Source: PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY submitted to
DETERMINATION OF ALTERED RUMEN FERMENTATION BY REAL-TIME RUMINATION OBSERVATION
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
EXTENDED
Funding Source
AFRI COMPETITIVE GRANT
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1009340
Grant No.
2016-68008-25025
Project No.
PENW-2015-09175
Proposal No.
2015-09175
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Program Code
A1701
Project Start Date
Mar 15, 2016
Project End Date
Jan 14, 2021
Grant Year
2016
Project Director
Harvatine, K. J.
Recipient Organization
PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY
408 Old Main
UNIVERSITY PARK,PA 16802-1505
Performing Department
Animal Science
Non Technical Summary
In an effort to meet the high energy and protein demands of lactation the modern dairy cow is fed a highly fermentable diet. However, these diets reduce rumen pH and result in a condition called sub-acute rumen acidosis. This condition reduces feed efficiency, reduces milk fat because of synthesis of bioactive trans fatty acids, and increase incidence of numerous diseases. This results in reduced animal welfare and farm profitability and sub-clinical rumen acidosis has been estimated to cost the US dairy industry between 500 million and 1 billion dollars per year.Rumination is a key process required by dairy cows for optimal digestive function and health. Rumination reduces digesta particle size, adds salivary buffers to stabilize rumen pH, and assists in mixing rumen contents. Reduced rumination has a number of negative consequences for the cow including decreased rumen pH and altered rumen fermentation resulting in poor performance and depressed milk fat. Recently, automated systems have been developed for observation of rumination on commercial dairy farms and are being used to manage reproduction and identify clinically sick animals. The rumination observation systems have the potential for determination of subacute rumen acidosis, but a lack of research data and benchmarks are limiting their usefulness.This research component of the project will collect milk samples from individual cows on 6 commercial dairies with rumination observation systems. Milk fatty acid profile will be used as an indication of rumen fermentation. Relationships between milk fatty acids and rumination behavior will be determined and benchmarks and prediction equations will be developed that can be used on farms. This information will be used to identify and reduce sub-acute rumen acidosis on farms. The extension component will deliver this information to field nutritionists and herd managers. This project meets a critical need to fully utilize a new technology that is being rapidly adopted on farms to reduce an issue that has major impacts on farm profitability and animal welfare.
Animal Health Component
20%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
25%
Applied
75%
Developmental
(N/A)
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
3073410101050%
3023410101050%
Knowledge Area
302 - Nutrient Utilization in Animals; 307 - Animal Management Systems;

Subject Of Investigation
3410 - Dairy cattle, live animal;

