Progress 09/01/17 to 08/31/22
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience for this period was two-fold. First, we continued to stay in contact with the almost 75 organic producers enrolled on the project, despite not being able to visit due to covid. Additionally, enrollment of cattle in the prospective clinical trial continued on one farm. The second audience was the broader organic community that we interacted with both through organic cooperatives and digitally. Changes/Problems:The significant issue we faced that required us to change the research plan was the emergence of a global pandemic in 2020 and continuing through the end of the funding period. This completely shut down travel and increased concern among farmers on having outside visitors to their facilities. As a result we had to cancel the second visits to farms and migrate the extension training to online, however the producers and stakeholders adapted well and still found the outcomes beneficial. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Training of the graduate student and hoof trimmers involved in the organic prospective trial occured throughout the trial. The farm visits are offering new one-on-one training opportunities for the farmers to review their lameness lesion identification and locomotion scoring expertise. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have presented abstracts at three national conferences. In addition we have provided updates to the organic community through the Organic Valley field staff. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
During the period of the grant we completed the majority of the goals, with the exception of having some changes due to covid pandeminc. Objective 1: During this project we made first evaluations of 74 farm visits in the northeast, midwest and southeast portions of the US. These farms were identified with the assistance of Organic Valley with elidgibility including that the farms were certified organic, shipping milk at the time of the visit and milking 20 or more cows. In each region organic valley identified a sampling frame and we worked with their field staff to finalize farms willing to participate. While we had 25 visits to the northwest planned and had planned to do repeat visits to the first 74 farms, these were all canceled due to travel bans put in place by our institution due to Covid. Having to drop these seconds visits impacted our ability to evaluate change on the farms as a result of our training, however we are still able to provide benchmarking and aggregate data on practices related to lameness in the organic production system. That data has been summarized in a manuscript that is under review. Objective 2: Despite travel bans, enrollment in the prospective randomized clinical trials continued for all 4 studies, including digital dermatitis, footrot, white line disease and sole ulcers. This was possible since the farm staff are the ones that actually collect this data, so travel on our part was not necessary. We enroilled 1166 cows. Given that each cow has 5 rechecks this amounts to roughly 5300 cow evaluations performed. The outcome of these four prospective clinical trials are currently under review for publication. Objective 3: This objective had the most significant negative impact due to the travel ban. We were able to continue some training in the early part of the project but pretty much everything came to a stop in March of 2020. As an alternative we developed a web based training modules for the Organic Master Hoofcare Training Program.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
DESCRIBING HERD MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES OF CERTIFIED ORGANIC DAIRY FARMS IN THE UNITED STATES AND DETERMINING RISK FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH LAMENESS.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
EVALUATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USDA ORGANIC� ALLOWABLE TREATMENTS ON THE MANAGEMENT AND TREATMENT OF DIGITAL DERMATITIS IN DAIRY CATTLE
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
EVALUATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USDA ORGANIC� ALLOWABLE TREATMENTS ON THE MANAGEMENT AND TREATMENT OF SOLE ULCERS IN DAIRY CATTLE
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Progress 09/01/20 to 08/31/21
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience for this period was two-fold. First, we continued to stay in contact with the almost 75 organic producers enrolled on the project, despite not being able to visit due to covid. Additionally, enrollment of cattle in the prospective clinical trial continued on one farm. The second audience was the broader organic community that we interacted with both through organic cooperatives and digitally. Changes/Problems:The major issue is the continued pandemic. We have transitioned from the in-person extension training to the development of digital on-demand training to partially address this issue. With regard to farm visits we have no alternative options at this time and simply need to wait for the pandemic to slow. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?We have continued to train the graduate student in the scientific method, manuscript and poster writing and scientific publications. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have presented abstracts at three national conferences. In addition we have provided updates to the organic community through the Organic Valley field staff. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Depending on the pandemic situation we hope to get back to doing field visits for objective 1, however travel is still not allowed for us and the farms are not willing to host us at the present time. We also plan to complete the prospective randomized clinical trials and publish the online training materials for the Master Organic Hoof Care Program.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Due to the continuing covid pandemic we have remained unable to conduct on-farm visits as part of objective 1. We hope to be able to return to those in 2022. However, we have been able to continue the prospective randomized clinical trials at the one dairy. We have completed the first digital dermatitis trial and have commenced a second trial testing the "winner" of the first trial against three additional organic therapies. Enrollments in the foot rot trial, white line disease trial and sole ulcers trials are nearing completion. In addition, since in-person extension meetings are not a viable option in the pandemic we have converted our approach to developing web based video modules for the Master Organic Hoof Care program. We anticipate these being completed next year and available online.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Krebill C, Shearer J, Scott HM, Bothe H, Umase S, Sanabria I, Iza E, Baron J, Hernandez R, Plummer PJ. Evaluating the effectiveness of organic therapies on treatment and management of bovine digital dermatitis. Conference for Research Workers in Animal Disease, December 5-8, 2020
