How Nutrition Impacts Dairy Performance

Hi friends, I'm John Kemp, hosting this podcast. I am passionate about developing regenerative agriculture systems that improve soil health, produce crops that are completely resistant to diseases and insects, and produce fruit of such an exceptional quality that we can have a legitimate conversation about growing food as medicine. I've discovered that there are many people with incredible knowledge and information about soil and plant systems and how to develop regenerative agricultural systems. However, much of this knowledge and this information is scattered. It's found all over the place, some of it has been published in peer reviewed publications, but there are many incredible stories and a lot of knowledge that has not been published and that hasn't been shared with many people. I started advancing EcoAgriculture in 2006 to bring this knowledge together in a more coherent fashion and incorporate it into products and growing systems that growers can easily put into practice. It's my personal mission to have these regenerative agricultural systems become adopted globally and become the mainstream, the status quo against which all other growing systems are compared. To help achieve this goal, I want to share the knowledge that we have learned in the last decade and make it available to everyone while we have developed products at AEA that embody the principles of regenerative agriculture systems and make them easier for growers to apply this knowledge and these principles can be applied anywhere and when they are applied properly, they will always increase farm profitability and resilience to climate stress. If you have any questions, suggestions, comments or ideas, topics that you would like for me to discuss, Please connect on LinkedIn or on Twitter where my username is visionbuilder7 or you can also email me at john kempf.com I would very much like to hear from you and to hear your feedback. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast and thank you very much for listening. Enjoy the show.

I'm here with a veterinarian and dairy nutritionist, Dr. Sylvia Abel Kanes, who is the staff dairy nutritionist for Organic Valley and a good friend of mine. Sylvia, we have a tremendous amount of respect and appreciation for the work that you've done with Forages and with Dairy Nutrition over the years. Thank you very much for joining us and for sharing your knowledge with us and with our audience.

Thank you John for inviting me. It's an honor for me to be here and sharing together information and from my side things that I have learned from my fellow farmers. They have been teaching me quite a bit of things that I speak and I just link the technicality I learned from academia and put that in the Practical hands of the farmers.

Sylvia, I think you have a fascinating background. You've done some very interesting work and particularly professionally in the dairy nutrition work that you've done. Can you tell us a little bit about your background and what has brought you to where you are today and some of the things that you're working on today?

Sure, sure. Well, you hear my accent. This is, I live in Illinois, but I actually am originally from the Caribbean, the island of the Dominican Republic. And I came to this country several years ago. I'm not going to count exactly. So people will not start to detect my age. But definitely has been quite a while since I came to quote, quote, learn how to do dairy nutrition. So after finishing veterinary school, I was awarded with a scholarship to come and focus on the things that I like the most, which is relating health and nutrition. So I focus on nutrition for two years at the University of Tennessee. And this is where I actually learned how to do the nutrition that is practiced here in the United States, conventional dairy nutrition, where you maximize the milk production of a dairy cow based on the inputs that will take to get the energy that, that she calls from their genetic potential. And that was quite interesting. I learned many things, but at the same time, you know, I was very cautioned about how this nutrition was challenging some of the principles that I have learned and focus on the health of the animal first and also very grateful because I was able to focus a little bit more my preparation on milk fatty acid profile at University of Nebraska. So those knowledge were very important in my formation. But I think that the pivot point for me to really change the principles that I was practicing my career was the point when I had my kids and realized that I wanted to focus on improving the immune system by focusing on nutrition. And that was a pivot point. I found myself reaching for organic fruits to prepare their meals and selecting eggs and dairy that were produced using the organic standards. So I realized that after the readings and research that I was doing that I needed to focus on a holistic way to growing pastures, harvest by the animals and integrating the soil health into the whole approach of dairy farming. And this is when I realized that, well, I decided to come back to my career and work as a veterinarian and as a nutritionist. I think I'm going to focus to serve the farmers that are doing the extra work for me to be able to have products that I'm happy to pay the extra money so my kids can enjoy the benefit of that. And that's when I think things turn around. For me, I decided to really focus on holistic, sustainable, faster based organic dairy production. And so this is what I'm doing today. I found the great opportunity to practice that by serving Organic Valley through the nutrition and the health aspect of the consulting.

