RumiNation

Timestamps & Summary Chris Gwyn ( 01:54 ) Can you share with the audience a bit of the evolutionary biology of the mitochondrion, how this is crucial for today's dairy cow, and why this is such an interest to you? Dr. Nial O'Boyle I share your fascination with it. So, on the evolutionary side, the main theory is [that] ancient cells like archaea and a type of bacteria fused together, and the bacteria was the mitochondrion, or the pre-runner for the mitochondrion, and they became what we now know as the eukaryotic cell, so the cells that we're made up of. And that gave complex life the ability to happen. So that mitochondrion, like the bacterial cell, they can produce energy through electric potential through the membranes. But once that was brought into a cell, what you were able to do is start to do more complex work. You can produce more proteins because the energy was at the site of action. So, cells could get more complex, organisms could get more complex, and the argument is we wouldn't be here if that kind of merger hadn't happened. […] The reason why I got interested from a dairy cow point of view is that I was fortunate enough to do a master's at Michigan State with the late Professor Lorraine Sordillo. Learned a lot from her, great scientist, um, and was just really interested. She inspired me on, on that connection between immunology nutrition, fat mobilization, and just that whole immunological question. […] To me, that became the epicenter of this connection between nutrition and immunology. Metabolism is the conversion of food into chemical energy by the body to do work. And I don't think there's anything that comes close to the dairy cow as far as being a metabolic athlete. […] Chris Gwyn ( 08:02 ) Can you summarize for your audience what you've learned about management, nutrition of the transition cow that maybe relates to this improved or ability to improve mitochondrial function? Dr. Nial O'Boyle One thing I've learned with people like Professor Lance Baumgard and others that have brought up this conversation that calcium ketosis, et cetera, and what is correlation, and what's causation. And the more I drilled into the mitochondria, I would agree, but maybe approaching it from a different angle in that they're all related. Like, you need calcium for mitochondrial function, and you need mitochondrial function for calcium regulation. So that's related. […] Chris Gwyn ( 10:16 ) Do we think about managing cows to improve mitochondrial efficiency or function? Dr. Nial O'Boyle I don't think currently we do, but the more I've learned about it, the more I think we should. […] Chris Gwyn ( 19:55 ) Are we wrong to say it's the 50-kilo cow that's this crazy metabolic athlete, or are cows at lower production levels going through some of the same metabolic challenges? Dr. Nial O'Boyle I think the genetic machinery is there for most of these modern cows to be very high producing. It's just all these things that add up to maybe they're not expressing their genetic potential through the environmental and management sides. […] Chris Gwyn ( 24:08 ) Give us a message from your work that you've done, your experience related to the topic you'd love producers, nutritionists, veterinarians to remember about feeding these transition cows with the concept of thinking about what the mitochondria is doing? Dr. Nial O'Boyle I suppose one would be reiterating that supplying fuel isn't necessarily supplying fuel for metabolism. You need different profiles, as we talked about fatty acids, different cofactors, whether it's B vitamins or other nutrients, to make sure that fuel is metabolized and used efficiently.

Timestamps & Summary Chris Gwyn ( 02:00 ) What drew you into dairy consulting, and how has that role evolved over the years as both the industry and your customers have changed? Jodi Erickson Back in the early 2000s, when I was hitting the job market, nutrition wasn't a career that I was seeking out, but there was an opportunity to work with an established team, an established feed supplier, and I was qualified for the job. It was shortly after that that I discovered my true passion for this career. […] Over the last 15 to 20 years, my day-to-day role has had to adapt and evolve right along with the industry. I guess the first thing that comes to mind is the precision that we can do things now and the data that we have access to. […] Chris Gwyn ( 07:26 ) What does a day look like and what does a week look like in Jodi Erickson's dairy consulting business? Jodi Erickson My team is a team of 4 nutritionists. So, we do pretty much work independently. We do overlap on farms, just depending on size and location to a degree. But I'm generally covering dairy farms in east-central Wisconsin into central Minnesota. Generally, I am on farms every day of the week, some fairly closer to home to allow for a little bit more office time. But then obviously there are some very long, high-mileage days that happen as well. […] But my routine farm visits, they're still based around finding what the obstacle is on the farm. Whether that's just visually identifying we're going to have a feed change, how are we going to blend, how are we going to transition this? This is something that we do 4 to 5 times a year on every farm, but it still seems like we need to revisit the procedure every time so it gets done correctly. […] Chris Gwyn ( 12:12 ) You have a family, you have farm work, you have your dairy consulting. How do you balance all that? What's your key to success in that area? Jodi Erickson The key to success there might just be failure. I can reflect on my earlier years with my children, during the hard stages of life when they're not sleeping through the night. So, all that whole dynamic, and I did lose accounts. It was a hard time in my career. And I think, in hindsight, those are probably the accounts that you weren't going to have long-standing relationships with anyway. Generally, something that I see on farms more and more is women stepping up into leadership roles. And these women have all lived through that as well. And it's just becoming, I think, more accepted. […] But it's still a challenge, I guess. And you know, just communication. Again, it goes back to communicating with my customers. They're aware of what my life looks like, and they're respectful of me and my time. And those are the people that I want to align with. Chris Gwyn ( 14:51 ) If you reflect back on your 20 years of dairy consulting experience, how do you see that the role has changed over that time? Jodi Erickson What's really neat about the market that I'm in is we still have really quite a few dairy farms that are under 100 cows. We still have a lot of tie stall farms, a lot of upright feed units, silos, harvesters, etc. But really, our larger farms are expanding, and they are expanding rapidly. So, it's really neat. What used to be having 3, 4, or 5 large 500-cow freestyle farms was a pretty significant milestone when I was young in my nutrition work. And now, that's kind of the norm. I'm on more of the freestyle herds than the tie stall herds. And a lot of these farms, they grew within. So, the owners and the management are making these developments and management changes, really right along with myself. […] Chris Gwyn ( 20:04 ) I'd love if you could share an example of a small management change that you introduced to a client or a client introduced to you that really unlocked real key benefits later on or at that moment. Jodi Erickson Probably the first thing that comes to mind when you say a small management change, it's still really focusing on some of the basics in nutrition work. And you see people maybe with the Penn State Shaker Boxes but really focusing on proper feed moisture and length. There have been several occasions where we have just focused on if we're going to be feeding straw or hay to some pre-fresh or post-fresh animals, whether that's driving off of an energy issue or a potassium issue. If cows are sorting at the bunk, they're not eating the diet that we think they are. And there have been a multitude of times that we have really focused on mixer maintenance, whether that's keeping knives sharp or throwing the pitch of regrinding a lot of this straw. Maybe that involves getting a Haybuster. […] Chris Gwyn ( 32:27 ) If you could leave some advice to a dairy producer working with their dairy consultant, say maybe 3 recommendations on how they could get the most value out of that working relationship with their dairy consultant, what would that be? Jodi Erickson I would think the first thing, honestly, is “be prepared.” […] Another thing is to always keep in the back of your mind that when things are going wrong, it's very easy to blame a person, whether it's a nutritionist or a feeder on a farm. But at the end of the day, we are all on the same team. We're all fighting to win. […] I would really say those are probably my two big sound pieces of advice. Have a lot of trust but also utilize everyone's time. Be prepared.

Timestamps & Summary Chris Gwyn ( 01:35 ) How would you describe the current state of lameness on dairy farms, and how has it evolved over your career? Dr. Gerard Cramer I started working on lameness when I started my graduate work in 2003. Things have progressed, but I think it's still probably one of the major animal welfare issues in the industry. So, I'd say we probably haven't progressed as much as I'd like. […] We're creating too many chronic cows. That's kind of hampering, holding us back. We do all these things to prevent new cases, and I think we're doing a good job in that, but we haven't really focused on what I think is the biggest issue, which is finding lame cows and preventing chronic cows. […] Chris Gwyn ( 04:01 ) You said identifying; you've done some work with cameras and identification. Where are we going with that technology? Does it seem to be working? Dr. Gerard Cramer That's my interest in the cameras because, to me the issue is the people. We need people to find lame cows. You need to have a dedicated person looking for lame cows. So, depending on your size of operation, that's a couple of hours where a person is literally standing there watching cows. So, it looks like you're paying them to do nothing. […] When I'm thinking about the camera technology, I want to be strategic and say, “Okay, the camera is going to find the lame cows, the newly lame cows, or the cows that are getting worse”. But if she's a chronic lame cow, she's just going to go on a routine schedule, and she might come up to the chute every 3 months. […] Chris Gwyn ( 08:29 ) You talked about inflammation and changes in bone growth. You want to expand a bit on that? Dr. Gerard Cramer Basically, what we're talking about is the last bone; we call that the P3. That's the last bone that's inside the hoof capsule. If we think about when a cow's walking on, she's walking on about 5 millimeters of horn, and then there's about 5 millimeters of something called the corium, and then the bone is kind of sitting on top of that. So when we get pressure on that corium, when it gets squished, basically, whether it's a sole ulcer or a white line, that creates an inflammatory process. So that inflammatory process happens in the corium. […] Chris Gwyn ( 12:16 ) Could you share with the audience your main findings on hoof trimming modeling and how that can be applied by hoof trimmers or producers at the farm level? Dr. Gerard Cramer When I first came to Minnesota, one of the first things I wanted to do was say, “Okay, there's basically one commonly taught trimming technique”, and there was a trimmer called Karl Burgi out there saying, “Okay, we have to do more modeling”. And modeling is basically taking more of the horn away from underneath the flexor tuberosity, which is what creates sole ulcers. So, we did a study where we compared doing that extra modeling- some hoof trimmers would call it excessive modeling— underneath that flexor tuberosity, but not getting into the toe triangle. The toe triangle is basically where the inside wall starts to go into the coronary band, so it’s not going too far into the toe. So, when we removed that extra horn, we had some impact on first-lactation cows where we did this at the time of drying. […] Chris Gwyn ( 16:54 ) So, trimming cows that are exhibiting signs of lameness is a more strategic approach? Dr. Gerard Cramer I get in trouble when I say this, and the hoof trimmers say, “Well, I'm doing this for comfort. Some of these cows are long.” But those are all things that we have to think about and say, “Okay, in the farms I work with, cows are walking a long distance. So, there are not many cows that have really long feet”. So, we're not trimming the cows because they have really long feet. Okay, then we're trimming them really to prevent lameness. And then we have to ask ourselves, “How much lameness are we preventing?” But if you have worked with a dairy and say, “Okay, I have a lot of long feet, these cows are walking on skis, they need to be trimmed.” So, strategic means: We look at the farm and say, “This is what the trimming program is”. And then even within the farm, we say, “Okay, for that cow, this is what her trimming program should be”. […] Chris Gwyn ( 17:58 ) We're talking about trimming. Is there anything we should be doing differently with pregnant heifers from a trimming perspective? Dr. Gerard Cramer I think it totally depends on where they're coming from. […]

