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.  Each award requires acceptance and enrollment in the Department of Animal Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).

Take home messages

• A new procedure to synchronize estrus in dairy heifers is under review by the FDA.  Approval should be announced in 2001.  It involves the concurrent administration of intravaginal progesterone inserts (CIDRs) and PGF_2a.
• Data submitted to the FDA demonstrated that the procedure synchronized 84 percent of the 122 treated heifers.  The conception (number pregnant ) number inseminated) and pregnancy (number pregnant ) number treated) rates were 54 percent and 45 percent, respectively. 

Take home messages

• Feeding higher levels of milk replacer containing more protein prior to weaning did not increase growth compared to a traditional calf feeding program.
• Higher incidences of disease occurred in calves fed higher liquid diets.
• Higher feed costs prior to weaning occurred due to higher liquid consumption.

Take home messages

• Average days open for the top, middle and bottom third of Illinois dairy herds on DHIA in September 2000 were 172, 186 and 204 days, respectively.
• At a cost of $2.00 per day open after 115 days in milk, this amounts to annual losses per cow of  $115,  $136, and $179, respectively.
• Average pregnancy rates for Illinois DHIA dairy farms ranged from 14 to 17 percent.
• Breeding programs using reproductive hormones along with intensified heat detection or timed insemination have the most economic benefit when used in the first heat cycles after the voluntary waiting period.

Take home messages

• Review feed costs to determine if your herd is at optimal levels.
• Consider various strategies to increase profit margins.
• Pasture management is another feeding systems to reduce costs.
• Manage first lactation heifers as a unique group in your herd.

Take home messages

• Laboratory analyses for amino acids did not explain the variation in amino acid balance across the 27 herds.
• Models are helpful in analyzing individual rations and it is important to consistently use one model to get familiar with that program’s output and application.

Take home messages

• Derry forage soybean was 26 inches taller, produced 74 percent more dry matter, and less fiber when harvested early.
• The second Derry harvest yielded 7 percent less dry matter, 2.5 percent less crude protein and more fiber.
• Based on this one year demonstration, farmers can produce more forage from a forage soybean variety instead of a grain type variety.

Take home messages

• Forage storage systems must maintain nutrient quality.
• Evaluate the cost per ton of stored forage based on your herd size and future herd size plans.
• Testing silage for fermentation characteristics can determine if quality silage has been preserved.
• Use of research proven silage inoculant is recommended for all silage.

Take home messages

• To date, genetically enhanced plants in the marketplace that are used as feeds for livestock are based on producing insecticidal compounds or developing herbicide tolerance.
• Corn grain, whole plant green chop corn, corn silage, and soybeans from the current genetically enhanced plants have been fed to dairy cows and results indicate that they are substantially equivalent in composition, similar in digestibility, and have a similar feeding value for dairy cows compared with feeds produced from isolines of non-genetically enhanced plants.
• Feeds from the current genetically enhanced plants are safe to feed to livestock and foods produced by the livestock are safe for human consumption.

Take home messages

• Only cows with extreme scores for feet and legs were associated with a major decrease in productive life.
• Dairy producers should only consider feet and legs in their voluntary culling criteria when cows have scores below 11 points for rear legs-side view (posty legs), rear legs-rear view (severe toe out) or foot angle (extreme low angle) or above 40 points for rear legs-side view (extremely sickled).
• Cows with other feet and leg scores on first lactation had equal opportunity for productive life.

Take home messages

• Improving lighting in dairy housing increases profit.
• Photoperiod management is easy to adopt and works on farms of all sizes.

Take home messages

• Holsteins are more profitable than Jerseys under fluid milk markets and in the sale of market cows and bull calves.
• Jerseys are competitive with Holsteins under component milk markets.
  
• Holsteins and Jerseys have similar feed efficiency.
  
• Jerseys are superior in reproductive efficiency.

Take home messages

• Reducing costs may not maximize profits, consider technologies that increase production efficiency even in times of low milk prices.
• Knowledge of costs to produce 100 pounds milk essential to effective decision making.