You mentioned a very key phrase a few moments ago which was developing immunity with nutrition. Of course, this is something that I personally am very passionate about, and there are some individual bits and pieces that are scattered around the world in the literature talking about the correlation between nutrition and immunity. But there's still a lot of question marks around. The very simple question, can immunity of dairy cows or people or plants be increased with nutrition? How would you respond to that?

Yes, the short answer for that is yes, there is definitely research confirming the fact that when nutrition is balanced and is provided at the level of the species that you are selecting to work with, the immunity based on the kind of cells and the kind of nutrition that needs to be improved has a direct correlation and it's all linked, I think, in the way that we see how organs and system work and relate to one another in a human or in an animal, in either cases, and I can see that that can be further down into the plant kingdom too. Whenever you are able to provide the key ingredients that a system or an organ needs, there is no other way but improving the health. For instance, if the digestive system is provided with the nutrients that are needed in the proportion and in the form that it needs to be absorbed, the animal, the entity that you are putting the nutrition on, will have no other choice but provide the ingredients that the cells need to thrive, to reproduce and to sustain life. Of course, when we deviate from that balance and from that original design for each species, then we encounter with each. But I think the link is there and we have already information that links how minerals, for instance, are transferred from one point to another and yield in the better formation of the cells, better formation of tissues, and that also have implications on the organ that is serving. So it is from the nutrition to the cellular level that we can say, yes, there is a direct connection in health and nutrition.

When you describe your own personal journey and having children and desiring for them to have good nutrition to support their own immune systems. To some degree, that comment or that statement is, is an indictment of commercial food production, where you're implying that some of our commercial agricultural practices may in fact not be providing the nutrition that we would desire. So I guess the question that I have is, what were some of the memorable moments in your life that led you to the realization that you really want to help produce healthier, higher quality food.

Well, I think I can think of two events. One was my surprise on how plastic, how responsive is the immune system of our food producing animals. I have seen and witnessed how an animal can get sick, very sick, by feeding their own diet. And yet when you apply the changes and you change the proportion of nutrients, you don't offend some system by overfeeding some things. You know, it takes sometimes just weeks for an animal to, to start showing the signs of recovery. And I was amazed by that because I thought once we have abused the system and in many cases underfeeding and overfeeding some things, I thought, well, the animals is not going to recover. I mean, this is a lost cause. But over and over I have been proven wrong. Especially when you see how feeding an animal, a ruminant animal, in this case a ration, that is exactly what was designed to be digested. The animal responds in a way that first things, the manure changes, the skin, the coat changes, the alertness of the animal change. And all because you started to provide the animal with the nutrients it needs. So it is encouraging to know that if that is the case, if an animal that has been underfed or overfed in some nutrients can change and actually start to show signs of healthy immune system and healthy digestion, healthy well being, then we should focus on make transformation in this agriculture system. It is not all lost animals. Once you feed them properly, they are able to respond very well and get sick with fewer events. Animals that have been fed from conventional diets and are focused on pasture and grass, they change completely. The metabolic diseases are less of an issue. Until it becomes to the point that the longevity of the animal is the result of consistently nutrition that provides the elements that the cow needs to produce, to sustain and to reproduce.

That is very encouraging and very exciting. And we have actually observed the same with plants. It's very encouraging to observe the extraordinary resilience and the ability to recover from sometimes very challenging abuse, environmental and climactic and nutritional abuse, essentially that it is amazing to see how quickly they can recover. But you mentioned that there were two pieces that surprised you that were very encouraging. What was the second piece?

