Real Science Exchange

While Dr. Jardon only had milk in his glass for this pubcast, he did share about his bottle of “wheyskey” (whiskey made from whey) from Wheyward Spirit Distillery in California (https://www.wheywardspirit.com/). Iowa State Dairy Extension is offering a webinar, “Fermentation and Distillation of Whey to Produce Spirits at Copper Crow,” on May 15 at noon Central. Curtis Basina of Copper Crow Distillery in Bayfield, WI, will be the speaker. You can sign up for the webinar at https://go.iastate.edu/WHEY (4:13)Dr. Dhuyvetter presented a March 5 webinar on dairy economics, which can be found at balchem.com/realscience. Key consistent data across time indicate that more profitable dairies tend to be larger. This doesn’t mean that all dairies must be large, but more the reality of the large number of fixed costs in dairying. Diluting costs by having high production per cow is also a mark of a profitable operation. Kevin reminds the audience that he’s talking about averages and there are exceptions to every rule. The key message is that you need to strive to get better. In the long run, profits are equal to zero in a competitive industry, and dairying is no exception. Dr. Dhuyvetter includes all economic costs in his analyses, recognizing all assets, including skills and capital, such as land, facilities, and time. (8:08)Dr. Jardon suggests that exceptional operations emphasize efficiency and ensure they dilute maintenance costs well. Everything is fine-tuned: feed's always pushed up, stalls are full of bedding, and the time budget of the cows is usually spot on. Dr. Tully echoes this sentiment from his consultant experience. Phil also underlines the importance of focusing on how much it costs to make a unit of milk or income over feed costs rather than concentrating solely on saving money. Kevin agrees that all the little things done right and done consistently often make the difference in profitability. Further, if cutting costs negatively impacts production, then saving money is counterproductive in the long run (15:14)Dr. Dhuyvetter reminds producers not to automatically assume they have lower costs because you raise your own feed. More often than not, the opportunity costs of producing that feed haven’t been evaluated. If you can produce nutrients more efficiently and cost-effectively on your land, then home-raised feed is a very good thing. But if you produce low-quality home-raised feed, it might be better to purchase feed elsewhere. In addition, growing high-quality feeds takes time and energy away from dairying. Phil saw this when he was a practicing veterinarian. Jim suggests that those larger operations can have a field crew and a herd health crew who aren’t the same individuals. The panelists discuss the shift from getting paid for protein in milk to getting paid for fat in milk and what that means from a cow nutrition and profitability perspective.(22:51)Dr. Dhuyvetter then discusses how culling practices impact profitability. He expects successful operations to have very low cull rates because they have healthy, well-managed cows doing all the little things right. On the other hand, unsuccessful operations may also have very low cull rates because they struggle to produce heifers, get them pregnant, and keep them in the herd, leading to keeping cows longer than one should. Jim and Kevin emphasize that the culling rate is individualized and will vary by operation. Phil suggests that perhaps some of the available software tools to help with culling decisions may be underutilized. (35:10)Many dairies want to know if they should wait longer into lactation before rebreeding cows. Because production is up and reproduction has improved over the last 10-15 years, dairies are drying cows off while still giving a lot of milk. Dr. Dhuyvetter’s analysis of the data for Holstein herds in second- and greater-lactation cows suggests getting them pregnant as fast as possible and getting them back to peak milk sooner. (43:07)Phil, Kevin, and Jim then touch on comparative advantage and revealed preference and how those relate to shifts in the dairy industry away from some states and toward others. (50:29)In closing, Dr. Dhuyvetter suggests that the days of being very successful with gut-feel decisions are probably behind us. Making decisions based on the best information from data and analytics is the way forward. Constantly strive to get better, and don’t worry about what your neighbor’s doing. Control what you can control. (58:29)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 get a shirt in the mail to you.

Dr. Penner describes two primary factors of gut health to be absorption and barrier function or permeability. His lab’s work on permeability is suggesting that intestinal regions really drive total gut permeability to a much greater extent than ruminal permeability in dairy cows. (7:06)Ms. Bertens is Dr. Penner’s Ph.D. student and explains some new methodologies she developed for measuring gut permeability using chromium EDTA and cobalt EDTA. It’s common to use an oral dose of chromium EDTA as a marker to measure total tract permeability. Claire’s work, using cannulated cows, used a ruminal dose of chromium EDTA for total tract permeability and an abomasal dose of cobalt EDTA for post-ruminal permeability. Both of these markers are indigestible, non-metabolizable and have no transcellular transport mechanisms. Claire is working to publish the new method as a complete validation study has been completed. (9:15)While this method is currently limited to using cannulated animals, Greg and Claire could envision a less sophisticated and more applied on-farm technique to assess permeability. Until then, there are still a lot of management observations that can identify potential issues with gut permeability. The appearance of feces and the presence of mucin casts can both be indicative of gut issues. Certainly dry matter intake is a major influencer on gut health, and Claire also sees potential in new technologies like rumination collars or rumination ear tags. (13:47)Are there certain time points in a dairy cow’s life when she is at risk for increased gut permeability? Dr. Penner describes research suggesting if weaning is implemented too abruptly, that really increases the risk for decreased barrier function of the gut. Erratic feed intake patterns resulting from withholding feed for any reason at any age can also increase the risk of leaky gut. For example, depressed intake during the transition phase, along with anything that drives a response through an underlying systemic inflammatory response, probably creates risky situations for leaky gut. Claire is currently running a study looking at the impacts of intramammary LPS infusion on gut function. Greg envisions that learning more about gut function could create a new philosophy for treating sick animals. In the past, only antimicrobials were used to treat mastitis, but now it’s common to also treat with a NSAID for pain. Perhaps in the future, we will also provide treatment to accelerate the recovery of the gut to prevent secondary disorders. (16:15)How long does an off-feed event have to last to cause an issue in the gut? It seems a fairly acute time period is all that is needed. Most studies are trying to replicate what happens on-farm, for example during mastitis, heat stress or the transition period. Greg indicates that not only will permeability be impacted, but ruminal absorptive capacity can also decline rapidly in these conditions. In Claire’s LPS challenge study, cows’ rectal temperatures peak around six hours after the LPS infusion and usually resolve within 12 hours. But most cows do not eat for a solid 12 hours during the challenge, and they are slow to recover feed intake over the next few days. In cows that aren’t sick but experience feed restriction in experimental protocols, they tend to overeat when they are allotted the full ration and this can lead to ruminal acidosis. (21:57)Increased incidences of liver abscesses in beef-on-dairy calves are being reported in the industry. Dr. Penner speculates that perhaps these calves are not always achieving adequate passive transfer, and may not be receiving high enough levels of milk replacer to support a more robust immune system. It may be the increased beef cattle genetics in the calves are putting an added requirement on growth or muscle development that may not be met by lower levels of milk replacer or even lower colostrum feeding levels. (34:40)In closing, providing cows with a consistent environment where they can meet their needs by their own behavior such as free access to feed when hungry and to a comfortable stall when it’s time to rest. Cows reward consistency with health and production. Gut health in a commercial setting is a relevant issue and it might go undiagnosed or undetected. Research into where in the gut permeability is occurring will help define strategies to modulate response. While off-feed events for individual animals might be harder to recognize in a large dairy environment, new technology may allow for earlier diagnosis. (40:43)Please subscribe and share with your industry friends to bring more people to join us around 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 get a shirt in the mail to you.

