Real Science Exchange-Dairy

This episode was recorded in Reno, Nevada, during the 2025 Western Dairy Management Conference.  Dr. Hemme begins with a demonstration of three different-sized glasses of milk representing the daily average dairy consumption in China, Europe, and the world as a whole. He explains that when you make predictions, it’s good to identify the two main drivers of uncertainty in your industry. In the case...

Dr. Nicholson details the high points of his presentation, including a milk price outlook, implications of changes to milk and milk component pricing that will take place in June, and changes in butterfat value over time. As a result of the pricing changes, milk component values are expected to decrease. (3:15) Net impacts on milk prices for a dairy will depend mostly on where they’re located, but...

This episode was recorded at the 2025 Petfood Forum in Kansas City, Missouri. In 2020, the Institute for Feed Education and Research (IFEEDER), American Feed Industry Association (AFIA), North American Renderers Association (NARA) and Pet Food Institute (PFI) collaborated to publish the Pet Food Consumption Report. The organizations collaborated again to publish a second edition in 2025, which Lar...

This episode was recorded in Reno, Nevada, during the 2025 Western Dairy Management Conference.  The panel discusses their individual experiences with outbreaks in different states. Beth talks about her group’s microbial surveillance technology they used to compare rectal swabs from positive and non-positive herds. They noted elevations in specific virulent E. coli, Salmonella spp., and Clostridiu...

This episode was recorded in Fort Wayne, Indiana, during the 2025 Tri-State Dairy Conference.  Dr. Laporta gives an overview of her presentation, focusing on the impact of heat stress during the dry period on the cow, her daughters and her granddaughters. She covers heat stress impacts on mammary gland involution, as well as fetal programming effects on the daughter and granddaughter. (3:37) Daugh...

This episode was recorded in Fort Wayne, Indiana, during the 2025 Tri-State Dairy Conference.  Dr. Grant gives an overview of his presentation at the conference, highlighting cow time budgets and the importance of natural cow behavior to health, welfare and productivity. The impacts of overcrowding, including rumen pH and de novo fatty acid synthesis, are a key component of his message. (7:07) Eat...

This episode was recorded in Reno, Nevada, during the 2025 Western Dairy Management Conference. The panel is reviewing a presentation given by Dr. Rick Grant, who was unable to be on the podcast.  The presentation was based on the idea that crowding is a subclinical presence. If you manage it with people and resources, a dairy can do very well. But if something happens in that crowded situation, l...

This episode was recorded in Reno, Nevada for the 2025 Western Dairy Management Conference.  Dr. Shabtai gives an overview of her presentation. Afimilk has a new technology that includes a feed efficiency sensor to determine eating, rumination, heat stress monitoring and more. The Feed Efficiency Service combined with the AfiCollar can estimate dry matter intake, which, when combined with Afimilk’...

This episode was recorded at the 2025 Western Dairy Management Conference in Reno, Nevada.  Dr. Sabine Mann, Cornell University; Dr. Will Mustas, Progressive Dairy Solutions; Dr. Don Niles, Dairy Dreams LLC; and Joey Airosa, Airosa Dairy Farms, introduce themselves. (0:48) Dr. Mann outlines the high points of her presentation. Giving an adequate amount of high-quality colostrum quickly after birth...

This episode was recorded at the 2025 Western Dairy Management Conference in Reno, Nevada.  Gregg Doud, National Milk Producers Federation, begins with an overview of his talk regarding recent and ongoing investments in the dairy industry. Dan Siemers, Siemers Holsteins, notes they were able to build a new dairy and find a new milk market because Agropur built a new plant in their area. Corey Geig...

This episode was recorded at the 2025 Florida Ruminant Nutrition Symposium. Panelists Dr. John Goeser or Rock River Laboratory, Inc.; Dr. Bob Kozlowski, PAS of Dairy NExT, LLC and Dr. Tom Overton of Cornell University introduce themselves and give an overview of their backgrounds. (0:10) Dr. Goeser begins with three different ways to define forage quality: energetic potential, particle size as an...

Dr. Drackley begins with an overview of his presentation at the 2025 Florida Ruminant Nutrition Symposium, focusing on the NASEM requirements for pre-weaned calves. He mentions some differences in energy and protein requirement calculations compared to the NRC system, as well as increased vitamin E recommendations and a more biologically based factorial approach to calculating mineral requirements...

