Chapitrage et résumé 

Vicky Brisson (01:54)
Tout récemment, Jefo a fêté son 40ᵉ anniversaire. Pouvez-vous nous raconter les débuts de Jefo ?

Jean Fontaine
Ça prend un petit peu de temps à expliquer tout ça, mais les débuts étaient très modestes. J'ai commencé à 25 ans avec le choix de faire faillite ou de commencer à faire de l'argent. Dans le domaine des luminaires, c'était le bicarbonate de soude qui était granulaire contre les Américains qui avaient le monopole du marché. Donc on a commencé modestement dans une maison avec un appartement qu'on a modifié avec des bureaux. Aujourd'hui, on a le campus Jefo à Saint-Hyacinthe et c'est un centre d'information. Jefo a commencé au Québec, ensuite en Ontario, après le reste du Canada et le marché mondial. Le petit pas, c'était la bonne technologie pour grandir sans s'enfarger. […]

Vicky Brisson (03:06)
La culture de Jefo est centrée sur «Life made easier» ou «La vie ne plus facile». Qu'est-ce qui a inspiré cette mission et est-ce que vous pouvez nous donner quelques exemples de la manière dont vous et vos employés incarnez cette déclaration ?

Jean Fontaine
La vie est plus facile, ça résumait l'approvisionnement plus facile avec différents fournisseurs. L'entreposage pour les produits, on dit en anglais «Just in time», l'approvisionnement spontané; il y a tout chez nous. Et, avec la recherche, on rend la vie plus facile aux chercheurs parce qu'on a rassemblé plusieurs marchés différents avec le même objectif de faire plus avec moins. Donc, ça a été ça qui fait le slogan «La vie en plus facile» la première fois et depuis tout le monde accepte que c'est vraiment ce qu'on fait.

Vicky Brisson (4:31)
Avec l’arrivée de l’intelligence artificielle, quels sont les principaux défis que les producteurs devront relever ? À votre avis, quelles seront les principales caractéristiques de ceux qui vont réussir à s'adapter ?

Jean Fontaine
S'adapter. S'adapter au changement. Vous savez que la plus grande crainte des gens c’est de changer. Donc, l'agriculteur et l’agricultrice vont apprendre à mieux mesurer ce qu'ils font. Avoir accès à leurs données, que ce soit la température, la qualité des fourrages, tout ça grâce au système d’intelligence artificielle. Ils vont être capables d'avoir une plus grande précision. Et quand on peut mesurer ce qu'on fait, on peut l'améliorer. Sans mesure, c'est très difficile de s'améliorer. Donc, c'est une voie que personne ne peut éviter. […]

Vicky Brisson (05:36)
Depuis plus de 20 ans, vous apportez des innovations à l'industrie de l'alimentation animale avec la technologie Jefo Matrix. Est-ce que vous pouvez nous expliquer pourquoi c'est important de micro-encapsuler les nutriments ?

Jean Fontaine
C'est un concept. Si on se rapporte au tout début, quand j'ai commencé en 88 à vendre des acides organiques enrobés pour compétitionner les facteurs de croissance chez le porc, on s'est moqué de moi. Aujourd'hui, le monde des médicaments a beaucoup baissé. Les additifs alimentaires qu'on donne chaque jour pour moduler la flore intestinale […] sont de moins en moins à la mode, puis même à certains endroits, ils sont bannis. Avec la technologie de matrice que nous avons, on prévient le bris de nos molécules, de nos nutriments avant d'arriver à l'intestin où ils sont absorbés […].
Sauf que nous avons découvert qu'en enrobant avec des matières grasses 100 % végétales, on vient qu'on traverse le rumen à 85 % et on relâche lentement avec la lipase qui brise le gras les nutriments qui sont bénéfiques pour la vache laitière ou le bœuf. Dans la volaille, la même chose s'applique. On va résister au PH acide, au phytate, au calcium, au soufre qui vont venir lier les différents nutriments et les rendre indigestes à l'intestin. […]

Vicky Brisson (09:27)
Vous observez depuis plus de 20 ans l'impact de la nutrition de précision sur les animaux. Est-ce que vous pouvez résumer pour nos auditeurs quelles sont les principales observations que vous avez pour ces animaux ?

Jean Fontaine
Première chose qu'on peut voir, c'est l'efficacité digestive. […] La principale raison pour laquelle nos jeunes hommes et jeunes femmes quittent les fermes, ce sont les problèmes liés au vêlage. Donc, quand une vache va vêler, les gens préviennent avec différents traitements qu'ils ont appris à faire parce qu'il n'y avait pas la technologie que nous avons aujourd'hui. […]

Avec notre approche de précision intestinale, on livre ça tout ensemble ces fameux coenzymes, ces cofacteurs d'enzymes et les oligo-éléments. […]

Vicky Brisson (11:15)
En tant que visionnaire dans ce domaine, quelle est, selon vous, votre contribution au monde des vaches laitières ?

Jean Fontaine 
Si on réussit à améliorer le vêlage et à avoir une vache qui va pouvoir faire plusieurs lactations consécutives parce qu'elle a une meilleure santé générale causée par cette nutrition de précision. Je pense que nos éleveurs gagnent beaucoup. […]

Vicky Brisson (12:23)
Vous avez créé avec succès une entreprise familiale. Pourriez-vous nous expliquer comment vous avez favorisé la collaboration et l'harmonie entre les membres de la famille tout en bâtissant une entreprise prospère ?