Guests: Dr. Bill Weiss, The Ohio State University; Dr. Marcia Endres, University of MinnesotaDr. Endres begins with a description of a dataset she collected containing individual body weights from 34 robotic milking herds. Weights were collected for every cow; every time that she came into the robotic milking station. Dr. Endres’ team was interested in the relationship between the amount of body weight change in the first 21 days of lactation and subsequent production. (7:34)The team chose to use the first 90 days of production as their production measurement to make sure they had as many cows as possible in the dataset - the longer into lactation, the more likely to lose cows due to culling. Their results showed that 90-day production was extremely highly correlated with total lactation production. Drs. Weiss and Endres discussed the implications of young cows’ requirements for growth in the first and second lactation, which were easily observed in this dataset (13:13) Dr. Endres’ team found a quadratic relationship between body weight loss in the first 21 days and milk production in the first 90 days of lactation. This suggests that if cows don’t lose enough, they aren’t productive. Or, if cows lose too much, they aren’t productive. The optimum amount of weight loss for cows in their second or greater lactation was around 5%, while for the first lactation cows it was 7.4%. Dr. Endres hypothesizes that cows who lost more than the optimum may have been sick because they’re probably not coming to the bunk if they’re losing that much weight. And cows who gained weight might be animals who just do not have as much genetic potential to produce milk. (17:15)Dr. Weiss and Dr. Endres emphasize that today’s dairy cows are designed to mobilize body weight early in lactation. They are not able to eat enough to compensate for the amount of milk they are producing. Intake is going up as they move through early lactation, and cows can lose some weight and not have issues. The guests discuss the importance of an aggressive fresh cow management plan and designing diets specifically for the fresh cow group. (22:09)Dr. Endres explains at the extremes, the highest producing cows produced around 30-35 pounds more milk each day than the lowest producing cows. But even halfway in between, it was 10-15 pounds of milk per day and those are not small numbers! Monitoring and managing body weight change has tremendous management potential, particularly with the increasing technology available to dairy herds. Identification of poor performing cows could happen sooner and appropriate interventions could be identified earlier. (26:37)Is there any reason this can’t be extrapolated to conventional farms that are not using robots? Dr. Endres thinks it would carry over, even though the conventional farms are feeding differently and can’t supplement individually like the robot systems. These results point to feeding fresh cows in their own group while paying close attention to access to feed and limit overcrowding. If Dr. Endres could do the study over, she would like to have reproduction and health records to compare with the milk production and weight loss data. (28:22)Each panelist summarizes their takeaways from this research. Dr. Morrow suggests that the industry is probably not managing fresh cows nearly as intensely as they should. Their needs for calories as well as amino acids in early lactation are probably greater than we know, and we must do a better job supplying those nutrients and allowing cows to be comfortable, eat, and reach their peak potential. Dr. Weiss agrees and adds that female mammals are designed to mobilize body reserves. The idea that cows should not lose condition in early location is wrong. We don’t want them to lose too much, but losing some is perfectly normal. We need to work around that balance and include it in our formulation goals. Dr. Endres emphasizes the focus on fresh cows and suggests technology is going to allow for more and better data that will help monitor fresh cows and intervene as needed.  (33:38)Dr. Endres wraps up with a brief description of the upcoming Four State Dairy Nutrition Conference in June and Balchem’s Amino Acid pre-conference symposium on the first day to open the conference. (35:40)The paper can be found here: https://www.jdscommun.org/article/S2666-9102(23)00041-8/pdfPlease subscribe and share with your industry friends to bring more people to join us around the Real Science Exchange virtual pub table.  If you want one of our new 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 get a shirt in the mail to you.

This episode is from a webinar presented by Dr. Clay Zimmerman, Director of Technical Services at Balchem. To view the full webinar and access the slides referenced during this podcast, visit balchem.com/realscience and scroll down to the webinar presented on December 12th, 2023.Dr. Zimmerman begins with an overview of Balchem’s microencapsulation technologies in both human nutrition and health and animal nutrition and health businesses. (0:31)Encapsulation is a generic term, and huge differences can exist between products that protect the same compound. Balchem’s microencapsulation technology consists of packaging a substance in a lipid capsule for protection. Encapsulates can differ in design, technology, and performance. When it comes to performance in ruminant encapsulates, stability in feed mixing and TMRs and animal performance are evaluated. (6:50)Lipid encapsulation usually comes in one of two forms, a matrix encapsulation or a true encapsulation. A good analogy for matrix encapsulation is chocolate chip cookie dough, where some active compound is always at the surface. In the rumen, this leads to reduced protection and stability. True encapsulation, often called single-layer or multiple-layer encapsulation, is analogous to an m&m where there is no active compound at the surface, and this leads to greater protection and stability in the rumen.  (12:00)So why do we encapsulate nutrients for ruminants? In general, for targeted delivery within the gastrointestinal tract of the animal because rumen fermentation often results in massive breakdown of most of these important compounds. For example, choline chloride is almost completely degraded in the rumen. (18:30)When developing or improving rumen-protected products for nutrients such as choline chloride, methionine, lysine, or niacin, the primary goal is to protect them as much as possible from ruminal degradation while achieving post-ruminal absorption. Once prototypes have good ruminal stability and good intestinal release, the next step is feed and mixing stability. Dr. Zimmerman goes on to showcase different research techniques for evaluating encapsulates in these three areas as well as in animal performance. (20:39)In summary, there are many differences in encapsulated products for dairy cows, due to the design of products; types, amount, and composition of coatings; manufacturing differences; and differences in nutrient content, bioavailability, and feed stability. True encapsulates, or multi-layered coating products, are preferred for ruminant applications due to their higher levels of ruminant and feed stability. Four really important features of a good ruminant encapsulate are good ruminal stability, good nutrient bioavailability, feed and TMR stability, and ultimately biological performance. (47:05)Dr. Zimmerman then answers questions from the webinar audiences about in vitro techniques and bioavailability, coating ingredients, the importance of base diet for rumen fluid donors in in vitro techniques, variation in products from in vitro to in vivo results, how long it takes to develop a new encapsulated product (Balchem spends years and even decades researching before a product release), and why nutrient contents differ so much in similar encapsulated products on the market. (49:58) Please subscribe and share with your industry friends to bring more people to join us around the Real Science Exchange virtual pub table.  If you want one of our new 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 get a shirt in the mail to you.

This episode is from a webinar presented by Dr. Sandra Godden from the University of Minnesota Department of Veterinary Population Medicine. To view the full webinar and access the slides referenced during this podcast, visit balchem.com/real science and scroll down to the webinar presented on November 8, 2023.Dr. Godden begins with the reminder that despite decades of research and definite advances in colostrum management, there's still a lot to learn and research. Her goal is to give an update on new findings that can be utilized in your colostrum management program. (0:21)Promoting calf health and growth is a balance between maximizing immunity and minimizing infectious disease challenges. Colostrum is one aspect of maximizing immunity and provides passive immunity in the form of immunoglobulins. It also contains bioactive compounds, immune factors, growth hormones, leukocytes, and nutrients. (1:09)We can measure adequate transfer of passive immunity via serum immunoglobulin G levels, where anything greater than 10 grams per liter is a pass. Passive transfer of immunity is associated with reduced morbidity and mortality, especially in the first 2-3 months of life. Successful passive transfer has many other intermediate and long-term benefits, including improved growth rate and feed efficiency, leading to even longer-term benefits of decreased age at first calving and potentially improved milk production in the first and second lactation. (4:18)When building a comprehensive colostrum management program, Dr. Godden distills it down to the five Qs: quality, quantity, quickness, squeaky clean, and quantifying. Starting with quantifying passive transfer, in a perfect world, we would have a quick, inexpensive, on-farm serum IgG test that could be run on whole blood. Unfortunately, that test does not exist. In research studies, we send serum samples off to reference labs to have serum IgG tested. On-farm, we use indirect tests such as serum Brix or serum total protein. Historically, the literature has said that a serum total protein of somewhere between 5.0 and 5.2 grams per deciliter most accurately predicts that IgG value of 10 grams per liter. If greater than 10 g/L IgG is a pass, is a higher concentration better? Yes. A good goal would be for 90% of the calves to have serum IgG higher than 10 g/L. More specifically, goals are around 40% of calves in the excellent zone of 25 or greater, roughly 30% of calves in the good zone of 18-25, and around 20% in the fair zone of 10-18. Dr. Godden references the corresponding Brix and total serum protein readings in her slides. (7:24)Quality refers to the concentration of IgG in the colostrum, and experts have suggested that be at least 50 grams per liter or higher. This corresponds to a Brix reading of approximately 22% or higher. Several factors influencing colostrum quality are under our control, including the dry cow vaccination program, feeding a balanced dry cow ration, avoiding stressors during the dry period, avoiding excessively short dry periods, and milking cows out as soon as you can after calving. (16:18)When it comes to quantity, a larger volume at first feeding will result in higher IgG concentrations in the calves. One study compared feeding two or four liters at first feeding with a second feeding of two liters at 12 hours. The higher volume first feeding showed better results. (29:23)As for quickness, IgG absorption efficiency is optimal in the first couple of hours after birth but is then slowly reduced as gut closure occurs. Ideally, we want to feed the calf as soon as possible, hopefully within one to two hours of birth when possible. (30:35)The last Q is squeaky clean or cleanliness, specifically the level of bacterial contamination in colostrum. Obviously, we don't want to feed colostrum that is laden with pathogens that can cause disease. However, high bacteria counts in colostrum have also been associated with reduced absorption of IgG. Dr. Godden details a number of critical control points that can be assessed if colostrum cleanliness is an issue of concern. (38:19)Dr. Godden finishes the episode by taking questions from the webinar audience, ranging from average colostrum volume collected at first milking to what temperature colostrum should be frozen at to heat stress impacting quality and quantity of colostrum. (49:20)Please subscribe and share with your industry friends to bring more people to join us around the Real Science Exchange virtual pub table.  If you want one of our new 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 get a shirt in the mail to you.