That's right. The second piece was to see the results of the focus of nutrition in my own kids. And so here was trying to focus on feeding the best I can, my kids and compare that to what most of my friends around me were doing. Realizing that focusing on nutrition might take a little bit more time and a little bit More thinking behind what you're going to put in front of them. Yet I was surprised to see how even living in this toxic environment that we are surrounded with, you know, with air and water and pollution, yet you focus on, on the basic of good nutrition, food as grown, and put it in a way that is attractive and enjoyable, the kids actually like it. They learn how to enjoy good flavor. And my surprise was, you know, how much of a difference it made in terms of the number of diseases and ailments that I saw in my own kids compared to my other friend's kids. Very rarely my kids got sick and many times they say that they actually wanted to get sick so they can skip school. So it was quite amazing to see that we cannot change everything around us. We cannot make it perfect. But yet if you focus on few basic things like, like nutrition and exercise, both in the animal kingdom and in the humans, I am definitely saying yes, things can be improved and we should be encouraged to make changes because it does affect in a positive way.

Sylvia, I'd love to hear from your perspective when you work with dairy farmers and you're working with dairy cows to change diets, nutritional protocols and so forth. When you think of an ideal, a nutritional ideal, what is the goal that you strive for, and can you paint an image with words, if you will, of what does a really exceptionally healthy dairy farm look like? What have you experienced and observed that you found to be delightful?

Well, I think I have found common elements in most of the successful dairy farms that I have visited so far. And with that I will include some of the farms that I visit outside of the country, people that are doing dairy farming in a holistic way. And couple of key things are common in them. Number one is that they focus on a balance nutrition depending on the season of the year. And by that I mean, if it is grazing season, this is what occupies the most of their time. And I know, you know, this is not going to be good things in the ears of some of the farmers that are focused on cropping, but the reality is when it's grazing time, the management of that grass should be the number one occupation. And they have that common thread. They inspect their, their pasture, they know ahead of time where their cows are going and for how long. And so I have seen, you know, successful dairy farmers just taking a walk before they let the cows out and making sure that they know how much is out there and how long they should be. So they focus on nutrition depending on the season. When it's non grazing season, definitely they make sure that they know where the right good feed is and what kind of animals need to have this feed. So they go their nutrition by the season. Number two, I found that farmers, successful farmers, have a special eye and nose and I'll say ear for cow comfort. They know when their cows are outside of their comfort zone in interpreter and they have planned already ways to mitigate that. And that's extremely important because a cow that is comfortable, those content cows that we hear about, they actually have a better way to digest their feed. And their nervous system is not stressed, it's not challenged. And milk production is based on a mammary gland on a gland that it is responding to nerves and blood circulation and nutrition. So when you take care of that comfort and that animal well being, she responds positively to that. And lastly, I think the common thread also is making sure that they are working their nutrition based on their land and working with the soil that they were either blessed or cursed. So that focus on taking the most they can, taking care the most. The knowledge they get, the more they practice on. So if they find out that, you know, the soil is lacking in certain nutrients because this is just the geography and the topography they have, they work their way around that. They focus on what is limiting based on the land that they have. They don't try to apply things that are supposed to be used in the Netherlands or in New Zealand, and if they are in California, they don't apply things that work in Maine. So they focus on what is it that is challenging in my ecosystem and they target that.

Sylvia, with all the various operations that you've observed and the experiences that you've had, what is something that you believe to be true about modern agriculture that is very different from the mainstream view?

And in that case you mean difference from conventional agriculture compared to a holistic sustainable agriculture?

You could say that, yeah. Just however you chose to answer the question, we have a very large mainstream agriculture and I've observed that there are many very wise people who have observed some of the challenges of that system and how they might be overcome. And I would love to hear your perspective. And what is currently within the mainstream that is accepted as being true, that you think might in fact not be true?