Jean Fontaine
Ça c'est une bonne question. Parce que pourquoi les enfants s'intéressent à ce que j'ai construit ? C'est qu'ils ont compris que j'avais du plaisir à faire ce que je fais. On peut guider les gens par l'exemple. Les enfants ont vu que j'avais du plaisir à recevoir des gens, à visiter des gens, se créer un réseau d'amitié à travers le monde. Parce qu'on a l'avantage dans notre industrie de vendre ou de fournir des produits et des conseils toutes les semaines, tous les mois. Nous, dans notre industrie, on établit la proximité. Chez Jefo, on aime recevoir les gens. Ici, au campus et même chez moi, on a développé cette amitié de proximité avec les clients, les fournisseurs. C'est important. Si tu n’as rien à vendre, tu n'as pas de produit à vendre, ce n’est pas bon. D'avoir des fournisseurs, mais pas de clients, c'est pareil. Donc, tout est relié ensemble. Mais je crois que mes trois enfants, Émilie, Jean-François et Anthony ont su apprécier ceci de mes 40 ans de vie d'affaires. Et aujourd'hui, ils vont prendre le relais. […]

Vicky Brisson (18:07)
Pour conclure, pouvez-vous nous faire part du message que vous souhaitez transmettre à la prochaine génération d'entrepreneurs de l'industrie ?

Jean Fontaine
La plus belle chose que je peux leur suggérer, c'est de ne pas avoir peur du changement. […]

Le changement qui s'en vient va être impressionnant. Certaines personnes ont peur du mot : intelligence artificielle. Elle est là pour nous aider. Il faut accepter le changement et oser. […]

Moi je vous dis que la vie est pleine de belles choses. Il faut s'amuser à la désirer.

Timestamps & Summary 

Chris Gwyn (02:05)
JEFO recently celebrated its 40th anniversary. Can you share with us and with the audience the story of how JEFO started?

Jean Fontaine
JEFO started very modestly. I was out of school, 25 years old, and I had a choice to declare bankruptcy or try something. And I had a vision to offer our industry different source of material, to be more competitive. And it started like that. The snowball effect started gradually with one or two products, then the other ones were added altogether. So, simple start, amazing development.

Chris Gwyn (02:49)
This started and centered our culture of “Life, made easier”. Can you share with us what inspired this mission and give a few examples of how you and your employees embody this statement?

Jean Fontaine
After meeting with some experts who guided us about establishing our motto “Life, made easier”, we realized that we make life easier for the buyer, and their supply chain, with our quite fair size inventory warehouses. Life made easier by sourcing with our expertise, we know what is a product that fits. And, with the efficacy. Then, life made easier for the truckers. We have a nice system of logistics, able to make quality pallets the way we ship our products. So, it's life made easier for everybody in the chain of activity. […]

Chris Gwyn (04:44)
We've seen over the last few years the idea of artificial intelligence gaining interest across the world as the livestock industry keeps evolving rapidly. In your thoughts, what are the main producer challenges and market changes that you foresee and what will be the key attributes of those who successfully adapt to these changes?

Jean Fontaine
Farmers need to get access to their numbers and to have them handy to be able to know what's going on rapidly and correct the situation. Before AI, it was not easy to take a note and then put all these things together. Today, there are more and more tools to do that. Some companies offer on-site, cameras, and sensors that can feel the water flow, the temperature, the ammonia level, and the behavior of animals. So, all this will bring precision and the farmers will know what's going on. And sometimes we don't realize they have a hell of a challenge in their life. Many factors must be controlled. So, to do that, AI will bring us tremendous capacity. And then you have to adapt to change. The future with AI will change the planet. […]

So, there's no reason that people can object to this change of knowledge. IPhones have been around for 15 years. Can you imagine your life without an iPhone today? Try to figure out your life today with no portable phone and then no smartphone. We can talk to the vets before they get there. They can have an edge about what is going on.

Chris Gwyn (07:30)
I know for over 20 years, Jefo Nutrition has brought innovations to the livestock and poultry feed industry with this Jefo Matrix Technology. Why is it important to microencapsulate nutrients like coenzymes in animal nutrition?

Jean Fontaine
It was believed that the rumen of the cow would do everything for the cow. Initially, we discussed having some AD plus B vitamins be protected to escape the rumen. Maybe you leave like 10 or 15 percent in the rumen to nourish the bugs and to go bypass. […]

Today, we have discovered that very small quantities bypassing the rumen make a tremendous impact. From the expertise in ruminants, we went back to poultry and swine, and we discovered an amazing approach. And the concept for us is to prevent feeding the pathogens in the intestine of the cow, of the pig, of the poultry. And we have developed data on that aspect that is intriguing to a lot of people. Now we have the capacity to go after the rumen and after the stomach in monogastric. […]

Chris Gwyn (10:44)
Can you explain how we do that within the Jefo Matrix Technology?
Jean Fontaine
Our technology uses vegetables, 100% vegetable carrier, fats, which have high melting points. We have some specific formulations of carrier with fatty acids and triglycerides, that will allow it to be released in the small intestine. We know how to slow the lipase to have a delivery further down in the intestine. This is why we're gaining so much momentum with the customers.

Chris Gwyn (15:08)
Often in meeting with clients, they express to me the admiration they have for the entrepreneurship and the visionary aspect that they see in you. In this area of a visionary in the field, what do you feel is your contribution to the world of dairy cows?

Jean Fontaine
The contribution is to bring precision to the intestine of the cow for nutrition. People have injected vitamins. People have done a lot of drenching the cows. It was all behaviors to compensate for the problem they have at calving. Our technology, to protect against rumen degradation, has allowed us to give them a solution which is much less demanding on staff. The first reason people will leave the farm, the young guys, is the problem of calving their cows. They never quit because they drive the tractor. They never quit because they pass the broom. They hate to grab the cow and drench her and all the other precautions because of calving issues. When the placenta doesn’t get out, they hate the smell of the barn and the cows suffer. If the placenta gets out with the calf a couple of hours later, as they do with our solution, we make their life easier. It's another phrase that fits. It's life made easier for calving problems. Our contribution is to give maybe more fun to the farmers solving their main problem of calving.

Chris Gwyn (17:02)
Could you share the key factors or strategies that contribute to the seamless integration of the family dynamics into a business and how you've worked to foster collaboration and harmony among family members while building this thriving business which is Jefo?