Dr. Räisänen completed this research during her Ph.D. at Penn State. The meta-analysis included 17 different studies published between 1999 and 2022 investigating supplemental histidine for lactating dairy cows. They divided the type of supplemental histidine between infused histidine and rumen-protected histidine and the basal diets between corn silage-based and grass silage-based. (4:34)Primary response variables measured in the meta-analysis included dry matter intake, milk production, milk composition, and milk component yields. The researchers also calculated the efficiency of utilization of histidine and other amino acids supplied to the cow by the diets. Lastly, they calculated marginal recovery of histidine and evaluated the interaction between histidine supply and energy supply and how that impacts the efficiency of utilization. (7:38)Dr. Lapierre gives a little history of histidine research. When recommendations were coming out about lysine and methionine requirements, the different studies recommended relatively similar amounts of lysine and methionine based on the proportion relative to MP supply. On the other hand, recommendations for histidine varied widely depending on the study, ranging from less than 2% to almost 4%. As emphasis has been placed on reducing the footprint of dairy production, interest has risen in feeding lower-protein diets. In this scenario, we would expect an increase in the microbial protein; however, microbes are relatively low in histidine content. If we look at the proportion of histidine relative to MP, as the crude protein concentration of a diet decreases, this proportion of histidine decreases. (8:34)The meta-analysis revealed a clear response to histidine in milk production, dry matter intake, and milk true protein yield. Susanna and Helene are not sure if the dry matter intake response was due to a pulling effect because of increased milk and milk protein yield or if histidine has an independent impact on the brain, as has been observed in some monogastric studies (16:15)Clay asks the guests what they think the histidine requirement is, and both agree that providing one number is not practical given the other interactions from basal diet to the efficiency of utilization to the concentration of other amino acids in the diet. (32:01)Practical implications from the meta-analysis include an understanding that lower protein diets may very well need supplemental histidine for optimum performance, and cows pay a penalty when inadequate histidine is supplied. (35:09)Helene’s take-home message is that histidine should be taken seriously. If you don't supply enough of it, then you'll have a penalty in your cows’ production. Further, the efficiency of histidine utilization will be affected by the energy supply, and we have tools with NASEM to assess if a herd is receiving sufficient histidine. Susanna echoes Helene’s message and adds that a rumen-protected histidine product on the market would be very helpful. (45:35)The paper can be found here: https://www.journalofdairyscience.org/article/S0022-0302(23)00416-2/fulltextPlease subscribe and share with your industry friends to bring more people to join us around the Real Science Exchange virtual pub table.  If you want one of our new 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 get a shirt in the mail to you.

Dr. Hristov started working with canola meal after he commissioned a review paper comparing canola and soybean meal when he was editor of the Canadian Journal of Animal Science. In that review, most of the studies used solvent-extracted soybean meal. Because canola has a higher oil content, it is always mechanically extruded to remove oil before solvent extraction. This paper is a more fair comparison because both meals were extruded and thus exposed to heat. (7:02)There were 24 cows per treatment, and it was a continuous study rather than a Latin Square design. No differences were observed in dry matter intake, even though many studies in the literature have shown a higher DMI for canola meal-containing diets. Both diets had similar milk production and feed efficiency. Cows on the soybean meal diet had higher milk fat than canola meal-fed cows. (15:09)Soybean meal-fed cows had higher total VFA production. Dr. Hristov attributes this to the additional free oil that was added to the canola meal diet having a slightly depressing effect on fermentation. The canola meal-fed cows had a higher proportion of propionate and a lower proportion of acetate than the soybean meal-fed cows. Serum amino acid concentrations were mostly similar with a few differences in individual essential amino acids. (21:40)Serum glucose concentrations were higher for canola meal-fed cows. Dr. Hristov believes this was probably a result of the increased ruminal propionate since it is a primary precursor for glucose production. He goes on to describe the digestibility results. (28:30)Bill and Alex discuss the nitrogen excretion data and how low in protein one could go before impacting milk production in an effort to reduce nitrogen excretion to the environment. (37:06)Dr. Hristov’s take home message is when you are comparing these two feed ingredients in similar diets, if feed intake is not affected you'll have a similar response between extruded soybean meal and canola meal. Comparing solvent-extracted soybean meal with canola meal is not a fair comparison. (51:05)The paper can be found here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022030223004101Please subscribe and share with your industry friends to bring more people to join us around the Real Science Exchange virtual pub table.  If you want one of our new 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 get a shirt in the mail to you.

Dr. Godden opens this episode with a 30,000-foot view of colostrum management. Colostrum management has been a hot topic for decades, and herds still have opportunities to improve. Researchers continue to learn how to advance colostrum management. The basics include the three Qs: quality, quantity, and quickness. Other critical factors are cleanliness and feeding clean colostrum. Dr. Godden also briefly discusses important monitoring measures to assess a colostrum program. Research continues on the value of post-closure feeding of colostrum after the first 24 hours when the gut can no longer absorb antibodies. Several studies have demonstrated improved health, reduced scours, reduced bovine respiratory disease, reduced antibiotic use, and enhanced gain. Tricia gives an overview of their program, where they feed transition milk to their calves. (5:15)Nutrition, adequate dry matter intake, pre-calving vaccination programs, cow comfort, and dry period length are all factors impacting colostrum quality and, to some degree, quantity. Tricia and Sandra describe a seasonal effect observed for colostrum quantity and quality associated with the fall months. While the mechanism of action is unknown, it is thought that day length and cold stress may play a role. Tricia indicates she is hard-pressed to get a 24 or 25 Brix reading on her herd’s colostrum in October. To prepare for this, during spring and summer, the dairy freezes 26-27 Brix colostrum to have on hand for use in the fall. (14:14)The relationship between the volume of colostrum produced and its quality is very weak. Dr. Godden recommends using a Brix refractometer to measure all colostrum. Tricia has observed a correlation between the amount of colostrum produced and udder edema, where more edema results in less colostrum. In Tricia’s system, she likes to feed anything over a 24 Brix as a first colostrum and anything from an 18 to a 22 as a second colostrum. They feed four quarts at the first feeding within the first two hours, shooting for the second feeding of two quarts within 8 to 12 hours. (29:18)Tricia details the calf herd recordkeeping on the farm, which includes weekly serum protein data measured with the same digital Brix refractometer used for colostrum measurements. This data lets the farm see when the program isn’t working and when calves are stressed. The farm also records all treatments and can reflect on previous treatments over the animal's lifetime. She gives an example of a small problem in the colostrum management program having a large impact. The agitator flaps on the pasteurizer were in the wrong position resulting in denatured colostrum.(35:14) Dr. Godden details some of the critical points in colostrum management, including adopting a routine monitoring program to measure Brix readings in colostrum and follow up with bleeding calves to measure serum protein. Cleanliness is very critical, and she sees a huge opportunity for farms to clean up their colostrum more. Not only do we not want to feed contaminated colostrum from a pathogen exposure standpoint, but research has also shown that high bacteria counts in colostrum negatively impact the absorption of the IgG into the circulation of the calf. This can be monitored by culturing the colostrum being fed, then backtracking through critical control points to determine where the contamination occurs. Tricia describes some of the important steps she’s taken over her 15 years at Shadycrest to improve their colostrum program. (42:57)Tricia reminds the audience to remember that your first feeding of colostrum is setting up your milking dairy cow. If you set her up to do poorly because her first feeding of colostrum is poor, you're going to end up with a poor milking cow. Every calf born on the farm needs to have supreme colostrum inside of them because they're going to become a supreme cow. Dr. Godden echoes this sentiment: there are long-term economic benefits to the producer for getting their colostrum program right. These include an improved rate of gain, lower age at first calving, and more milk in the first and second lactation. It's well worth your while to get that job done correctly and get that calf off to a good start. (1:01:32)Please subscribe and share with your industry friends to bring more people to join us around the Real Science Exchange virtual pub table.  If you want one of our new 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 get a shirt in the mail to you.