I think the assumption that when you take care of few nutrients, but you ignore or make the assumption that all the nutrients will follow along, I think that's a mistake. It's an assumption that we have seen the results, you know, in a negative way. In mainstream agriculture, it is believed that if you take care of the big things that are in need for growing crops or for raising animals, for instance. If you take care of the nitrogen and the phosphorus, somehow the rest of the minerals, for instance, will follow along in the right balance. That is not true. And we have seen lower levels of basic antioxidant nutrients, vitamins and trace minerals that have been lacking in our food. And it's the direct result of underestimating how much, how important it is to take care of things that are beyond nitrogen and phosphorus and potassium. And that's something that I think they are waking up now. Now more people are talking about molybdenum and selenium and some other minerals, zinc and manganese, and how they affect the way a plant grow, the way the food is produced, and also how much that impact the animals and the people that are consuming that. That's one assumption that I think we need to correct. And the other one is the harvest of the agriculture. Thinking that when we harvest in a way that does not protect the nutrients, at least to stay longer than we think they should be, we end up with animals being fed feeds that are deprived of the basic things, the sugars and the vitamins. And in terms of the people being fed foods that are broken down in individual nutrients, feeding only the starch or only the protein, and separating the basic elements. Food for people and animals should be consumed as whole. And that's the way our system work. This is the way we recognize the nutrients and don't react against them. And I think this has been the result of a conventional mindset, a simplistic mindset, where we think we can manipulate the growing by selecting what things we want to focus on. And we have been proven wrong. The levels of diseases we have in animals and people today is a reflection of how wrong we were at manipulating foods and things.

To the first point that you mentioned, the awareness that just addressing the major nutrients is not enough, but we also need to address trace minerals and some of the key enzyme cofactors that are needed. I think this is something that has definitely gained, from my perspective at least, it's gained a tremendous amount of awareness just in the last four to five years. Even this has been true both in the fruit and vegetable production world, as well as in forage crops and broad acre commodity crops as well. One of the pieces that has been so intriguing for me in the work that we do at AEA is there's this list of six standard trace minerals. Iron, zinc, manganese, copper, boron, that are very well recognized. But then there are also some of the trace minerals which you mentioned, such as selenium and molybdenum and cobalt. And speaking purely for myself, I've been surprised, amazed, actually, at the yield responses and quality responses we sometimes get from these very small trace minerals. When other things are in balance, and sometimes when we apply very small amounts of molybdenum or cobalt per acre, we get a tremendous yield response from crops as well as a quality response.

That's right. That's right. And I can, you know, cite several papers that have been published for the last decade, in the last 10 years, that have shown that once trace minerals, micronutrients, like they like to call them, are brought to the levels where the plant is able to utilize them, to actually translocate them and put them in a way that enhances the absorption of others, we are amazed at how the whole composition of the plants changes. We know now that nutrients like vitamins and minerals actually are key in the formation of bigger nutrients like proteins and carbohydrates and complex carbohydrates, how dependent some of the enzymes are in having the right levels of some trace minerals. And at the animal level, we know that when we are able to provide certain nutrients, vitamin E, for instance, vitamin A, early on in the development of the calf, we actually make that animal almost disease proof. And so when we deprive that young animal of the ideal nutrition, the milk, we see that the lack of presence of some of these vitamins and trace minerals that is not present in the typical calf supplement or calf grain mixes changes the animal's immune system.

So.

So we have been witnessing, with the organic movement and people now focusing on grazing, even if it's not organic, but are providing actual pastures and grazing to the animals, how their health have been improving. It's a testimony on how little things that are present in life, foods and feeds, make a huge impact in the health in the immune system of the animals.

You mentioned something that really caught my attention, which was the idea that we can change a plant's nutritional profile, the amino acid profile, carbohydrate profile, and so forth, based on how we manage these trace minerals and the key enzyme cofactors to manage disease and insect susceptibility. What are the implications of that for forage quality and dairy nutrition?