Dr. Gail Carpenter explains how early-life stress, nutrition, and management shape calf health, resilience, productivity, and profitability. Timestamps & Summary Chris Gwyn ( 04:04 ) Calfhood stress: what does that mean, and why is the timing of these stressors so important, in particular for the long-term health and productivity of the animal? Dr. Gail Carpenter It is a very stressful time in that animal's life. They don't have an immune system. They don't have the tools to really be able to thrive the way an older animal would. If we're doing our colostrum program, they've got that passive immunity, but that's about it. And there are a lot of things that happen in those first couple of months to our calves. […] Chris Gwyn ( 07:59 ) What are we seeing from financial or productivity loss in their first lactation or lifetime from the research that's been done more globally? But also, how is that impacting the dairy? Dr. Gail Carpenter I'll talk about the replacement heifers first. There's been quite a bit of research done; there's a study that gets often cited out of Mike VanAmberg's lab at Cornell showing more milk replacer. And this is where the accelerated growth programs really started, I think, taking hold was more milk replacer in early life, more milk production in the first lactation. And so, I think a lot of people have seen that research and thought, “Well, if I give more milk, I get more milk.” But there's a lot more nuance than that. […] Chris Gwyn ( 18:45 ) Can you see other aspects of management and nutrition that can help to reduce the negative impact? And where do you see the biggest opportunities for farmers or nutritionists to help better support those calves? Dr. Gail Carpenter You're absolutely right that we need to be thinking ahead. You've probably heard the phrase that genetics is the ceiling and nutrition is the floor. So genetics kind of sets that upper limit, and nutrition sets that lower limit. I don't actually think that's entirely accurate. I like to say that genetics is the ceiling, nutrition is the floor, and management is the foundation. Because you can't outfeed bad management. And I like the way you phrase that about looking ahead and kind of predicting when these stressors are going to happen, because if we can proactively manage them— and dairy farmers are super creative. There's a lot of different— there's no one right way to manage every stressor that a calf is going to have. But when you talk about low-hanging fruit and things that I want producers to think about a lot, the two main stressful points in a calf's early life are going to be that first day and weaning. […] Chris Gwyn ( 22:35 ) So, as we wrap up our discussion today, I always like to ask for that calf manager, that producer listening to the audience, in the audience today, what would be sort of 3 or 4 key takeaways about calfhood stress that you'd like them to impart and think more effectively about, and how that's being managed and implemented at their farms? Dr. Gail Carpenter I would say again, that day 1 care. Make sure you have those protocols locked in. And you're making sure that you're working with your veterinarian on that. I would also say the weaning side of things. And I think a lot of that weaning comes back to getting groceries in the calf and making sure some of those groceries are coming from the starter. [...] And then cleanliness. That's obviously a big part of that day one process, but keeping that calf kitchen clean, keeping that immune system from having to fight off more germs than it has to because you're feeding with dirty nipples… […] Chris Gwyn ( 24:07 ) And is there anything specific related to the dairy-beef that you would like to reemphasize with the listening audience? Dr. Gail Carpenter There's a lot we don't know about the beef-on-dairy side. There's a lot we're still trying to figure out. But what we do know is that those best practices for heifers are often going to be the same best practices for beef-on-dairy.

Timestamps & Summary Chris Gwyn (02:19) Tell us about your Rancher program and your background journey. Dr. Juliana Ranches Rancher is a webinar series that brings most of the day’s information to cattle producers and livestock producers around the globe. […] I wanted it to be something unique that would highlight the work of women in this industry. So female scientists, ranchers, farmers, in the industry, faculty that work in the beef cattle industry or in the cattle industry in general, to showcase their career, to show their trajectory, and also to, you know, inspire the younger generation. […] I actually started my research career as a dairy person, but my heart was always beef. So I got a lot of experience in the dairy industry, working as an intern in one of the largest dairy farms in Brazil. […] Later, I moved to Florida to do my master's and PhD. And there I was trained in nutrition, ruminant nutrition, with a major focus on mineral nutrition. […] Moving to Oregon, to the Western US, brought another set of challenges and questions that need to be addressed for our producers. And then the wildfire smoke exposure studies, that's definitely something that has been a challenge for producers. […] That got me thinking about the smoke because we were in a situation where there were a lot of poor air quality days with very poor outside environmental conditions. […] Chris Gwyn (09:28) How does wildfire smoke impact cattle biology, physiology, and performance? Dr. Juliana Ranches In 2022, when we started doing our smoke exposure studies with natural exposure. So we had a project throughout the state, we had 3 different locations where we were monitoring cattle all over the seasons. So basically, what we tried to do was to create a good, strong baseline of data on the health and other parameters. And then we were hoping that a fire would happen. […] And in one of those locations, we actually got a fire. Once that fire happened, calves were exposed to that natural smoke, and there was poor air quality, and we started to intensify our monitoring and sampling of those animals. By the end of that study, we got samples and monitoring prior to smoke, during smoke exposure, and post-smoke exposure. So that was one of the initial works we did. What we learned in that study is that smoke exposure led to increases in cortisol, immunoglobulins, cytokines, and an acute phase response. So, with that initial study, we are sure now that smoke from wildfires can be considered an environmental stressor. And that leads to some energy losses through the development of that immune response. […] Chris Gwyn (11:57) Are there morphological or lung-related changes from smoke exposure? Dr. Juliana Ranches For that study in particular, unfortunately, we did not do any lung ultrasounds or anything more morphological. I know some of our colleagues from the University of Idaho, who are also working in this area of smoke exposure. […] What we are doing now on the smoke exposure is we now have developed a methodology that we can control and mimic the smoke exposure that we see from natural fires. So we can actually have a little bit more control over it. […] What we are seeing right now with those control-type studies is that the responses are very similar to what we’ve seen in the first study in terms of immunology. […] But we also now have the ability to measure feed intake and look at average daily gain on those calves. And what we are seeing is that calves that are exposed to smoke have delayed and slower gains. […] Chris Gwyn (15:21) Do the effects of smoke exposure persist after the event? Dr. Juliana Ranches At this point, our studies are very short. We're trying to just look at up to 3 weeks after that smoke exposure. […] We ran this study for about 36 days. We do a week of acclimation, a week of smoke exposure, and then 3 weeks of following those calves. In this most recent study that we did, we saw that calves that were exposed to smoke never reached the same performance or final gain as the calves that were outside. […] What we've seen so far is that calves that were exposed to smoke never caught up to the calves that were not exposed. They were lighter at the end of this study in terms of average daily gain, final gain, and final body weight. Chris Gwyn (16:42) Can we extrapolate these findings to older animals or feedlot situations? Dr. Juliana Ranches I feel like this is a frequent problem here in the Western states of the United States. […] So, I feel like an older animal that has been able to mature and be in the herd is unlikely to suffer so much through it. But I think what smoke might do is actually cut the productivity of that animal shorter. […] So those animals entering the feedlot might be more susceptible. […] I think they might be more susceptible to disease and not necessarily stay long in the herd. So far in our studies, it seems that calves exposed to smoke have the same visual signs as a calf with BRD (Bovine Respiratory Disease), but they don’t have a fever. […] They might just look like they have BRD, but they might not have it. Chris Gwyn (19:46) How does wildfire smoke compare to dust exposure in feedlots? Dr. Juliana Ranches In smoke exposure, we tend to look at the fine particulate matter of PM2.5, which is the smallest one. That tends to be the major concern of smoke from wildfires because it's a very, very small particulate. It can actually dry the airways, and with that, it can be inhaled by the animals and get into the bloodstream through the airways. […] And when we think about the dust and smoke from feedlots, that's probably going to be on the bigger size. It's still very small, but it's probably more of the PM10. […] But both are very destructive and will negatively impact animals. I would say that maybe the type of response we get in both scenarios might be similar; it's just that what is causing it might be a little bit different. Chris Gwyn (21:17) What management strategies can help mitigate wildfire smoke impacts? Dr. Juliana Ranches Our first recommendation for producers is “be prepared”. […] If you get in a situation that a fire is coming, you might have to evacuate, so keep in mind where you're going to move your animals, who's going to move them, when you're going to do it, and what feed resources you have to move with you. […] And then for producers that are affected by the smoke itself, we always recommend not stacking stressors. […] If you're planning any type of management like weaning, commingling, transporting, vaccination, and you know there's smoke, you might want to consider delaying that practice. […] We also recommend always having lots of clean water for those animals. […] We want to make sure that the airways are always moist, so we avoid giving opportunity to opportunistic diseases. And in terms of nutrition, make sure that those animals have very good, high-quality feed. If they eat a little bit, they might want to eat the best food we can possibly offer. Chris Gwyn (24:33) What are your key take-home messages? Dr. Juliana Ranches I think at this point we now know that smoke is an environmental stressor, so it should be treated as one. So, try not to stack those stressors and make sure we provide the best feed and water to those animals during that stressful period. Reduce that stressor load in that production moment. If you are in a situation where you might be subject to evacuation, make sure you have a plan so the outcomes are more likely to be positive. So again, plan and make sure not to stack stressors. […] Everything that we suspect would happen when those animals were exposed to smoke basically happened. So, we know it's not good, exposure is not good, and it does impact production. So more questions are coming, more research is coming. […]

