RumiNation

Timestamps and Summary     Vicki Brisson (01:56) Can you share more about the role and importance of amino acids to support the dairy industry’s sustainability initiatives? Dr. Izabelle Teixeira I think balancing for amino acids is really important and can play a very important role in improving sustainability and can be a way of leveraging nutrition to enhance their sustainability. […]   Vicki Br...

Timestamps & Summary   Chris Gwyn (02:09) So John, in your work in advising agricultural businesses, and perhaps dairies in particular, talk to us about the strain that the current financial stressors of higher interest rates, softening milk prices and continuing high commodity prices cause at the farm level. John Ellsworth I think with inflation that we're fighting, not just in the US but Canada,...

Timestamps & Summary   Dr. Greg Eckerle ( 01:34 ) Do we see an increase in interest in vitamin nutrition in cattle over the past years? And if so, what has sparked the resurgence of looking at vitamins again? Dr. Jason Warner When we think about cattle nutrition, I think it's certainly an area that we've seen some increased awareness and interest in the part of the industry over the last four to f...

Timestamps & Summary  Vicky Brisson ( 01:33 ) Can you share with our audience what are the main diseases you observe and what the economic impacts of these diseases are? Dr. Jessica McArt As a dairy veterinarian, I see all sorts of diseases, and new ones every week, I feel. But the main diseases I see working on farms or with mastitis are early lactation diseases such as hypocalcemia, and hyperket...

Timestamps & Summary   Vicky Brisson ( 02:20 ) In the last decade, modeling is a research method that's growing in popularity. However, mathematical modeling and livestock nutrition has been around for much longer than that. Can you explain models and what limitations they have? Dr. Jennifer Ellis A model can be anything from a single equation to a set of dozens or even thousands of equations, whi...

Timestamps and Summary   Dr. Greg Eckerle ( 02:05 ) When we see where we’re at with the cattle cycle, where do you think the next three to five years of production are going to go? Dr. Lee Schulz Just to give a bit of background, the cattle inventory cycle has three phases. It has expansion, has liquidation, has a turnaround phase. We’re currently in the liquidation phase. This cattle cycle starte...

Timestamps and Summary  Vicky Brisson ( 02:24 ) Can you please explain why and how cows may benefit from an increased supply of B vitamins? Dr. Mélissa Duplessis I'm going to focus on two B vitamins, folate and vitamin B12, as these two vitamins have been extensively studied by our research group […] Christiane Girard, who has tremendously increased the knowledge on B vitamins in dairy cows, demon...

Timestamps and Summary  Chris Gwyn ( 04:01 ) Why the advocacy for safety related to silage management has become so important to you, both personally and professionally? Doug DeGroff It’s because I’m a silage avalanche survivor that it’s near and dear to my heart. I was young and quite confident and with an attitude of “it can’t happen to me.” But my luck ran out on August 27, 2009, while taking a...

Timestamps & Summary  1:56 As a young person growing up in dairy operations, tell me about the obstacles that you had to overcome in order to pursue a career in agriculture. Vicky Brisson I was really lucky growing up on my family's dairy farm, because I grew up with plenty of excellent role models, whether that be my parents being involved in the community, strong women when I was involved in for...

Timestamps & Summary  2:59 I was wondering if you could review some of the highlights for the audience to remind us of those key important areas. Dr. Bill Weiss For most minerals, what the committee tried to do is start at the cell. And we calculate, for example, how much mineral goes out and milk, how much mineral is free if an animal is growing, how much mineral is in that new tissue, and if she...

Timestamps & Summary  1:49 Maybe share with the audience your personal and professional journey to starting Eyes on Horizon Consulting. Monica McConkey I am a farm girl, I grew up on a farm in northwestern Minnesota. And when I was younger, we had beef and hogs and crops. […] I grew up in the 80s when the farm crisis was really difficult. And I remember my parents really struggling with anxiety an...

Timestamps & Summary   1:25 Would you share what you see as the current state of mental health in rural communities, farm communities, particularly in Canada, and in Ontario more specifically? Dr. Deborah Vanberkel It's really starting to be the up-and-coming sort of topic once people are starting to know about it. Even five years ago, when we started on our journeys of creating programming for me...