Field Of Science
1010 - Nutrition and metabolism;
Goals / Objectives
The overarching goal of the project is to improve economic return and animal welfare of dairy farms by improving rumen health and increasing milk fat yield. This will be accomplished through an on-farm research project and integrated extension program that will increase the value of rumination observation systems rapidly being installed for reproduction and herd health.In an effort to meet the high energy and protein demands of lactation the modern dairy cow is fed a highly fermentable diet which increases the risk for sub-clinical rumen acidosis (a.k.a. SARA), milk fat depression, and incidence of numerous diseases. Sub-clinical rumen acidosis has been estimated to cost the US dairy industry between 500 million and 1 billion dollars per year and varies between farms, over time on the same farm, and within cows on each farm. Recent advances in on-farm technology provide the opportunity to monitor farm and individual cow response to diets with the goal of reducing altered rumen fermentation and associated issues. Development of benchmarks and methods to understand cow response to diet will allow more precise management at the herd and cow level.The specific objectives of the project are:1. Determine the relationship between rumination time and milk fat concentration and milk trans-isomer profile. Data will be collected from commercial farms with rumination observation systems. Milk fatty acid profile will be used as an indication of rumen fermentation. Repressions between rumination and milk fatty acids will be conducted and benchmarks for optimal rumination will be established.2. Development of extension programming reporting the variation in rumination and how to identify altered rumen fermentation.Development of benchmarks relating rumination with rumen fermentation will allow nutritionist and farm managers to better monitor diets and cows. Specifically, the real-time nature of rumination may detect high-risk diets before milk fat is decreased, identify cows at risk for altered fermentation, and allow development of advanced grouping strategies based on individual cow requirement for effective fiber.
Project Methods
Research Aim:Data will be collected from six commercial dairy farms with rumination collar systems. Data will be collected across multiple commercial platforms. Three herds will be selected for a follow-up approximately 6 months later to allow determination of the effect of cow. All herds will be on monthly DHIA recording. Correct adjustment of collars will be verified before initiation of data collection. Ration composition will be recorded and feed ingredients will be sampled for analysis of nutrient composition.Milk samples will be collected and analyzed for milk fat and protein by mid infrared spectrum. Milk fatty acid profile will be determined by gas chromatography. Rumination data will be downloaded at the time of observation.Data will be analyzed to determine the variability and sources of variation in rumination, milk production (including fat concentration and yield), and milk FA profile using mixed modeling. Secondly, the relationship between rumination and milk production and milk FA profile will be investigated. Lastly, benchmarks and prediction equations will be developed.Extension Aim:Research finding will be shared with dairy producers, dairy nutritionists, and other dairy industry professionals through a variety of face-to-face (on-farm workshops and regional conferences), on-line programing (webinars and videos), and articles (on-line newsletters and Extension Bulletins).1. Two webinars will be developed in the Penn State Technology Tuesday webinar series. These webinars regularly have 30 to 40 participants during live webinars and an additional 150 to 250 views of recorded webinar within six months after the live broadcast. Participants include dairy producers, researchers, extension educators, dairy nutritionists, and veterinarians.2. Presentation at the annual Penn State Dairy Nutrition Conference which regularly attracts 600 participants, primarily dairy nutritionists, extension educators, and other industry professionals3. Short educational video will be developed as part of the proposed project. The video will be available through the Penn State Extension web site. The target audience for the video will be dairy producers and nutritionists interested in or currently using rumination data as a tool to help manage nutrition on dairy farms.4. Articles will be published in the Penn State Dairy Digest. The newsletters published in the past year have averaged 172 unique page views in the first month after publication and 396 unique page views in the first six months after publication. Dairy Digest articles are often picked up by regional and national dairy trade publications, extending the reach of the articles.

