Practical Research for Better Dairy Performance

This episode is available in English only.

Our guests explain how three commercial dairy studies demonstrate how precision nutrition improves calf growth, transition success, milk production, and overall herd performance through targeted supplementation. 

Timestamps & Summary  

Chris Gwyn (02:22) 
So [Sarah], let's start with looking at the information that you presented on B vitamin supplementation in dairy calves. In the study, you presented data on the post-weaning period. My question for you is: why focus on that time? 

Sarah Dean 
We focused on this time because the post-weaning period is one of the most stressful phases of a calf's life. The calf is experiencing nutritional changes, social regrouping, and environmental stressors all at once. […] 

Chris Gwyn (03:18) 
Perhaps you could share with us how that study was built and the results from that. 

Sarah Dean 
This trial was conducted on a commercial dairy farm in Hungary, and we enrolled 166 female dairy calves, and we alternated consecutive age groups between control and treatment. 

So this allowed the trial to be a side-by-side study. And calves were enrolled at around 87 days of age, which was about 10 days after they were weaned. […] 

And then the calves were followed until 180 days of age. […] 

Chris Gwyn (04:45) 
Perhaps then you could share some of the key findings in the study. 

Sarah Dean 
The results were very encouraging, as the calves that received the protected B vitamins gained about 5% more per day than the control calves. And importantly, we observed this advantage consistently across every batch of calves in the study. 

Chris Gwyn (06:06) 
On the research that was done and presented, what does this mean from a producer perspective? 

Sarah Dean 
I think every gram of growth matters when developing replacement heifers. And better growth after weaning is going to support that producer's breeding targets, reduce variability among heifers, and contribute to a more productive future herd. […] 

Chris Gwyn (07:00) 
Dr. Esselstyn, let's talk about the transition cow study. Why examine B vitamins and choline before calving in that typical transition period? What's the importance of that? And why do we invest time in looking at that? 

Dr. Victoria Asselstine 
We know that the transition period is one of the most metabolically demanding stages that dairy cows have. They undergo numerous physiological, metabolic, and immune challenges during those time periods. So, it's important that we're providing them with the right nutrients that kind of feed into the pathways that they need to support all of those different things. […] 

Chris Gwyn (07:59) 
How was the study conducted? What was the design? What does it look like? 

Dr. Victoria Asselstine 
This was a study done by our colleagues in Mexico. This was also a commercial study, and this specific one was kind of a year-over-year comparison that we had. […] 

There were about 400 cows that calved during that time that were included in the study. And then in the treatment period, so when the JEFO Protected B vitamins and choline were supplied, around 330 cows received that in 2024. […] 

Chris Gwyn (09:46) 
Tell us more about what you saw. What were the production responses? 

Dr. Victoria Asselstine 
Thankfully, we had daily milk yields in this trial, but just based on the enormity of the data that we had to look at, we looked at average milk for 30, 60, and 90 days, comparing those. And we observed that there was a significant improvement in milk production. 3.2 kilograms on average from the 30 to 90 days in milk. 

Chris Gwyn (10:25) 
And from the health side? 

Dr. Victoria Asselstine 
On the health side, we also had great improvements, and we had numerically lower cases of retained placenta and metritis. So, some key metabolic issues that we see. And there were also significantly lower cows culled in that 10 days in milk and also 30 days in milk. […] 

Chris Gwyn (12:21) 
With that in mind, there's probably some practical takeaways for the listening audience, whether veterinarians, nutritionists, producers. 

Dr. Victoria Asselstine 
Probably the biggest takeaway is if you're strategic in your prepartum nutrition, you can really set your herd up. You can help the cows enter their lactation in a stronger metabolic position to kind of support all those metabolic things that I mentioned earlier. And then in this study specifically, we saw that improved milk yield as well as early lactation losses. And this is really supporting those key metabolic pathways before calving even begins. 

Chris Gwyn (13:03) 
So speaking of metabolic pathways, we're going to switch gears a little bit and focus on the 3rd poster that was presented. And in this case, it was on methionine. […] 

Tell us a bit more about why methionine as a nutrient is so important in dairy diets. 

Dr. Victoria Asselstine (13:34) 
The reason that we always want to consider supplementing methionine is because we know that it's often the first limiting amino acid in dairy cow rations. […] 

Chris Gwyn (14:04) 
This study compared two rumen-protected methionine products; maybe you could share with the audience a bit more about the study design. 

Dr. Victoria Asselstine 
This was a study that was completed actually in Brazil. We had a very good range of studies this year. The first one Sarah shared was from Hungary. We had Mexico, now Brazil, making sure we're able to kind of showcase all of our colleagues’ excellent work. But this study was a back-to-back design. So, what that meant was one month they received a commercial competitor's product, and then the next month they received our JEFO Protected Methionine. The only thing that was different between those two periods was the protected methionine source. […] 

Chris Gwyn (15:33) 
So what did you find in the study? 

Dr. Victoria Asselstine 
The cows that actually received that JEFO protected methionine produced over 2 kilograms more milk per day. We also saw they had significant improvements in their milk components, both fat and protein, and this translated to a significant improvement in energy-corrected milk of 2.84 kilograms per day. And as I said, the only thing that changed was the methionine supplementation. So those were quite significant results that we achieved from this study. 

Chris Gwyn (18:21) 
As we begin to wrap up today, Sarah, as you look at these 3 projects together, what does that tell us about the dairy nutrition industry today, or dairy nutrition today and cows' needs? 

Sarah Dean 
I think these three studies really reinforce the importance of precision nutrition across the entire life cycle of the animal. […] 

Together, these three posters and these three trials highlight how nutritional interventions can support performance when animals are facing critical physiological demands, and we're supporting those demands.