Episode 05 (Season 03) - Animal Welfare - Why Breed for Natural Health?

The Nordic countries have the world’s healthiest cows, supported by high production and the lowest use of antibiotics and hormones. Since the 1980s, they have focused on balancing health with production traits. The goal? Breeding long-lasting cows to make dairy farming more profitable and easier.

So, how can dairy farmers effectively breed for health to improve fertility, longevity, and production? And how can better animal welfare improve your herd’s efficiency and profitability?

To take a deep dive into the importance of naturally healthy cattle and get management tips for improving animal welfare on your farm, we invited two expert veterinaries to share their experience and insights on the value of breeding healthy dairy cows. 

Guests:
Peter Raundal, Senior Specialist and Veterinary Team Leader at SEGES Innovation
Kasper Werner Johanssen, Supervising Veterinary at VikingGenetics.

Host: 
Tomás De La Rosa

Transcript

0:08

The Nordic countries have the world's healthiest cows, supported by high production and the lowest use of antibiotics and hormones. Since the 1980s, they have focused on balancing health with production traits. The goal? Breeding long lasting cows that make dairy farming more profitable and easier. So how can dairy farmers effectively breed for health to improve fertility, longevity and production? And how can better animal welfare improve your herd’s efficiency and profits? To take a deep dive into the importance of naturally healthy cattle and give management tips for improving animal welfare, we invited two expert vets to share their experience and insights on the value of breeding healthy dairy cows. Peter Raundal, Senior Specialist and Vet Team Leader at SEGES Innovation, who is joining us online, and Kasper Johanssen, Supervising Vet at VikingGenetics. This is a the BreedCast produced by VikingGenetics. I'm your host, Tomás De La Rosa. Hello and welcome. Peter and Kasper, thank you for joining us today. Nice to be here. Nice to be here. Peter, let's start with you. Tell us about your experience as a farming vet and a cattle health specialist. Well, yes, thanks, Tomás. I'm a vet. I graduated from the University of Copenhagen in 1996. Went to mixed practice in the beginning and then joined more and more into cattle practice and left the practice work in 2008 and joined the Danish dairy board, working with some health programs we had, and still have, eradicating salmonella dropping from the herds. And also our program for controlling Jonah's disease and in 2011, I started a Ph.D. in lameness in cattle and pain related to lameness. And since 2014, I've been at SEGES working with cattle health and welfare. And recently I became a team leader for the vets working with cattle at SEGES. So that's my background. And, Kasper, you have a slightly different background. Fascinating, shall I say. You also work at Randers Regnskov, which is a tropical zoo here in Denmark. How has that influenced your expertise in animal welfare? I don't know if it has any influence on my expertise regarding animal welfare, but I also have a background in a mixed practice like Peter. And no matter if you work with dairy cows or dogs or cats or hyenas in zoo, animal welfare is basically the same. Now, to get started, let's get straight to the point. Why is cattle health critical for a thriving dairy business? Peter? I think it's very important for a lot of reasons. Firstly, the cattle health also is a big part of... or being healthy is a big part of animal welfare. Sick animals have bad welfare, so to speak. So, to have good health in the herd is also a part of the good welfare. And welfare is a major concern for the consumers. They want the animals that produce the milk for dairy products to have a good life, actually. So welfare is of high concern, but also for the farmers, they also like to work with healthy animals that have a good life, so to speak. So, also the farmers do have concerns about the welfare of the animals. But also the production economy is very much dependent on health and also on welfare. So it's very important in several aspects. Kasper? Yeah, that's true. I've never met a person who didn't believe in the fact that animal welfare matters, but animal welfare is also a subjective size because what is animal welfare? And I believe that the freedom is a good aspect of seeing the animal welfare. And it says that the animal has to be free from hunger, thirst, fear, distress, physical discomfort, pain, disease and freedom to express a normal pattern of behavior. And the challenge in this is that it can be difficult to have an animal that is behaving naturally, but still in the care of humans. So the human has to take that into account, because in the wild you have animals that is... They are experiencing hunger and fear. So, when do we have to say it needs to have food two times a day, seven days a week, 365. That is not a natural way to express your behavior as an animal, at least. So it is funny, I think. But in dairy, we have legislations regarding animal welfare and animal health and it is the same if it is in zoo animal or if it is dairy cows. Now, Nordic cattle breeding data shows us that breeding for health pays off in the long term as the cows are in production for longer. What does longevity - a longer life- mean for a farm's profits and animal welfare? Peter? Yeah, it's quite important