Well, it's huge because, you know, going back to the way the animal feed is manufactured, it is based on photosynthesis and the ability of the plant to form complete proteins and complete carbohydrates. So we always talk about the sugars and the Starch and fiber. But in reality, we know that it is not just carbon attached to a nitrogen and making it a lone molecule. There is actually the presence of some key minerals that form proteins and carbohydrates that are in a structure in a way that when eaten by the animal, is able to be digested and provide nutrition for their bacteria. So when a plant is grown undernourished, lacking zinc, lacking sulfur, lacking iron, lacking copper, the actual structure of the proteins are not able to be formed. What the plant decides to do is to link those nitrogen together the best it can. And what we end up with, with plant material with a high levels of nitrates, because the formation of the protein, the actual factory of making the protein, was lacking the ingredients. And that has a huge implication to the animal, because when they consume that and they see that the lack of complete proteins is not able to sustain the whole balance of the rumen, in this case, the bacteria are not able to actually grow. They are lacking those minerals to actually reproduce. And they let those nitrogen compounds being released, they form volatile compounds that actually go right through the room and wall, gets into the blood, and actually are not used by the animal to make complete proteins. They are ending up in the blood as urea and that end up in the milk as milk. Urea nitrogen. That's how we affect an animal, tracing back that lack of proper nutrition all the way through what the animal consumed and all the way back to what that plant was unable to acquire through the soil.

So, in essence, a lack of correct trace mineral attrition in a dairy diet will result in having both a negative effect in limiting the rumen bacterial population from developing, as it might, and also from allowing incomplete compounds to cross the gut lining and into the bloodstream. So you have a double negative.

That's right. Because the animal, the dairy cow in particular, the dairy cow is a fascinating animal because in reality, you know, you feed her, but you are feeding an ecosystem inside that fourth compartment of the digestive system. Trillions of bacteria, protozoa and fungi are actually doing the breaking down of the components. And they don't have teeth. They actually digest by putting out spitting compounds that break down the fiber. So they have to have themselves some of those ingredients and enzyme to digest the fiber. So you have to feed the bacteria, the microorganism, before you actually think about feeding the cow. It is a complex system, but it works beautifully if you just focus on feeding the animal according to her species.

Earlier, when you were describing your pathway and journey to this point, you described how you had done some work on fatty acid profiles. I've been asked a number of times to describe the process of producing higher fat content forages, particularly for dairy farmers who have a desire to feed higher forage diets, or in some cases even 100% grass fed diets. I'd love to hear your perspective and your thoughts. I know you work with many of these farmers as well. What is needed to produce a high fat content forage and why is that valuable or useful? What should farmers really be focusing on?

Well, this is something that is gaining attention unfortunately is because of the focus that people have right now on good fat. And one of the best fats out there in nature is butter. And we now need more butter fat. And when the nutrition was changed to the dairy cow and they were focusing on feeding a high starch level in the ration, we saw the increase in milk production. But at the same time we saw how that amazing animal, the Holstein cow, actually produced lots of milk with very low components, but the interest was yield and not the actual components. So now we are reversing the. So what we need to reverse is the diet, simply the cows that actually have the fiber that is effective at producing rumination and effective at being digested. More than 55 to 60% of the components being actually digestible by the bacteria. They are the one that provide these key ingredients for making butter fat. In the mammary gland, butterfat is made from mainly two components, acetate and butyrate. These are fatty acids, hint the word fat in there, that are generated directly after the digestion of complex carbohydrates. They don't come from digesting starch, they come from the digestion of complex carbohydrates. But they have to be digestible. So many people think that I'm going to feed more fiber because this is what will produce that. Well, in reality, if they are lignified, bacteria have no access to that port. So plants have cells that are guarded by a cell wall. If the plant material is too mature, actually the bacteria will not be able to break through that and digest the hemicellulose and cellulose and the pectins that are inside the cell wall. So first of all, good quality fiber coming from a mix of grasses and legumes is the key for increasing the milk components. Because again, those ingredients for the mammary gland to make the butt of fat come from the digestion of fiber. They should be balanced though with the right amount of nitrogen compounds. Because if the bacteria only have carbon sources, but don't have nitrogen compounds, actually, they are not able to grow and multiply. And the more microorganism in a rumen, the better it is for the process of breaking down the fiber in the sugar amount of time that they have during the day. So it is a balance of digestible fiber, a balance of the right level of protein, not too much, but not too little. And ideally for a dairy cow, between 6 and a half and 17% of what she consumes should be in the form of protein. And if we are counting grams or ounces or pounds, the cow should have at least 6 pounds of protein combined with 12 pounds of fiber, what we call effective fiber. And that fairly quickly is a good ration for making components, both butterfat and protein.