Today’s episode was filmed at the Future Directions in Choline Symposium put on by the University of North Carolina Nutrition Research Institute.Our day two episode opens with Dr. Eric Ciappio and Dr. Jonathan Bortz of Balchem, summarizing day one’s focus on pregnancy and early life and previewing day two’s focus on the latest choline research targeting adult nutrition. (1:03)The next guest on our roster is Dr. Mark Manary, a professor of pediatrics at the Washington University School of Medicine. Mark’s symposium talk discusses choline and food aid. Food aid products are specially designed to address needs from crisis situations. These specialized food aid products are standardized to meet great deficiency or inadequacy needs. On the most extreme side, there is a product called ready-to-eat therapeutic food for children who are starving to death. Other food aid products include those for severely underweight children. Dr. Manary’s research consists of clinical trials in sub-Saharan Africa that include different nutrients in food aid to see if there are improvements in children’s responses. One trial with the inclusion of DHA found a 6-15 IQ point difference by adding fish oil or DHA. Mark hypothesizes that a doubling of that effect will be observed when choline is added. (6:42)Dr. Rima Obeid from Saarland University Hospital in Homburg, Germany, joins us next. Her symposium presentation focused on choline and pregnancy outcomes. Their research group has found that low or insufficient amounts of choline in the mother’s diet during pregnancy are associated with a higher risk for serious birth defects in babies and that the liver health of the infants is also negatively affected by low choline intake of the mother during pregnancy. Rima’s future research includes investigating the impacts and interactions of folate and choline consumption during pregnancy on neural tube defects such as spina bifida. In another study, she will focus on the relationship between the severity of congenital heart defects compared to neural tube defects. In particular, they wish to look at the association with low choline in the blood of the children, the mother and the father, because a pilot study suggests a family pattern, which could be due to some genetic background. (17:18)Our next guest is Dr. Susan Smith, Deputy Director of the University of North Carolina Nutrition Research Institute. One of her presentations centered on choline genetics and cognition. Her research has found genetic variation in choline uptake from the diet. One research question was, “Are there choline variants that affect how powerful that choline is in treating a disease condition?” In particular, Dr. Smith was investigating if choline could be used to treat children who have brain damage from prenatal alcohol exposure, and the answer is yes, it’s very helpful. Then, they evaluated if some children benefit more than others and found that there is a gene variant that affects how efficiently choline is absorbed from the diet. Children with the variant that reduced choline uptake benefitted the most from supplemental choline. In addition, there was an impact of the gene variant on cognitive function regardless of prenatal alcohol exposure. Children who carried one or two copies of this particular variant had reduced cognitive performance as compared to those children who were lucky enough to be born with the other variant. While we still don’t have a blanket recommendation for how much choline pregnant women should consume, Dr. Smith’s message to pregnant women is that eating enough choline lets your baby achieve its full potential. (23:32)Dr. Isis Trujillo-Gonzales and Dr. Evan Paules, both with the University of North Carolina Nutrition Research Institute join us. Isis focuses on choline and brain/eye development, while Evan focuses on choline and metabolic health. Dr. Trujillo-Gonzales’s research has found that the neurons in the eye that receive light and connect to the rest of our brain are impacted by choline absorption. Her lab has also investigated the mechanism of action for choline’s effect on brain development. The stem cells in the brain that give rise to neurons are very sensitive to choline availability. If a pregnant mom is not consuming enough choline, these cells in the baby’s brain are not proliferating adequately. Choline is important in the microRNA that fine-tunes the regulation of this pool of stem cells. Dr. Paules’s research is focused on the metabolic symptoms of obesity and the impact of choline on them. For example, giving choline to someone who is deficient can ameliorate the symptoms of fatty liver disease.  One area emerging in his work is the loss of lean mass as people age. It appears that increased loss of lean muscle is observed in people who aren’t consuming adequate choline. This suggests that as we age, making sure we have sufficient amounts of choline intake may help prevent the loss of lean muscle tissue. (32:58)Dr. Bryan White with the University of Illinois is our next guest, and his area of interest is the microbiome. In particular, he discusses the role of the microbiome in TMAO production. TMAO (trimethylamine N-oxide) is a metabolite that has been associated with cardiovascular disease. In short, the microbiome produces TMA (trimethylamine), which is converted to TMAO in the liver. Some of the seminal TMAO literature suggests that there is a diet effect on the production of TMAO and that diet changes the microbiome so that more TMAO is produced in the bloodstream. When it comes to microbiome research, there are generally four questions that can be asked about the microbial community: 1) Who's there? 2) How many of them are there? 3) What can they do (given their genetic potential)? and 4) What do they do? The seminal research used 16s ribosome technology to evaluate which microbes were present and their abundance in the microbiome of people consuming omnivorous versus vegetarian diets. It stated that there was a correlation between diet and blood levels of TMAO. Dr. White took the small read archives of that manuscript (the sequencing they did of 16s ribosomes) and got the opposite results of the original paper. (42:25)Our next guest is Dr. Jonathan Bortz with Balchem Corporation, whose presentation was titled, “TMAO and Choline: A Mechanistic Perspective.” In the last several years, there have been concerns about choline advanced by a group of investigators who have claimed that excessive intake of meat, eggs, and other animal-source foods (resulting in choline and/or carnitine upon digestion) generate a substance in the blood called TMAO, trimethylamine oxide. Their hypothesis has been that TMAO has a negative effect on the cardiovascular system and has been associated with a high incidence of cardiovascular disease. However, Dr. Bortz presented multiple examples of how the concerns about choline with respect to TMAO having a causative effect on cardiovascular disease really cannot be supported. In other words, choline does not represent a risk to any users, young or old. (51:42)Dr. Julia Maeve Bonner with Sanofi joins us next to give an overview of her presentation about choline and Alzheimer’s disease. In her postdoctoral work at MIT, Dr. Bonner focused on the apolipoprotein E (APOE) gene, which is involved in making a protein that helps carry fat in the bloodstream. Dysfunction in this process is thought to contribute to the development of Alzheimer’s. APOE4 is the most highly validated risk factor for Alzheimer’s. Dr. Bonner wanted to understand what is happening in APOE4 high risk allele compared to the APOE3 neutral risk allele of this gene in brain cells (astrocytes) in culture. She found that the APOE4 astrocytes accumulated neutral lipids, particularly triacylglycerols, to a much higher degree than APOE3 cells. These lipid droplets is associated with many different dysfunctions in the cell that can be associated with neurodegeneration. If APOE4 cells were grown in a choline-rich media, the lipid imbalance was shifted much closer to the APOE3 cells. Dr. Bonner’s group was able to pinpoint that phosphatidylcholine synthesis is the mechanism of action by which choline supplementation had the lipid-shifting effect in APOE4 cells. She has also studied choline supplementation in mice that have Alzheimer's disease genes knocked in where they accumulate the plaques that we see in human brains in Alzheimer's disease. In the background, they also have the human APOE knocked in, which means that they're expressing either APOE3 or APOE4. Again, they saw a protection against the accumulation of some of the Alzheimer’s-related damage as well as a lipid shift similar to the brain cell cultures. (1:03:00)To summarize the Future Directions in Choline Symposium, Dr. Dr. Stephen Hursting and Dr. Susan Smith with the University of North Carolina Nutrition Research Institute join us. They give their perspectives on the advancements of the field of choline research and leave us with the take-home message that choline is a critical nutrient for the entire healthspan. (1:22:27)Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode of Real Science Exchange. If you haven’t checked out day one from the Future Directions in Choline Symposium, we encourage you to do so. If you want one of our new 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 get a shirt in the mail to you.

