Dairy nutrition has come a long way in terms of manipulating diets to feed the cows. Besides that, producing more efficient animals is essential to economically succeed and better reduce the environmental impacts of dairy systems. This issue is precisely Dr. Sebastian Apelo's focus in his research. In today's episode, he brings up an essential discussion on how we can manipulate diets to directly affect the functions of the mammary gland, thus making it more efficient in utilizing nutrients – es...
Over the years, a lot of research has been done in the agriculture industry. The purpose is to help producers with new ways to produce more efficiently and sustainably. In today’s episode, Dr. Mark McGuire explains how an ag research facility operates. He focuses on a new facility in Idaho, the Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment, that is designed to attend to the needs of the agriculture industry. Additionally, he talks about the challenges they face in ag research and the impact i...
Heat stress can severely affect the feeding behavior, immune response, and production performance of dairy cows. Besides, it also has the potential to affect not only lactation cows, but calves and dry cows as well. Our guests, Drs. Peter Hansen, Lance Baumgard, and Agustin Rius, have different focuses in their researches on how heat stress impacts those animals. Thus, a round table discussion is held in today's episode to discuss how we can better understand the way cows are affected by heat...
Forages are crucial to support an adequate diet for cows. Because of that, we must monitor and improve its growth. Also, when it comes to silage management, we need to follow the best practices for harvesting corn silage and haylage. As for optimizing forage quality and fiber digestibility, we must consider weather conditions and other factors. So there’s a lot to be considered, right? In this episode, Joe Lawrence and I discuss a whole farming approach meant to determine which crops are best su...
We've finally reached our very first episode! To kick off the Dairy Podcast Show, I had a great conversation with Dr. Mike Hutjens, who is heralded as one of the most influential people in dairy nutrition and dairy management in the past 50 years. In this episode, we focus mainly on the principal advances in fiber utilization in dairy rations, one of the hot topics in dairy nutrition research and practice. We also discussed some key aspects of corn silage utilization by lactating cows and how th...
A technology revolution is here and it’s happening right before our eyes. So, to keep improving dairy performance, we must keep up with the latest technology. But where are we regarding tech implementation on dairy farms? We have to take a deeper look at dairy farming to understand the bottlenecks and how technology can help us. In this episode with Aidan Connolly, we talk about technology trends and benefits on dairy farms, the main issues regarding implementation, consolidation, what the futur...
Ketosis is a constant and persistent metabolic disorder in post-calving cows on dairy farms. Due to the need to produce more milk, cows cannot consume enough energy to maintain their performance, which leads to a negative energy balance. That's when the cows start mobilizing fat to try to fix the energy problem. The problem is that this culminates in a higher load of ketone bodies and ultimately, it might lead to ketosis. In this episode, I have a great conversation with Dr. Andres Contreras Bra...