Research highlights from the American Dairy Science Association annual meeting
Most of our departmental faculty, along with a few thousand others, spent the second week of July in Montreal, Canada for the annual American Dairy Science Association (ADSA) meeting. This meeting provides a venue for researchers, graduate students and industry members to get together, share recent research findings and brainstorm future work. The research sessions are comprised of 15-minute presentations allowing just enough time to highlight the important findings on each particular project. The goal of this Pipeline article is to convey those ‘snippets’ of information to you. The question of a ‘short dry period’ has come back up in recent years and some researchers have continued to examine whether it is a feasible option for today’s high-producing dairy cow. One group of researchers in Canada presented several studies at the ADSA meetings. However, the results left me believing the gold standard of a 60-day dry period is still preferred over a shortened dry period of 35 days. A shortened dry period provides one less diet change, which seemed beneficial for rumenal adaptation. However, this was outweighed when you consider the loss in production over the next lactation as well as the reduced milk fat percent. Another group of studies presented focused on animal well-being and improving ‘cow comfort’. One group of Canadian researchers examined the use of flunixin meglumine (Banamine) in the immediate postpartum period (2 h and 24 h post-calving) on cow health and milk production. Despite their hypothesis, flunixin meglumine given that close to calving actually showed detrimental effects on cow health. However, researchers have begun to examine actual timing of administration because they suggest the initial dose tested may be too close to calving. Although this study does not support the use of flunixin meglumine after calving, future research may change this thought if the proper timing can be elucidated. Another study examining calf rearing found nursery raised calves had increased body weight compared with individual hutch raised calves at the end of the study. However, this study did not examine health parameters associated with group-raised calves. Validation data was presented on the new Afikim Pedometer Plus system compared with video recorded data. We were glad to see data from the pedometers were highly correlated with actual video. This provides promise for our future research in which we intend to examine the use of this equipment in detection of disease. A project was reported on risk factors for high serum NEFA concentrations. An increase in NEFA levels is associated with metabolic diseases. Interestingly, the researchers found that cows calving in individual pens had higher serum NEFA levels than group housed animals. Additionally, mixing close-up heifers with older cows resulted in reduced DMI and increased serum NEFA levels. These were a few of the studies I found especially interesting. Some confirmed what I already believed while others refuted ‘common practice’. If you are interested in details of any of the mentioned studies, please contact me at milk@vt.edu.
Rights
Virginia Cooperative Extension materials are available for public use, re-print, or citation without further permission, provided the use includes credit to the author and to Virginia Cooperative Extension, Virginia Tech, and Virginia State University.
Publisher
Issued in furtherance of Cooperative Extension work, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Virginia State University, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture cooperating. Rick D. Rudd, Interim Director, Virginia Cooperative Extension, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg; Wondi Mersie, Interim Administrator, 1890 Extension Program, Virginia State, Petersburg.
Date
September 2, 2009