The 5th Illini Dairy Judging team golf outing was held on June 13th at the University of Illinois Blue Course in Savoy. The event provided a way for former judging team members, friends, and University alumni to get together and help raise funds for the judging team. Ninety six golfers
(twenty-four teams) completed the 18 hole Blue course. Midwest Dairy Association provided prizes for the three flights. Individuals and organizations also provided twenty-four hole sponsors.

Team members consisting of Katie Boesche, Clint Harre, and Erin Lyons participated in the All- American Dairy Judging contest in Harrisburg, PA on September 15th. The team was 3rd overall and 4th in oral reasons. The team placed 4th in Ayrshires, 9th in Brown Swiss, 6th in Holsteins, 4th in Jerseys, and 6th in Guernseys out of 17 teams overall. Individually Katie Boesche was 7th overall and 4th in oral reasons. Boesche was also 4th in Holsteins, Guernseys, and Ayrshires. Harre and Lyons were 15th and 16th overall respectively. Harre was 7th in Jerseys, 11th in Brown Swiss, and Lyons was 12th in Guernseys.

TAKE HOME MESSAGES

• Know your cost of producing milk
• Total returns exceed total costs in 2007 due to higher milk prices
• Higher feed costs will result in negative profit margins for producers in 2008

The Department of Animal Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, provides for the management of scholarships and dairy production awards to outstanding incoming freshmen or transfer students and for the Bingham scholarship continuing students. Each award requires acceptance and enrollment in the Department of Animal Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).

TAKE HOME MESSAGES

• Blood neutrophil phagocytosis and serum cortisol were higher in cows in negative energy balance (NEB) than cows in positive energy balance (PEB) during feed restriction.
• Serum amyloid A (SAA) was lower in milk during feed restriction but higher after intrammmary infection (IMI) with S. uberis in NEB than in PEB cows. Serum haptoglobin (Hp) was higher by 36 h post-challenge in NEB cows compared to PEB cows.
• Serum insulin concentrations were higher in PEB than in NEB cows and insulin concentrations were elevated in both treatment groups during IMI with S. uberis.
• Dietary-induced NEB in mid-lactation cows does not seem to reflect studies that have observed correlations among energy balance, circulating metabolites, and increased susceptibility to infection during post-partal NEB in dairy cows.

TAKE HOME MESSAGES

• Organic trace minerals increased growth when supplemented to accelerated early nutrition programs but not in conventional programs. This improvement may be related to health benefits as well as the greater biological demand for the minerals in calves at a higher level of performance.
• Organic trace minerals tended to ameliorate the physiological adjustments to increased energy and solids intake (such as more fluid feces) on the accelerated plane of nutrition early in life.
• Growth rates and gain to feed (feed efficiency) were greater for calves fed the accelerated early nutrition program.

TAKE HOME MESSAGES

• Knowing what it costs to produce milk is imperative in today's volatile economic climate.
• Implementing a risk management strategy can minimize the financial risk faced by a dairy enterprise.

TAKE HOME MESSAGES

• Total tract starch digestibility can vary from 70 to 96 percent in 19 Illinois field herds.
• A fecal sample of six to ten cows may be a tool to estimate starch utilization on dairy farms. Fecal starch may be used to estimate total starch digestibility.
• Fecal starch values over five percent may indicate a potential loss of apparent starch digestibility for the herd or group of cows.

TAKE HOME MESSAGES

• When making feed changes, avoid any losses in milk production or milk components.
• Areas to review that can be economically viable alternatives include lower levels of starch, substitute by-product feeds, review feed additives in your current ration, consider your current level of weigh backs and potential shrink, and review grouping patterns.
• Aspects that could be economically wrong decisions include removing fat and oil sources, not using a rumen model to balance metabolizable and amino acid levels, pulling minerals or additives just to "save" money, and eliminating ration balancing and building resources.
• Feeding benchmarks can provide areas to review and fine tune.

TAKE HOME MESSAGES

• Samples from cool season perennial, summer annual, cereal, winter annual and legume forages indicate forage quality is suitable for moderate levels of livestock productivity.
• Adequate energy supply limits productivity of growing and lactating livestock.
• Productivity limitations ultimately are related to energy intake in one of two ways: inadequate energy density or inadequate energy supply.
• Those producers without diverse forage resources will be limited by inadequate energy supply throughout the year.

TAKE HOME MESSAGES

• Feeding moderate energy diets to dry cows leads to large increases in internal (visceral) fat accumulation but no detectable difference in body condition score.
• Body condition score (BCS) as a visual measure of energy reserves in dry cows may provide little information on how energy nutrition affects internal fat stores and liver function.
• Controlling energy intake during the dry period will minimize internal fat deposition.

TAKE HOME MESSAGES

• Genomics will have a significant impact on dairy cattle breeding.
• Genetic progress in dairy cattle from genomics is a direct result of the large amount of historical information available through progeny testing.
• Dairy producers with Holstein or Jersey cattle should use Genomic Predicted Transmitting Abilities with confidence.