Timestamps & Summary Chris Gwyn (02:58) How should nutritionists use lab data to confirm that what’s formulated on paper matches what cows are actually eating and performing? Katie Raver A lot of times when we get a feed analysis, we use those feed analysis to formulate our ration. So we'll pull those into a model and build a ration around those. […] But I think there's a lot of value beyond that. […] Even testing things like commodities can help us confirm what we put into that model is what's getting fed to cows. […] And we can even do this from testing our TMR and making sure what is coming out in the feed mixer and getting fed to cows matches what we have formulated. Chris Gwyn (04:54) What are the key recommendations for setting up an effective and practical feed and forage sampling program? Katie Raver It's definitely based on a farm-by-farm situation, and so we have to take into account a lot of factors when we set out a sampling recommendation. […] We have to make sure that we've got someone who's capable of taking those samples, that we trust to take those samples. […] So some of the key points… is the recommendation of sampling feeds more than we're using 4 or more pounds of. […] We really weigh it based off of the usage and what the farm can accomplish along with farm size. […] We've seen success sampling as much as 3 to 5 times a week for our very, very large farms, and as low as 1 every week to every 10 days or 2 weeks. Chris Gwyn (07:53) What tools or innovations are helping producers and nutritionists get more value from feed testing data? Katie Raver In terms of tools to establish a testing routine would just simply be creating a list of the feeds that we're feeding, usage rates. […] And we've got some tools built to help producers do that. […] I think being flexible to dairies is what's enabled us to really capture the most benefit. […] So some new tools would be being able to trend and track this over time. So if we get a robust enough data set, we can use trend tracking tools and statistics to look at how that feed is changing over time and automatically notify the producer. […] Chris Gwyn (10:27) How will artificial intelligence and machine learning impact feed analysis and decision-making? Katie Raver One of the challenges… is that for the grand majority of our farms, we don't have a very big dataset. […] Feed sampling, we maybe do every other week. And so… we have about 25 data points per feed per year. […] When we look at AI models and machine learning, typically those are able to be utilized when we get hundreds of data points. And so now with a more robust sampling program, we're able to develop this really big dataset that we can leverage these AI tools on. […] Chris Gwyn (12:28) What feed hygiene issues are limiting performance, and how should producers think about them? Katie Raver I think feed hygiene really is something that we all need to take quite seriously because it can be a production limiter. […] One of the biggest… misconceptions… is that when we have an issue on a farm, it's one problem. […] However, most of the time… it's often a combination of these negative things working together that are leading to these issues. So maybe it's not that one thing that we're looking to find, but it's a combination of things. […] But as we look at the whole picture of what the cow is taking in, that's when we start to see a clearer picture. […] Chris Gwyn (15:34) How should feed hygiene testing be used, and what signs should producers watch for on-farm? Katie Raver This is a test that's done when we suspect an issue. So we're often a little bit retroactive in our testing for these feed hygiene parameters. […] However, if we feel like we're not getting the productivity we expect, feed hygiene is definitely something to look at. […] So, one thing that I tend to recommend people look into would be, are we seeing heating? […] When we look at our bunk face, is it hot? Do we see evidence of spoilage? Does it smell good or are there some off smells that maybe we need to look into? […] Chris Gwyn (19:17) How should fecal analysis be used alongside forage and TMR testing? Katie Raver It gives us an insight into what the cow is actually doing with our feed. […] So things like fecal starch and fecal fat, now we can test through NAR. And so, we have this opportunity to look at what the cow is doing with the starch that we're providing and if there's any opportunity to improve starch digestion. […] And so it gives us opportunities to look at where we can fine-tune these nutrients and where we can potentially gain more energy from these nutrients. […] So we can use these tools quite a bit to help benchmark within a herd… to make sure we're making improvements in the right direction. […] Chris Gwyn (23:07) What are best practices for sampling and submitting fecal samples? Katie Raver If we know that shipping a sample in the heat, we get continual degradation of the starch. So especially in summer months, we want to freeze those samples before we send them. […] We don't want a pile that's been sitting there for, you know, 2 or 3 hours because again, that starch can be degrading. So when we do it, we want to make sure we're taking the right steps, getting fresh samples, making sure we're getting a representative sample from the pen. […] So I think always having that baseline is good… we need that baseline to know where we're going and help us make sure we're achieving our goals. Chris Gwyn (25:35) What key habits should nutritionists adopt to get more value from lab analysis? Katie Raver So what the first one would be: test all your feeds at some routine frequency. […] Understanding and creating a baseline for the regional area of feeds that you're sourcing, I think is really important. […] And so just understanding what that is, where you're at, I think will really help fine-tune that ration. […] And then number two would be looking at trends over time. […] Tracking those changes over time will give us better insight into how our feed is changing… and that our data is representative of what we're feeding to cows.

Timestamps & Summary Chris Gwyn ( 02:04 ) Could you share with the audience why B vitamins would be important to receiving cattle in particular? Dr. Stephanie Hansen Absolutely. If we go back and look at the NRC guidelines, we've really ignored two classes of vitamins, vitamin C and vitamin B. Cattle are able to make vitamin C from glucose in their liver. […] Not a lot of work is focused on that because the assumption has been that the animal can make it, it's fine. Similarly, they get most of their B vitamins from rumen microbial synthesis. And so, again, a lot of the requirements were largely ignored, or potential requirements, because the thought has been: Well, his bugs make it for him, so he's fine. […] Chris Gwyn ( 04:19 ) What do they do to a feed lot receiving cattle that would be important in their overall performance, health, productivity, profitability in the end? Dr. Stephanie Hansen The way that I teach this to my nutrition students is that if you think about the macros like protein and carbohydrates and lipids, often the things that we formulate rations for initially, those are like the bricks in a wall. If you stacked those bricks on top of each other, they're pretty robust, and they're a big chunk of that wall. But you could push those bricks over with a finger because there's nothing holding them together. If you think about minerals and vitamins in water as collectively making the mortar that you could put between those to hold it together, and you let it dry, now it'd be pretty hard to push that wall over. It's a sturdy structure. I love that analogy. I stole that from one of my friends in the industry. […] Chris Gwyn ( 06:20 ) Can you tell us in particular, about some of the health or immune outcomes? You had mentioned immunity that you saw in a study, and what also excited you about to look in the future? Dr. Stephanie Hansen This was an eight-week trial. Basically, what we did was we had a pen-based study, so Delivering to Pens. That's what we call an experimental unit for this. This was a set of steers that came out of a ranch up in Wyoming, I think, for this. Basically, we tracked weekly feed intakes throughout those eight weeks of the trial. As expected, intakes are pretty low when cattle first arrive, and they're newly weaned, they're bawling, so they're just literally figuring out everything in life. And slowly, intakes increase over the eight weeks. And one of the things, one of our treatments was a ruminal-protected B-vitamin A combination. […] Chris Gwyn ( 08:50 ) Was there any direct impact on immunity that you were able to measure in this study? Dr. Stephanie Hansen I think one of the things that's been really fun about some of the research that we've done at Iowa State over the last several years is some of the collaborations that we formed. […] Jodi McGill is our collaborator at our vet school. She's a bovine immunologist, and her expertise is really about things that happen in the lung, in particular. She's really interested in bovine respiratory disease complex, which is very common in receiving cattle. With Jodi, what we have done is what I would call a two-prong approach. One is we're actually able to take essentially a tube and put it in that calf's nose, flush his lungs with a little bit of saline, and then draw that saline back up. […] That fluid that we pull back up, they then isolate cells out of there. Some of these cells are going to be things like immune cells, and they're not in the lung tissue itself. They're hanging out around it. This is a snapshot of who's on the way to the lung from an immune response perspective. […] Chris Gwyn ( 12:42 ) Are there other interesting key findings from that study that you're able to share at this point? Dr. Stephanie Hansen I think the health stuff is really the most interesting. Maybe at the end of the day, 28 days look like it might be the peak beneficial window. I think that makes sense because after 28 days, we're starting to pick up nicely on intakes. Really, the majority of our health benefits are seen there, especially, I would say, in week two and three, which fits perfectly when we typically see shipping fever break and things like that for newly arrived calves. […]

Timestamps & Summary Chris Gwyn ( 01:44 ) Before we jump right in, I'd enjoy hearing about the journey that brings you to research and teaching. Dr. Stephanie Hansen I did not grow up on a beef operation, but my grandparents had cattle, and so I spent a lot of summers there. So, I had the beef bug, so to speak, by the time I went to undergrad at Iowa State, but I was never pre-vet. I was really focused on what we could do, and eventually I realized that what that was was nutrition to actually keep animals from having to see the vet if we didn't have to. And so I found my passion for nutrition through a senior-level nutrition class, and I call that my light bulb class, and I teach that now. So I've been teaching that for over 14 years, and I think that's really a full circle moment to be at the front of the classroom for the class that gave me the passion for nutrition. […] Chris Gwyn ( 03:33 ) I'm wondering, what have you seen as the biggest changes in cattle receiving practices that have driven some of those changes, whether it's science, economics, or consumer expectations? Dr. Stephanie Hansen I think some of the biggest things we've learned in the receiving cattle nutrition is really the importance of what happened to that animal before they came to the feed lot. Now, of course, we're a very segmented industry, so it's really difficult to control that. But we do have a lot of people who will have retained ownership and will have the opportunity to really control more of the nutrition that gets into that animal from birth all the way out through harvest. […] Chris Gwyn ( 05:39 ) Are there impacts of consumer expectations that have also altered what we should be doing today from what we've done in the past? Dr. Stephanie Hansen From a consumer perspective, I would say probably the biggest one, […] is that we have pretty aggressively moved away from mass treatment of animals on arrival. That's really a practice now that is restricted to animals who are at really high risk. […] Chris Gwyn ( 07:48 ) Are there emerging strategies or even feed additives that you're particularly excited about? What are we doing differently today that we didn't do in the past? Dr. Stephanie Hansen I think now, and moving maybe into the future, too, about this idea of precision nutrition. How do we go from making pen-level decisions for 100 head or 200 head in a pen to making single animal-based decisions? There are all kinds of challenges with that. But I think with some of the wearables and different technology sensors and stuff that we have now, we're increasing our likelihood of being able to do some of those things. […] Chris Gwyn ( 10:32 ) Do you find that, out of my naivety of knowledge, producers typically have a different diet for sick pens, or is it just fairly basic to get them back on feed and get them healthy again? Dr. Stephanie Hansen I would say that, especially in the last several years, the philosophy has really shifted to get that animal back to their home pen if at all possible. Bad things in general tend to happen if you're in the hospital pen, right? Chris Gwyn ( 14:58 ) We're going to fast-forward five years? Well, let's say 10 years. What do you see as the modern twists that would impact the new standard in receiving cattle management or nutrition? Dr. Stephanie Hansen I think two things. I think of wearable sensors, such as ear tags or collars. […] Right now, we've got some challenges where some of them interfere with other things, so you’ve got to figure that out. [Also], labor is going to continue to be one of our biggest challenges in the beef industry. We just don't have as many people who are willing to do some of the work that's required, or that labor force just simply isn't available. How do we help somebody become a better cowboy or cowgirl in terms of their ability to identify sick animals? Chris Gwyn ( 18:02 ) To summarize, maybe three or four key points that you'd like to emphasize to producers and veterinary nutritionists in relation to receiving cattle, management, technology, and nutrition that you'd really like to stick with them? Dr. Stephanie Hansen I think the first one would be the more you know about what you're buying, the better. […] Think about strategic supplementation, making sure that you've got some fortification of critical minerals like zinc, critical vitamins like vitamin A, and some of the other things that maybe have been less researched, like vitamin C and the B vitamins. […] Are there ancillary or additional therapies that you can offer when an animal has to get pulled for a treatment? […]