Jean Fontaine
I was so surprised to learn that 85% of companies die with their president. I was not conscious of that. Today, I'm lucky, out of seven kids, I have three who are old enough to be involved with us. Émilie, Jean Francois, and Anthony. I think I transmitted to them the passion for what I do. I retired 42 years ago. Now I play the role of the president of the company. I play the judge’s role; I play the father’s role. I am still an actor, but I play roles. Today, the kids realize it's valuable. People respect and appreciate if you give your time for a purpose. To define the purpose of life, it's a challenge. The first time I was asked the purpose of my life; I jammed the question. So, we have to find out our purpose in life and share that fun of helping others. If you are useful, you have a future. I teach my kids to be useful, to be passionate, to love people, to accept also to be their friends. So, I teach them: The more you give, the more you get; the more you give time, attention, help, and love, and you can talk about money as well. Whatever we can do for others won't come back to us at a high speed. So today, for me, it's a very big emotion to know that when I leave, people will do that. Success, if it's only one life, is not success. Success is measured in time. So, I have many chances to be successful.

Chris Gwyn (19:09)
Could you share insights into how you strategically built and nurtured your professional network or circle of people who influenced you, advised you, and networked with you and what key principles or practices you believe contributed to the growth and sustainability of Jefo?

Jean Fontaine
It may sound easy to say, but we have the privilege to be in an industry where we have to be friends for a long time. If you sell me a house, I'll buy my next one maybe 20 years from now. It won't happen every month. In animal feed, we have to fill the pipe. So we need to talk to each other on a regular basis, weekly, monthly, quarterly. So we have a business of developing proximity and friendship. If you have proximity to people, you learn about their problems, their issues, and their challenges. Can we help them? Sometimes, yes, we can. This is making a rich relationship with the customer. And if the customer is happy, you have a good business. It's a fruitful business and it can be contagious. They're going to talk to others. I teach my staff to be lazy and I'll define laziness: Do it right and make people talk about you. Your reputation will be your best future. You have to be useful to somebody. If you're not useful, you're going to be out with the game.

Chris Gwyn (20:48)
As we conclude, maybe a message that you can pass on to the next generation of entrepreneurs in the livestock and poultry feed industry. What would you share with them?

Jean Fontaine
Don't believe the past will be the future. Whatever happened in the past without AI, without all these technologies, would not necessarily be proof for the future. We have to change. The world we are addressing is something invisible. So, we have to be open, and love change instead of avoiding it. Please be all excited by the change for the best. We are living in the best time for the human race. […]

We have to be hungry for change and not fear to adapt and progress together. And this is needed for everybody together. Not one guy, one company, one team. Everybody should be in the same kind of thinking pattern.

Timestamps & Summary 

Chris Gwyn (02:11)
I'd like to know a little more about why you became interested in researching ideal topic density.

Dr. Albert De Vries
I actually had an intern student from the Netherlands, and that student was very interested in welfare. And I said: If we just do welfare in the US, maybe that's not of primary interest to producers, although I understand our producers are all interested in welfare aspects as well. But I'd like to put dollars into whatever we do with cows. And so we did a little digging and came up on the topic of stocking density, the economics of stocking density. It's really a fascinating topic because there are some welfare implications but there are clearly also economic implications. […]

Chris Gwyn (03:23)
What are the key influencers of the economic return when you're evaluating where a farm is evaluating its optimal stocking density?

Dr. Albert De Vries 
I think we should start by defining, what we mean by stocking density. Different metrics of that. We're not talking about dry lots here. We're talking about free stalls. We were also not interested in fresh cows or dry cows, which I think all experts agree should not be overstocked. We're looking at lactating cows. And we also did not think that feed bunk space was a limiting factor. So, in our research, we really looked at the number of cows over the number of stalls in a pen. And if that is 100%, then you have one stall per cow. And if it's like 120%, you have 120 cows for 100 stalls. So that is where we sort of limited our research to. And secondly, I think it's important to get the economic principle right. What are we trying to optimize here when we're talking about economics? […]

Chris Gwyn (11:20)
In that study, you looked at milk production. Did you look at component yield?

Dr. Albert De Vries
I think we looked at component yield, but I don't remember seeing anything necessarily, because, of course, we get paid for components. I don't think it was very clear that either fat or protein, for example, was reduced by overstocking.

Chris Gwyn (14:10)
If there are some other issues that you wanted […] to highlight, we can do that.

Dr. Albert De Vries
I haven't really said much about welfare yet. I mean, the student I work with was really interested in that, and I think it needs to be on our minds, too. So, if we say we just want to take care of the cow, we probably don't want to overstock. Cows are probably compromising welfare, perhaps a tiny bit only if we start to overstock, and more when we overstock more. So, we don't know how to square that with profitability. But obviously, that needs to be in our mind as well. […]

Chris Gwyn (16:34)
Can I ask you a further question about that? Because I'm not an economist, but where does cash flow come in if a farm needs to increase cash flow? Does that kind of counter go against optimal stocking density in low milk pricing?

Dr. Albert De Vries
I think you're on the right track there because we assume our fixed costs are independent of the number of cows. So, we would add cows to it up to the point of maximum optimal stocking density, which implies that, for that pen, the highest cash flow. And so, with low milk prices, we reduce cow numbers, because if we don't, our cash flow is going to be even less. So, cash flows, in this analysis, and this is obviously what I call a steady state; we sort of permanently are at a high or a low level of stocking density, but it's the same thing. So, the question becomes practically different: Well, my milk prices change, and I may or may not have the cows. What is the long-term response to stocking density? Those are harder to answer because, again, we don't know the long-term response to stocking density per se, but essentially, when we optimize our stocking density, we're optimizing the cash flow, the amount of cash made there for that pen on that day over time.

Chris Gwyn (20:40)
As we wind up, I always like to ask, what are some of the key take-home points for producers and nutritionists and lenders, in fact, and veterinarians, when considering evaluating the impact of a stocking density on the farms they work with, what would you recommend they look at?