Co-host: Tom Druke, Balchem Corporation & Dr. Eric Ciappio, Balchem CorporationGuests: Dr. Stephen Hursting & Dr. Susan Smith, University of North Carolina Nutrition Research Institute; Dr. Steven Zeisel, University of North Carolina; Dr. Kevin Klatt, University of California, Berkeley; Dr. Richard Canfield, Cornell University; Dr. Colin Carter, Columbia University; Dr. Joe McFadden, Cornell UniversityToday’s episode was filmed at the Future Directions in Choline Symposium put on by the University of North Carolina Nutrition Research Institute.Our first guests are Dr. Stephen Hursting and Dr. Susan Smith, the director and deputy director of the UNC Nutrition Research Institute. Steve and Susan give some background regarding the inspiration behind the conference as well as what will be covered during the symposium. The gathering is an opportunity to get the leading choline researchers together to update each other and build the momentum of choline research. The last time choline researchers gathered was in 1998, when requirements were set. (0:50)The next guest on our roster is Dr. Mark Manary, a professor of pediatrics at the Washington University School of Medicine. Mark’s symposium talk discusses choline and food aid. Food aid products are specially designed to address needs from crisis situations. These specialized food aid products are standardized to meet great deficiency or inadequacy needs. On the most extreme side, there is a product called ready-to-eat therapeutic food for children who are starving to death. Other food aid products include those for children who are severely underweight. Dr. Manary’s research consists of clinical trials in sub-Saharan Africa that include different nutrients in food aid to see if there are improvements in children’s responses. One trial with the inclusion of DHA found a 6-15 IQ point difference by adding fish oil or DHA. Mark hypothesizes that a doubling of that effect will be observed when choline is added. (6:52)Next up is Dr. Kevin Klatt with the University of California - Berkeley. His symposium talk consisted of choline and DHA, focusing on two areas of his work. The first is dietary choline’s impact on the production of phosphatidylcholine species enriched in the omega-three DHA, specifically in pregnancy. The second is interactions between lauric acid and choline, where a phosphatidylcholine species can actually bind to proteins that turn genes on and off. In one experiment, Kevin’s group hypothesized that inadequate choline intake during pregnancy compromises the efficient handling of DHA by the liver. They showed in a randomized controlled trial that supplementation with choline dramatically improved the status indicators of DHA status. (17:33)Our fourth segment features Dr. Richard Canfield from Cornell University, whose symposium talk focused on choline and neurodevelopment. Rick is a developmental psychologist by training who works in infant and early child cognition. He has researched visual cognition and speed of information processing with babies in the first year of life for women who received a diet containing the recommended intake of choline and those who received double the recommended intake during pregnancy. They found that cognition improved for babies in the high choline group over their first year of age, which was maintained until seven years of age. The cohort is now 14 years old, and additional testing is being conducted to see if in utero exposure to choline still impacts the children 14 years later. (29:51)Dr. Robert Colin Carter from Columbia University is our next guest. His talk focused on choline and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). His research has mainly been fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, with a particular interest in how both maternal and child nutrition might impact the teratogenic effects of alcohol. Prenatal alcohol exposure is the most common preventable cause of developmental delay worldwide, and a common view might be that women should just stop drinking. Dr. Carter argues that view is shortsighted because alcohol use is a really complicated problem for a lot of people. Asking someone who has an alcohol use disorder to stop drinking is probably not realistic for a lot of women. In animal models, supplementing a pregnant dam with choline seems to ameliorate at least some of the teratogenic effects of alcohol. Dr. Carter has completed a pilot study of 70 women from South Africa where beneficial effects of choline treatment during pregnancy were observed for growth, neurobehavior, and memory in their children. Another clinical study with 300 participants is now underway.  (51:38)We end our day one episode with a wrap-up from Dr. Dr. Susan Smith with the University of North Carolina Nutrition Research Institute and Dr. Joe McFadden with Cornell University. Susan emphasized the recurring message that choline is so important in prenatal health and in early postnatal periods. Pregnant and lactating women generally don’t take enough choline, and choline is so important for healthy brain development in the fetus and the infant. Joe’s takeaways from the livestock side of things include the impact of choline on colostrum production in animals and early-life supplementation in young livestock. (1:08:42)Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss day two highlights from the Future Directions in Choline Symposium in future episodes. If you want one of our new 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 get a shirt in the mail to you. 

Kirby begins with a description of the mechanism of amylase-enhanced corn. The amylase is located in the kernel and, once activated by temperature change, works to increase the digestibility of the starch. A small amount of activation is thought to occur during silage fermentation, with further activation once it reaches the rumen. This paper evaluated digestibility and milk production in cows fed corn silage made from a hybrid with the amylase-enhanced gene compared to the same hybrid without the genomic enhancement. (4:51)The experiment was designed as a factorial with four treatments combining the two different types of silage with either 25% or 30% starch in the total diet. Only the silage was amylase-enhanced, not the corn grain that was fed. Kirby expected the amylase-enhanced silage group at 25% starch to perform best because he expected some subclinical rumen acidosis and potentially some feed intake issues at the higher dietary starch concentration. (9:09)The experiment was eight weeks long, consisting of a two-week covariate and then a six-week feeding period with 11 cows on each of the four treatments. Blood and milk samples were collected weekly. Total tract digestibility was evaluated twice over those six weeks, once soon after silage harvest (approximately 40 days) and again six weeks later to evaluate whether the impact or efficacy of the enhanced starch enzyme changed over time. (13:29)One surprising result was that the two silages had different in vitro NDF digestibility during week one of the feeding period. The amylase-enhanced silage had higher fiber digestibility even though the genomic enhancement is for starch digestibility. Kirby is unsure of the mechanism but hypothesizes that the amylolytic enzyme may free up some simple sugars or polysaccharides that allow microbes to have greater action and more energy available to digest fiber. By week six, the in vitro NDF digestibility of the two silages was essentially the same (15:09)Kirby mentions that if he could do this experiment again, he would do a longer-term study for 12 or 18 weeks and start feeding the silage as green chop right away to evaluate if ensiling takes away some of the benefits of the amylase-enhancement. (19:02)From the production data, the alpha-amylase enhancement didn't provide a benefit, but a fairly consistent benefit of additional dietary starch was observed, including increased feed efficiency, increased energy-corrected milk, and increased milk protein yield with few to no interactions in these results.Kirby also would like to have some data looking at the impacts of these types of diets on fresh cows since the cows in this experiment averaged 160 days in milk at the start of the feeding period. (24:11)The alpha-amylase-enhanced silage did not impact body weight, body condition, or feed intake. Kirby anticipated that the higher starch-fed cows would experience greater body weight gain in the later lactation period, but he observed the opposite. At the end of the study, an interaction was observed for feed intake where the high starch cows ate a little less - around three pounds. This resulted in a difference in feed efficiency for the high starch cows, where their intake decreased, but they maintained milk production. (25:29)Bill asks if the feed efficiency data was adjusted for the difference in body weight change, but Kirby responds that it was just gross feed efficiency, milk over feed. Bill wonders if that adjustment would make the two groups’ feed efficiencies closer together, where it’s more of a difference in how nutrients are being partitioned rather than a difference in feed efficiency (27:26)Another follow-up experiment Kirby would like to conduct is another factorial with the enhanced silage variety and the non-enhanced combined with a higher and lower rumen degradable protein concentration. (35:16)Bill wonders if this experiment was conducted with silage at a later maturity, say 40-42% dry matter, would the amylase have a bigger effect? Kirby thinks there is a chance that as the kernel dries down, the amylase may have a greater impact. (38:53)Kirby’s take-home messages for the audience are to consider the amylase-enhanced gene as an approach to bridging an inventory challenge gap from year to year and not to avoid dietary starch due to worries about subclinical inflammation. Kirby’s paper can be found here: https://www.journalofdairyscience.org/article/S0022-0302(23)00309-0/fulltextPlease subscribe and share with your industry friends to bring more people to join us around the Real Science Exchange virtual pub table.  If you want one of our new 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 get a shirt in the mail to you.

