Ethan Haywood
Hello and welcome everyone. Today we are joined by Mike Larson, owner at Larson Acres, and Brian Kelroy, dairy production specialist with Zoetis. And today we're going to be focusing on Zoetis Lameness, the evaluations, and some of the ways that the data is being used on progressive dairies. Mike, Brian, thank you so much for taking the time to be here with us today.
Mike Larson
Thank you very much.
Brian Kelroy
Thanks for having us.
Ethan Haywood
To start with a little background, Mike, will you share a little bit about Larson Acres, what your incorporation of these traits has looked like, and a little history of this progressive dairy farm?
Mike Larson
Well, thank you, and thank you for asking me to be a part of this. It's something that is always near and dear to my heart. I love numbers and diving in, and it's what I really like to do. Like you said, I'm Mike Larson, one of the owners here at Larson Acres. I'm part of the fourth generation of Larsons that have been farming in southern Wisconsin. We're about a half an hour south of Madison, farming with the fifth and sixth generations now that have been farming for over a hundred years. We milk about 2,900 cows, farm about 5,500 acres and really like looking at the genomic information.
Ethan Haywood
Awesome and Brian, you have a lot of experience in this area and have worked with Mike and his team for quite some time. Will you give us a little overview of what your involvement is there today?
Brian Kelroy
Yes. Well, again, as Mike said, thanks for having us on today and honored to be a part of this. Mike and I began working together about 10 years ago now and started when I was at CentralStar Select Sires. I’ve been involved with Mike on his genetic program as far as working together with the goal to make sure that Larson Acres is using the right genetics that are really going to impact the profitability and the long-term sustainability of their dairy. So Mike and I, initially, would meet every quarter, go through information, and it was always fun and really enjoyable. We'd spend a few hours going through bulls and talking back and forth and really the advantages, disadvantages, where we feel this genetic portion would really help the dairy. That relationship continued a little over two years ago when I started with Zoetis in my role as a dairy production specialist. Currently, I work with Mike and his team, especially in the genetic program, genetic audits, making sure that the genetic focus on Dairy Wellness Profit Dollars® (DWP$®) and the wellness traits, Calf Wellness traits are working and being utilized to our advantage for the dairy. And also from a repro standpoint as well, making sure not only are we getting the right genetics in the herd, but we're also through the intense embryo program and also sire selection that everything's kind of coming and melding together for the operation.
Ethan Haywood
And as you mentioned, Brian, Larson Acres is an excellent partner, whether it's data flowing into the system and a lot of genomic testing and very aggressive reproductive technologies, including a lot of embryo work. It's really cool to see what's going on there. And it's a really cool place to walk some cows. We were fortunate enough to have a tour there during World Dairy Expo this last year. And Mike, just an awesome group of cows that you guys are raising there. They're a lot of fun to look at.
Mike Larson
Well, thank you.
Ethan Haywood
Looking at lameness, there's a lot of specifics and a lot of generalities. We define lameness as some sort of mobility issue. And we'll, as a sire team, say that that's one of those traits that you know it when you see it as a dairy person, whether it is some sort of functionality issue in conformation or a lesion in the foot or an injury to a foot or a leg. We know it's one of the top five reasons that cows leave the herd nationally. And we know that nationally 17% of cows are estimated to qualify as lame sometime within their lactation. So, it's really important as we try to extend the longevity of cows in the herd. Mike, how do you guys define and record lameness on farm since it's so different farm to farm?
Mike Larson
What we do is everything goes in as a lame remark, even a routine trim. So then, if there's a little bit of work to dig it out. You just can't count lame remarks because sometimes it was just a routine trim or a mid-lactation trim or a dry off trim. So then for us, it's relatively easy the way we record. If you look at older cows on our computer, every animal would have at least one lame remark from the last lactation. Most often it's just trim only. So then if we break it down, and I do this all the time, it's not that I don't trust Brian's numbers or Zoetis’ numbers. They come with the pretty pictures and the graphs and it all looks nice. But then my guys would ask me, well, what does that mean? So, I can sit down in front of the DairyComp and I can plug in some numbers and recreate Zoetis' pretty graphs by down and dirty raw numbers from my computer. If I can do something real simple, it takes me a few minutes just to type in some items and commands and I can break apart a different criteria. And it's fun. It's fun to recreate the numbers I can get from the genetic audit.
Ethan Haywood
And not only are cows being culled a problem associated with lameness, but even cows that are able to recover and stay in the herd have some costs associated with them. When you're thinking about what does it cost you to have a lame cow, how does that affect your financial future?