Dr. Albert De Vries
If I put on my economics glasses, if you will, then I think overstocking a pace. And like last year in the US, we had actually good milk prices. […] At the same time, we learned through the research that it sort of is farm-dependent in terms of prices and what are the losses that you observe. And so we have a spreadsheet available for listeners that they can work with, and play with. Probably the easiest way to get there. If you go to Google and you look for “dairy stocking density calculator Florida”, I think we end up number one on the Google search list there. And there's an EDI extension publication there. And that publication lays out what the research was about, hopefully in not too scientific terms. And there's a link to a calculator we used as well that we made available for folks to play with. […]

Timestamps & Summary 

Vicki Brisson (01:44)
As an introduction, can you explain what de novo fatty acid synthesis is?

Dr. Débora Santschi
To me, the fatty acids are basically if we would take that black box of fat, the milk fat test, open it up, and look at what's inside of it. So, if we take, for example, a herd that is at 4% fat, if we open it up, we can see what makes up that 4% fat and see where those fatty acids come from. […]

The de novo fatty acids are one of those groups of fatty acids we find in the total fat. It represents, depending on the herds and the cows, roughly between 25-30% of the total fat. And those are the fatty acids that are synthesized in the mammary gland of the cow. […]

Vicki Brisson (04:00)
What impact does that milk fat composition have on the cow? And what are the periods when the fatty acid profile is more likely to vary?

Dr. Débora Santschi
I think it's very interesting to look at it from a cow’s side and also from a herd’s side. So, if we take the cow example, a cow in very early lactation, we all know that she's using her body reserves to compensate for that very high demand for milk production. In that case, a big chunk of her fat content will be preformed fatty acids. So, in very early lactation, we see roughly 50, or sometimes even slightly more, as a percentage of her fat being the preformed fatty acids. And in that case, the de novo will be very low and increase slowly over the first 45, 50, and 60 days of lactation. […]

If we look at it on a herd level, when we do some ration change, when the forage digestibility changes, but we don't notice too much. All those little effects can also have an impact on the de novo content of the bulk tank sample. In that case, because bulk tank samples are often analyzed very frequently, then we can get a rapid insight into something that we might not have noticed on the farm level. […]

Vicki Brisson (05:46)
Knowing that the fatty acid profile of milk matters, what can we do to promote the production of de novo fatty acids?

Dr. Débora Santschi
The de novo fatty acids are the result of being produced in the mammary gland from rumen volatile fatty acids. So, everything that we can do to maximize rumen volatile fatty acids will have a positive impact. So, we often focus on the ration. So, of course, having a highly digestible ration, well balanced with all the nutrients that are required, is really important, but we need to keep in mind everything around it. […]

Vicki Brisson (07:33)
Can you expand on specific nutritional solutions that our listeners may want to consider? 

Dr. Débora Santschi
The way we train our people, and I just want to mention, we have a lot of information that is available directly on the website as well to help understand and find solutions, because it's going to be very herd specific. But when I look at a herd, I look at the fat test, and the protein test, because those are values we know and we handle very well. I look at the MUN value because to me, it's important to look at the overall protein balance as well, and then I go and look at the fatty acid profiles. I always start with the de novo, then look at the mix, then look at the preform. That's my way of addressing a report. […]

Vicki Brisson (10:01)
Beyond just the amount of de novo fatty acids produced is also the variation in fatty acid levels. So, what are the impacts of that variation in fatty acids and how can we address it?

Dr. Débora Santschi
Very good question. I think, again, there's some information on the cow level, there's some information on the bulk tank level. I like to work on the bulk tank level first because it's every second day in our case, so it helps to get a very accurate and up-to-date overview. However, the downside is that it's only on a farm level, it's an average, and I have no idea of the distribution of it. […]

When there's a lot of variation on the bulk tank, we see it a lot in the inconsistent feeding herds, in the herds that have a lot of changes in the ration, where the forage composition is not very constant. […]

Vicki Brisson (13:44)
Can you help us understand or explain the link between B vitamins and fatty acids?

Dr. Débora Santschi
To my knowledge, there hasn't been too much specific research combining the two, I think that's a very interesting area to explore. I think if we take one step back and look at the whole picture, rumen health, optimizing the bacterial populations we have in there, and making sure that this is all functioning well should also be reflected in the de novo synthesis. […]

Vicki Brisson (16:23)
Can you just expand a little on the tools that you have at Lactanet and that you offer your producers on how to monitor de novo fatty acids and how they can use that as a decision-making tool or to help them identify possible issues on the farm?

Dr. Débora Santschi
At Lactanet right now, back in 2020, we launched what we call PROFIlab. That's our milk fatty acid monitoring tool, currently available in Quebec, and in some Atlantic provinces, at the bulk tank level for now. […]

We do have a prototype for the cow level. We tested it with some of our advisors, and some of our farmers. So, 2024 should see that prototype become a real tool, this time not only in Québec, but across the country. […]

Vicki Brisson (19:13)
Can you share your take-home messages? Maybe three or so for nutritionists, vets, and producers when they think de novo fatty acid synthesis in milk?

Dr. Débora Santschi
I'll say the first one is that black box. I like to see it like that. We're opening up the fat and understanding better what makes up that fat. So, get a deeper insight into your fat test, which is what we're being paid for. 

Second one, dare to use it. Just try. Just try something. Ask questions. Get the information you need to start working with it and try to have that value change. Try to cause an impact on that de novo value to make it move. And you'll see how it can be powerful for your herds. 

And the third one is, please, any suggestions, any ideas, any questions? You're more than welcome to contact us because as I just said, I think that's how we learn altogether and that's how we can make it even better and then share that information back. […]

Timestamps & Summary 

Chris Gwyn (01:57)
Animal welfare and perhaps its impacts on health are hot topics in the livestock industry today. Can you please share how you became interested in these topics?