Timestamps & Summary Chris Gwyn ( 00:02:56.23 ) Dr. Van de Pol, would you share with the listening audience your journey in AG and in data, and how this journey has brought you to establishing CATTLEytics? Dr. Shari van de Pol Similar to a lot of listeners of your show, what really resonates with me is everything tied to agriculture, being outdoors, and the biological systems. I just found it was so interesting and fascinating.[…] I actually did a minor in fine art at the time, and I ended up working for IBM and found myself at a very interesting, challenging job, but something that really didn't connect with any of the things that I really held dear. I had this moment where I decided, after a few years of spending a day a week with a large animal vet, that I was going to go back to school to become a large animal veterinarian. And that is really what kicked off this path. I always knew when I was in vet school that what I wanted to really focus on was the systems. And that's what I ended up doing. While I was at the Summer Dairy Institute down at Cornell. I met with some really interesting professors and some interesting industry experts. […] In 2014, that's when CATTLEytics was formally started. We've been in this for over 10 years, and we have a strong history now in the industry of really pairing technology and veterinary expertise. […] Chris Gwyn ( 00:06:00.11 ) Are there areas in livestock production that we're missing out on by not either having accurate data or not being able to make timely decisions based on the analysis or accurate analysis of data? Dr. Shari van de Pol I mean, there obviously are, but we really take a person-first approach to the way that we do our business. We look at dairy farms and dairy cows like athletes. So, if you have a whole bunch of Olympic athletes, it depends on how far you want to go. If you're happy with their performance and you're getting your milk check and you don't want to do anything further than that, then, yeah, there’s a lot of potential, but you're not motivated to really dive into that potential. […] Chris Gwyn ( 00:09:24.12 ) Tell me about the impact of farm size in those types of decision-making processes. Dr. Shari van de Pol You manage a farm differently depending on size. Part of that is due to even just staffing. Because I find people can do things when they are a solo dairy farmer and they have 50 cows, they can keep a lot in their head. They know what's going on. They can assess the situation as it goes. As soon as you start to grow beyond that, you start to involve, often family members, but additional staff. When you get to that point, then you need to start to streamline an operation. […] Chris Gwyn ( 00:13:35.02 ) How can systems today work to enhance or utilize that data to be more predictive and more preventable? Dr. Shari van de Pol What we've seen is when I started, for instance, looking at production data, and I was looking at production data both north and south of the border here in North America, and I was finding that, for instance, there were similar environmental effects affecting milk production in given years. A lot of it could be potentially environmental as opposed to what that farmer is doing. The producer could be doing the exact same thing year after year, performing to that top level, but if the environmental effect is strong, they're going to see a worse return on their efforts. […] Chris Gwyn ( 00:15:52.11 ) And machine learning, we hear that bounced around. What are we actually talking about here? Dr. Shari van de Pol ( 00:15:58.18 ) When we talk about machine learning, we're often talking about things like neural networks or random forests, which, again, don't give you much information. […] The classic example was looking at pictures of dogs and cats. You could look at a picture of a dog and immediately say: “Hey, that's a dog, that's a chihuahua, that's a domestic shorthair.” But computers couldn't do this. They would take this image, break it into pixels, see the dark... They just had a really hard time with problems like that. What that meant is that computer science could only go so far. It could only go up to really mathematical-specific problems. But when you start to go into those areas where it's simple for us but hard for them, they hit a wall, and they couldn't help us out with those other problems. Basically, jumping over this wall means that it opens up what computers can do. Now what happens is a computer looks at an image and it would apply something called a neural network, which means it's like a series of filters on that image. […] Chris Gwyn ( 00:21:01.20 ) I guess bringing some of those different systems together and talking together is also important, right? Dr. Shari van de Pol Absolutely. I mean, it’s one of those things where I was down at a conference and hearing people on a panel say: “If only there was a company that would bring data streams together and do this”, and it's like, we're doing this. It is a tough problem. One of the reasons why it's a tough problem is because there's not necessarily an obvious big motivation for players in the industry to share their data other than the fact that is beneficial to the dairy farmers they are serving. […] Chris Gwyn ( 00:23:43.09 ) I wanted to bring in the topic about data security, ownership, at he farm level. I was wondering if you could share some thoughts on that. Dr. Shari van de Pol When we talk about things like data security, it definitely goes to protecting the assets on farm, making sure that your backups aren't just set and forget. You have to test those systems out and have a plan to test them out, quarterly, for instance. You also need to work with a provider that understands what a dairy is like. Chris Gwyn ( 00:28:09.09 ) Summarize three or four key points that you would emphasize to producers, having been there as a nutritionist in relation to collection analysis and application of data on the farm. What would you recommend? Dr. Shari van de Pol First off, if you're somebody who wants to, whether you're a business or you're a producer, if you want to get to that next level, there are resources. We will help you as a company. There are ways to get to that next level. […] The second thing is when we're talking about staffing, onboarding, training, having protocols available, being able to do that, team management, communication, that has been in the past undervalued, and that's an easy win to make your farm a great place to show up to and a place where everybody wants to be. […] And then the third thing is, artificial intelligence is something that can take away the headaches that you have, the things that you don't want to do, the filling in of forms, and all of those things. […]

Timestamps & Summary Chris Gwyn ( 02:11 ) At JEFO, we've been looking at stressors across species, in particular in dairy cows. I was wondering if you could give our audience an overview of this study and why it's important. Dr. Laura Hernandez Sure. This was an ongoing collaboration with my colleague Dr. Milo Wiltbank, who's a reproductive physiologist here at the University of Wisconsin. We had a shared scientist who's now a professor at the vet school at the University of Florida, Pedro Monteiro. […] He's traditionally a reproductive physiologist. He developed this question about how this might impact return to cyclicity and timing of parturition. His main complaint was that in our projects, we could never figure out when the cows would calve, so they'd be sampling forever and ever and ever. And then finally the cow would calve earlier or late, of course. And so he was like, there's got to be a way we can figure this out. It also might be really critical to how successfully a cow comes back into cyclicity or what might happen with reproductive diseases, knowing that there are all these losses that occur that are due to a variety of problems in the first 60 days postpartum. […] We know that cortisol is a major stress regulator of all things, and it changes all the time in relation to a variety of stresses. [Dr. Monteiro] had read this paper, and I believe it was beef cattle, and they had shown that you could measure cortisol in the hair. Really, the hair cortisol is reflective that day for about two weeks prior to the actual date you took the hair sample. Because the cortisol deposits in the hair, and the hair doesn't go away. It grows, and then you shave it off, and you can do this measurement via RIA or ELISA of the cortisol. […] Chris Gwyn ( 10:10 ) You had demonstrated that if we can just take out some of the key points: low stress, low cortisol versus high. You were able to see a production performance different, wasn't there? Dr. Laura Hernandez That would be from a practical standpoint that if our data continues to go in the way that it has been, that if a farm wanted us to come, that this is something that could be done by a nutritionist or nutrition groups or veterinarian groups, that if they wanted to know what it looked like, say, in the prepartum period, they could take a hair sample when they dried cows off, and then maybe, depending on what their dry off protocol was, three weeks later, get another hair sample. That could be run, and they would have a good idea of what's happening. Or if they wanted to do it in a post-fresh cow, say 10 days postpartum, they could really take a look at what some of these pen changes might look like, if they did it in a new facility, or if they were having problems, is it due to stress? What's the stress level? How might that look on a threshold if we can develop one? It would be a really easy way to do so without bleeding a cow. All you have to do is shave the tail head. It's just a regular shaving. […] Chris Gwyn ( 12:43 ) Inherently, we may understand that certain periods of lactation or management practices have a different level of applied stress or stressors. Calving, regrouping, the whole process, mixing groups, but we don't know what costs us. Some association of a simple cortisol test with a number of studies that support milk loss or impacts on reproduction will reestablish or reinforce the need to perhaps change some management. Dr. Laura Hernandez That's my hope. I'm a very basic scientist, but all the things I root my science in are providing information to make good decisions that work the very best for a particular farm within the means of their ability to do things. I think that's why we're here, is to help them. We try to really make our work as translational as possible.

Timestamps & Summary Chris Gwyn ( 01:50 ) Dr. Hernández, could you share with the audience your journey that brought you to be a trusted researcher and advisor at the University of Wisconsin? Dr. Laura Hernandez Sure. Working in Dr. Collier's lab, I had the fortunate pleasure of working in mammary biology. I specifically worked on how the mammary gland interacts with the endocrine and metabolic systems of an animal. And naturally, given his research was in dairy cows, that was my first exposure. I really became fascinated with this process. So, it led me to be a postdoc continuing this work, but also in humans and in mice, and looking at things more holistically from how the maternal metabolism and biology coordinate with the mammary gland to make milk and stay healthy at the same time. And so when they were looking for a lactation biologist at the University of Wisconsin, I was more than happy to apply for it and very fortunate to get the position. I've been here now for 14 years. […] Chris Gwyn ( 03:28 ) We deal every day with dairy ruminants about producing milk. Can we say sometimes you overlook the other, and the physiology and metabolism that goes on? This is strange, but it's awesome that you're in this role and the University of Wisconsin is continuing this role because it doesn't exist in a lot of universities, right? Dr. Laura Hernandez ( 03:55 ) It doesn't. And we're fortunate now we have a second faculty member in the space, Ximena Laporta. And so, they really expanded that. And prior to my getting here, at various periods of time, they had maybe two people focused in that space. Occasionally, we had someone studying mastitis. Pam Ruegg was here before Michigan State. And so they've always put a focus on that. […] Chris Gwyn ( 04:50 ) Further on that, we can expand because as I read through your research, it seems that perhaps, the industry in general may have overlooked the key role of the mammary system. As you pointed, it's specific to calcium balance or homeostasis in the dairy cow. Dr. Laura Hernandez I think maybe 30, 40 years ago, there was more emphasis on this interaction between what was happening in the tissue itself and how that was dealing with nutrition or the endocrine state of the animal. There have been some really great mammary biologists like Jeff Dahl, Dale Bowman, Bob Collier, and Alan Tucker at Michigan State. But there's been this space where we've really gone down nutritional management, which is important. But as the mammary line keeps producing milk, it's sending signals back to the cow, like “I need more”. And calcium, of course, is critical because it's the highest mineral content in milk. And the cow needs calcium, too, to maintain muscle balance and a variety of processes. […] Chris Gwyn ( 07:41 ) In some of the discussions you've had that negative gap in calcium actually extends quite a bit of ways into the lactation, doesn't it? Dr. Laura Hernandez Yeah. The most data we have in cows, at least, it's hard to assess bone status in a cow without euthanizing the animal, but for sure, in the first 30 days in milk, they're losing potentially up to 13% of their bone mass. But it's really not until the animal hits peak lactation, where she's not compensating for this massive amount of milk production and trying to ride herself after having given birth, that she gets to this state where she's achieved a steady amount of milk. […] Chris Gwyn ( 09:20 ) I was reading recently, in the last number of years, you and collaborative researchers have been looking at transient hypocalcemia. I wonder if you could expand a bit more on this and what it means to dairy producers or veterinarians or nutritionists. Dr. Laura Hernandez This has been an interesting task for my colleague, Jessica McCarthy, and I, of trying to tell people that a little bit of hypocalcemia is okay because the common thought is they're hypocalcemic, they're sick, they need more calcium, or they need a bolus, or they need an IV, and something's not right. There're really these categories and degrees of hypocalcemia that can be problematic. But the issue is what stimulates that calcium mobilization from bone is what we call an endocrine negative feedback. […] Chris Gwyn ( 17:01 ) Serotonin, you've done some work on that. Is there a play in there for these transition cows? Dr. Laura Hernandez This is just what I hope becomes another tool in the toolbox. But what we've shown, at least with our data, is that the precursor to serotonin, 5HTP or 5-hydroxy tryptophan, will trigger a hypocalcemia that then allows for those negative feedback events to start. […] Chris Gwyn ( 18:39 ) These products need to be mixed, consumed, delivered, properly. Where's the research going on hypocalcemia after this, you think? Dr. Laura Hernandez That's a great question. I think some of what we're doing is getting more details together on the exolith and trying to understand that to gather more information, I think that's one way. I think the other thing is trying to understand how all these different preventative methods work. When do you give a bolus? When do you give a gel? How do those things work in combination with these prepartum therapies? Because I think there's a real gap in that knowledge. […] Chris Gwyn ( 21:39 ) What would you share as the top three take-home messages when it comes to hypocalcemia in cows? Dr. Laura Hernandez Manage your cows prepartum. Pick your poison, whether it's Exalate or DECAD. I highly encourage that because they work. I would say, figure out what works best and do it right. […] The other one is that I don't think we need to be blood testing cows daily for the first week postpartum. I think if you're really concerned about how a herd is doing, maybe on a larger scale, try to get samples. If you're only going to do it once, wait 48 hours unless you see a sick animal. Always treat a sick animal. […] Then third, I think the other thing is that getting all the knowledge of the different treatments and preventions there are and understanding them is really important as a nutritionist or a veterinarian. […]