Mike Larson
Yeah, like all dairymen there's nothing worse really than to see that cow that's struggling, coming to the parlor. It slows down efficiency. You know it's hurting production, breeding and expression of heat and everything. And it's kind of too late. Once you have that lame cow, of course, you're going to do everything you can to help her recover, but it's almost too late. So using this information and picking the sires and what cow families we want to get more daughters from, we think we can stay ahead of the curve and just have less lameness because it's a very, very expensive disease.
Ethan Haywood
And being too late is a really good point. A term that I've enjoyed lately is performing preventative maintenance on your cows via genetics. And the Zoetis Lameness evaluation is something that's relatively new to producers to be able to utilize as a tool. Brian, will you tell us a little bit about when does this trait comes into play? And when you're looking at a bull card or a genomic evaluation, what do those numbers mean?
Brian Kelroy
Sure, about 10 years ago or a little less than, Zoetis looked at genetics and how disease-related incidents on a dairy can have a significant financial impact on the dairy. So, they thought this was a unique opportunity to really dig into data to help manage disease incidents and improve profitability when it comes to these, you know, helping with management practice. So, Zoetis did a multi-year field study and the objective of the study was to evaluate the association of wellness traits and the predictions, and then the observed incidents of the health events and the dairy cattle within the first 305 days in milk. They enrolled 11 Holstein herds, averaging 4,180 cows, and they are distributed all across the United States. And they analyzed all lactation records of first and second lactation cows within the first 305 days in milk, and really when it came down to it that's where the wellness traits came from. They saw how lameness throughout the lactation could impact the dairy and how lameness events were very different based on the genetic makeup of those individual animals.
Ethan Haywood
And so, as those evaluations go through, they're a little different than what we're used to seeing. They're an STA with the average mean being 100 in the center. Can you tell us a little bit about how to look at those on our individual animals? And then maybe we'll dig into some quartile analysis.
Brian Kelroy
Sure, and I guess the one thing I should also mention from that last question is, that was the original study and Zoetis is constantly updating. They're looking at the formula at least once every year, if not every quarter, and adding more information when it becomes available. This past August, about 6.5 million records were added to the analysis. And with that, if you had mentioned lameness being roughly 17% of the reason why animals are culled, if there's ever a change in culling, let's say lameness would jump up to 25% or it would drop down to 10%, then the formula would be adjusted likely, you know, based off of what economical impact that would have on the current general population. But I think it's really neat because really, we're looking at the overall health and longevity of the animal and it comes back to selecting for how DWP$ makes the herd more profitable. And then as far as the STAs go, you're generally going to see a range anywhere from 77 to 80 to up to maybe 113-115. But when we look at 100, 100 would be the center kind of the average. So if we're looking at jumping to 105, then we're looking at a 25% decrease in incidence rate. And we can't use those quartiles. And if you go from 100 to 95, you're looking at a 25% general increase in incidence rate. And we look at below 95. We're looking at a really high or elevated incidence rate. And generally, if we're above 105, we're looking at a lower expected incidence rate amongst those individual traits.
Ethan Haywood
And so looking at them within that scale, within Mike's herd specifically, we see the top quartile versus the bottom quartile, or even break it all out a little further than that. And so the last analysis was a 105 was the average STA for Zoetis Lameness for that top quartile versus 93 being the bottom quarter. Mike, what is the differences that you see physically between those cows or incidence rate between those cows with such a spread in the genomics score?
Mike Larson
When I look at the quartiles and I look at a group of my older cows, I can break it out where this group that I looked at, the bottom quartile, 40% of them had a lame remark, had an issue of varying degrees, everything was thrown in. Compared that to the top 25%, there's only 24% of those had an incidence. So, it's just remarkable to me that this information that we had from when there was a baby calf holds true all the way through year after year. Every time I do it, it's remarkable.
Ethan Haywood
It's incredible to see. And when you have it on the graph, it's like, wow, these numbers are huge. And I can't believe that within the same herd and the same management, there's that big a spread. Is that the normal analysis that you see, Brian, looking at other herds?
Brian Kelroy
Yeah, generally speaking, we're going to see, you know, that big spread here in Larson Acres. We had that 63% reduction amongst those quartiles and it can vary from herd to herd. Generally speaking, the more sound the management practices are, you're going to see a bigger spread. But lameness traits you can see anywhere from 33% to 67% spread, depending on the dairy, between those top and bottom quartiles.
Mike Larson
And when I break it apart even a little farther and I look at the deciles, their bottom 10% compared to the top 10%, it really shows. I just quickly this morning, I took the group of older cows, the bottom 10%, and they needed to be less than 94 on Zoetis Lameness. 42% of those had an incidence. Then we compared that at the top 10%, they were all greater than 107, 108 and greater, and only 15 out of those 100 cows had a case. Roughly three to four times more likely to have a case of lameness if they're in the bottom 10%.