Dr. Marina Von Keyserlingk
That started probably in my head, let's say 25 years ago. As you alluded to in the introduction, I did a Ph.D. in Animal Sciences and I was trained initially as an experimentalist and as a ruminant nutritionist. And I worked in the feed industry in a number of roles for over seven years. And during my time, sort of at the end of my PhD, and also working in industry and coming from a farming background, what I was noticing and what was becoming very evident to me is that society was asking a lot of questions about where their food comes from. We had passed the time when society in general just trusted farmers to do the right thing. […]

It wasn't necessarily that people wanted to become vegetarian. It was they just wanted assurances that animals had a reasonably good life. […]

Chris Gwyn (06:02)
Talk to me about how we maximize the amount of time that cow and calf spend together if that's what we're trying to do, and also to be realistic about the management procedures that a producer can or will implement at the farm level.

Dr. Marina Von Keyserlingk
I'm going to start a little bit further back than just that question. Why are we even talking about cow-calf separation? And ten years ago, I remember trying to apply for some money from the dairy industry and was basically told: Go away. […]

Generally speaking, what's happening is that society is starting to ask questions. And society's question is, when people see dairy, do they see a situation or do they hear about the fact that the calf is taken away? We provide assurances that the calf is going to be fine and the cow is going to be fine. […]

When we weigh all of the evidence on the health side and also on sort of the welfare behavior production side, I can't give you strong evidence to justify the separation. So, for instance, calf health, we say we do this because it's better for the calves. But what is the mortality rate of dairy calves in North America? We applaud when we can get it lower than sort of 6 or 7%. The beef industry would go broke if they had mortality rates at that. So, there are a lot of examples like that. Mastitis rates. Keeping cows and calves together is highly protective for mastitis. What's one of the biggest economic costs for farmers is mastitis. So, we have this situation where we don't have a lot of scientific evidence to justify the practice, but what we do have is 100 years of tradition. […]

It's not a question of if it will become part of the conversation in North America. It's just a matter of when. So, you know, there's a farmer in southern Ontario that is keeping cows and calves together. I've talked to veterinarians in Quebec who are working with farmers that are trying to do this. Is it all working really well? Some things work well, some things are a disaster. […]

Chris Gwyn (15:03)
Do you have any hints of what can successfully work on a dairy?

Dr. Marina Von Keyserlingk
A lot of it is anecdotal. I would say the questions are actually a lot more fundamental than that. Like for instance, how long? Nobody really knows. […]

The only thing we know is from the beef industry, where we keep them together for six, seven or eight months, which is closer to when they wouldn't wean naturally. I had to pick a number. We picked four months. Is four months right? I don't know. […]

Chris Gwyn (19:04)
We don't really know what the system really looks like, right? We're talking about contact. As you say, it could be a full day, half day, it could be a partial day, it could be through a window, could be in the same pen. I mean, this is all the stuff that we don't know and probably the stuff that maybe scares us a bit in production.

Dr. Marina Von Keyserlingk
Exactly right. And it scares us because at least here in North America, let's just take Canada, for instance. We still have whatever 70% of our farms are, tie-stalls. How would this ever work in a tie-stall? I mean, we are transitioning out of that. I would not invest in cow-calf contact work in a tie-stall facility right now. […]

Change is scary. But change also brings opportunity. […]

I understand how difficult it is for farmers because change is really hard and it's super scary, especially in those markets where they don't have supply management. […]

Chris Gwyn (23:05)
What are the deep holes and research that are needed over the next five to ten years to help the dairy industry understand and find practical solutions for that cow requirement?

Dr. Marina Von Keyserlingk
I think it's an exciting time in that area because it's almost a blank slate. I think, as I said earlier, I think issues are going to be: How long? What does contact mean?

Chris Gwyn (28:30)
Tell me about some of the take-home messages you'd like to leave talking about cow-calf contact and what needs to be considered moving forward.

Dr. Marina Von Keyserlingk 

The number one message is: Don't be afraid of the conversation. […]

I think what the dairy industry needs to do is figure out how to keep the consumer because there are a ton of alternatives out there. We want the consumer to want to buy milk, to buy yogurt. And a lot of that comes down to values. […]

My other take-home message, just one other one, is I truly believe that the thoughtful person on the street doesn't expect us to change overnight, but they expect us to get better every day. And those are two very different things.

Timestamps & Summary 

Dr. Greg Eckerle (02:01)
In your opinion, what can we expect to see numbers of dairy and dairy and beef crosses in feedlots in the future?

Dr. Pedro Carvalho
That's really a hot topic right now. I've been working with Holstein since I started grad school, and in the past few years, we've seen this increasing the utilization of beef semen in the dairy cows. […] There are a lot of factors that are affecting that. The increasing use of sex semen and the decrease in the beef cow herd, probably pushing that a lot. And I think it's something that came to stay. I think a lot of people are learning how to do that in the dairy industry. We still have to remember that the main goal of a dairy farmer is getting their cow pregnant. But I think that it's a great opportunity for dairy farmers to increase their profitability. And the data that we've seen right now also shows a really good opportunity for feedlot producers. […]

Total numbers might still be the same because basically, the number of dairy cows is still the same. But what has changed is basically the genetics of those bull calves that are coming to our feedlot.

Dr. Greg Eckerle (05:09)
As we're pushing the supply chain and looking at these genetics of transitioning the dairy to utilizing more beef semen, can we expect to see specific British breeds? Or is it just going to be predominantly black Angus? Or would you propose that maybe if we want to look at some other traits, some continental or some exotic, for southern calf markets would be included in the mix?

Dr. Pedro Carvalho
That's an excellent question. For the past year and a half, I've been talking a lot about this. When we look at the numbers before 2017, we used to have about two and a half million doses of beef semen on the market every year in the US. From 2017 to 2021, we had an increase from two and a half to close to 9 million. And that's how much we're expecting. So, over 6 million doses of increase. […]

About half of those are coming from Angus. So, we expect that the majority of those crosses are going to be black-headed animals. In second place, we've seen a lot of Limousin crosses and then Simmental. And the Charolais breed is the one that has increased a lot. They went from less than 25,000 doses being sold in 2017 to close to 600,000 in 2021. So that's a huge increase. […]

So, we've seen a good increase in continental breeds, but Angus is still the majority of them. One thing that I can tell you, Greg, for sure, I don't think we are going to be talking about a specific breed. We've seen more variation within breeds than when we compare between or among different breeds. Even the Angus breed. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (15:02)
[W]hen is the most critical point of the feeding of the dairy beef Holstein or dairy beef animal. And then what would be their typical starting period? Or do they have two?