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Krebill C, Shearer J, Scott HM, Bothe H, Umase S, Sanabria I, Iza E, Baron J, Hernandez R, Plummer PJ. Comparing the efficacy of antibiotic alternatives for the management of contagious digital dermatitis in dairy cattle. NIAMRRE Knowledge Exchange Virtual Poster Event, July 30-31, 2020
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Krebill C, Shearer J, Scott HM, Bothe H, Umase S, Sanabria I, Iza E, Baron J, Hernandez R, Plummer PJ. Comparing the efficacy of antibiotic alternatives for the management of contagious digital dermatitis in dairy cattle. Midwest AMR Consortium Virtual Poster Event May 26-29, 2020
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Progress 09/01/19 to 08/31/20
Outputs
Target Audience:The early part of this reporting period continued previous work to reach organic producers, industry stakeholders, and field staff for organic valley. With the start of the pandemic most outreach efforts came to an abrupt stop as travel and on-site work halted. Changes/Problems:The Covid pandemic presented significant problems as all work by our team (aside from the prospective trial that included on farm staff) came to a complete halt for the last half of this reporting period. This resulted in the following issues: Inability to travel at all, forcing cancellation of the northwest sampling trip as well as resampling of the midwest farms Inability to meet or do extension, training or even team meetings in person Need to transition to online training opportunities - development of these is planned Concern from farmers about having visitors Distraction of the entire industry and population with the pressing issues of covid. We continue to monitor the situation and can better develop next step plans once we know when we can restart research. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Training opportunities continued for the graduate student as well as the farm staff responsible for the cow enrollment in the prospective trails. We were able to provide professional development and training for the 50 additional farms that we visited during this report period. Additional training efforts were greatly impeded by the Covid pandemic. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Given the shutdown of scientific conference and extension meetings, dissemination became much more difficult. We were successful in presenting at three virtual poster sessions reaching a portion of the scientific community interested in this work. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?With the continuation of the pandemic, a remaining travel ban and uncertainity regarding when we will be able to return to normal research function, this is hard to plan and anticipate. The prospective randomized trials will continue, and we anticipate completion of the footrot, sole ulcer and white line arms of those trials. We also anticipate completion of the phase 2 digital dermatitis trial. Efforts related to objective 1 and 3 remain are still fluid until research can open back up.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
During this reporting period we have accomplished progress in all objectives of the grant, albeit slower than expected due to the impacts of the covid pandemic and a complete stop to farm visits occuring in March 2020 and extending through the conclusion of this reporting period. Objective 1: During the first half of this reporting period we made an additional 50 farm visits in the northeast and southeast portions of the US. Similar to the previous reporting period these farms were identified with the assistance of Organic Valley with elidgibility including that the farms were certified organic, shipping milk at the time of the visit and milking 20 or more cows. In each region organic valley identified a sampling frame and we worked with their field staff to finalize farms willing to participate. Farm visits were made, in many cases with field staff. This success bring the total number of farm visits to 74. While the final set of 25 visits to the northwest was planned for the second half of this period in addition to repeat visits to the first 24 farms, these were all canceled due to travel bans put in place by our institution due to Covid. Objective 2: Despite travel bans, enrollment in the prospective randomized clinical trials continued for all 4 studies, including digital dermatitis, footrot, white line disease and sole ulcers. This was possible since the farm staff are the ones that actually collect this data, so travel on our part was not necessary. We enroilled an additional 423 animals in the four studies bringing the total number of animals enrolled to 1166 cows. Given that each cow has 5 rechecks this amounts to roughly 5300 cow evaluations performed to date. The samples sizes for the digital dermatitis are approaching our anticipated endpoints, so we anticipate completion of the phase 1 digital dermatitis trial in the next several months. Enrollment for the footrot, sole ulcer and white line studies will continue. Objective 3: This objective had the most significant negative impact due to the travel ban. We were able to continue some training in the early part of the report period but pretty much everything came to a stop in March. We are making plans to develop a web based training platform to continue this training despite pandemics.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Krebill C, Shearer J, Scott HM, Bothe H, Umase S, Sanabria I, Iza E, Baron J, Hernandez R, Plummer PJ. Comparing the efficacy of antibiotic alternatives for the management of contagious digital dermatitis in dairy cattle. Midwest AMR Consortium Virtual Poster Event May 26-29, 2020
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Krebill C, Shearer J, Scott HM, Bothe H, Umase S, Sanabria I, Iza E, Baron J, Hernandez R, Plummer PJ. Comparing the efficacy of antibiotic alternatives for the management of contagious digital dermatitis in dairy cattle. NIAMRRE Knowledge Exchange Virtual Poster Event, July 30-31, 2020
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Progress 09/01/18 to 08/31/19
Outputs
