This episode was recorded at the 2025 Florida Ruminant Nutrition Symposium. Microbial protein has always been Dr. Frikins’ main interest. It’s the most important and consistent source of protein for the cow, with a very high amino acid content. Histidine is the only exception, but bypass protein sources high in histidine complement microbial protein well. Our assessment of microbial protein is all based on prediction models. In his presentation, Dr. Firkins talked about what we can do to have co...
Jun 24, 2025•59 min•Ep. 153
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 of dairy, he cites whether or not people like dairy and whether or not they can afford it. He goes o...
Jun 17, 2025•47 min•Ep. 152
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 also a little bit on how their milk is currently priced. Dr. Nicholson expects a decrease of around...
Jun 10, 2025•40 min•Ep. 151
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 Lara presented at Petfood Forum. Data sets from both brick-and-mortar sales and Amazon sales were used ...
Jun 05, 2025•43 min•Ep. 150
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 Clostridium perfringens in the HPAI-positive herds. Enrique noted that in California, the outbreak began in the...
Jun 03, 2025•42 min•Ep. 149
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) Daughters of heat-stressed cows have fewer sweat glands located deeper in the skin, thicker skin and more ...
May 27, 2025•57 min•Ep. 148
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) Eating, resting and ruminating are the big three behaviors we’ve studied for decades. In addition to the...
May 20, 2025•54 min•Ep. 147
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, like a disease or heat stress, it can tip performance over the edge. Evaluating time budgets for cows ...
May 13, 2025•47 min•Ep. 146
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’s milk meter data, yields an efficiency value of milk income over feed cost for each cow. She details...
May 06, 2025•41 min•Ep. 145
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 is essential to equip the calf with the best chances to stay healthy. Colostrum is more than a solut...
Apr 29, 2025•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 144
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 Geiger, CoBank, describes that the US is approaching $9 billion of new investment in dairy plants coming ...
Apr 22, 2025•42 min•Ep. 143
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 interaction factor, and anti-nutritional components. He asks Dr. Kozlowski if these are the hot topi...
Apr 15, 2025•47 min•Ep. 142
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. (5:59) Dr. Overton notes that milk replacements can be formulated differently to account for chang...
Apr 08, 2025•42 min•Ep. 141
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 choline to beef cows one day before AI through seven days post-AI, spanning ovulation, fertilization, ...
Apr 01, 2025•41 min•Ep. 140
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 genomically tests all their cows and the panel discusses some differences in beef and dairy selection bas...
Mar 25, 2025•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 139
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 Holstein calves, Angus x Jersey calves, and Angus-sired IVF beef embryos transplanted into Holstein...
Mar 18, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 138
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, but they ate more, so there was no difference in feed efficiency. They also had larger ribeye areas...
Mar 11, 2025•59 min•Ep. 137
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 leaky gut then influences the immune and hormonal systems, and ultimately, how that reduces productivit...
Mar 04, 2025•1 hr•Ep. 136
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 matter) with no supplemental fatty acids or amino acids. The low-forage diet (LF) contained 36.6% for...
Feb 25, 2025•48 min•Ep. 135
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 group at 250-255 days gestation which is around three to three-and-a-half weeks before calving. Dr. Santo...
Feb 18, 2025•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 134
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. Drackley begins by telling the audience about his background and how he became a dairy scientist. He t...
Feb 11, 2025•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 133
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 partitions nutrients. What can we do to avoid that seasonal decline in milk protein? (0:01) Simple thi...
Feb 04, 2025•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 132
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 and oleic acids. The applied question at hand was “Does fat need to be supplemented to a high-fat b...
Jan 28, 2025•54 min•Ep. 131
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 fat and protein yield, minimizes body condition loss in early lactation, and reduces postpartum dis...
Jan 21, 2025•45 min•Ep. 130
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 endocrine, nutritional, reproductive, and immunological status. (5:55) The panelists discuss how “normal” ...
Jan 14, 2025•56 min•Ep. 129
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 basic concept of the 2001 NRC mineral requirements is to feed enough absorbable minerals to maintai...
Jan 07, 2025•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 128
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 behavior of dairy cows is inherently tied to their dry matter intake (DMI) which is tied to milk production. If we want to change a cow’s DMI, it must be mediated by changing her feeding behavior. (00:23) In a multi-variable analysis, Dr. DeVries found that DMI was most associated with feeding time and meal frequency. It’s import...
Dec 17, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 127
Dr. Weiss and Dr. St-Pierre co-authored this episode’s journal club paper in Applied Animal Science (ARPAS Journal). Bill and Normand share a career-long interest in how feedstuffs and diet variation impact cows. (6:31) Bill and Normand discuss sources of variation, which they divide into true variation and observer variation. True variation means the feed has changed: a different field, change during storage, etc. Observer variation includes sampling variation and analytical variation. Some fee...
Dec 10, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 126
This Real Science Exchange episode was recorded during a webinar, which was part of a series. Watch all the presentations from this series here: https://balchem.com/animal-nutrition-health/resources-categories/real-science-lecture-series/previous-lectures/page/10/ Early in lactation, the cow is incapable of eating enough to meet her dramatically increased requirements. As the cow’s intake decreases near calving, there are fewer nutrient contributions from dry matter intake and she must alter nut...
Dec 03, 2024•46 min•Ep. 125
In part two of a two-part series, the Balchem technical team selected industry research of interest from the 2024 American Dairy Science Association meetings to feature on this episode of the Real Science Exchange. Smart Cows, Smart Farms: Unleashing the Potential of Artificial Intelligence in the Dairy Sector Guest: Dr. Jeffrey Bewley, Holstein Association USA (1:58) Dr. Bewley is the Dairy Analytics and Innovation Scientist at Holstein Association USA, where part of his role is collaborating w...
Nov 26, 2024•43 min•Ep. 124