Dr. Pedro Carvalho
It always depends. And it's going to depend a lot on the time of the year. We've seen California during summertime. That creates a much bigger challenge than during the wintertime. […]

But on the diet aspect, another thing that we've done over the years, and Dr. Richard Zing, who I had the pleasure to work a lot with while I was in California, we would divide the feeding system into three different phases. The 300 days. we would divide into three groups of 100 days. So, those 1st 100 days on feed would be the most critical ones, I would say, especially in the protein requirements. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (24:21)
And then to wrap up today, what would be three of your top take-home messages of working with dairy beef crosses or straight Holsteins in a feeder situation?

Dr. Pedro Carvalho
I think on the Holstein side, I would push them from start to finish as much as we can be consistent. They have good genetics, they marble well, and they can produce a really good quality on the beef. On dairy, I think right now there are more questions than answers. I do think that instead of looking for the best breed, we may be looking for the best bull in each breed. […]

Something that we are planning to be doing in the near future is, and we didn't touch on that at all, understanding how much the early life management of those calves can impact later. […]

Timestamps & Summary 

Chris Gwyn (01:28)
Can you explain what brought you to the study of cow handling specifically?

Dr. Jennifer Van Os
I started here at UW Madison about five and a half years ago, and as you mentioned, I'm in an applied research and extension outreach role. And so, I think it's really important that all the work that I do resonates with my dairy stakeholders. And so, when I was new, I went around and met with a number of Wisconsin dairy farmers and other people in the industry to ask them what are the challenges they face when it comes to animal welfare on their farms and what are their needs, how could my research and extension program help? So, one of the most popular requests that I got at the time was, could you please come to my farm and train my employees on the proper handling of dairy cows? And I found that a bit surprising that that was a need that kept coming up again and again, and unfortunately, it was not efficient for me to go around and fulfill this request. But it really got me thinking, how can I direct my research program to try to fill this need that people are asking for better training resources?

Chris Gwyn (02:33)
Recently in a presentation you did, you showed some older data from 2018 on what the status of training at the farm level for farm employees interacting with cows was. And you quoted 55% of US dairies providing training on moving or handling dairy cows. And I found this surprisingly low. So, I'm wondering in your work and extension, do you feel in 2023 that this number of 55% is still pretty relevant?

Dr. Jennifer Van Os
I agree with you, it's surprising. So, those data were from the United States Department of Agriculture and they are now about at least five years out of date. […]

But to your question about whether this landscape has changed, I would say I hope so. […]

Now the Farm Animal Care Program, in which 99% of our US. Dairy farms participate, they have an explicit expectation that anyone who works on the farm in an animal touch role, whether they're a milker or calf care staff, need to show annual continuing education in cow handling or calf handling. […]

I know that in the past years, this has been a significant area of noncompliance where people are still struggling to find the time or the right resources to be able to do this sort of education.

Chris Gwyn (05:04)
The concept of low-stress cow movement and working in flight zones […] is pretty well established, yet I understand from some of your work that applying this concept is a challenge. I'm wondering why this is and what can be done to improve this adoption.

Dr. Jennifer Van Os
I think that's a great question. And that was part of why I was so surprised when I moved here that farmers were asking me for more resources and more training. Because you're right, these principles about the flight zone and using the cow's natural behavior to move them. It's very well established, and we know that it works. […]

There was a way I learned in the classroom and in theory, and then there was a way I learned on the farm. And those things didn't always match. […]

There has been a trend in the last few years towards what's called active learning. […]

You might understand the concept of the flight zone, and be able to answer a quiz, but then when you are actually out there with the cows, these other real-life factors come into play. And so, I think that maybe we need resources that are more engaging, more active, and not just passive learning.

Chris Gwyn (07:18)
I believe you're in the process of developing a tool for cow handling training, the Moving Cows educational video game. I'm wondering if you give the listening audience an overview and an update on this project.

Dr. Jennifer Van Os
Yeah, I'm so excited about this. So after dairy producers asked me for better training on cow handling, I kind of put this on the back burner and thought, I can't be going out to every farm and training their staff how to do this because I need to run a research program. But then inspiration kind of struck out of the blue. I'm not much of a video gamer myself, but my father-in-law is a retired commercial airline pilot. And I think most people are familiar with the idea that before a pilot can fly a plane, even if they're very experienced if they're flying a new aircraft, they have to go through the flight simulator. It's too expensive and too dangerous to put somebody in the cockpit of a plane unless they've had some kind of practice. So, this was the idea I had for cow handling, that we have these passive resources like books or videos that teach you the principles of the flight zone. But to be able to actually put those practices into action, maybe we need a simulator. […]

Moving Cows, version one was finished earlier this year, but we kept it private […] But in the meantime, we've compiled a lot of feedback from people who work on farms, dairy employees, dairy owners, consultants in the industry, veterinarians to get their input and make sure this game is relevant for them. And so, we've now compiled that feedback and we're working on version two of the game. So that's currently in process and we're hoping to have a public release by early 2024. So, you can look for it in the Google Play Store as well as iTunes for Apple devices. […]

Chris Gwyn (14:25)
Some key take-home messages that producers, nutritionists, and veterinarians, and industry influencers you feel should have taken away from today's podcast?

Dr. Jennifer Van Os
I think the first takeaway is something we didn't explicitly discuss, but I want to make it explicit, which is a lot of people don't realize that animal welfare is a science. […]

The second take-home message is about learning, which is there is definitely a place for traditional or passive learning. Those resources are very valuable. We're producing some of those ourselves. But when we're thinking about people being able to retain concepts and practice them and learn by doing, that's where active learning comes into play. […]

And then the last one is: if you would like to test out the game, hopefully, that will become available soon, my door is always open. Please email me if you have any questions. And I really can't wait to put this out there and hope that it can help the industry and help people feel more confident in their jobs.