because the first around two years in production for a newly calving cow, the first two years in production actually just pays the bills for raising that cow from it was born as a calf and until the time of calving and starting milk production. The first two years they just pay the bill so to speak, so it's after the first two years in production that the farmers actually get a profit from that animal. So, longevity should be at least two years of production and hopefully longer because it's still expensive to raise a heifer. And it takes around two years from small calf until it calves itself. So, it's costly but also in the topic of climate. The two years of raising a new heifer, they also produce carbon dioxide and methane. So, in the climate budget you could say, it's also important that the production afterwards needs to be as long as possible to cover up for the costs on the climate for producing a new heifer. Just to give some perspective to our listeners, do you know what the average cow longevity is here in Denmark? It's something around 2.7-2.8 lactations. So, the first few lactations are just paying the bills, and then there's on average 0.7-0.8 lactation to actually gain profit for the farmer. But there's a very huge difference. Some, cows only have one lactation and some have five, six or even seven or more lactations. So, there is a huge variation within the farm and also between farms. And speaking about profits, high milk and solids production, they are naturally the most sought after traits but good health and management. They can also significantly impact a cow’s output. How can improving animal welfare directly result in a better quality of milk? Well, many of the diseases do not directly alter the content of solids in milk. It's very difficult to affect for instance the content of protein in the milk. The content of fat is more affected by the health status of the cow. Especially when we talk about the diseases of the metabolism. And also, of course, the milk quality itself is very dependent on udder health, that's for sure. But the content of the milk is hard to influence by... It's more influenced by feeding, for instance. But it's important to have healthy cows to have a high production. And that's where the main issue is when we talk about diseases and welfare, that's keeping a high milk yield from the cows and deceased animals do not give a lot of milk. So that's the main problem. Kasper? Yeah, that's true. Healthy cows live longer, and they produce more milk and it's good for the farm profitability. But on the other hand, you cannot say - at least that's my opinion- that longevity equals better welfare. It depends how the animals have been managed by the farmer. But, regarding the milk quality, there are many factors, as Peter says, that are influencing it. I think. And genetic factors also have a big influence on the milk quality. Kasper, how do we ensure here at VikingGenetics that our bulls have healthy semen production? Yeah, I just mentioned the legislation. We are under the same legislation as the dairy farmers. So, we have this direction to follow at least. But we have the animals in quite a different way than the dairy farmers, and we get a lot of bulls from all over the country and all the Nordic countries so we collect a lot of calves from different farms so we have a “bad standing” way to start the life because we have a lot of sickness coming in. So, what we are trying to do is keep the calves in small groups. Of course, have them tested at the farm and when they come in, we test them again, we vaccinate them against BSE and ringworm. And then, we measure the calves every four weeks. I measure the calf so we follow their weight gain to see if they’re eating what they need to eat. So, they are healthy. And then we also keep them in small groups in the beginning. And then when we're taking them from the quarantine to the other barn, we keep them in big groups of calves. They are social animals and then they need to be in groups. Then they'll have normal behavior. So, that’s what we do, and we still measure them until they are 14 months old and of course we don't need the bulls to produce as a dairy cow. So, we also need to keep the body condition in form. We don't need them too fat, we don't need them too skinny. So we primarily use grass silage, no grain because that's the main focus because we have some of the big bulls. So they are not meant to be with other bulls. At least some of them have some temper. So, they're going by themselves and when they only eat and come up for collection two times a week, we could have an issue regarding the size of the animal. They're getting too fat. So we have also made an outdoor facility where we can get the bulls out and they can have some big tyres and move around with them and use some energy. Otherwise we have a lot of good colleagues in the barn. They’re keeping an eye on the bulls every day 365 and if there was anything that's not as it should be, they will call the vet and they can also use an external vet to see the animals. So we do the hoof trimming three or four times a year. And in general just taking good care of the bull. A very good rundown of how we take care of our bulls here at VikingGenetics and we'll get further into management of dairy cows later on in the episode. Peter, in the subject of semen production, cattle health also affects fertility. Why and how does this