Guests: Dr. Paul Fricke and PhD Candidate Megan Lauber, the University of Wisconsin-MadisonDr. Fricke starts this episode by describing the long-term negative trend for reproductive performance in dairy cows that took place from the mid-1950s to around 2000. The reversal of this trend is due to the use of genomics to select for fertility and the use of synchronization and fertility programs in dairy cows. (6:07)Dr. Fricke explains the high fertility cycle starts with a change in body condition. Observations from the late 1980s and early 1990s showed that cows who calved at a higher body condition and lost condition after calving had worse reproductive performance than cows who calved at a lower body condition and did not lose as much condition after calving. This is known as the Britt Hypothesis.  (13:27)Paul describes studies aimed at finding the mechanism of action for differences in fertility. One study split cows into groups based on performance in a superovulation and embryo flushing protocol. Cows who gained body condition after calving had the best quality embryos, while cows who rapidly lost condition and didn’t gain it back had very poor quality embryos. (18:50)In another experiment, cows were body condition scored at calving and 21 days later to measure postpartum condition change. All cows were on a double ovsynch fertility protocol. About 40% of cows lost condition over that time period, 35% maintained condition, and 25% lost condition, but milk production was the same for all. This implies that cows gaining or maintaining condition were eating more feed than those losing condition. Cows who lost condition after calving had a 25% conception rate. Cows who maintained condition had around a 40% conception rate, and cows who gained condition after calving had over 80% conception. These differences were not dependent on the synchronization protocol. (21:18)Megan said many large farms are starting to body condition score cows at calving and 21-30 days after calving to measure and manage this. She also said cows who lose are less fertile and have a higher pregnancy loss than cows who maintain or gain condition post-calving. In a study where cows who lost three-quarters of a condition score or more from dry off to 30 days in milk had a 25% conception rate, while cows who maintained or gained body condition over that same time period had over 50% conception. (26:24)One of Megan’s studies found cows bred with sexed semen who were submitted to a double ovsynch fixed-time protocol showed a 6-7% advantage compared to cows submitted to AI after estrus detection. The entire treatment effect was observed in cows who lost the most condition after calving. (33:18)Paul and Megan encourage dairy producers to body condition score cows at dry off, at freshening, and 21-30 days after that. If cows are losing a large amount of condition, that could be playing a critical role in reproductive performance. In addition, the first test, fat-to-protein ratios, also tells a story about fat mobilization. A cutoff of over 40% might indicate that cows are mobilizing body fat and losing condition rather than going up to the bunk to eat to drive milk production. (40:03)Megan and Paul said that taking a herd from a low fertility cycle to a high fertility cycle includes an aggressive reproductive management program, evaluating somatic cell count and mastitis to ensure those aren’t impacting fertility, and taking a critical look at the nutrition program, including grouping cows with different rations. (46:54)Megan’s final thought for the audience is that having cows in the high fertility cycle with aggressive reproductive management to increase our reproductive performance really gives us a lot of power. Managing cow body condition score drives profitability and allows a lot of opportunities. (1:01:05)Paul concludes that over his 25 years on faculty at Wisconsin, he’s lived through the whole reproduction revolution in the dairy industry. Right now, the high fertility cycle is the big barrier to the performance on dairies, but this is very doable. If you get herds into the high fertility cycle, everything is easier. Cows are healthier. Milk production is great. Reproduction's good. (1:01:55).Please subscribe and share with your industry friends to bring more people to join us around the Real Science Exchange virtual pub table.  If you want one of our new 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 get a shirt in the mail to you.

Guests: Dr. Limin Kung, University of Delaware, and guest Bonni Kowalke, Stem Ag ConsultingOur Real Science Exchange pubcast always has leading scientists and industry professionals discussing the latest ideas and trends, and tonight, we have two distinguished guests. Dr. Limin Kung and Bonni Kowalke join us to discuss wild yeasts in silage.Dr. Kung begins by giving an overview of the impacts of wild yeast on silage, where they're either going to anaerobically ferment sugars to ethanol or aerobically; these wild yeasts can lead to spoiled silages and spoiled TMR. (8:32)Bonni and Limin then go on to detail management strategies and practices for reducing the impacts of wild yeast on silage and TMR, including harvest speed, silage moisture content, pack density, feed-out rate, and additives. (10:59)Bonni gives her perspective as a consultant about how she works with clients ahead of silage harvest to be able to prevent wild yeast infestation or any other problems. Most of her notes come right after harvest is finished with a list of things the farm wants to do differently next time, which she likens to a game plan for a team sport. (18:09)Dr. Kung describes how to determine if you have an issue with wild yeast in silage. Primarily, one would see aerobic instability via heating and perhaps molding. There will be a distinct telltale odor as well. Unfortunately, there is no on-farm test; samples must be sent to the lab for analysis. (23:10)Limin and Bonni give their top issues in regard to silage quality that they see in the field, along with ways to help producers get the very best quality silage off their fields each year. (26:40)This takes a turn into a discussion about how drone technology could be used in the future for perfecting silage moisture content predictions in the field before chopping. (32:02)Scott asks Bonni and Limin about the addition of NPN (such as urea or anhydrous ammonia) or sugar sources (such as molasses) to silage and what kind of impact that might have on silage quality. (37:24)Bonni gives an overview of silage inoculants and additives. (47:13)Limin and Bonni conclude by comparing the stability of legume silages and corn silages, an overview of inoculation best practices, and their take-home messages to ensure high-quality silage. (51:28)As mentioned in the show, Bonni Kowalke’s contact information at Stem Ag Consulting is bonni@stemagconsulting.com.Please subscribe and share with your industry friends to bring more people to join us around the Real Science Exchange virtual pub table.  If you want one of our new 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 get a shirt in the mail to you.

Guests: Dr. Alex Bach, ICREA (Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies), and Dr. Bill Weiss, The Ohio State UniversityIn this journal club episode, Dr. Alex  Bach with the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies joins Dr. Bill Weiss from the Ohio State University. Dr. Weiss introduces the paper as one that's immediately applicable to the industry and answers a question he received a lot during his Extension career: What's the cost of moving cows? This research gives us some real data to help producers on cow management. (3:49)Dr. Bach states that grouping cows is necessary, and the goal is to feed cows as close to their requirements as possible. But in a practical world, that can be difficult, and producers may resist moving cows due to the increased work and perceived drop in milk production. Dr. Bach gathered data from the field to see if that's the case or not by evaluating three farms with different diets and evaluating income over feed cost. (4:33)Dr. Bach goes on to describe the farms and the methods his team used for estimating individual cow intakes in a group pen setting. Cow pen/group changes coincided with a diet change. Individual farms made their own ration decisions and pen movement decisions. (8:17)In general, cows moved from a high to a medium to a low diet over the course of lactation. Primiparous cows moved from the fresh pen to the medium diet. If diet differences were adequate between groups, the loss in milk was compensated by the lower cost ration, and producers made an additional 20-30 cents per cow per day in income over feed costs. However, if the diets were more similar, lower feed costs did not compensate for the loss in milk production. (15:30)  Dr. Weiss asks Dr. Bach if he could only build two rations, a high and a low, how would he do that? Dr. Bach’s approach is to look at a histogram of milk production in the pen and split that into quantiles. His goal is to make a ration that satisfies at least 70% of the animals in the pen for the high diet and around 60% of the animals in the pen for the low diet. (24:36)Dr. Bach also ran a sensitivity analysis evaluating how results would change if milk prices or feed costs (or both) went up or down. He found that the higher the milk price, the more resilient a farm will be to a single diet and that feed cost is the opposite. The most interesting scenario is high feed costs and low milk prices - that's where it's almost mandatory to make groups, if you want to survive on a dairy. (27:23)Dr. Bach evaluated the change in nutrient intake for the diet switch and projected the milk production change from that nutrient change compared to how the cows actually performed. The cows always lost less milk production than predicted. Dr. Bach thinks the main reason is that the cows were overfed before moving. (37:46)Dr. Bach invites the audience to experiment a little bit with grouping cows. Don't be afraid of losing milk, and look beyond milk. Put in place mechanisms on the farm that allow you to measure income over feed costs as the ultimate goal. Cows are flexible, so don't be afraid of making a mistake. If something goes wrong, it will go wrong for a short period of time. You can correct it. You can change the diet right away, and the cows will recover. (46:14)You can find this episode’s journal club paper here: https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2022-22875Author: Dr. Alex BachPlease subscribe and share with your industry friends to bring more people to join us around the Real Science Exchange virtual pub table.  If you want one of our new 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 get a shirt in the mail to you.