Timestamps & Summary   4:56 Tell me what you see as some of the key impacts of adopting precision, nutrition approach. Dr. Abdallah Zankar Precision nutrition is a way to make an animal use a diet and the nutrients in a more efficient way. How can we make these animals use the feed efficiently? This is the main target behind every farmer, every nutritionist, that is working today in the feed indus...

Timestamps & Summary  2:48 Let's remind the audience where you see the current status of reproductive efficiency in the North American dairy herd. Dr. Eduardo Ribeiro If we look at every metric, in large datasets from both the US as well as Canada, they tell the same story. And I think the first message that they tell us is that we are making progress. So dairy producers, they are improving reprod...

Timestamps & Summary  2:10 Postpartum, uterine health, inflammation, immunity, impact on reproduction; what is it about this area that really intrigued you? Dr. Stephen LeBlanc Well, I think it is a really interesting scientific challenge. There are a lot of complexity and interest here. But more to the point, it looks to be something that has got some real practical importance. We know that calvi...

Timestamps & Summary   1:47 You recently participated in JEFO’s annual JEFO beef Academy and presented key management and nutritional approaches to improving feed efficiency in feedlot cattle. Could you summarize what you presented during that symposium? Dr. Katie Wood A lot of my research focuses on feed efficiency and understanding feed efficiency. But in the feedlot, the aspect of gut health in...

Timestamps & Summary  1:47 What brought you to that area of research? Dr. Lance Baumgard When I was at the University of Arizona, we started working on heat stress. And through a series of experiments over a period of about 10 years, we middle our way down to the gut. And what we are very confident in is that most of the negative consequences of heat stress on all farm animals stem from what we ge...

Timestamps & Summary   1:25 So, Dr. Azahal, I was hoping you would expand a bit for our audience about meeting the nutrient needs of early lactation cows, making sure we have high health, high component yield and successful rebreeding. Dr. Ousama AlZahal This is really an important topic that we always find ourselves going back to and discussing it with farmers and producers. And it is that cows h...

Timestamps & Summary  1:50 Could you summarize your findings in evaluating impact of ruminant agriculture versus what is what we often see reported in the media today? Dr. Frank Mitloehner There is a lot of confusion out there. That is largely caused by people not understanding how the contributions of livestock to greenhouse gases are really quite different compared to let's say, other sources su...

Timestamps & Summary  1:49 I believe the audience would really enjoy hearing about your journey as a young Oxford county dairy producer all the way to a university professor. Dr. Michael Steele I grew up in Oxford County, and Ontario, Canada, and I have loved the dairy cow for my entire life. I went to the University of Guelph thinking I was going to become a geneticist. Then, I took fundamentals...

Timestamps & Summary 1:36 Tell the audience about your journey and the research you have been doing for your master’s degree. Vicki Brisson I grew up on a dairy farm, and I really had an interest in Animal Health. So starting in grade 8, until the beginning of my master's, I spent lots of time shadowing large animal vets; they were probably tired of me by the end.  It allowed me not only to deepen...

Timestamps & sommaire  1:45 Est-ce que tu peux nous parler du parcours qui t’a menée à étudier la nutrition animale à l’Université de Guelph ? Vicki Brisson J’ai grandi sur une ferme laitière familiale dans l'Est ontarien. Mes 2 parents viennent de fermes laitières eux aussi. Je me suis toujours intéressée à la santé animale. Depuis la 8e année où l'équivalent au Québec (secondaire 2) jusqu'au déb...

Timestamps & Summary  1:41 Could you give us an overview of the biological impact of stress on the dairy cow reproduction? Dr. Matt Lucy I think stress is a big factor in our ability to get cows pregnant. Traditionally, we always thought about the effects of stress on ovarian function. Whether or not the cow had started cycling and come into heat. But more recently, what we work on now is trying t...

Timestamps & Summary  1:24 Dr. King, we would be interested to know what your research interests and projects are. Dr. King I have been working with different provinces, getting producer feedback on how I can assess what stresses them out. What is influencing their mental health and their physical health? How is this related to farm management? And I also want to look at connections to cow health,...

Timestamps & Summary  2:04  What are some of the common stressors that cows may experience daily on a dairy farm?  Dr. Devries  The one that gets the most attention is probably heat stress.  But there are other stressors that cows may face regardless of environmental conditions throughout the year. The biggest one that we know is social stress. And that social stress can come from a variety of pla...