Ethan Haywood
So for our listeners, I just want to summarize those results again. Your bottom 10% of cows for Zoetis Lameness are less than 94 Z Lameness score and of that group 42% of the cows had a recorded lameness case, and that's nearly half of them! Then compare that with the top 10% of cows for Z Lameness. They scored 107 Z LAME on average and 15% of those cows had a lameness event. So the bottom 10% group, almost half of them with a lameness event, versus the top 10% only 15% of them with a lameness event. The proof is really in the pen there. And as Brian said, under ideal management and good, functionally sound cows, you really see the spread genetically that these cows have, and their predisposition to lameness problems. Mike, are you looking at this more on the sire selection side? Or are you looking at it on the female selection side within your genetic program? How are you utilizing this data on farm to breed for the next generation of cows?
Mike Larson
We're looking at it in both the sire and the dam. We don't do a lot of single criteria picking, meaning I trust the economics that Zoetis puts in the DWP$. So I generally just start with the DWP$. I trust that the economics that they put in the formula makes sense. But I look at it for both when I'm selecting bulls and then deciding which females we want to keep in our herd, which ones we want to flush and get more daughters from. We really start and almost end with the DWP$.
Ethan Haywood
And a really great way to do it, looking at those composite indexes to get balanced cows that are going to perform well in the herd. In addition to genetics, what other ways do you try and manage lameness as a farm manager and manage your cows? Or what things do you do to your facility just to try and manage it from both sides?
Mike Larson
We consider it a whole farm approach. It starts by having our stalls groomed properly. As our facilities are getting older, we are adding more rubber, trying to keep the cows off of concrete as much as we can. It starts with properly designed stalls that we're not overcrowding a crazy amount. So we can have cows lay down to try to be on rubber as much as they can. A trimming program that fits the lactation or the age of an animal and just try to be proactive.
Ethan Haywood
Absolutely. And I like the idea of a whole farm approach. That's really what it takes to be profitable and progressive in today's dairy industry. Brian, what can we expect to see for lameness evaluations as Zoetis continues to work to add more cows into this research?
Brian Kelroy
Yeah, so Zoetis is always looking to add more cows, add more data. And as the data gets inflowed, I think we'll probably expect to see the reliability of that trait increase a little bit more over time. Mike had talked about trimming events and we’re constantly making sure that those events are pulled out of the formula so that we're not recording a lameness event as a hoof trim and as far as continuously updating the formula as we add data just to make sure that the formula is on the right page for the overall profitability of the herd. Mike had mentioned sound management practices and when an individual dairy is looking at wellness traits, I think it's a really great opportunity if a dairy is challenged in that certain spot. You know, if a dairy is having a problem with lameness for instance, then on their genetic standpoint once they get to that overall index that they like for DWP$, with so many high DWP$ bulls out there they can use that as if I'm challenged in the lameness area, once I get to my DWP$ number I like I'm going to then select the highest bulls for lameness in that group to help them from a farm standpoint. But Zoetis is always looking to constantly add information and update the formula, to make sure that the formula is best for the overall profitability of the dairy.
Ethan Haywood
And as you say, there's a lot of high bulls out there that are options. And we're excited that you can find Zoetis Lameness STAs as well as all other Zoetis health traits on all of our bulls on their bull pages on the website. A couple of highlights in our Holstein lineup we've got bulls up to +110 STA for Zoetis Lameness, like 7HO17348 CHAC, a 14HO16391 EASTON out of a 7HO15085 PARFECT. So that's a sire stack that we really like and is a customer satisfaction type of bull. As well as in our Jerseys lineup we also have bulls up to +110 STA for Zoetis Lameness, like 7JE2197 MIST, a 507JE1984 DURAMAX out of a 7JE1816 TUCKER {6}. And so as our producers go through and look at all these bulls, we hope they make sure to keep an eye on this Zoetis Lameness trait, we think that it is something that's going to continue to grow in importance as our heifer population shrinks and we try and extend the longevity of cows within the herd. It is important to manage this trait genetically as well as physically on farm. We really appreciate both of your time. Thank you so much for your input and your wisdom. As we continue to learn more about Zoetis Lameness and other health topics, continue to tune in to The Select Sires Podcast and we will have some more interviews that further break down some of these traits and the mechanics and calculations behind them. So with that, Mike, Brian, thank you both so much for your time today.
Brian Kelroy
Thank you for having us.
Mike Larson
Thank you.