Progress 03/15/16 to 12/31/20

Outputs
Target Audience:Dairy nutrition researchers, practicing dairy nutritionists and vetrinarians, and dairy farm owners and managers. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The project was the main focus of one M.S. student who joined USDA ARS after graduation, a visiting PhD student and also involved interaction with numerous other graduate students. Undergraduate research assistants were extensively involved in the research project providing laboratory and research experiences for them including one honors student and one independent study project. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The research results were presented at the annual meeting of the American Dairy Science Association and a precision dairy nutrition conference and have been published or submitted to the premier peer reviewed journal for the topic area (Journal of Dairy Science). The infomration has also been included in invited presentations at regional and national dairy nutrition conferences. Lastly, in the extension component, articles have been published through the Penn State Extension system that were republished by numerous media outlets. Results were also discussed directly with farmers and nutritionists through extension outreach efforts. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Rumination observation systems continue to be rapidly adopted for management of reproduction and health. The current project verified a moderate relationship between rumination and milk fat when feeding different diets, but found that variation in rumination between cows fed the same diet is poorly related to milk fat concentration. Overall, this focuses the use of benchmarking at the herd level and cautions from applications at the cow level. This information allows more effective use of on-farm data for economically important decisions without over-interpretation of the data. Specific accomplishments on each objective include: Objective 1. Determine the relationship between rumination time and milk fat concentration and milk trans-isomer profile. First, data were collected from 1733 Holstein cows on 5 commercial dairy farms that had rumination observation systems. Milk samples from on DHIA test were analyzed for fat content by mid infrared spectroscopy and for milk FA profile by gas chromatography. Rumination time was related to concentration of specific odd- and branched-chain and trans-FA in milk, but was not directly related to milk fat concentration. Rumination time also did not contribute to models predicting milk fat concentration after accounting for other cow-level variables. There was a linear relationship between trans-10 C18:1 and rumination time. While rumination time was not related directly to milk fat concentration, it was associated with differences in trans and odd and branched-chain FA that have been demonstrated to change during sub-acute ruminal acidosis or biohydrogenation-induced milk fat depression, which may impact milk fat and other production variables. Second, to extend the investigation of the relationship of rumination with milk fat across the year and to better model cow and days in milk effects we analyzed data from 1823 cows on two commercial dairy farms over eight DHIA tests. Daily rumination time varied across and within cows and was strongly influenced by a cow effect. Greater rumination tended to be associated with a small decrease in milk fat concentration in Farm A, but was not related to milk fat in Farm B. The significant, but small, model coefficients for milk fat and rumination likely indicate that the relationship between these variables is not strong enough to permit identification of cows with milk fat depression based on rumination time from commercial systems alone. Lastly, to investigate the relationship between rumination time and milk fat across diets we conducted a meta-analysis of data published in the literature. The analysis included 130 journal articles published between 1986 and 2018 reporting 479 treatment means from lactating Holsteins cows during established lactation. Rumination time was quadratically increased with increasing milk fat yield (partial R2 = 0.27) and milk fat percent (partial R2 = 0.17). Rumination was also increased with increasing milk yield, DM intake, and rumen pH, and was quadratically impacted by dietary neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and total tract NDF digestibility (partial R2 0.10 to 0.27). This demonstrated that rumination time was related to milk fat across a large number of studies that differ in diet composition, although it explained only a limited amount of the variation in milk fat. Objective 2. Development of extension programming reporting the variation in rumination and how to identify altered rumen fermentation. A diverse extension program included popular press articles, online webinars, extensive speaking at regional nutrition conferences, and direct producer interaction. This provided multiple methods and provided broad outreach to both producers, veterinarians, and nutritionists.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2021 Citation: Andreen, D.M., M. M. Haan, C. D. Dechow, K. J. Harvatine. 2020. Determination of relationships between rumination, rumen fermentation, and milk fat using data from commercial rumination sensing systems. J. Dairy Sci. Submitted.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Matamoros, C., R. Klopp, L.E. Moraes, and K.J. Harvatine. 2020. Meta-analysis of the relationship between milk trans-10 C18:1, milk fatty acids < 16 C, and milk fat production. J. Dairy Sci. 03:1019510206.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: K.J. Harvatine. 2020. New insights into milk fat research and reviewing our progress. Proc. Cornell Nutr. Conf. Feed Manuf., Cornell Univ.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: K.J. Harvatine. 2020. Impact of daily and seasonal rhythms on maximizing milk production. Proc. Cornell Nutr. Conf. Feed Manuf., Cornell Univ.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Haan, M. 2020. A High Moisture Corn Feeding System for Robotic Milking. Penn State Extension Publication. https://extension.psu.edu/a-high-moisture-corn-feeding-system-for-robotic-milking.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Submitted Year Published: 2021 Citation: Schmidt1, A.J., R. Bomberger, and K.J. Harvatine. 2021. Technical Note: Stability of milk fatty acid profile during simulated shipping for analysis by gas chromatography. J Dairy Sci. Comm. Submitted
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Submitted Year Published: 2021 Citation: Souza, J.G., C.V.D.M. Ribeiro, and K.J. Harvatine. 2021. Meta-analysis of rumination behavior and its relationship with milk fat concentration in lactating dairy cows. J. Dairy Sci
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2020 Citation: Harvatine, K.J. 2020. Maximizing Milk Fat Yield. Four State Nutrition Conference. Virtual. June 10th.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2020 Citation: Harvatine, K.J. 2020. Maximizing Milk Fat Yield: Daily Intake Patterns, Fat Feeding & More. Renaissance Nutrition Conference. Virtual. April 15th.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Haan, M. 2020. Understanding Rumination and Technologies to Monitor Rumination Behavior in Cattle. Penn State Extension Publication. https://extension.psu.edu/understanding-rumination-and-technologies-to-monitor-rumination-behavior-in-cattle