Timestamps & Summary Chris Gwyn (02:26) Going past the economic value, what can component volume and percentage tell us about the farm level management and cow health? Dr. Heather Dann I think one of the important things that we need to look at is the pounds or kilos of fat and protein that our farm is producing. [S]ome of the common metrics that we're currently using here […] is the kilos or pounds of fat and protein shipped. Several years ago, we had these targets of about 2.7 kilos, or about six plus pounds. People were trying to join […] the six-pound club. And because of improvements in nutrition management as well as genetics, many farms have now been easily able to achieve that. And what we're seeing now is that those targets or those benchmarks are shifting. And we have many farms striving for that 3.2 kilos or 7 pounds plus of milk. And we're fortunate here at the Institute that we're at that level and a little above. […] Chris Gwyn (04:10) What else can this high level of component yield tell us about what's going on from a management perspective or cow health perspective? Dr. Heather Dann I think it really gives us a lot of insight into the general feeding practices and quality of the diet that's being had on farm. And one of the tools or metrics that we've been using for the last several years and have found quite useful is the fatty acid analysis piece that's come into play. […] Chris Gwyn (07:13) What do you see from your own experience or research as the most influential nutritional factors affecting component yield on the dairies? Dr. Heather Dann I think one of the most important things that we need to do is make sure we get the diet and that dining experience right to maximize milk components. And to me, that means that we need to focus on diet formulation, but also the management environment in which that diet is delivered to the cows. […] But I think it just drives home the point that we can't just think about the diet formulation. It's beyond that; it's not just how it's formulated but how we mix it, how we deliver it, and then make sure it's available to the cows throughout the day. […] Chris Gwyn (11:52) Cow comfort management affects milk component yield in your experience and the research that you've done? Dr. Heather Dann I would say some of the work that we've done here at the Institute, as well as the Guelph Group, which is doing great work, and several other places, really drives home the point to me that we need to focus on optimizing key behaviors of those animals to maximize milk components. And that comes down to […] cow comfort. So, I'm thinking about the physical environment the cow is in, the social environment, not just with her own cow peers, but also as farmers, how we interact with our animals. And those things are going to influence the key behaviors that I think about when I'm trying to set cows up to produce as much fat and protein as they can. So, resting time, rumination time, and feeding time. And if we can get those things right in the cow's daily time budget, then she's going to be productive, healthy, and have a good well-being. So, some of the work that we've done here, we've gone out on farms and tried to understand why some farms have higher fat content than others. […] Chris Gwyn (19:29) Have you or others looked at what the time spread is in the delivery of feed? […] Do we need to spread these meals by 4 hours, by 6 hours, or 12 hours? Dr. Heather Dann That's a good question. I think Trevor DeVries has done some work with meal delivery times, as well as Kevin Harvatine at Penn State, who has been doing some work thinking about timing of meal delivery. The Penn State work is really focused more on trying to understand the circadian rhythms of cows and the timing, and can we take advantage of a different feeding schedule that will allow cows to increase more milk components. And there is some work to that. I think one of the things that needs to be explored further is that if we're going to feed twice a day, should we be changing the diet composition? […] Chris Gwyn (25:41) Any other key take-home messages that you'd want a listener to focus on in our last 25 minutes of discussion here? Dr. Heather Dann I mentioned earlier that protocol drift is really important. People get bored with routine tasks, and on our farm, that's feeding, that's bedding animals, that's milking them. And we can't forget to make sure that we're going back and reviewing and emphasizing the importance of those activities. But really, I think for me the big take home today is that there's a simple recipe to getting more milk fat and protein and that really comes down to carefully formulated rations along with great forage quality and feeding management and then making sure we have good top notch cow management with a real emphasis on those transition cows. […]

Timestamps & Summary Chris Gwyn ( 01:51 ) Dr. Slesser, you recently published a study titled Wisconsin Farmers Share Their Stressors and Mental Health Care Needs Through Focus Groups . I was wondering if you could share the reasoning behind conducting the studies. Dr. Heather Schlesser I think we all know that Covid was hard on everybody, whether you were on a farm or not on a farm. And one thing that we saw here in Wisconsin is that with COVID, we had an increased spike in the number of suicides that were happening on farms. The CDC has even shown that between 2000 and 2020, there was an increase in the rate of suicides in rural areas by 46%. […] And our study team wanted to know why were these farmers not seeking help. Why weren't they reaching out to medical providers and getting assistance for the stress that they were feeling? Chris Gwyn ( 02:55 ) So you took a focused group approach to the study and it’s be interesting to know what were the key findings in the study. Dr. Heather Schlesser Interestingly, one of the main things they said is that they didn't feel comfortable going to the providers because they didn't have a farming background. They didn't understand that farming isn't just a job for these people, it is a way of life. You know, farmers identify as farmers. That is their whole entire life. It's not just “I'm going to go to an 8 to 5 and come home and be something else”; they are farmers. […] The other thing that they said was a major stressor for them is, “We're already so busy on the farm doing that work that has to get done on a daily basis. We don't have this time to take off, to clean up, to drive into town, and to go see somebody that doesn't even understand what we're going through.” […] Another thing that came out that we saw is that there's still that stigma. “We can't go see a provider because then everybody else in town is going to see our truck in the parking lot, and they're going to know that we need help.” […] Chris Gwyn ( 04:58 ) So what have you seen work in order to lower some of these barriers and these stressors? Dr. Heather Schlesser I would say the biggest thing that has really helped has been due to Covid. We couldn't meet in person with COVID, so they started Telehealth. Telehealth has been a huge helper because there's no more getting changed. There's no more taking a shower. You can't tell if I smell. I might, but you can't. There's no truck in a parking lot that somebody is going to drive past and see. I don't then have to make a 20-minute commute into town and then a 20-minute commute back. So, Telehealth has really helped farmers because it allows them to get past a little bit of that barrier of time. […] Chris Gwyn ( 06:16 ) Can you expand a bit on the Telehealth program? Dr. Heather Schlesser Before COVID, it wasn't approved by a lot of insurance companies. In order to have a Telehealth visit, you had to go into the doctor's office in order to get insurance to cover that. So now, because it was allowed during COVID to do Telehealth visits, they have continued that, and they've continued them not only for mental health… […] Chris Gwyn ( 08:20 ) What are some of the key must-dos when it comes to transitioning farm business to another generation of owners? Dr. Heather Schlesser I would say that the biggest must-dos are that you need to develop a plan, then communicate that plan, implement the plan, and then evaluate if that plan is working. I think far too often we get hung up on transferring the cows, transferring the buildings, transferring the assets of that farm, and we forget that younger generations may not be doing all of the day-to-day, and they don't have the knowledge that it takes. […] It takes a lot of time. A lot of farms that I work with are like, “Okay, I'm getting out in two years.” And I'm like, “Did you start your plan five years ago?” […] Chris Gwyn ( 10:34 ) I'm wondering whether you've looked into whether there are observations that you can share about how stressors on families and employees and ownership impact overall cow health and productivity.

Timestamps & Summary Chris Gwyn ( 01:49 ) Docteure Duplessis, vous et vos collègues étudiez depuis de nombreuses années le rôle des vitamines B, en particulier celui de la vitamine B12 et de l’acide folique sur l'impact métabolique, productif et reproductif des vaches laitières. Avant de présenter vos dernières recherches, pourriez-vous résumer les découvertes à ce jour ? Dre Mélissa Duplessis J'ai commencé ma carrière en recherche il y a quinze ans. J'étais une étudiante à la maîtrise à cette époque dans le laboratoire de Christiane Girard à Agriculture et Agroalimentaire Canada. C'est vraiment elle la première qui a mis au défi le vieux dogme que la vache n'avait pas besoin d'apports extérieurs en vitamine B, parce que les microorganismes de son rumen produisent la vitamine B. […] Mon projet de maîtrise se concentrait sur quinze fermes laitières commerciales au Québec. On a donné des suppléments d'acide folique, qui est la vitamine B9 et la vitamine B12, chaque semaine. Puis moi, pendant quatorze mois, j'allais sur ces fermes-là à chaque deux semaines pour prendre des données. Et on s'est intéressé à la productivité de ces animaux-là autour du vêlage. […] Chris Gwyn ( 08:39 ) On va parler des études plus récentes. Vous avez partagé avec moi une étude plus récente où vous avez examiné l'impact de l'alimentation des génisses au pâturage ou dans une étable, ainsi que les différences en concentration d'acide folique et de vitamine B12. C'est intéressant. Pouvez-vous partager avec nous vos conclusions ? Dre Mélissa Duplessis Vous faites référence à mon étude en collaboration avec Mary Beth Hall, qui a récemment pris sa retraite de l'USDA. En fait, c'est une étude qui a été réalisée aux États-Unis sur des génisses qui avaient environ cinq mois. Donc il y avait la moitié qui était élevée au pâturage, avec un ajout de suppléments et de minéraux et vitamines, et l'autre partie des animaux était élevée dans l'étable et recevait une ration totale mélangée. C'est vraiment une étude préliminaire. Tout ce qu'on a fait, c'est qu’on a fait des prises de sang chez ces animaux-là, puis on a évalué la concentration plasmatique en acide folique, puis en vitamine B12. Donc ce qu'on a vu, c'est que pour les animaux au pâturage, l'acide folique était plus élevé que les animaux élevés à l'intérieur. Et en opposition, les animaux élevés au pâturage avaient une concentration en vitamine B12 plus basse que les animaux élevés à l'intérieur. […] Chris Gwyn ( 13:09 ) Je pense que les recherches précédentes auxquelles vous avez participé ont démontré la teneur élevée en vitamine B du colostrum. C'est correct ou non ? Dre Mélissa Duplessis En fait, il y a deux études qui ont été publiées, qu'on a faites dans notre laboratoire, et il y en a une qui est en cours, je dirais, et ce qu'on a vu dans la première étude, quand j'étais à Cornell, pendant mon doctorat, on a récolté du colostrum d'une étude qui comparait différentes rations, différents niveaux d'énergie de la ration après vêlage. […] Puis un autre projet qu'on a fait aussi, c'est lorsque la mère recevait des suppléments d'acide folique, vitamine B12 et biotine en prévêlage. On a récolté le colostrum de ces vaches-là et on a pu constater, sans aucun doute, que oui, la supplémentation en ces vitamines-là augmente ou améliore la qualité du colostrum. […] Chris Gwyn ( 19:42 ) Selon les recherches disponibles, quels sont les rôles des méthyles ou des vitamines B dans le rendement ou la qualité du colostrum ? Dre Mélissa Duplessis C'est une bonne question. Je pourrais mentionner que dans l'étude dont je vous ai parlé sur le volume de colostrum, et sa qualité, on va s'intéresser aussi aux vitamines B dans ce projet-là, mais on attend les analyses. Donc, je ne peux pas tout à fait répondre encore à la question, mais ça s'en vient. Ce que je peux dire, c'est qu’on a regardé la vitamine B12 dans ce projet-là. Les résultats sont déjà analysés. Ce qu'on a vu, c'est un petit peu comme dans le même sens que je disais tout à l'heure pour la vitamine B12, c'est que lorsqu'on augmente la fibre de la ration, ça augmente aussi la concentration de B12 dans le colostrum, ce qui vient un petit peu en contradiction avec ce que j'ai dit tout à l'heure à propos du volume de colostrum, c'est carrément le contraire que je vous ai dit. Donc c'est ça qu'on est dans le biologique. Comment fait-on pour optimiser le colostrum sans nuire à une autre composante aussi ? […] Chris Gwyn ( 21:48 ) Est-ce qu'il y a d’autres points clés que vous voudriez partager avec les nutritionnistes, les producteurs qui écoutent RumiNation ? Dre Mélissa Duplessis Je crois que j'ai dit beaucoup d'informations. C'est certain que je n'ai pas discuté de tous mes projets. En résumé, ce que je peux dire, c'est que récemment, une des hypothèses que j'ai, c'est que tout événement stressant chez l'animal, surtout lorsque la vache produit beaucoup de lait, par exemple, ça peut être un stress de chaleur ou toute transition qui est un stress peut avoir un impact sur le statut en vitamine B de ces animaux-là. Mais à savoir si ça a un impact biologique, métabolique, ce sont des questions qu’il me reste éclaircir. J'ai beaucoup de questions en suspens, finalement. Mais ce que ça suggère, c'est que tout stress chez l'animal peut avoir un impact sur les vitamines B et que peut-être l'animal aurait avantage à recevoir un supplément ou un apport extérieur.