Take home messages

• In 1998, 2.5 billion pounds of cull cow beef was produced in the U.S. with nearly half of that amount from cull dairy cows.
  
• From DHIA records, the most common reasons for culling cows are reproductive failure and mastitis.
  
• In a 1999 Non-fed Beef Audit, only 1 percent of cull cattle had quality defects.
  
• All production animals eventually become market animals!

Take home messages

• Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), specifically the cis-9, trans-11 isomer found in dairy products, is a potent anticarcinogen.
• Milk fat samples collected throughout Illinois for one year contained variable amounts of CLA.
• Milk fat samples obtained from grazing herds contained 2-3 times the average amount of CLA.

Take home messages

• Environmental streptococci can be important clinical mastitis pathogens in herds that have controlled contagious mastitis.
• Environmental streptococcal mastitis is frequently acquired during the dry period and causes a mild decrease in milk yield, increased somatic cell count, and increased risk of clinical mastitis at calving.
• Control programs for environmental streptococcal mastitis should emphasize effective management of cows during the dry period and at calving.

Take home messages

• For calves fed milk replacers at a fixed rate (10 percent of birth weight), a 22 percent crude protein milk replacer resulted in 12.6 percent more weight gain than an 18 percent crude protein milk replacer.
• Increasing protein content of calf starter from 18 percent to 22 percent did not significantly affect weight gains or starter intake, but improved efficiency of starter use for weight gain by 11.6 percent.
• Increasing protein content in either milk replacer increased plasma urea concentrations, indicating less efficient use of dietary nitrogen.
• Milk replacer with 18 percent crude protein and calf starter with 18 percent crude protein provided acceptable calf gains and health.

Take home messages

• Soyhulls can supply 20 to 30 percent of the dry matter intake of midlactation cows producing about 65 lb of milk per day without negatively affecting animal performance.
• Feeding 20 to 30 percent soyhulls in the diet may increase milk fat percentage and yield.
• Replacing a portion of the corn in the diet with soyhulls may help to reduce feed costs when soyhulls can be purchased at a more competitive price than corn.

Take home messages

• Danish researchers have identified a new genetic recessive which results in stillborn calves with severe curvatures of the spine.
• A DNA-based test is said to be 98% accurate in detecting carriers of the undesirable allele.
• Avoid use of bulls known to carry undesirable alleles for genetic abnormalities.

Take home messages

• Reproductive management of dairy heifers is given a low priority.  Ironically, heifers are far easier to settle than their counterpart, the lactating cow.  Estrus synchronization programs are available to permit breeding of the heifers with AI that require minimal cost and labor.
• The administration of melengesterol acetate for 14 days following by an injection of PGF_2a 17-19 days later results in a short window of highly fertile estrus.

We are pleased again to present a paper summary of the work being done in our Department that is relevant to the dairy industry.  I would encourage you to periodically visit our departmental website http://www.ansci.uiuc.edu for access to updated information about projects and other items of interest to producers.  The work done by our scientists is highly regarded and is regularly accepted for publication by the most prominent journals in the field.  It has impact.  We are very pleased with the dairy research program.

Take home messages

• The use of antibiotics in addition to supportive therapy incurred a loss of $103 more per lactation than supportive therapy alone.
• The addition of antibiotics to supportive therapy recovered 374 pounds of milk per lactation over supportive therapy alone although most of the milk is unmarketable.

Take home messages

• Nutrient demands increase during late pregnancy.  Current research supports the idea of far-off and close-up dry cow groups, with increased energy density in the close-up group.
• Interest in high-roughage diets during the dry period, with no separate close-up group, has been rekindled by a recent article in a dairy magazine.  While some of the concepts may have merit, we do not feel that this is the best long-term strategy for transition cows.
• Our research indicates that ad libitum feeding during the entire dry period of rations with energy densities similar to current recommendations for close-up diets may be detrimental to transition success.