Progress 03/15/19 to 03/14/20

Outputs
Target Audience: Nothing Reported Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The project involved a graduate student and numerous undergraduate students. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Results have been reported through journal articles, presentations, magazine articles, and direct producer contacts. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Complete submission of manuscripts.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Rumination observation systems continue to be popular on dairy farms and are increasingly used for reproduction and herd health management. Rumination data continues to be underutilized in nutrition management. The project has continued to provide insight into further uses. Objective 1. Determine the relationship between rumination time and milk fat concentration and milk trans-isomer profile. Data was collected from commercial dairies and has been analyzed. We included information on the genetic potential of the cows in the regression analysis. As expected, we found that there is substantial variation in milk fat concentration and modest variation in genetic potential between cows within the herd. Rumination time explained a small amount of the variation in milk fat percent and overall each of the factors explored only explained a small amount of variation. We analyzed one year of data from two herds to further test the potential for observation of a relationship and found a similar result. One manuscript is accepted from this work and a second is nearly ready for submission. A third manuscript demonstrating an improved methods to calibrate parlor milk meters that was developed in the course of the project has been published. 2. Development of extension programming reporting the variation in rumination and how to identify altered rumen fermentation. Producers continue to have interest in rumination observation data. We had 6 direct producer contacts and published a magazine article. Data from the project was also integrated into numerous talks on milk fat presented at regional and national nutrition conferences.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Andreen, D.M., I.J. Salfer, Y. Ying, D.J. Reinemann, and K.J. Harvatine. 2019. Technical Note: Method for improving precision of in-parlor milk meters and adjusting milk weights for stall effects. J. Dairy Science. 103:5162:5169.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2020 Citation: Andreen, D.M., M.M. Haan, C.D. Dechow, and K.J. Harvatine. 2020. Relationships between milk fat and rumination time recorded by commercial rumination sensing systems. J. Dairy Sci. In Press.


Progress 03/15/18 to 03/14/19

Outputs
Target Audience:Dairy nutritionist, dairy suppliers, technical managers, and producers. Changes/Problems:Our have been delayed in receiving data from a third rumination observation system due to delays in data sharing agreements and technical delays in data transfer. Due to these delays we added additional farms and cows from cows with the two systems that we were able to receive data from. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?One graduate student worked full time on the project and additional graduate students assisted. Additionally, undergraduate students were involved in the project. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Experimental data was submitted to a national dairy science meeting. Manuscripts are being prepared for submission for peer review. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will complete data analysis and submit papers for publications. We also plan to analyze data from an additional rumination observation system.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? During the reporting period we completed sample collection and analysis from over 1700 cows for Objective 1 and results were submitted for the National American Dairy Science Association Meeting. The analysis observed substantial variation in rumination time between cows. Although substantial variation was also observed in milk fat concentration, only small percent of the variation in milk fat could be explained by rumination time. Specific Extension activities during this reporting period: Farm Visits to discuss activity systems / rumination data with producers - 18 Phone calls or e-mails with producers or other industry professionals on the use of activity systems / rumination on dairy farms - 4 Phone call with reporter from Reading Eagle on the use of activity systems / rumination monitoring for article. 4/13/18 - Farm Tour - Farmnote (Japanese Technology company) - 4 farms, 5 in tour group 10/2/18 and 10/3/18 - Farm Tour - Farmnote (Japanese Technology Company) - 8 farms, 4 in tour group 10/31/19 - Penn State Dairy Nutrition Conference - Presentation on using activity systems to monitor transition cow health (50 people in attendance) Phone call with reporter from New York Times for article on the use of technology on dairy farms. 11/28/18 - Benchmark Discussion Group: Activity Systems (8 Participants) Phone call with reporter from Farm Tech on the use of technology on dairy farms. 1/30/19 - Benchmark Discussion Group: Activity Systems (15 Participants)

Publications

  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Matamoros, C.I., R. Klopp, A.R. Clarke, and K.J. Harvatine. 2018. Regression analysis of the relationship between milk de novo synthesized FA, trans-10 C18:1, and milk fat percent using treatment means from the literature. J. Dairy Sci. 101:293.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Andreen, D.M., I.J. Salfer, Y. Ying, and K.J. Harvatine. 2018. Method for calibrating parlor milk meters and adjusting milk weights for stall effects. J. Dairy Sci. 101:268.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: 2. Andreen, D.M., M.M. Haan, C.D. Dechow, K.J. Harvatine. 2019. Determination of the relationships between rumination time, milk fat production, and milk fatty acid profile using real-time rumination data. J. Dairy Sci. 102(Suppl.1):412.


