54:59):
I, I wanted to mention one thing, and I, I think anybody that dairy farms will, they, so every morning that's the first thing I do. I go to my maternity pen about four 30 or five, and it's kind of like Christmas day every morning, really? You see, what did you go, especially if you're, you, you have ets and things being born red calves, you know, it's pretty cool to just see all the little presents you got overnight. And so I think when, you know, showing your employees how you know the care and having the right people there, it's, it's really gratifying that, you know, that I have people that are willing to stay there all night and take care. That's a good point. Yeah. Take that responsibility, you know? So,
Scott Sorrell (00:55:41):
Ah, interesting. You mentioned Red Calves. Do you know the Hazels? Yeah. Yeah. I grew up in the same county with mark Zel. Yeah, no, he's, he's down Red South America somewhere. There's
Joey Airosa (00:55:52):
A, you know, what's kind of interesting about the dairy business now is that we have the beef on dairy. We do the Wagyu now. And, and and actually I love the fact that where the calves are going now, they're demanding that they be fed because it's, it's a, it's awesome for us who we are already raising our own calves, so we have another checks and balances, you know? And I think it really helps our operation too, that we know that, you know, if we have a problem, they probably have the problem and then we can, we can get right after it, you know? 'cause But you know, you have beef on dairy you have the red, you know, registered red stuff. It's kind of another game and you got the poll thing. And, and so it's, that's what keeps me going. It's not, I don't get me wrong, we gotta make a lot of milk every day, but just looking in the milk tank and seeing how much milk we got, probably I need a little bit more. And it's the cow side of the equation that keeps me going.
Scott Sorrell (00:56:49):
Yeah. Yeah. Great comments. You know, I think it's time to bring this to a close. What I'd like to do is go around the table and just kind of get a couple takeaways each of you would like to share with the audience. And if you don't mind, joy, can I start with you?
Scott Sorrell (00:57:11):
The economics of feeding reassure precision release choline reassures fed during the transition period. And because it's fed for such a short period of time, it costs just $15 per cow. And yet the benefits will continue to generate income throughout the year. Cows fed reassure produce five pounds more colostrum, which pays for your reassure investment on the very first day of lactation cows. Fed reassure also produce five pounds more milk per day every day. That means after the first day, every day is payday invest in reassure during the transition period and recoup your investment on the very first day of lactation after that. You got it. Payday.
Joey Airosa (00:58:01):
You want takeaways on colostrum
Scott Sorrell (00:58:04):
Or just I'd say just from this conversation? Yeah, absolutely.
Joey Airosa (00:58:08):
Well, I'll tell you my takeaway is I always enjoy sitting down with people from other states, and it, it, it reinforces, oh, even though we're, we're 48 hours away, but we all kind of have the same concerns, and the, we have the same problems, and if we each wrote a book, you wouldn't know whether it was whose book it was, you know? And so I think I think that's what makes our industry so great though, is that we together can solve a lot of things together, you know? And that's, that's pretty cool.
Scott Sorrell (00:58:42):
Yeah, no, that is real cool. I, I, I generally don't give a couple takeaways for myself, but I gotta tell you, I agree with you a hundred percent
Dr. Will Mustas (00:59:06):
One of the things that we didn't really talk too much about is you know, monitoring outcomes. So checking you know, either using rids or using serum total proteins to, to really monitor the, the outcome of our colostrum program. And maybe it can be an early indicator before we see those secondary issues as far as, you know, disease risk later in that process. And it's, you know, in, in clinical practice, you know, I'm, I'm more involved with the the, you know, something's a problem. Like, what, what can we do to fix it? So having, having that data available is definitely useful to see if there's a problem with a specific farm and even on farm. You know, if, if you're not doing it, it's monitoring colostrum, the results of the colostrum program are definitely nice, and you can give feedback to those maternity employees because they, they really do care. And a lot of times that feedback is, is helpful.
Scott Sorrell (00:59:59):
Great point. Great point. Don, you've been a great guest. Any final thoughts for us?
Dr. Dan Niles (01:00:06):
Yes, always. One, one thing we like to instill with, with our people is the question, if, if you were a cow, would you wanna be on this farm? And you, you can ask that sometime if there's been a problem, maybe a, a down cow that wasn't properly handled or protocol problems in the in the parlor, but just give that mindset that if, if you were on the cow side instead of the the people side, would you be happy here? And that, that's a theme that we just try to keep coming back to.
Scott Sorrell (01:00:39):
Excellent comments. I appreciate that, Sabina.
Dr. Sabine Mann (01:00:44):
I think I have, I got really two takeaways. I think one is we, we stand on, you know, a lot of signs that has been done over the decades regarding how to treat a calf on day one and how to make sure that they do well in our herds. And we know a lot of things and we just have to put them in practice with people that care and that know why and that are motivated by how you explained, you know, how you're motivating your, your workers your team. But on the other hand, what also motivates me who does clinical work and science is that we have these conversations with producers and they bring up questions and, and we look at the literature and we're like, well, well nobody really has looked at this yet. And that really is powerful to have these questions come from, from producers to us that we can actually address them and hopefully add something of value to what people can use on farm. 'cause It's fun to do science, but even for science geeks, it's no fun to do science that nobody can use, right? So I really always appreciate these conversations and bringing up maybe the knowledge gaps that we should be working on. So really enlightening conversations. Thank you.
Scott Sorrell (01:01:52):
Yeah, it's been enjoyable. And Sabina, we love Science Geeks here. It's real science exchange, so Yeah. No, so thank you for joining us. You did a great job with a webinar today, maybe even better job with the with the podcast this this evening. So thank you for that. I appreciate that. Thanks for having me. Joy. Thanks for joining us. Pleasure. It
Dr. Sabine Mann (01:02:10):
Was gonna be fun.
Scott Sorrell (01:02:11):
Yeah. Don will, thank you so much. You guys, you guys have been great guests. Appreciate you guys joining us. It's for our loyal audience as always. Thank you for joining us. I hope you learned something, hope you had some fun, and we hope to see you next time here. It's real science exchange where it's always happy hour and you're always among friends.
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