Dr. Hansen’s lab conducted several in vitro experiments where choline chloride was supplemented to beef embryo culture media for the first seven days of embryonic development. Calves resulting from the choline-supplemented embryos were consistently 17-20 kilograms heavier at weaning. In the feeding experiment presented at the Florida Ruminant Nutrition Symposium, Dr. Sagheer fed rumen-protected ch...

This episode was recorded at the 2025 Florida Ruminant Nutrition Symposium.  Dr. DeVries’ research focuses on farm-level decisions and modeling. The University of Florida dairy has implemented the use of beef semen. Dr. DeVries describes some of the factors that go into a partial budget for this system as well as details some of the factors involved in implementing beef on dairy. The UF dairy geno...

This episode was recorded at the 2025 Florida Ruminant Nutrition Symposium. Dr. Johnson and Dr. Felix begin with brief descriptions of their background. (1:26) Dr. Johnson’s presentation at the symposium focuses on beef quality aspects of using beef sires on dairy cows. Using the same Angus semen, his research model compared Angus-sired beef calves raised in a conventional cow-calf system, Angus x...

This episode was recorded at the 2025 Florida Ruminant Nutrition Symposium. Dr. Felix and Dr. Johnson begin with brief descriptions of their background and interest in beef on dairy research. (3:15) Dr. Felix’s first study in this area compared dairy calves with beef on dairy calves of unknown origin. They were placed in the feedlot and fed and implanted the same. Beef on dairy calves grew faster,...

This Real Science Exchange podcast episode was recorded during a webinar from Balchem’s Real Science Lecture Series. You can find it at balchem.com/realscience. Dr. Baumgard begins with an overview of the structure and function of the gastrointestinal tract. More than 75% of an animal’s immune system resides in the gut. The focus of this webinar is how heat stress initiates leaky gut, how that lea...

In times of limited forage, dairy producers may need to feed diets lower in forage than is typical but would like to maintain milk production. In this study, two diets similar in neutral detergent fiber (NDF), starch, and crude protein with different amounts of forage were fed to 32 mid-lactation Holstein cows in a crossover design. The control diet (CON) contained high forage (55.5% of diet dry m...

This Real Science Exchange podcast episode was recorded during a webinar from Balchem’s Real Science Lecture Series. You can find it at balchem.com/realscience.   Dr. Santos begins with a timeline of events that occur during the cow’s transition from the dry period to her exit from the fresh pen. He suggests that cows should be dried off at around 230 days of gestation, then moved to a closeup gro...

In this episode, we honor and celebrate the remarkable career and contributions of Dr. Jim Drackley from the University of Illinois, a pioneer in dairy science and animal nutrition. Jim’s work has reshaped our understanding of dairy cow health, metabolism and nutrition. Dr. Cardoso, Dr. Overton, and co-host Dr. Jeff Elliott are former coworkers or graduate students of Dr. Drackley’s. (0:11) Dr. Dr...

This Real Science Exchange podcast episode was recorded during a webinar from Balchem’s Real Science Lecture Series. You can find it at balchem.com/realscience. How can we increase milk protein and capture that income opportunity? Dr. Van Amburgh describes the seasonal drop in milk protein observed in the summer months. Heat stress may play a role in altering insulin sensitivity and how the cow pa...

In this study, two basal diets were fed, one low-fat and one high-fat. The low-fat diet contained cottonseed meal and cottonseed hulls and the high-fat diet contained whole cottonseed. This balanced fiber and protein to try and make the difference between the basal diets and just the fatty acids. Basal diets were supplemented with two different fat supplements that had different ratios of palmitic...

This Real Science Exchange podcast episode was recorded during a webinar from Balchem’s Real Science Lecture Series. You can find it at balchem.com/realscience. Feeding rumen-protected choline in early lactation has consistently increased milk yield and energy-corrected milk yield, which is more pronounced when cows are fed diets low in metabolizable methionine. Choline feeding also increases milk...

Dr. Hernandez recently presented a Real Science Lecture series webinar on this topic. You can find the link at balchem.com/realscience . Dr. Hernandez begins with an overview of how she came to study calcium metabolism in the mammary gland. Over the past number of years, she has worked on research to manipulate what’s happening in the mammary gland in the prepartum period to ensure adequate endocr...

Please note the recording was before the new NASEM model was released. However, there is still a lot of good information from Dr. Weiss beyond those recommendations. This Real Science Exchange podcast episode was recorded during a webinar from Balchem’s Real Science Lecture Series. You can find it at balchem.com/realscience. Most ration formulation software uses the 2001 NRC mineral equations. The...