Guest: Dr. Bill Weiss, The Ohio State UniversityIn this episode, we welcome back the fan-favorite journal club podcast. Dr. Bill Weiss joins Scott and Clay for this episode, discussing a large study from Germany evaluating the time spent in the pre-fresh group and its impacts on health and production. Dr. Weiss begins with a description of the study’s overall research question of “How long should a cow stay in the pre-fresh pen?” - and the researchers’ hypothesis that time periods too short or too long would be detrimental to both cow health and production. (3:14)The study had a wide range of days in the pre-fresh pen, ranging from around seven days to about a month, with a mean of 18 days. This is similar to the general industry recommendation of 21 days. (7:16)Diets were typical of a U.S. diet, although DCAD concentrations would be considered moderate. (9:42)The longer heifers were in the pre-fresh pen, the higher their milk production was. A quadratic effect was observed in the multiparous cows, where too short was detrimental to milk production, and too long was detrimental to milk production. (11:56)If the time spent in the pre-fresh pen was less than seven days, both cows and heifers were at higher risk for retained placenta. (14:30)On the other hand, more extended periods of time in the pre-fresh pen were related to higher incidences of clinical hypocalcemia. (16:40)Metritis and ketosis were also higher for cows who spent shorter periods of time in the pre-fresh pen, with three weeks best for these health issues. (19:26)From these results, Dr. Weiss recommended that if calcium metabolism is an issue on a farm, leaning toward a shorter pre-fresh period of around two weeks may be beneficial. On the other hand, if other issues like mastitis, metritis, and retained placentas are an issue, leaning toward three weeks may be most appropriate. Regardless, don’t put cows in the pre-fresh pen for less than a week or more than 35 days. (20:37)Dr. Weiss suggested an interesting next-step study would be to feed a DCAD diet for the full dry period to both cows and heifers. (28:32)Dr. Weiss detailed some of the differences observed between cows and heifers in this study and how more research needs to be done around first-lactation cows because heifers are not just little cows. (35:35)You can find this episode’s journal club paper here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022030223002230Authors: P.L. Venjakob, W. Heuwiese, S. BorchardtPlease subscribe and share with your industry friends to bring more people to join us around the Real Science Exchange virtual pub table.  If you want one of our new 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 get a shirt in the mail to you.

Guests: Dr. Pete Hansen, University of FloridaTo conclude this mini series, Dr. Pete Hansen of the University of Florida presents on the topic of using methyl donors to regulate an early embryo and create an epigenetic effect. This talk was given at the 2022 Tri-State Dairy Nutrition Conference, and is the fourth part of this series.Beginning his presentation, Dr. Hansen highlights how nutrition can cause epigenetic reprogramming of the fetus. Methyl groups can be added to increase the pattern of DNA methylation in cells and change the phenotype. 3:55To elaborate on DNA methylation, Dr. Hansen gives the example of placenta vs. embryo cells. A micrograph of both cell types shows that placenta cells have much larger amounts of methylation than embryo cells, indicating that placenta cells are specifically programmed while methylation of embryo cells can still be influenced by the environment. 4:57Continuing on the topic of methylation, Dr. Hansen discusses how DNA methylation silences specific genes, such as in skin cells or mammary glands. The methylation in the dam can be recapitulated in offspring, representing an epigenetic pattern. 14:42Opportunities to increase DNA methylation exist. Dr. Hansen points out that altering the environment of an embryo by growing it in vitro for just seven days changes the phenotype. 23:10How can this knowledge be used to the advantage of the dairy industry?Seeking to answer this question, Dr. Hansen and his graduate students added large amounts of choline (excellent source of methyl groups) to cultured embryos. They found the addition of choline to increase triglyceride accumulation and DNA methylation. 31:45After allowing the choline-treated embryos to mature in the recipient cattle, Dr. Hansen and his colleagues found the dams to have longer gestation lengths. This likely led to the higher birth weight of the calves which persisted into weaning. While a high birth weight is not particularly beneficial, a higher weaning weight certainly can be. 36:30Finishing up his presentation, Dr. Hansen refers to the common animal science equation: phenotype = genetics + environment. He praises the dairy industry’s proficiency in using genetic selection to create better offspring, but he states that improvements could be made in the environment, suggesting that more focus be placed on the prenatal environment. 41:37Please subscribe and share with your industry friends to bring more people to join us around the Real Science Exchange virtual pub table.  If you want one of our new 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 get a shirt in the mail to you.

Guest: Dr. Eric Ciappio, Balchem CorporationPart three of the podcast series from the 2022 Tri-State Dairy Nutrition Conference is Dr. Eric Ciappio’s presentation about the importance of choline in prenatal human nutrition. Dr. Ciappio is with Balchem Corporation.Dr. Ciappio begins with an overview of one of the main roles of choline in the body: supporting overall brain health and cognitive function, primarily through its role as a precursor to the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. (3:20)Eric then reviews several key pieces of research from the literature, beginning with a prospective cohort study looking at choline intake of the mother during pregnancy and the visual-spatial memory of their child seven years later. Moms who were in the highest quartiles of choline intake were correlated with significant improvement in visual-spatial memory of their children measured seven years later. (5:45)Researchers at Cornell investigated two levels of choline supplementation for pregnant women during the second and third trimester. One group received low choline, 25 milligrams, or 550 milligrams a day of choline, slightly more than the daily recommended intake for pregnant women. Women in the high choline group had higher blood choline throughout the experiment and that increased choline was also observed in cord blood at delivery. (6:48)Another Cornell study compared two groups of pregnant women, one who received approximately the recommended daily intake for choline and one who received roughly twice the recommended daily intake of choline during the third trimester. These were achieved through a controlled diet prepared in a metabolic kitchen plus supplemental choline. Once babies were delivered, cognitive testing was performed regularly from four months to 13 months. Babies born to mothers who consumed the higher dietary choline level had significantly faster visual processing speed compared to those born to the lower dietary group of women. Additionally, the number of days of prenatal exposure to choline was actually significantly associated with a faster reaction time, even within the lower choline intake group. (8:39)These same children were followed up at seven years of age with no additional intervention and subjected to a sustained attention test. Children born to the high choline-supplemented group of women had a significantly higher score overall on the sustained attention test. The beneficial effects of maternal choline supplementation during the third trimester of pregnancy are still present at age seven. (14:46)Choline also has a second important role in lipid metabolism, primarily to help generate phosphocholine and phosphatidylcholine which play both structural and functional roles: a structural component in the overall cell membranes and helps to transport specific lipids throughout the body. In particular, choline is critical for DHA transport. DHA is critical for maternal nutrition, as it is implicated in reduction of risk of preterm birth and overall support of the development of the eye and the brain (19:54)In the study with 25 vs 550 milligrams of choline supplementation during the second and third trimesters (6:46), the researchers also supplemented the two groups with DHA. Supplementation with choline plus DHA during pregnancy improved DHA status better than just supplementing with DHA alone. (22:48) In large dietary intake surveys of choline across the United States, just 6% of adult women in the United States get enough choline in their diet. Less than one in 20 pregnant women are getting enough choline in their diet relative to the daily recommended intake. Reviewers of the dietary guidelines showed that many prenatal supplements do not contain choline or only contain small amounts inadequate to meet recommendations. Similar observations have been reported worldwide. Furthermore, DHA inadequacy is common in pregnant and lactating women. (24:11)Dr. Ciappio concludes his presentation with the reminder that choline is an essential nutrient that helps support the growth and development of the brain and supports brain health throughout the lifespan. Despite these benefits, just 4% of pregnant women in the United States get enough choline in their diet. Expert groups are calling on manufacturers to increase the amount of choline in prenatal supplements. (26:25) Please subscribe and share with your industry friends to bring more people to join us around the Real Science Exchange virtual pub table.  If you want one of our new 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 get a shirt in the mail to you.