Timestamps & Summary  
 

Dr. Greg Eckerley (01:59)

Looking at muscle development, what roles do we see coenzymes play in upregulating energy to help with growth?

Dr. Bradley Johnson

[…] [the] energy needs for both postnatal muscle growth as well as the functionality of skeletal muscle that being contraction, we need a lot of ATP. And of course, we know that the coenzymes are going to assist with this. All the way from the shortest burst of energy that we're going to get to produce ATP and muscle is the ATP-PC system, which is the phosphocreatine system, which within seconds can produce ATP. […]

From thiamine to niacin to riboflavin, pyridoxine, biotin, cyanocobalamin, pyridoxine, and pantothenic acid, all these are coenzymes. Very important for energy metabolism for every cell. But it becomes very critical for postnatal muscle growth because protein synthesis is so demanding that we have ATP.

Dr. Greg Eckerley (06:37)

Can we hypothesize and think that genetic development and advancement have placed a higher demand for certain nutrients that were historically not apt to look at?

Dr. Bradley Johnson

[…] Our thought early on was: if we have aggressively implanted cattle then they must have higher nutrient needs. Certain nutrients like crude protein or specific amino acids or even calories, do they need more energy. And in reality, those growth-enhancing tools did not change the needs for some of these. They made them more efficient. And so today, our cattle genetically and the way we feed them, nutritional management, we have some of the best feed conversions we've ever had in our beef cattle industry worldwide because of our advancements in genetics, feeding strategies, and total nutrient requirements. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerley (16:24)

Can we utilize certain vitamins like biotin […] in certain feeding period roles to maximize this potential, to alter program metabolism for these animals as they go through the feeding period?

Dr. Bradley Johnson

I tell you what, biotin is so intriguing to me. I think there's a lot of anecdotal work out there and I think it started in Australia, but a lot of people on the Wagyu cattle, the heavy marbled side, felt they could increase marbling by feeding elevated biotin to ruminants. […]

If we feed a high grain diet to finishing cattle, the one B vitamin that's probably going to be compromised the most in the rumen is biotin. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerley (25:55)

So, in conclusion, would you mind sharing three of your main take-home messages that we talked about today with the audience?

Dr. Bradley Johnson

First off, I think we often forget the energetic cost, not really cost, but protein synthesis is not a spontaneous event. And we think of muscle as the main protein reservoir in the carcass, obviously. And that comes at a cost. It takes a lot of ATPs […]

The other big take-home that I think the one molecule that I'm the most excited about of having direct effects both on muscle growth and marbling is biotin and knowing that biotin affects enzymes similarly to a beta-agonist, I think there are opportunities to enhance muscle growth. […]

The final take home is our US. Food and Drug Administration, I think, is going to continue to offer regulatory oversight […] on some of these medicated feed additives, over-the-counter antibiotics, normal growth promoting techniques like implants and beta-agonists that we've become used to using. And, obviously, the more natural alternatives that we can seek and find and utilize in our industry, I think the better off we're going to be in the long run.

Timestamps & Summary 

Dr. Greg Eckerle (01:24)
Do we normally call that intestinal acidosis outside of the agricultural university complex?

Dr. Greg Penner
I think probably the most common term that's used is hindgut acidosis rather than intestinal acidosis. And it probably makes sense given where we think most of that fermentation activity would occur and where the primary reduction in PH would be localized.

Dr. Greg Eckerle (02:02)
What can we do with the hindgut intestinal acidosis? And how is that having an impact?

Dr. Greg Penner
First of all, one of the things we need to recognize is rumen acidosis and hindgut acidosis often occur simultaneously. And in fact, we probably should reclassify ruminal acidosis to lumenal, so that it encompasses a broader area of the gastrointestinal tract. You're right, from a challenge or mitigating response, it's not easy to deliver compounds that are going to be released to buffer in the large intestine. So, we're really needing to focus more on strategies that promote ruminal digestion efficiently while minimizing or managing the risk of fermentable materials that reach the large intestine.

Dr. Greg Eckerle (05:19)
Is there any sort of mitigation practices that we could utilize to help keep that intestinal junction and intestinal villi healthy?

Dr. Greg Penner
Certainly, our data as well as others have shown that if PH is too low for too long, again, we don't have good thresholds characterized for the hindgut, but we do see a leaky gut, or at least increased permeability of the gut. Our work has been able to show that both outside of the animal using ex vivo conditions and also inside the animal using in vivo markers, we actually see greater permeability responses in post-ruminal regions rather than the ruminal region. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (08:27)
What can we utilize and look at when we see animals undergoing a medicinal acid challenge?

Dr. Greg Penner
I think it's really hard to differentiate ruminal acidosis and hindgut acidosis. And as I mentioned earlier, they often occur simultaneously. I think in many cases, we've looked at indicators of hindgut acidosis as evidence for ruminal acidosis. And so we've probably been looking at it backward. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (11:56)
Do we see an alteration in more pathogenic bacteria or harmful bacteria to the animal which could lead to increased ailments, transition of other things that enterotoxins, and things like that?

Dr. Greg Penner
There was some nice work done by Dr. Kees Plaizier at the University of Manitoba where they did some grain versus alfalfa induction protocols for ruminal acidosis. And fortunately, they have both ruminal microbial changes. And in some of those studies, they also have hindgut microbial changes. And if I recall right, I believe E. Coli abundance, I think they stopped at a genre level, but E. Coli abundance was increased. And so certainly we get concerned about E. Coli from a potential contaminant of meat or meat products and not something we want to increase concentration of, recognizing not all E. Coli will be harmful or truly pathogenic. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (13:48)
When we look at the terminal carcass evaluation of these animals, do we see an increase in liver abscess scores from Fusobacterium that may cross this damaged intestinal?