happen? Well, diseases in dairy cows do affect the fertility and diseases produce some substances that impairs the hormones of the reproductive cycle, for instance, lameness that's a good example because it affects the fertility in several ways. The pain connected to lameness itself impairs actually the hormone cycle of the reproduction cycle in cows and also it impairs the feed intake and creating a negative energy balance. And that also impairs the fertility of the cows. You could say it more simply, the pain in the hooves- it's especially in the rear legs where the hoof lesions are located. It also makes the cows reluctant to mount other cows and also make them reluctant to accept mounting from other cows. So the farmers do not see the heat. Because they are more quiet and less active. So in several ways it impairs the fertility. Of course, if you have uterine infections, that's creating a bad environment for the fertilized egg. So, that also makes a higher rate of fetal death. So, in several ways, it affects the fertility of cows. When the bull is sick, it might have fever and that's a bad thing for semen production - the high temperature in the body. So, in terms of bulls that have been sick also leads to impaired fertility. And suppose our listeners want to learn more about innovative Nordic dairy farming and breeding. In that case, we have an episode of the BreedCast featuring the owner of Arla’s innovation farm in Denmark and two farming innovation experts, which I think you guys should listen to. We've discussed why good herd health is so critical for dairy farmers. Now I'd like to tap into your experiences with Nordic cattle and talk about the relationship between health and genetics. What are some common health issues which farmers can address by using the right genetics? Peter? I think they have to be in very good collaboration with their breeding advisors and have a breeding plan where they can put more weight on the health issues. That's a decision that the farmers should take based on the advice from the breeding advisor. And I guess at least in Denmark, we have a very good system where farmers can get advice and have a breeding plan for his own farm and by that he can over the years have a better genetic pool in his dairy herd that also has better merit for health. Kasper? Yeah, I think it's a good idea to look into the genetics, that's for sure. We have udder health and hoof health breeding values, so that for sure would reduce the frequency of mastitis or hoof disorders. But as I mentioned before, this doesn't stand alone. It's a good basic point to have as a genetic, but also the management needs to be in the right place regarding both mastitis and hoof disorders. Also, a comment on the recording, we have in the Nordic countries, we are recording a lot of diseases, hoof diseases, mastitis and everything. So we have a lot of data to get into the Nordic breeding programs and I guess that's one of the strong or good things about the Nordic breeding system that we have a lot of data on health to provide a breeding index that ticks health into care. And since we speak about all of this data that we have in the Nordic Total Merit Index, in the NTM, a farmer’s choice of breed can greatly affect animal welfare as some, for example, the Red Dairy Cattle; the VikingRed, they've been bred for health traits more than others. Why is choosing a naturally healthy breed so beneficial? Peter? In my view, it's about creating a robust cow. And because it's in an environment where they have high production and therefore also high demands on feet and access to comfortable beds and access to water. But still it's an environment where they need to produce a lot of milk every day. So that's also making them more prone to getting a disease, to get lame or to get mastitis. So, it's important to have a cow that is more resilient, you can say, so they can deal with all the exposure of bacteria or exposure from the hard surface of the alleys and so on. So it can better cope with the environment that’s in the stable. That's one of the reasons why it's important to breed for better health. Kasper? Yeah, true. It is important. And I think also we have to mention the crossbreeding, because we have... at least the Holsteins for dairy cattle that are having a high production of milk and they are prone to be in what I call the heat stress at least in some of the Holstein. They are more prone to be affected by heat. And also Holstein are more receptive to mastitis. So, when you take some of the naturally healthy cow and you crossbreed them with the Holstein, that is a high producing dairy cow that's a good way to do it in my opinion, because you take some of the best from both breeds and put them together in a crossbreed that's just working or functioning better in our system. Of course if you are in the tropical climate with high humidity and warmth, that is maybe not the best place for a Holstein cow. You have to be aware of other breeds to crossbreed with. Some of the genetic trends that have come up over the last few years; polled genetics. It's increasingly becoming a focus when talking about animal welfare. What are the benefits of polled genetics? Peter? Yeah, in Denmark it's mandatory to use anesthetics before you despot or dehorn a calf, and it is also strongly recommended to use painkillers. But still by using hot iron despotting or dehorning, you are putting a third degree of burn to two places