Purdue Dairy Digest

Buttergate Canadians have started to notice firmer butter and are looking for answers to make butter more spreadable. Palmitic acid has been identified as a possible cause for the firmer butter, listen to today’s podcast to learn more about Buttergate.

Corn, soybean, and milk commodity prices for 2021 Prices of corn and soybeans are the highest they have been in 7 to 8 years due to reduced supply and increased demand. What does that mean for dairy producers in 2021? Listen to hear more about what impacts high corn and soybean prices have on the dairy industry.

The new Dietary Guidelines for Americans was released at the end of 2020 with some updates on recommendations for dairy. With still almost 90% of Americans not consuming the recommended amount of dairy, the guidelines still suggest 3 servings per day.”

Recommendations have varied for the optimal age at first calving in order to maximize milk production and profitability.  However, due to variability in bodyweight, there is likely no optimal age at first calving and perhaps we should be focused on optimal bodyweight at first calving instead.  Several factors should be considered when determining what optimal means for a dairy farm, listen to today’s podcast to hear about which factors were considered by researchers.

Dairy Management Inc. has announced a goal for the dairy industry to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.  We now have to figure out innovative strategies to make that possible.  One strategy we are exploring today is a seaweed based feed additive that has shown promise in reducing methane emissions.

On this week’s dairy digest Becca Klopp, a current PhD candidate at Purdue University will recap a discussion about if ketosis is a symptom or a disease that was brought up at a recent Dairy Discover Conference. Please listen to hear both sides of the debate and you can decide for yourself if ketosis is a symptom of another disease or the disease itself.

Have you ever wondered about what makes a show cow a winning show cow? If you have you probably haven’t thought it was due to a genetic mutation. Researchers at Penn State have looked into if the genetic mutation of cholesterol deficiency is related to success in the show ring.

How many of your heifers have mastitis? If you asked me before I listed to Dr. Ben Enger talk at the Virtual Dairy Nutrition and Management Series, I would have said very few. Now I am not so sure. Listen to today’s podcast to learn more about the effects of mastitis in heifers.

Can we use technology to improve animal health and welfare? A group of researchers are looking at the possibility of using camera images to assess teat ends using a user interface that does not require cow-side observations. This is likely the beginning of different image technologies that can be used in the milking parlor to improve milk quality and animal health.

Hypocalcemia in dairy cattle is not a new phenomenon, however, researchers are making progress on understanding nutrition and management strategies to mitigate the change in calcium that occurs around calving. Dr. Jesse Goff, a leading researcher on hypocalcemia, has recently provided an update on hypocalcemia in dairy cows. This episode of the Purdue Dairy Digest will talk about an update from Dr. Jesse Goff on hypocalcemia.

As we experience hot weather, cows are subject to heat stress. While we observe reduced milk production and reduced reproductive success in lactating cows, there are also negative consequences for dry cows that experience heat stress during late gestation. We will be discussing a journal article that looked at the long term effects of daughters and granddaughter from heat stressed dams.

No one said that milk pricing was easy and certainly the volatility of milk prices recently have made us all question what we know about milk markets.  We have seen very high Class III milk prices recently however, there are some factors that make prevent dairy farmers from seeing the full benefit of high Class III prices in their milk checks.  Listen to the podcast to hear more about what is happening with milk pricing today.

The USDA recently announced Coronavirus Food Assistance Program payments for agriculture commodities. Dairy is eligible for these payments due to coronavirus related reduced milk price received so far this year. Please listen to this podcast to learn more as well as visiting the website www.farmers.gov/cfap to determine if you are eligible and how to enroll.

At the Virtual Dairy Nutrition and Management Series, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt73Tf2Ore7oFiBdxY_9znA , Dr. Albert Devries discussed the optimal cull rate for dairy farms. To get information on the optimal cull rate for dairy farms, listen to this podcast and also visit the YouTube channel linked above.

Some farms are being asked to receive milk into their manure storage as we are dealing with a surplus of milk due to reduced demand. This dairy digest is addressing some of the considerations regarding land applying and receiving milk into your manure storage.

In this podcast, Dr. Tana Dennis will discuss what a producer needs to consider if they are going to start feeding milk to calves instead of milk replacer. While there is a surplus of milk, some farms may be tempted to feed their calves milk instead of milk replacer. This may make sense economically however, there are some important things that farms need to be able to manage before making this switch.

If you are affiliated with the dairy industry, you have probably seen images of milk going down the drain, what a powerful image. Listen to today's podcast to understand why that is happening and what we can do to try to help.

This week on the Dairy Digest, PhD student Rebecca Klopp provides insights on the importance of proper colostrum management. She discusses recent research on heat treating colostrum as well as current recommendations for time and temperature to reduce bacteria without reducing antibody concentration.

This week’s dairy digest is a recap of some of the research presented by Dr. Michael Steele at the Florida Ruminant Nutrition Symposium related to calf nutrition and management. We still have room for improvement in calf health and growth and calf researchers are testing management strategies to optimize a calf’s potential.