Dr. Greg Penner
That's a great question, and that's the hypothesis we have. But unfortunately, I have not seen any data that confirms whether fusobacterium is crossing the rumen, crossing regions of the intestine, or both. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (16:15)
Are there certain production periods for either both beef and dairy that we need to be paying more attention to with those management practices to help reduce those risks?

Dr. Greg Penner
Let's start on the dairy side. I think probably the greatest risk factor is early in the transition phase. And the reason I say that is there's a number of changes that have likely occurred during that time. […]

In terms of feedlot cattle, I think any factor, again, that leads to a reduction in feed intake, even a transient reduction, probably increases risk for rumen and hindgut acidosis. So, these could be things like respiratory disease, it could be heat stress events, they could be transportation events. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (21:52)
What would be three of the main take-home messages that we have for nutritionists, veterinarians, and producers when we want to help mitigate or strategize systems on farms?

Dr. Greg Penner
I think the first one is […] that what happens in the rumen influences the more distal parts of the gastrointestinal tract. […]

The second one is when we look at the responsiveness of the intestinal regions, they're probably regions that are more prone to leakiness. […]

The third one goes back to good standard practices, and I think this will never be eliminated from core tasks or core skills of a nutritionist bunk calling. […]

Timestamps and Summary 

1:54

How do you feel about Meatless Monday?

Jess Pryles

I don’t feel much about Meatless Monday. It’s more of a fad […]

3:23

What can we be doing as an industry and as individuals, family-owned operations to impact our consumer demand more positively?

Jess Pryles

I think just telling the story, there are a lot of great social media platforms at the moment: Instagram, obviously big but particularly for AG, Tiktok has been extremely successful. There were a lot of big agriculture producers, […] I mean, big accounts on Tiktok, but small, independent ranchers, both on the dairy and the cattle, beef production side, who have hundreds of thousands of followers. […]

5:23

What’s one thing about Australia that you miss, and would love to bring back or have here in the States more often?

Jess Pryles

You know, I would bring back meat pies. That’s a very classic Australian thing, and the first thing that I did when I landed and got off the plane, I drove to this little pie shop that’s very famous. […]

6:32

What's your all-time favorite beef cut?

Jess Pryles

I think the point is, we do say for certain cuts to just buy the best you can afford. […]

There are other times when you can really afford to get a bit more creative. You know, in Texas tacos, […] I frequently buy select skirt steaks. […]

I think if I had to choose my favorite cut, this is very controversial in beef worlds because obviously, I feel like my death row meal would be a ribeye but one of my very favorite steaks, the one I just keep coming back to is top sirloin and top sirloin cap.

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 Brisson (04:28)

What should [nutritionists] keep in mind when they’re formulating for individual amino acids? Or perhaps should they be looking at them as groups instead?  

Dr. Izabelle Teixeira

I’m biased, right? But certainly, we have the literature support to see that when you look at individual amino acids, we don’t really fully explain the cow’s response, so the lactation performance response. So, looking at the amino acids as a group, we have a better understanding of those responses or why the cows are responding in a certain way. […]

Vicki Brisson (06:46)

Is there a reason why you looked at these specific groups of amino acids? So let’s say methionine, lysine, and histidine, and then leucine and isoleucine and you referred to the roles as well. So what might be the key differences between these groups of amino acids?

Dr. Izabelle Teixeira

There were some responses in the literature that we could use. We know that methionine plays a role in there. Lysine plays a role in there. We know that when we look at those amino acids and were, for example, decreasing the protein in the diet, but adding those amino acids, histidine was missing, and then could impair some of the response. So, it’s sort of the basis behind that first group. The other one is we also had in the literature some effects from the brain chain amino acids. So, we know that leucine plays a role in the mTOR pathway that we know is behind the milk protein synthesis. We also use the same basis for our hypothesis on the role of amino acids in milk fat synthesis. […]

Vicki Brisson (10:06)

Since you’ve done lots of work on dairy goat nutrition in the past, can you please share some of the key nutritional considerations that ruminant nutritionists should account for when they're formulating rations for dairy goats, especially when it comes to energy, protein, and mineral requirements?

Dr. Izabelle Teixeira

Thank you for bringing that up, Vicky. For me, it was fascinating. I have always looked at small ruminants as a model, […]. But when I started working with small ruminants, especially goats, they opened so many opportunities and created so many opportunities for me. So, throughout my ten years plus experience with small ruminants, I realized some similarities that we can definitely use small ruminants as a model for […] lactating cows. […]

Vicki Brisson (15:39)

How can we successfully integrate precision livestock measurements and management tools such as precision livestock farming and digital livestock farming?

Dr. Izabelle Teixeira

I think this is a hot topic. So, pretty much everybody is pointing their eyes on precision livestock farming and there are so many tools out there that can be used, that can be applied. The industries are offering us some possibilities and I think that's great because we need to improve. And we need to understand this precision measurement which is what is there that we can measure but also the precision management. So, how can we implement some tool that can be useful, but also it’s profitable? […]

Vicki Brisson (20:42)

What nutritional solutions are you currently investigating or looking forward to investigate as strategies to enhance the sustainability of those dairy production systems?

Dr. Izabelle Teixeira

When I arrived, I was asked to look at two main nutrients, nitrogen, and phosphorus, because that's something important here with all the environmental concerns, and I use different strategies for them. Regarding nitrogen, we are developing a mobile-friendly web-based tool that we can refine the use of mun, so milk urea nitrogen to really understand the response of the animals […]

Vicki Brisson (27:49)

To wrap up our discussion today, can you share your three take-home messages when thinking of practical solutions to improve the dairy industry’s sustainability?

Dr. Izabelle Teixeira

I would say the first one is to look at nutrition not as specific boxes like protein or amino acids or energy but in a more interactive way. […]

The other take-home message would be to look at sustainability in a holistic way. […]

And I think the last one is […] the importance of training because you can formulate the best diet ever if you don’t have the workforce prepared to use that diet for feeding the cows in a proper way, it doesn’t matter.