Timestamps & Summary Chris Gwyn ( 01:50 ) I was wondering if you could summarize for the audience what has been discovered to date about B vitamin nutrition in dairy cows, in particular B12 and folic acid. Dr. Melissa Duplessis I started my career in research 15 years ago. I was a master's student at that time in Christiane Girard’s lab at Agriculture and Agri Food Canada. And she was the first to challenge the well-established dogma that dairy cows do not need an exogenous supply of B vitamins because their ruminal bugs are producing the B vitamins. But now, as you know, dairy cows are producing more and more milk, especially during the early lactation. We can wonder if it is still true that they don't need supplementation in B vitamins. That's why my master’s project was conducted. […] Chris Gwyn ( 10:19 ) I wanted to talk about some of the more recent research that you shared because it helps one to think about what some of the other needs are and future research. And in particular you shared a study about the impact of pasture or housed fed heifers fed at TMR. I'm assuming in the housing and the difference in folate and B12 concentrations and wondering if you could share those findings and how that might impact at the farm level. Dr. Melissa Duplessis I think you are referring to my recent collaboration with Mary Beth Hall, who recently retired from the USDA. This study was conducted in the US with heifers at 5 months of age. And half of the heifers were raised on pasture receiving grains, vitamins, and mineral supplements, and the other half were in the barn receiving TMR (total mixed ration). And this is a preliminary study. We obtained blood samples from those heifers, and we analyzed folic acid and vitamin B12. And we obtained that heifers raised on pasture had a higher plasma folate, and the opposite was observed for vitamin B12. So, heifers raised on pasture had lower vitamin B12 concentration. […] We did not record dry matter intake, but we also observed that there is a link with dry matter intake, and the ruminal synthesis of B vitamins could also be an explanation. And so, as I mentioned, it's a preliminary study. So, when we conduct a study, sometimes we have 10 other questions raised by that study. So it's normal, [it's the nature of the work we do]. Chris Gwyn ( 14:04 ) I know recently you did also some work where you looked at pre calving nutrition and the impact of colostrum quality and yield and wondering if you can maybe touch base on that one. What does B vitamin levels look like in colostrum? Dr. Melissa Duplessis We conducted two studies with colostrum that have already been published. The first one was during my PhD thesis at Cornell University. So we collected colostrum samples from a project evaluating the impact of different levels of energy during the pre-calving period. And we observed that the impact on colostrum was that cows fed controlled energy prepartum had higher B vitamin concentration in colostrum. And when looking at the rations, we observed that the controlled energy had the highest NDF or fiber concentration. […] Interestingly, we also observed that calves born to mothers receiving folic acid and vitamin B12 were heavier one day after birth. One hypothesis is that epigenetics, which includes folic acid and vitamin B12, has a link to epigenetics. So, it could be an explanation. So, it's a recent study that has not yet been published. We conducted it in 51 dairy herds, and we collected pre-calving rations served to cows in these herds. And we also collected colostrum from over 300 dairy cows. With our fancy statistical models, we evaluated the link between the prepartum diet and the impact of colostrum quality. […] Chris Gwyn ( 19:26 ) But certainly as you point out in your study, the effect on fiber and energy level again continuing having on the quantity and quality of colostrum is something that when struggling with those things producers should be discussing with their nutritionist. Dr. Melissa Duplessis Yes. And if you are interested with our ranges, for example, like if you want to know the dairy ration of our herds, you can contact me, I would be more than happy to help in that regard. Chris Gwyn ( 22:44 ) What are some of the key points in your most recent research that you'd like to share with the audience? Dr. Melissa Duplessis I would like to say that from other studies I conducted, stressful events for the animals, for the cows or for the calves can modify or make a change in the B vitamin status of the cow. For example, a stressful event can be the calving, but it can also be heat stress or it can be weaning for the calf, or something like that. So, future research needs to be conducted to answer whether there is a practical implication of the change. Would animals benefit from supplementation? It's all good questions to be answered, hopefully in the future.

Timestamps & Summary Chris Gwyn ( 02:35 ) Dr. Devries, your lab has been extensively and intensively looking at cow management and nutrition factors and their associations and correlations with early lactation outcomes. Why don’t you give us an overview of this most recent study design. Dr. Trevor DeVries Yes, this is a large study that we recently undertook with a large cohort of dairy farms in southwestern Ontario. […] Not specifically looking at milking system effects, but looking at the management of those cows during the dry period, their nutritional management during that time period, and looking at not only how it impacted the cows during that time period, but also those cows as they transitioned after calving, and looked at the fresh cow success of the cows on those farms and correlating that back to differences in management, differences in environmental conditions, and particularly things like heat stress. Chris Gwyn ( 05:22 ) One of the factors that came out is that you and your team demonstrated pretty large variation and differences between formulated diet and the diet that was fed at the farm level. And I was wondering if you could dig down a little deeper into that and share some of the other key findings and information from this study. Dr. Trevor DeVries One of the factors that we were interested in from a stress standpoint was dietary and looking at differences in diets. And then, one of the key things that we were really interested in was how closely those diets matched what was formulated for those farms, as well as how much variation we saw within a farm over time in terms of the diets that were delivered to the cows. […] Chris Gwyn ( 12:08 ) In the study, your lab looked at heat stress impacts on the cow and its relation to markers of stress associated with changes in physiology and metabolism. I'm wondering if you could share a bit more details with the audience and what you can conclude from the findings in the study. Dr. Trevor DeVries We knew that one of the primary factors that we were hoping to key in on was that heat stress. And so that was in itself measured through doing cow-level observation, continuous observation over time. We had records of temperature and humidity, so we could calculate THI within the close-up pens and fresh cow pens on these farms. […] We could look at how much heat load those cows were incurring. But then we wanted to be able to link that to the cows themselves and what they were experiencing. And one of the measures, which was quite interesting, was looking at the eye temperature of the cows as a new way of looking at how much heat load those cows have. […] Chris Gwyn ( 22:13 ) Speaking of energy balance, [it looks as if] heat stress had an impact on glucose production. Is that something that you can comment on, as well as findings that you found from your paper? Dr. Trevor DeVries We didn't look directly at glucose ourselves, but definitely from other work that's been done by other research groups, we know […] there's a huge potential draw, or not even potential draw, there is a huge draw of glucose when that cow calves and she starts lactating and blood glucose levels drop on a fresh cow versus a dry cow. Because again, the amount of glucose getting taken out of the system for making lactose and making milk, there's a huge demand there. And so that drive to produce milk, and then the need for lactose trickles down to a need for glucose. And one of the challenges is that when there are things like heat stress going on, we tend to see not only things that may reduce intake in cows, that may lead to less kind of substrate availability for producing energy and glucose, but also inflammation in the gut, and things like that can cause leaky gut […] Chris Gwyn ( 24:26 ) Is there anything else that you wanted to add in that field of stressors and this study that you wanted to elucidate or impact for the audience? Dr. Trevor DeVries We talked about some of the primary stressors that we were really interested in, at least in this research, around heat stress, some of the management-related things, grouping of cows, and movement of cows. One of the things that we haven't gone too deep into with this data set, but we know from other work, is the crowding of cows and competition of cows that can also lead to stress and more negative outcomes. And again, we know that anytime that we overcrowd cows, whether it be at the feed bunk, whether it be at the lying area, whether it's a stall or a pack, or even the water trough, we're going to see a negative impact on the behavior of the cows, which can then result in negative outcomes. […] Chris Gwyn ( 28:21 ) Before we wrap up, given what you and your team has been discovering in this research, recommendations that you would like to reinforce for dairy producers, nutritionists, veterinarians and other advisors. Dr. Trevor DeVries We talked about the variation in controlling variability and being consistent. Consistency is huge. And so again, one of the first things from a management standpoint, is to make sure we're consistent. And like we mentioned before, if things are consistent and still not working the way we want things to be working, then we start evaluating those, those protocols, and those systems that we have in place. […] Chris Gwyn ( 30:15 ) What's next in your research, Dr. DeVries? Dr. Trevor DeVries This is an area that we continue to work on, this area of management of transition cows. I'm very interested in the other transition that we talked about with cows, and that's from lactation to the dry period. And again, there is a lot of focus on the transition from the dry period to calving. But we also note that there are potential challenges associated with drying off cows that are heavy in lactation, not only from an immediate welfare standpoint, and again, some older research on the effects on those cows from a pain standpoint, even, with utter engorgement, utter health, is also very challenging. But then those two factors actually influence inflammation in those cows. […] And so that's kind of an exciting area that there are others working on and we're going to be looking at as well, hopefully in the near future.