Target Audience:Several target audiences were reached during this reporting period: 1) Organic dairy producers - with the enrollment of organic dairy producers from the midwest, northeast and south we were able to have many conversations about the project, lameness and organic management with dairy producers. These interactions included training on foot lesion identification, training on locomotion scoring and discussions of lameness management. 2) Lameness researchers - through interactions at scientific conferences we were able to make the lameness scientific community aware of this research project and upcoming information. 3) Extension and allied industry personnel - through interaction with Organic Valley research coordinators, field representatives and staff we were able to broaden our impact. Many of the farm visits were made with field staff, so they were able to hear the discussions and be trained in the material, thus allowing them to share the information more broadly. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Training of the graduate student and hoof trimmers involved in the organic prospective trial has continued as initiated in the last reporting period. The farm visits are offering new one-on-one training opportunities for the farmers to review their lameness lesion identification and locomotion scoring expertise. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We continue to disseminiate update to the farmers involved in the study, the industry through Organic Valley and extension personnel. In addition, the knowledge gained by the Organic valley field staff while visiting the farms with our team broadens the disseminiation of information beyond only the study participants. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We plan to continue to enroll farms in the field study and cows in the prospective trial.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
During this reporting period we have made significant progress towards accomplishing all of the objectives. Objective 1: We have initiated farm visits following completion of testing the pre- and on-farm assessment. Farms were identified in collaboration with Organic Valley. Farm inclusion criteria included that they had to sell certified organic milk, be currently shipping milk and have a minimum of 20 cows. Organic valley thne worked to generate an anonymous farm list to which we prioritized farm inclusion based on geographic location. the organic valley made an initail contact and told them we would be contacting them. To date we have made visits to 24 farms in the midwest with plans to complete the second region (Northeast - currently working on sampling frame) in the near future. The farm assessment tool is functioning well and we have not had to make significant changes to the process. Objective 2: Enrollment of cows in the four prospective randomized clinical trials, digital dermatitis, sole ulcers, white line disease and footrot has continued with enrollment of an additional 481 animals and continued observation of the animal enrolled in the previous reporting period for a total of 743 cows. Given that each cow has five scheduled rechecks after the initial enrollment this represents roughly 3,000 cow evaluations, pictures and data entry that have occured. The randomization scheme and inclusion criteria are working well and we are filling the digital dermatitis study the fastest. Objective 3: We continue doing training efforts as part of our farm visits and building the includion of organic information in the Master Hoofcare Extension training program. We led roughly 5 trainings this reporting period.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Kurt T, Wong N, Fowler H, Gay C, Lillehoj H, Plummer PJ, Scott HM and Hoelzer K. Strategic priorities for research on antibiotic alternatives in animal agriculture. Front. Vet. Sci. | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2019.00429 2019
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Progress 09/01/17 to 08/31/18
Outputs
Target Audience:The work performed during this period is primarily targeted at organic dairy producers that will be enrolled in the study. Significant effort to develop survey and farm assessment protocols were worked on and these were trialed by several producers prior to fully be rolled out. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The graduate student participated in a 3 day workshop on hoof disease, lamness and foot trimming. In addition she also participated in professional development related to use of the digital data collection equipment. We provided a two-day training session to the veterinarians at the farm collecting the data for the prospective trial on lesion identification, monitoring, locomotion scoring and data collection. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?A manuscript and research poster that include some information from thsi project have been presented at an international lameness conference and published. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Initiate enrollment of farms for objective 1, continue enrollment of cows for objective 2 and continue to build and offer extension materials in objective 3.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
We have hired a MS level graduate student and initiated work in all three of the objectives as follows: Objective 1: We have developed the pre-farm visit assessment as well as the on-farm assessment instruments. The pre-farm visit includes a participation agreement as well as about 140 fields of data collection using branching logic to make taking the assessment easier. The on-farm assessment includes 125 fields of assessment and an addition 80 individual cow assessments. These forms have recieved formal institutional review board and institutional animal care and use approval. We have tested the forms with several local daires to assure that they work well and we are have initiated farm recruitment with the help of Organic Valley. They are working in each region of our assessment to identify a sample frame and then they provide a randomized list considering farm sizes and geographic location. Objective 2: We have developed the data collection tools for the prospective randomized clinical trials. We have trained the two veterinarians employeed by the farms in how to do the data collection as well as lesion scoring and locomotion scoring. We tested our data collection instruments for 2 months to confirm taht they were collecting and working in a manner that provided correct data. The data collection instruments are cloud based REDCap servers that allow real time access to all data in a secure format. There are four arms of the clinical trial that have been initiated including digital dermatitis, white line disease, footrot and sole ulcers. To date 270 animals have been enrolled in the trials and are undergoing required rechecks at 7, 14, 28, 56 and 112 days. Objective 3: We have performed literature and other resource mapping to identify information that can be used to update the extension training materials. After inclusion of this material we did several one-on-one training sessions for hoof trimming to test the approach and material delivery.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
K Orsel, P Plummer, J Shearer, J De Buck, SD Carter, R Guatteo, HW Barkema. Missing pieces of the puzzle to effectively control digital dermatitis. Transbound Emerg Dis. 2017;113.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Coatney J*, Shearer J, Krull A, Gordon P, Plummer P. Prospective Randomized Clinical Trial Comparing Therapeutic Interventions for Complete Healing of Advanced Bovine Digital Dermatitis Lesions in Dairy Cows. 19th International Symposium and 11th International Conference on Lameness in Ruminants, 06th-09th September 2017 in Munich, Germany
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