in the skull so there will be pain. Despite you’re using both anesthetics and painkillers, the calf will feel pain afterwards. So using polled bulls or bulls that create polled calves will definitely improve their welfare because it's not necessary to use the hot iron despotting. So, that'll be beneficial for the calf definitely. Kasper? Yeah true. And now we have the genetics where the heterozygote at least at the same genetic level as the best AI bulls on the market. So, that is the way to go, I believe. And our listeners can also have a more profitable, trouble free dairy herd with world class Nordic genetics. To discover what VikingGenetics breeding bulls are available, please visit VikingGenetics.com and browse our selection of Holstein, Jersey, Red and beef bulls. We discussed what steps and improvements dairy farmers can make to get the most out of their herds. Now let's talk about management and what farmers can do to optimize and improve their health and welfare in the farms. As we've been speaking all throughout in the Nordic countries, we have a huge emphasis on animal welfare, health and food safety. What makes our practices stand out globally? Peter? I think we have several things. We have quite new barns actually in Denmark and most of our cows - and it's more than 95% or so of the cows are in free stalls and relatively new buildings. We have had recommendations of building stables that take welfare into account. We have a very detailed legislation. For instance, it's forbidden to have a stocking rate more than one cow per bed, and the cows should also have at least eight square meters of area. So, we have a lot of detailed legislation also. And I guess that's one of the good things about milk production in Denmark that we have high standards for welfare, I guess. Also compared to other countries. Kasper? Yeah, true. But we also have in Denmark a so-called, veterinarian advisor service contract with farmers having more than 100 cows. You can also do it on a voluntary basis if you have less than 100 cows. But the fact is that when you are putting the farmer and the veterinarian in this case together, with this contract... First of all, for the farmer, he has the medicine available on his stock, and he can treat specific diseases. You can work together with the veterinarian, but also of having the focus on improving the animal health and welfare and preventing and controlling diseases. I believe it is a major step in Denmark, or the Nordic countries at least. The farmer has frequent visits from the veterinarian and together they make health plans regarding the preventive, the treating... or the animal welfare. So, that is a good thing that they work together to achieving the goals on the farm. I think that's a very good thing in Denmark. The result is also pretty obvious. You can see that we had a decrease in the antibiotics during the last decade of - I believe Peter can correct me - but 20% decrease in antibiotics. In general this year, we had a historically low cell count for the average cell count of 165,000. So, we are on the right track, that's for sure. Now let's dive into some management tips for our listeners. Why is good management so important and how does it complement genetic factors? Peter? Yeah, it's very important. Good management is... I guess it's the most important thing, keeping healthy cattle in our production. And I want to focus on the transition period from about three weeks before calving and three or four weeks after calving. That's a very, very crucial time for the cow. So, I think we need to have more focus on the heifers at first calving. And the weeks afterwards. And when I say focus, it is also how we house them, how we manage them and how we house them after calving. If they are put in together with old cows, they are in high competition in getting to the feeding table, getting to a comfortable bed, getting to the drinking water through. And they can meet a lot of barriers because they meet dominant cows that can keep them away from the feeding table, for instance. And they need to go to the table quite often. The heifers - the first calving cows - are very much prone for getting diseases. And some of the things you actually don't see until it comes to the second lactation or maybe even third lactation. But some of the damage, and now I'm talking about the lameness or some hoof lesions are actually created around first calving, although we first see the actual disease in the second or third lactation. So we need to focus more on the first calving cows, I guess. And the other thing is that it's very, very important that... In the UK, they have this abbreviation, they call it EDPET. It stands for Early Detection and Prompt Effective Treatment and they created it when they talked about hoof health, but it's actually in general, I guess, so the farmer and the staff at the farm need to be very, very aware of each cow actually, although there may be 500, 800 cows in the herd, they need to have focus still on each cow. So they can they can spot the cows that are getting sick because otherwise it would be in the herd, maybe for a couple of days before you realize that it's getting sick. And then it's just very, very difficult to help the cow. When it's mastitis, you actually see it right away because you are milking the cows two or three times a day. But when you talk about all the diseases, it might be difficult to spot them in the herd. So