Timestamps & Summary Chris Gwyn (03:02) What is important for producers and nutritionists to consider when optimizing stock and density in their dairies? Dr. Rick Grant (03:10) Well, that's the big question, isn't it? And there are at least two or three main factors that we can get into today. One would be just, I had an aha moment a few years ago when a grad student and I realized that we need to think about overcrowding as a subclinical stressor. That allows us to think about how the same level of stocking density of stalls or feed bunk doesn't affect every herd the same way because the point at which a subclinical stressor affects a cow within a herd really is a function of the quality of the management on that dairy as well as the quality of the facilities. […] The other thing, I would say is, we know this, but we don't think about it enough. When we say stocking density, we count stalls, we count cows, or we count headlocks, we count cows. But we need to always step back and think within a pen, what is the experienced stocking density from an individual cow's perspective? […] I think that's something we need to think more about in terms of managing a given stocking density on a specific farm, the cow's perspective. […] We did a study where we found that cows tend to prefer the stalls nearest the pen exit, particularly lame cows. And doesn't that make sense? If you're a lame cow and walking is a bit challenging for you, you may have 50 stalls to choose from, but you choose the ones that are closest to the exit or the entrance. That tells me right there that a simple mathematical calculation of stocking density would fail those moderately lame cows because they don't have 50 stalls available to them. They might only have 10 or 12 if you allow them to express their natural desired resting behavior. That's something we need to wrestle with in the industry. Chris Gwyn (07:13) What are some of the key metrics or cow observations that we should follow in order to ensure that what we use on the farm, as far as stocking density, helps us to maximize that component yield or profitability? Dr. Rick Grant (07:30) Well, certainly, the things that we normally measure, like milk yield, intake, repro health, all of those things can give us clues in terms of how well the cows in that pen are dealing with the day-over-day chronic subclinical stress of the overcrowding. […] But at some point, every herd will have a problem with additional stressors. And how many stressors are there on a typical farm? The list is long. You might say time outside the pen is too long. Are all the stalls comfortable? Is feed available 24/7? All these things are critical factors that can snowball or add to the negative consequences of some subclinical degree of overcrowding. […] Chris Gwyn (10:05) What are the essential factors in managing these cow pens if we're managing to a higher level of stocking density? Dr. Rick Grant (10:12) We did some work a number of years ago. We looked at almost 80 farms in New York and Vermont, and it was all breeds. Jersey and Holstein breeds, tie stalls, free stalls, and some robotic herds. The things that rose to the top in terms of essential factors […] is that they don't go as high in bunk stocking density. They just don't push the system as hard. That's simple to say, but that was the biggest factor. In fact, we looked at all the variations in terms of milk fat and protein across these 69 herds; 65 % of the variation in component output was due just to bunk stocking density, not necessarily nutrition. […] Chris Gwyn (12:58) What are the key takeaways that you would share with the audience: nutritionists, veterinarians, and primary producers? If they're going to manage through stocking density, what do they need to really pay attention to? Dr. Rick Grant (13:12) I think the best answer for that hit me a few years ago. I was reading this paper on robotic milking systems and automated milking systems. It was over 120 farms. […] What struck me is the factors on the farm that contributed to the best milk yield, and the best lameness outcomes were the exact same list of factors that we've seen with free stall barns and probably even tie stall barns to a certain extent. But it's feed push ups and deep-bedded sand in these 120 farms. Those two factors, feed availability, comfortable stalls, and deep-bedded sand, resulted in 4 to 5 pounds, at least more milk production on average. The other thing about lameness […] is the same as the free stall herds: greater bunk space, feeding frequency, and deep-bedded stalls. You sound like a broken record, but those factors rise to the top in every study that I'm aware of. […] At the end of the day, if you can get that done, you're going to have a good balance in your herd between eating time, and eating behavior, and you're going to have that recumbent rumination, that lying down rumination that we think is so critical to cow health and performance.

Chapitrage et résumé Vicky Brisson ( 01:54 ) Tout récemment, Jefo a fêté son 40ᵉ anniversaire. Pouvez-vous nous raconter les débuts de Jefo ? Jean Fontaine Ça prend un petit peu de temps à expliquer tout ça, mais les débuts étaient très modestes. J'ai commencé à 25 ans avec le choix de faire faillite ou de commencer à faire de l'argent. Dans le domaine des luminaires, c'était le bicarbonate de soude qui était granulaire contre les Américains qui avaient le monopole du marché. Donc on a commencé modestement dans une maison avec un appartement qu'on a modifié avec des bureaux. Aujourd'hui, on a le campus Jefo à Saint-Hyacinthe et c'est un centre d'information. Jefo a commencé au Québec, ensuite en Ontario, après le reste du Canada et le marché mondial. Le petit pas, c'était la bonne technologie pour grandir sans s'enfarger. […] Vicky Brisson ( 03:06 ) La culture de Jefo est centrée sur «Life made easier» ou «La vie ne plus facile». Qu'est-ce qui a inspiré cette mission et est-ce que vous pouvez nous donner quelques exemples de la manière dont vous et vos employés incarnez cette déclaration ? Jean Fontaine La vie est plus facile, ça résumait l'approvisionnement plus facile avec différents fournisseurs. L'entreposage pour les produits, on dit en anglais «Just in time», l'approvisionnement spontané; il y a tout chez nous. Et, avec la recherche, on rend la vie plus facile aux chercheurs parce qu'on a rassemblé plusieurs marchés différents avec le même objectif de faire plus avec moins. Donc, ça a été ça qui fait le slogan «La vie en plus facile» la première fois et depuis tout le monde accepte que c'est vraiment ce qu'on fait. Vicky Brisson (4:31) Avec l’arrivée de l’intelligence artificielle, quels sont les principaux défis que les producteurs devront relever ? À votre avis, quelles seront les principales caractéristiques de ceux qui vont réussir à s'adapter ? Jean Fontaine S'adapter. S'adapter au changement. Vous savez que la plus grande crainte des gens c’est de changer. Donc, l'agriculteur et l’agricultrice vont apprendre à mieux mesurer ce qu'ils font. Avoir accès à leurs données, que ce soit la température, la qualité des fourrages, tout ça grâce au système d’intelligence artificielle. Ils vont être capables d'avoir une plus grande précision. Et quand on peut mesurer ce qu'on fait, on peut l'améliorer. Sans mesure, c'est très difficile de s'améliorer. Donc, c'est une voie que personne ne peut éviter. […] Vicky Brisson ( 05:36 ) Depuis plus de 20 ans, vous apportez des innovations à l'industrie de l'alimentation animale avec la technologie Jefo Matrix. Est-ce que vous pouvez nous expliquer pourquoi c'est important de micro-encapsuler les nutriments ? Jean Fontaine C'est un concept. Si on se rapporte au tout début, quand j'ai commencé en 88 à vendre des acides organiques enrobés pour compétitionner les facteurs de croissance chez le porc, on s'est moqué de moi. Aujourd'hui, le monde des médicaments a beaucoup baissé. Les additifs alimentaires qu'on donne chaque jour pour moduler la flore intestinale […] sont de moins en moins à la mode, puis même à certains endroits, ils sont bannis. Avec la technologie de matrice que nous avons, on prévient le bris de nos molécules, de nos nutriments avant d'arriver à l'intestin où ils sont absorbés […]. Sauf que nous avons découvert qu'en enrobant avec des matières grasses 100 % végétales, on vient qu'on traverse le rumen à 85 % et on relâche lentement avec la lipase qui brise le gras les nutriments qui sont bénéfiques pour la vache laitière ou le bœuf. Dans la volaille, la même chose s'applique. On va résister au PH acide, au phytate, au calcium, au soufre qui vont venir lier les différents nutriments et les rendre indigestes à l'intestin. […] Vicky Brisson ( 09:27 ) Vous observez depuis plus de 20 ans l'impact de la nutrition de précision sur les animaux. Est-ce que vous pouvez résumer pour nos auditeurs quelles sont les principales observations que vous avez pour ces animaux ? Jean Fontaine Première chose qu'on peut voir, c'est l'efficacité digestive. […] La principale raison pour laquelle nos jeunes hommes et jeunes femmes quittent les fermes, ce sont les problèmes liés au vêlage. Donc, quand une vache va vêler, les gens préviennent avec différents traitements qu'ils ont appris à faire parce qu'il n'y avait pas la technologie que nous avons aujourd'hui. […] Avec notre approche de précision intestinale, on livre ça tout ensemble ces fameux coenzymes, ces cofacteurs d'enzymes et les oligo-éléments. […] Vicky Brisson ( 11:15 ) En tant que visionnaire dans ce domaine, quelle est, selon vous, votre contribution au monde des vaches laitières ? Jean Fontaine Si on réussit à améliorer le vêlage et à avoir une vache qui va pouvoir faire plusieurs lactations consécutives parce qu'elle a une meilleure santé générale causée par cette nutrition de précision. Je pense que nos éleveurs gagnent beaucoup. […] Vicky Brisson ( 12:23 ) Vous avez créé avec succès une entreprise familiale. Pourriez-vous nous expliquer comment vous avez favorisé la collaboration et l'harmonie entre les membres de la famille tout en bâtissant une entreprise prospère ? Jean Fontaine Ça c'est une bonne question. Parce que pourquoi les enfants s'intéressent à ce que j'ai construit ? C'est qu'ils ont compris que j'avais du plaisir à faire ce que je fais. On peut guider les gens par l'exemple. Les enfants ont vu que j'avais du plaisir à recevoir des gens, à visiter des gens, se créer un réseau d'amitié à travers le monde. Parce qu'on a l'avantage dans notre industrie de vendre ou de fournir des produits et des conseils toutes les semaines, tous les mois. Nous, dans notre industrie, on établit la proximité. Chez Jefo, on aime recevoir les gens. Ici, au campus et même chez moi, on a développé cette amitié de proximité avec les clients, les fournisseurs. C'est important. Si tu n’as rien à vendre, tu n'as pas de produit à vendre, ce n’est pas bon. D'avoir des fournisseurs, mais pas de clients, c'est pareil. Donc, tout est relié ensemble. Mais je crois que mes trois enfants, Émilie, Jean-François et Anthony ont su apprécier ceci de mes 40 ans de vie d'affaires. Et aujourd'hui, ils vont prendre le relais. […] Vicky Brisson ( 18:07 ) Pour conclure, pouvez-vous nous faire part du message que vous souhaitez transmettre à la prochaine génération d'entrepreneurs de l'industrie ? Jean Fontaine La plus belle chose que je peux leur suggérer, c'est de ne pas avoir peur du changement. […] Le changement qui s'en vient va être impressionnant. Certaines personnes ont peur du mot : intelligence artificielle. Elle est là pour nous aider. Il faut accepter le changement et oser. […] Moi je vous dis que la vie est pleine de belles choses. Il faut s'amuser à la désirer.