Progress 03/15/17 to 03/14/18

Outputs
Target Audience:Dairy field nutritionists, dairy nutrition researchers, upper level herd owners and managers. Changes/Problems:We had proposed to collect rumination data from all three commercially available rumination collar systems. One company has not responded to our request for a data sharing agreement. We have made attempts through contactingmultiple people from the company, but have not been successful in getting a reply from the person responsible for data sharing agreements. We are unsure the reason for this lack of reply. At this point we have excluded this system from our work and are collecting additional data from the two other systems. We expect this will have minimal impact on the outcome of the project as the system that we are excluding is currently not actively marketing in the USA and there are very few systems currently in the USA. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?A graduate student who is supported under a competitive fellowship from our college has been involved in the project since August of 2017. Another 3 graduate students and at least 4 undergraduatesin the research lab have assisted in the experiment. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have submitted on paper for peer review. Webinars and presentations have been initiated and we have scheduled to present results from the project at the 2019 PSU Dairy Nutrion workshop. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will complete sample and data analysis of the main part of the experiment and prepare peer reviewed publications. We will also present the results at regional nutrition conferences and develop additional webinars.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Goal 1 of the project is to collect samples from a large number of dairy cows with rumination monitors. An MS student was recruited who started in August 2017.We have surpassed our goal for total samples and are completing lab analysis. This part of the project was delayed due to issues completing data sharing agreements with the manufacturers of the rumination collar systems, but is rapidly progressing and we expect to complete data analysis during the Fall of 2018. Goal 2 is development ofextension programing. Extension programming about use of rumination collar systems in herd management have been developed and include both webinars and conference proceedings. Data from the main project will be integrated into this programming in Fall 2018.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Submitted Year Published: 2018 Citation: Salfer, I.J., M.C. Morelli, Y. Ying, M.S. Allen, and K.J. Harvatine. The effects of source and concentration of dietary fiber, starch, and fatty acids on the daily patterns of feed intake, rumination, and rumen pH in dairy cows. J. Dairy Sci. Submitted.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Using Activity Systems to Monitor Dry and Transition Cows, Published on-line https://extension.psu.edu/using-activity-systems-to-monitor-dry-and-transition-cows, 12/18/17.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2017 Citation: Transition Cow Management. Original date: 12/12/17, recording available on-line at https://extension.psu.edu/transition-cows.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Lebanon County Dairy, Livestock, and Crop Conference, Lebanon, PA, 2/10/18. Precision Feeding Technology.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Dairy Summit, State College, PA, 2/21/18. Precision Feeding Technology.


Progress 03/15/16 to 03/14/17

Outputs
Target Audience:Field nutritionists and farm managers. Changes/Problems:We have added an additional meta-analysis of rumination time reported in the literature. We have had some delays in completing data discllosure agreements with some of the companies who make the rumination observation systems. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Two technicians have been trained on the associated procedures allowing rapid completion of the remaining experiments. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?One extension publication related to rumination observation has been completed. Others publications will come after data analysis. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?The remaining samples will be collected and analyzed. Manuscripts and extension activities will be completed.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? In the first year of the grant we have focused on sample collection and analysis. We have collected samples from three farms and have completed part of the laboroaty analysis. Sample collection and analysis will be completed in the coming months. We have also conducted a meta-analysis of rumination time reported in the literature.

Publications

  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: M. Haan. October 20, 2016. Using Rumination Sensors to Monitor Heat Stress in Dairy Cows. Penn State Extension Dairy Digest. Available on-line: http://extension.psu.edu/animals/dairy/news/2016/using-rumination-sensors-to-monitor-heat-stress-in-dairy-cows.