the staff has to be educated. They have to know what they should be looking for. It's not only lameness, but it's a variety of other expressions that you can actually see on the cow that is indicating that this cow is more or less getting into some kind of sickness. And then they need to know what to do. Should they call the farmer or should they separate the cow immediately or at next milking or what should they do? And then they need to take care of that cow. And I think that's a major issue in large herds today that the time looking at each cow is very, very limited. The farmer has very, very little time to look at one single cow and therefore they are often overseen if they are getting sick. So they are overseen for a couple of days, maybe. A very detailed rundown of things farmers should focus on. Now, throughout this discussion, one big focus when it comes to management has been ultimately the impact of mastitis. As I mentioned early on in the episode in the Nordic countries, we have the world's lowest use of antibiotics. What can farmers do to improve the herd’s mastitis resistance and maintain their performance? Peter? Yeah, when it comes to mastitis, it also very much relies on good management, good management in the herd, have clean cows and also keeping up the milking procedures that should be in the top level. They should have highly skilled milkers that are trained in the milking procedure and they should have a milking procedure scheme. There should be a way of doing milking in the herd. And also keeping a low infection pressure is very, very important so clean cows in the barn, clean cows in the milking parlour but also have as few infected cows as possible. And that could be a hard time to get to having very few infected cows. But when the farmer is there, there's a lower infection pressure on all cows, so it helps them keeping good udder health. The milk procedure is very important, pre-dip and definitely post-dip. Milking clean teats is also very, very important. And also a dry-off scheme. So you try to focus the use of antibiotics at dry-off instead of using it to treat new cases of mastitis in the lactation because there's a higher rate of success when you’re using treatment at dry-off instead of using it in lactation. Of course if a cow gets sick of mastitis, you have to take care of it. But as a farmer, you need to decide, is this a case that you need to treat right away? Could I take a milk sample and wait until I have the result of the milk sample? Then decide if I have to treat it or not or should I not treat it at all. The farmers should get into a dialog with his vet and they should have a mastitis treatment scheme and a plan for that. And the milkers should be very aware of the scheme. So they know exactly what to do when they see a cow with signs of mastitis. Kasper? Yeah, it is a bit difficult to make an overall generalization of how to prevent mastitis in the farm, because what worked in one farm might not work in another farm. That at least what I have learned in my ten years in dairy practice. But also, as you Peter mentioned, taking the veterinarian to the problem and also taking milk technicians or AI technicians, taking some of the people who are dealing with the farm and animals, and take them in to consultancy regarding what we can do with the problems we want to solve. So reach out. That is one of my... The cornerstone is to reach out to people. There are many people around the farm. But at least in Denmark, that's what I know, we are willing to help. And they are putting an honour in trying to establish some preventive measures so we kind of reach the goal. And to wrap up, do you have any final thoughts or messages for dairy farmer listeners keen on improving their herds, health and welfare? Kasper? Yeah, I would say choose the right genetic for your cows, to improve health, and focus on preventing diseases. And again, reach out if there are any issues you want to have solved. Reach out to your veterinarian, milking technicians and other people. Peter? They should strive to have very skilled staff. They should hire skilled persons or have education programs so each person at the farm knows what he should work with and knows how to look at the cows and know how to intervene when he sees something that should be taken into... or a cow that should have extra care. So, have educated and skilled personnel. That's very important. Thank you for joining us on the BreedCast today. We've discussed how breeding for naturally healthy cows is an excellent way to improve animal welfare and optimize profits. We also examined the role of genetics and offered management tips. If you want to learn more about VikingGenetics, our dairy and beef breeds, get tips and tricks for breeding and management and much more,

please visit our website: 36:06

VikingGenetics.com. Huge thanks to Peter Raundal and Kasper Johanssen for sharing their insights. A huge shout out to all of you out there listening. If you have an idea for a topic in the world of dairy farming and cattle breeding you would like us to focus on, please visit BreedCast.com or message us on the VikingGenetics Facebook or Instagram pages. You've been listening to the BreedCast - Innovative breeding in your ears. I'm your host, Tomás De La Rosa. Please join me in the next episode as we discuss the advantages of genomic sires and the merits of daughter proven bulls with two expert cattle breeders.