TAKE HOME MESSAGES

• Silage dry matter yield is reduced by 10 to 20 percent by chopping at 24 versus 6 inches.
• High chopping has little impact on chemical composition of plants at 30 percent dry matter but increases starch and decreases NDF of plants at 40 percent dry matter.
• Nutritional advantages of high chopping are greater when plants are more mature.

TAKE HOME MESSAGES

• Weight of starch per plant increases when silage harvest is delayed.
• Weight of NDF per plant decreases when silage harvest is delayed.
• NDF digestibility generally decreases when silage harvest is delayed.
• This decrease can be largely explained by the decreased NDF content of plants.
• Both NDF content and NDF digestibility must be considered when comparing hybrids or plants at different stages of maturity.

TAKE HOME MESSAGES

• IMI with S. uberis resulted in 1,972 differentially expressed genes in mammary tissue compared with healthy mammary tissue.
• Genes up-regulated (increased in activity) during infection were primarily associated with immune system response, and genes down-regulated (decreased in activity) were involved with milk fat synthesis.
• This study provided new information on the early response factors of mammary tissue during IMI with S. uberis; and may provide information to researchers on genes of interest for genetic selection as well as new mastitis treatment and prevention strategies for dairy farmers.

TAKE HOME MESSAGES

• Quantity, Quality and Timing of colostrum intake is critical to improving calf survival and proper heifer growth.
• Monitoring heifer growth rates is essential for making important management decisions.
• Milk producing ability of 1st lactation cows can be influenced by the accelerated calf nutrition program.
• Heifer replacement rearing costs have increased 31 percent in the past 9 years.

TAKE HOME MESSAGES

• Energy intake can be limited prepartum by including chopped straw in total mixed rations fed free choice to dairy cows.
• Feeding moderate energy diets during the dry period increases body weight gain, and increases body condition loss after calving.
• Overfeeding cows prepartum increases fat accumulation in the liver after calving.
• A two-phase program during the dry period (far-off and close-up diets) provided little advantage over a single-group high-straw, low-energy diet.

TAKE HOME MESSAGES

• The enhanced fraction contained somewhat less fiber and slightly more protein than the original material; and the fibrous fraction contained much more fiber and much less protein than the original material.
• Source of distillers dried grains with solubles did not affect the degradation of dry matter, fiber, or protein in the rumen. Feedstuff and time spent in the rumen did.
• It was estimated that the original material, and fibrous and enhanced fractions supplied similar amounts of rumen-degradable protein per unit of feedstuff; whereas, the fibrous fraction supplied much less rumen-undegradable protein than other feedstuffs.

TAKE HOME MESSAGES

• Addition of sodium sesquicarbonate, a rumen buffer, to a diet with a potentially high ruminal degradability increased dry matter intake and production of milk and milk components by cows in late lactation.
• These beneficial effects might have been the result of stability of ruminal pH and fermentation and increased passage of soluble nutrients in ruminal fluid to the small intestine, which improved digestion of organic matter and increased feed intake.
• Composition of the diet has a significant effect on the responses to dietary buffers by lactating dairy cows.

The dairy farm relocation/modernization remains in a holding pattern as state and university budgets are not favorable and the industry strategic plan has not progressed. Dairy research efforts are summarized in this report; we welcome your review and comments. The herd consists of 210 Registered Holstein cows and 18 Registered Jersey cows averaging 23,000 and 15,000 pounds of milk, respectively. Travis Michel has been hired to coordinate daily activities leading to higher milk yield and quality along with Dick Wallace.

TAKE HOME MESSAGES

• Silage yield and crude protein were higher in corn following soybean (Sb-C) than corn following corn (C-C).
• Corn silage yield and crude protein responded up to 180 pounds of nitrogen per acre for both C-C and Sb-C.
• The effect of nitrogen and crop rotation on other silage quality parameters (IVDMD, starch, NDF, and NDFD-30) was inconsistent and not as distinct.

TAKE HOME MESSAGES

• Culling and transporting decisions are an important part of dairy farming.
• Occasionally, an animal that is ambulatory on the farm may not be suitable for transport to a packing or processing facility.
• Consider the "Top 10 Considerations for Culling and Transporting Dairy Animals to a Packing or Processing Facility" to make appropriate decisions on the suitability of an animal to be shipped.
• All production animals eventually become market animals.

TAKE HOME MESSAGES

• Our objective was to identify specific blood markers as risk factors for development of mastitis during early lactation.
• Cows that developed clinical mastitis during early lactation had higher circulating concentrations of non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA) and aspartate aminotransferase (ASAT; an indicator of liver tissue damage) in the weeks prior to development of mastitis when compared to healthy cows that did not develop mastitis at any time during early lactation.
• No markers were identified as potential risk factors for subclinical mastitis during early lactation.
• Based on the growing information available from this study and published literature, blood concentrations of NEFA may be the most promising marker for risk of CM during early lactation.