Herd Health and Nutrition Conference

5:00 PM

Pre-Conference Reception with Speakers and Sponsors

Join your colleagues for an evening of networking with our conference speakers and sponsors. Open to all conference attendees.

7:30 AM

Networking Breakfast

Registration Opens

8:30 AM

Welcome
Dr. Kristan Reed, Cornell University

8:40 AM

Immune Development in Neonatal Calves: Science and Strategies to Optimize Health
Dr. Angel Abuelo, Michigan State University

The calf’s immune system is functional at birth, although it is immature and naïve. This session will review neonatal calf immunology and the factors affecting immune development in calves, providing a functional understanding of the immune responses of newborn calves as well as which strategies can be used on farms to improve neonatal immunity and subsequently reduce disease incidence.

9:30 AM

Fatty Acids to Boost Profit
Dr. Kevin Harvatine, Penn State University

Fatty acids provide a number of tools to manage energy balance, reproductive efficiency, and milk and milk fat yield.  However, they also can increase the risk of milk fat depression and can be expensive.  We will discuss managing dietary fatty acids to increase profitability with rapidly changing milk and feed markets.

10:20 AM

Break

Exhibits open

10:50 AM

Lying Time in Dairy Cattle: What We Know and Next Steps in Cow Comfort
Dr. Cassandra Tucker, University of California Davis

This presentation will cover patterns in lying time in response to housing and management from studies conducted over the last 40 years. It will cover the challenges we face in understanding what lying time tells us about cow comfort. Finally, we’ll discuss other metrics- like long bouts of standing- that might be more straightforward to interpret.

11:40 AM

Lunch

Exhibits open

1:00 PM

Mitigating Heat Stress: Insights and Ideas
Dr. Cassandra Tucker, University of California Davis

This presentation will cover recent results from studies trying to improve the sustainability of cooling methods. We will also talk about promising ideas that could improve cow cooling in a practical and efficient way.

1:50 PM

Feeding and Managing the Robotic Parlors – Individual Boxed Automatic Milking Systems (IBAMS) - It’s Still About Time!

Alicia Lamb, Oakfield Corners Dairy; Josh Poulin, Poulin Grain; and Todd Ward, Direct Dairy Nutrition Services

This session will reveal many of management tips across many makes and models of Individual Boxed Automatic Milking Systems (IBAMS).  The latest developments in troubleshooting animal traffic and how to avoid the pitfalls associated with these types of systems.  There will also be some information on what we can expect to see in the near future from this industry.

3:20 PM

Adjourn