Timestamps & Summary Chris Gwyn ( 02:05 ) JEFO recently celebrated its 40th anniversary. Can you share with us and with the audience the story of how JEFO started? Jean Fontaine JEFO started very modestly. I was out of school, 25 years old, and I had a choice to declare bankruptcy or try something. And I had a vision to offer our industry different source of material, to be more competitive. And it started like that. The snowball effect started gradually with one or two products, then the other ones were added altogether. So, simple start, amazing development. Chris Gwyn ( 02:49 ) This started and centered our culture of “Life, made easier”. Can you share with us what inspired this mission and give a few examples of how you and your employees embody this statement? Jean Fontaine After meeting with some experts who guided us about establishing our motto “Life, made easier”, we realized that we make life easier for the buyer, and their supply chain, with our quite fair size inventory warehouses. Life made easier by sourcing with our expertise, we know what is a product that fits. And, with the efficacy. Then, life made easier for the truckers. We have a nice system of logistics, able to make quality pallets the way we ship our products. So, it's life made easier for everybody in the chain of activity. […] Chris Gwyn ( 04:44 ) We've seen over the last few years the idea of artificial intelligence gaining interest across the world as the livestock industry keeps evolving rapidly. In your thoughts, what are the main producer challenges and market changes that you foresee and what will be the key attributes of those who successfully adapt to these changes? Jean Fontaine Farmers need to get access to their numbers and to have them handy to be able to know what's going on rapidly and correct the situation. Before AI, it was not easy to take a note and then put all these things together. Today, there are more and more tools to do that. Some companies offer on-site, cameras, and sensors that can feel the water flow, the temperature, the ammonia level, and the behavior of animals. So, all this will bring precision and the farmers will know what's going on. And sometimes we don't realize they have a hell of a challenge in their life. Many factors must be controlled. So, to do that, AI will bring us tremendous capacity. And then you have to adapt to change. The future with AI will change the planet. […] So, there's no reason that people can object to this change of knowledge. IPhones have been around for 15 years. Can you imagine your life without an iPhone today? Try to figure out your life today with no portable phone and then no smartphone. We can talk to the vets before they get there. They can have an edge about what is going on. Chris Gwyn ( 07:30 ) I know for over 20 years, Jefo Nutrition has brought innovations to the livestock and poultry feed industry with this Jefo Matrix Technology. Why is it important to microencapsulate nutrients like coenzymes in animal nutrition? Jean Fontaine It was believed that the rumen of the cow would do everything for the cow. Initially, we discussed having some AD plus B vitamins be protected to escape the rumen. Maybe you leave like 10 or 15 percent in the rumen to nourish the bugs and to go bypass. […] Today, we have discovered that very small quantities bypassing the rumen make a tremendous impact. From the expertise in ruminants, we went back to poultry and swine, and we discovered an amazing approach. And the concept for us is to prevent feeding the pathogens in the intestine of the cow, of the pig, of the poultry. And we have developed data on that aspect that is intriguing to a lot of people. Now we have the capacity to go after the rumen and after the stomach in monogastric. […] Chris Gwyn ( 10:44 ) Can you explain how we do that within the Jefo Matrix Technology? Jean Fontaine Our technology uses vegetables, 100% vegetable carrier, fats, which have high melting points. We have some specific formulations of carrier with fatty acids and triglycerides, that will allow it to be released in the small intestine. We know how to slow the lipase to have a delivery further down in the intestine. This is why we're gaining so much momentum with the customers. Chris Gwyn ( 15:08 ) Often in meeting with clients, they express to me the admiration they have for the entrepreneurship and the visionary aspect that they see in you. In this area of a visionary in the field, what do you feel is your contribution to the world of dairy cows? Jean Fontaine The contribution is to bring precision to the intestine of the cow for nutrition. People have injected vitamins. People have done a lot of drenching the cows. It was all behaviors to compensate for the problem they have at calving. Our technology, to protect against rumen degradation, has allowed us to give them a solution which is much less demanding on staff. The first reason people will leave the farm, the young guys, is the problem of calving their cows. They never quit because they drive the tractor. They never quit because they pass the broom. They hate to grab the cow and drench her and all the other precautions because of calving issues. When the placenta doesn’t get out, they hate the smell of the barn and the cows suffer. If the placenta gets out with the calf a couple of hours later, as they do with our solution, we make their life easier. It's another phrase that fits. It's life made easier for calving problems. Our contribution is to give maybe more fun to the farmers solving their main problem of calving. Chris Gwyn ( 17:02 ) Could you share the key factors or strategies that contribute to the seamless integration of the family dynamics into a business and how you've worked to foster collaboration and harmony among family members while building this thriving business which is Jefo? Jean Fontaine I was so surprised to learn that 85% of companies die with their president. I was not conscious of that. Today, I'm lucky, out of seven kids, I have three who are old enough to be involved with us. Émilie, Jean Francois, and Anthony. I think I transmitted to them the passion for what I do. I retired 42 years ago. Now I play the role of the president of the company. I play the judge’s role; I play the father’s role. I am still an actor, but I play roles. Today, the kids realize it's valuable. People respect and appreciate if you give your time for a purpose. To define the purpose of life, it's a challenge. The first time I was asked the purpose of my life; I jammed the question. So, we have to find out our purpose in life and share that fun of helping others. If you are useful, you have a future. I teach my kids to be useful, to be passionate, to love people, to accept also to be their friends. So, I teach them: The more you give, the more you get; the more you give time, attention, help, and love, and you can talk about money as well. Whatever we can do for others won't come back to us at a high speed. So today, for me, it's a very big emotion to know that when I leave, people will do that. Success, if it's only one life, is not success. Success is measured in time. So, I have many chances to be successful. Chris Gwyn ( 19:09 ) Could you share insights into how you strategically built and nurtured your professional network or circle of people who influenced you, advised you, and networked with you and what key principles or practices you believe contributed to the growth and sustainability of Jefo? Jean Fontaine It may sound easy to say, but we have the privilege to be in an industry where we have to be friends for a long time. If you sell me a house, I'll buy my next one maybe 20 years from now. It won't happen every month. In animal feed, we have to fill the pipe. So we need to talk to each other on a regular basis, weekly, monthly, quarterly. So we have a business of developing proximity and friendship. If you have proximity to people, you learn about their problems, their issues, and their challenges. Can we help them? Sometimes, yes, we can. This is making a rich relationship with the customer. And if the customer is happy, you have a good business. It's a fruitful business and it can be contagious. They're going to talk to others. I teach my staff to be lazy and I'll define laziness: Do it right and make people talk about you. Your reputation will be your best future. You have to be useful to somebody. If you're not useful, you're going to be out with the game. Chris Gwyn ( 20:48 ) As we conclude, maybe a message that you can pass on to the next generation of entrepreneurs in the livestock and poultry feed industry. What would you share with them? Jean Fontaine Don't believe the past will be the future. Whatever happened in the past without AI, without all these technologies, would not necessarily be proof for the future. We have to change. The world we are addressing is something invisible. So, we have to be open, and love change instead of avoiding it. Please be all excited by the change for the best. We are living in the best time for the human race. […] We have to be hungry for change and not fear to adapt and progress together. And this is needed for everybody together. Not one guy, one company, one team. Everybody should be in the same kind of thinking pattern.

Timestamps & Summary Chris Gwyn ( 02:11 ) I'd like to know a little more about why you became interested in researching ideal topic density. Dr. Albert De Vries I actually had an intern student from the Netherlands, and that student was very interested in welfare. And I said: If we just do welfare in the US, maybe that's not of primary interest to producers, although I understand our producers are all interested in welfare aspects as well. But I'd like to put dollars into whatever we do with cows. And so we did a little digging and came up on the topic of stocking density, the economics of stocking density. It's really a fascinating topic because there are some welfare implications but there are clearly also economic implications. […] Chris Gwyn ( 03:23 ) What are the key influencers of the economic return when you're evaluating where a farm is evaluating its optimal stocking density? Dr. Albert De Vries I think we should start by defining, what we mean by stocking density. Different metrics of that. We're not talking about dry lots here. We're talking about free stalls. We were also not interested in fresh cows or dry cows, which I think all experts agree should not be overstocked. We're looking at lactating cows. And we also did not think that feed bunk space was a limiting factor. So, in our research, we really looked at the number of cows over the number of stalls in a pen. And if that is 100%, then you have one stall per cow. And if it's like 120%, you have 120 cows for 100 stalls. So that is where we sort of limited our research to. And secondly, I think it's important to get the economic principle right. What are we trying to optimize here when we're talking about economics? […] Chris Gwyn ( 11:20 ) In that study, you looked at milk production. Did you look at component yield? Dr. Albert De Vries I think we looked at component yield, but I don't remember seeing anything necessarily, because, of course, we get paid for components. I don't think it was very clear that either fat or protein, for example, was reduced by overstocking. Chris Gwyn ( 14:10 ) If there are some other issues that you wanted […] to highlight, we can do that. Dr. Albert De Vries I haven't really said much about welfare yet. I mean, the student I work with was really interested in that, and I think it needs to be on our minds, too. So, if we say we just want to take care of the cow, we probably don't want to overstock. Cows are probably compromising welfare, perhaps a tiny bit only if we start to overstock, and more when we overstock more. So, we don't know how to square that with profitability. But obviously, that needs to be in our mind as well. […] Chris Gwyn ( 16:34 ) Can I ask you a further question about that? Because I'm not an economist, but where does cash flow come in if a farm needs to increase cash flow? Does that kind of counter go against optimal stocking density in low milk pricing? Dr. Albert De Vries I think you're on the right track there because we assume our fixed costs are independent of the number of cows. So, we would add cows to it up to the point of maximum optimal stocking density, which implies that, for that pen, the highest cash flow. And so, with low milk prices, we reduce cow numbers, because if we don't, our cash flow is going to be even less. So, cash flows, in this analysis, and this is obviously what I call a steady state; we sort of permanently are at a high or a low level of stocking density, but it's the same thing. So, the question becomes practically different: Well, my milk prices change, and I may or may not have the cows. What is the long-term response to stocking density? Those are harder to answer because, again, we don't know the long-term response to stocking density per se, but essentially, when we optimize our stocking density, we're optimizing the cash flow, the amount of cash made there for that pen on that day over time. Chris Gwyn ( 20:40 ) As we wind up, I always like to ask, what are some of the key take-home points for producers and nutritionists and lenders, in fact, and veterinarians, when considering evaluating the impact of a stocking density on the farms they work with, what would you recommend they look at? Dr. Albert De Vries If I put on my economics glasses, if you will, then I think overstocking a pace. And like last year in the US, we had actually good milk prices. […] At the same time, we learned through the research that it sort of is farm-dependent in terms of prices and what are the losses that you observe. And so we have a spreadsheet available for listeners that they can work with, and play with. Probably the easiest way to get there. If you go to Google and you look for “dairy stocking density calculator Florida”, I think we end up number one on the Google search list there. And there's an EDI extension publication there. And that publication lays out what the research was about, hopefully in not too scientific terms. And there's a link to a calculator we used as well that we made available for folks to play with. […]