Guests: Dr. Jimena Laporta, University of Wisconsin-MadisonCovering the topic of Fetal Hyperthermia, Dr. Jimena Laporta of the University of Wisconsin is the second podcast at the 2022 Tri-State Dairy Conference. This makes up part two of the conference series.Heat stress is known to be a significant issue for dairy cattle with both global temperatures and sensitivity of dairy cattle to heat rising. Dr. Laporta adds that negative effects of heat stress last for multiple generations and lactations. 1:16While heat stress affects all cattle, Dr. Laporta focuses on dry cows and their offspring, to provide a more holistic view of its effects. Beginning with the dry cow, she notes that heat stress lessens milk production, as it derails involution and redevelopment. 3:59Epigenetics play a role in fetal development in the dry cow - fetal hyperthermia creates changes in the DNA of the fetus, altering the epigenome. 11:22What are the effects of fetal hyperthermia short term and long term, as well as across generations?Dr. Laporta details many short term hallmarks of prenatal heat stress: the dam experiences a reduction in gestation length leading to a premature calf that has organ alterations, less of an immune response, less feed intake, and a higher core body temperature. 16:31Analyzing a large data set of cattle affected by fetal hyperthermia, Dr. Laporta finds long term effects. The daughters had lower survival rates and less production each lactation, which carried over to the next 2-3 generations. Heat stress effects cost the dairy industry $1.4 billion. 23:08Turning her focus to the molecular signature of heat stress, Dr. Laporta discusses her findings from inspecting a mammary gland, concluding that heat stress causes a lower cell proliferative capacity and negatively impacts protein synthesis. Both lead to compromised milk storage and synthetic capacity. 29:28Wrapping up, Dr. Laporta states that heat stress negatively affects growth, organ development, immune function, survival, longevity, and milk yield for multiple generations. However, she believes that management and nutritional intervention can reduce such effects. 36:58Please subscribe and share with your industry friends to bring more people to join us around the Real Science Exchange virtual pub table.  If you want one of our new 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 get a shirt in the mail to you.

Guests: Dr. Jack Britt, Jack H Britt ConsultingThis is the first in a series of presentations given at the 2022 Tri-State Dairy Nutrition Conference. Epigenetics of different environments and reactions is the topic at hand, presented by Dr. Jack Britt of Jack H Britt Consulting.Dr. Britt begins by clarifying that epigenetics (transmittable changes in genetic behavior of an individual), are only beginning to be understood. This is partly due to the intricacies of DNA. For instance, the expression of DNA can vary greatly and the process of synthesizing a protein is much more complex than DNA to RNA to protein. 5:32The tendency of DNA to change over time is the focus of epigenetics, creating positive DNA changes is the focus of multiple dairy cattle studies discussed.After pointing out that epigenetics is mainly influenced by environment and management, Dr. Britt discusses its implications by giving an example of the pregnant cow. Each pregnant cow represents three separate generations at one time: the cow, fetus, and ovaries in the fetus. 8:34Genes multiply to produce new life and continue multiplying after birth in various types of cells. Thus, Dr. Britt notes that a change in a gene, such as when a methyl group alters DNA expression, that alteration multiplies along with the gene, creating an epigenetic effect. 11:25Studying epigenetics is commonly done in twins, Dr. Britt gives the example of his identical twin brother. His brother died of Parkinson’s disease a few years ago, demonstrating that the disease is an epigenetic (due to environmental change) disease instead of a genetic one. 14:56What are areas where epigenetics have significantly impacted the production of dairy cattle?Numerous cases are detailed by Dr. Britt, one being the decrease in fertility that correlates with a body condition score loss after calving. An oocyte matures in approximately 101 days, meaning it begins to develop soon after calving, when the cow is potentially at the lowest weight. The egg produced by this cow typically dies 4-5 days after fertilization. 23:07Technology has created improvements in environment and management factors. Dr. Britt references the University of Guelph, where a new technology is being used to monitor and distribute calves’ energy intake to ensure they consistently gain weight during weaning. 28:57Concluding his talk, Dr. Britt poses the question: How can technology be used to create a reputable activity score of important factors among each herd? Such a score would allow for long term comparison across herds, allowing for epigenetics to estimate performance. 33:45Please subscribe and share with your industry friends to bring more people to join us around the Real Science Exchange virtual pub table.  If you want one of our new 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 get a shirt in the mail to you.

Guests: Dr. Jim Drackley, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Dr. Mike Van Amburgh, Cornell University & Dr. Jim Quigley, CargillOur Real Science Exchange pubcast always has leading scientists and industry professionals discussing the latest ideas and trends, and tonight we have three distinguished guests. Dr. Jim Drackley, Dr. Mike Van Amburgh, and Dr. Jim Quigley join us to discuss the weaning period and why it can be so traumatic for dairy calves.Dr. Drackley leads off by describing that this topic is popular because it's still a problem. The advantages of feeding more milk during the milk feeding period are clear, but there can be system failure around the weaning transition from large amounts of milk to starter. There's often some slump in growth or even calf loss in some cases. (04:40)Dr. Drackley emphasizes the importance of a properly texturized feed, starch content in calf starter, weaning age, and feeding too much hay which leads into a discussion about the importance of butyrate over propionate in rumen development. (05:31) Dr. Quigley tackles the idea of weaning age and rumen development, stating that research has found NDF digestibility isn’t mature until the calf has reached a threshold of about 15 kilograms of cumulative NFC intake. The latest NAHMS study suggested a typical weaning age in the industry of about nine weeks and this usually coincides with the NFC threshold (10:39)Dr. Van Amburgh suggests that patience may be lacking when it comes to the weaning transition. Research shows taking more time to transition from milk to solid feed in a stepwise manner can lessen or remove the post-weaning performance lag. (19:41)Dr. Van Amburgh goes on to reiterate the importance of butyrate production in rumen development and that the inclusion of simple sugars into calf starters rather than high levels of starch are beneficial. (21:26)Dr. Drackley then reaffirms the importance of a gradual transition from milk given the cow’s natural lactation curve. A calf would be receiving less and less milk each day, not an abrupt shift to a different diet which often is not mimicked in weaning transition programs. (25:18)Dr. Morrow gives the veterinarian perspective and agrees with the panel that a proper weaning transition program could take away a lot of the respiratory disease impacts on post-weaning performance. (27:14)The panel shifts to speak to the long term impacts of a poor weaning transition program. Dr. Drackley emphasizes calves who experience disease have both lower longevity and lower milk production in the herd. (29:26)Dr. Van Amburgh cites European research that showed if nutrition from weaning on didn’t achieve target body weights at certain stages of physiological development, reproductive efficiency was decreased as a heifer and as a lactating cow. (30:13)  Each panelist gives an overview of the “perfect” calf weaning program. Dr. Quigley emphasizes a slow transition with high diet quality before and after weaning (32:46)Dr. Van Amburgh further underlines the importance of calf starter diet quality, focusing on simple sugars and amino acids, rather than starch and crude protein (37:29)Dr. Drackley focuses on the fact that digestive tract development is allometric during this time in the calf’s life, where the digestive tract develops at a faster rate than the rest of the body. Ensuring the calf has adequate nutrition to support this growth is imperative, and is an important focus for future research. (41:37)Dr. Van Amburgh suggests that changing the way starter is presented to calves so they know it’s feed is critical because they may not be in an environment where they can learn from others. (48:18)The panel wraps up with one piece of advice for calf weaning programs: be patient! (50:33)Please subscribe and share with your industry friends to bring more people to join us around the Real Science Exchange virtual pub table.  If you want one of our new 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 get a shirt in the mail to you.