Dr. Todd Duffield, chair of the Department of Population Medicine at U of G, has spent 20 years researching how to manage pain in young dairy calves, thanks in part to long-term funding from the Ontario Agri-Food Innovation Alliance (Alliance), a collaboration between the Ontario government and the University of Guelph. Much of his work has focused on the practice of disbudding, or the removal of horn buds on young calves.
Research at the Ontario Dairy Research Centre suggests cows with a naturally higher immune response also have a higher tolerance for increased temperatures, meaning that this research may allow dairy producers to breed cattle that better withstand heat stress. The researchers used Mallard’s High Immune Response (HIR™) technology to determine which cows had high, average or low immune responses.
Treating sick cows is never fun, for either the animal or the farmer. Just ask dairy producer Brad Hulshof. While he’s in the barn tending an animal, everything else he has to do around the farm takes a back seat. Plus, it’s costly—producers like Hulshof invest about $1,800 in life’s usual necessities (particularly feed) from the time a calf is born, up until the animal calves in turn and starts producing milk. Add the cost of extraordinary veterinary treatment to the mix, and that number can climb appreciably.
Could switchgrass be an alternative to hay for dairy cattle to decrease competition between humans and cattle for land use and improve soil health?
That’s what University of Guelph researcher Abigail Carpenter from the department of animal biosciences wants to know.
Researchers are starting to gather results at the new Elora Research Station – Dairy Facility, where advanced technology is helping University of Guelph scientists investigate animal health issues, such as nutrition, genomics, calf behaviour, welfare and overall cow health.
Professors David Kelton and Derek Haley from the department of population medicine have utilized Elora Dairy’s facilities since its doors opened in May 2015.
“Elora Dairy offers top-of-the-line, high-end technology that helps us do innovative work no one has done before,” Haley says.
A growing calf is a hungry calf, but feeding calves to appetite by hand is prohibitive from a labour point of view. Each calf would need to be fed roughly 10 times daily.
At the same time, there’s a growing emphasis on mimicking natural settings and accommodating animals’ natural behaviour on the farm. Consumers want products from animals that are humanely managed, so a balance must be reached between animals having quality life and economic and efficient production systems.
To maximize efficiency, profitability and sustainability, dairy producers need to find a solution to embryonic losses during pregnancy.
Professor Eduardo Ribeiro from the department of animal biosciences at the University of Guelph is researching causes of pregnancy losses in cattle to develop strategies that will ultimately improve pregnancy survival and reproductive efficiency in dairy herds. Ribeiro hopes to develop practical applications to help producers by focusing on biological problems of cattle at the cellular level.
Canadian scientists conducting a groundbreaking 3,000-dairy cattle study are developing genetic tools to improve feed efficiency and decrease methane emissions.
Milk can do more than build strong bones—it could potentially reduce the risk of disease in humans, with help from new technology developed at the University of Guelph.
High Immune Response (HIR) technology, developed by professor Bonnie Mallard, is a management and breeding tool created for producers to identify cows with inherently superior immunity and disease resistance.
Iodine is an essential nutrient for humans and animals, such as dairy cattle, but it can be toxic in high concentrations. University of Guelph (U of G) researchers have identified groundwater as the key source of iodine in cow’s milk from certain regions in Canada, and are exploring methods to decrease it.
A recent Dairy Farmers of Canada study found about five per cent of farms across the country produced milk that exceeded the margin of acceptable iodine levels.