So I'm intrigued, I'm hearing what you're describing around the protein and fiber needs and balance that is required. And I'm intrigued by this entire conversation that has been happening over the last several years about fat content in forages, where farmers are expressing a desire to have a higher fat content with the belief that that may lead to higher components. And based on what you're describing, that isn't necessarily the case. And so the question that I would have is, what really are the benefits of having a higher fat content forage?

Well, having a high fat content in the forages is important. And everything under the right balance, of course, because the total ration of a dairy cow, if it has more than 5% fat, so we are putting percentage, but we can always go back and calculate how many grams or ounces does that represent. But we know that the manufacturing of nutrients in a plant, it is basically focused on the link of carbons, hydrogens and oxygen to form carbohydrates, then the link of nitrogens with carbon to form proteins, and also the link of carbohydrates, hydrogen and oxygen compounds to make fat. But a plant put that all into proportion, unless it is an oil seed. And in the development of the seed head, the plant has a certain maximum amount of fatty acid that can put into these stems and leaves before it turns into another species. So for grasses and legumes, if we maximize the production of fat, that also means that the plant itself has what it takes to make good carbohydrates, because it will only turn things into fats when she has a surplus of nutrients. So when we target higher fat, we are targeting then higher proportion of carbohydrates and higher proportion of protein. It's like an indication that things are going right in the plant system. But we know also that the fatty acids that are present in an immature plant particularly have an effect on the way the roaming environment is responding. So in the beginning of the season, in the grazing season, we have young plants with high fat content, because this is the way the plant is manufacturing things, reserving to elongate some carbohydrates. So we as farmers need to manage this grazing, because in this stage of the growth of the plant, the actual digestion of those fatty acids will turn into conjugation of fatty acid that will result in compounds that will trigger a negative response in the mammary gland. But that only happens when the plant is immature. Because the proportion of these nutrients, carbohydrate, protein and fat, are not in the ideal proportion for ruminants. They might be good for other animals, but for ruminants we want to have structures that are a little bit more complex. Fiber that actually can induce rumination, and particles that are just long enough not to let that rumen pass its go too fast. And we as farmers then we manage the plants and we manage the animals and we let the plant do what they are doing. But we put the animals, when that plant material has the proportion of nutrients in the way that will be best for the cow. That's why we are calling for grazing a little bit taller, is to allow that plant to continue to develop until it has that proportion of fatty acids and that proportion of complex carbohydrates and the proportion of complete protein in a way that is actually favorable for the ruminant animal.

So if you were looking at a forage on a forage analysis and trying to evaluate those three things, what are the parameters that you would be looking for and what does an ideal forage look like to you?

On a forage analysis, the ideal analysis will show fiber digestibility above 55% and non fiber carbohydrates above 28%. A lignin that is below 4.5% but not too little. I want some lignin just to make sure that again the rumination is taking place. And a protein that shows that the nitrogen and sulfur ratio is between 10 and 12 to 1. These are key things that I look for in an analysis that tell me, even without looking at the plant material, that that plant was harvest when its prime nutrient production was led to maximize. And the number one thing, I don't just use a number like an rfq. I like to go through the minerals, I like to see the proportion of some of them. How magnesium is present in proportion to phosphorus and how the two of them are in proportion to calcium. Most of the forage analysis do not include some of the key trace minerals. You will have to pay a little extra to get them. But as much as possible, if you get the wet chemistry analysis, you should be able to gather the information on how much nitrogen was there, how much sulfur was there, and that are key elements for understanding that the forage is of high quality.

Sylvia, what is a book or resource that you would recommend most often to growers who have a desire to learn more about these, about the areas of managing dairy nutrition and producing high quality forages?

Oh, I have many that I have been reading. I have to say that my. My philosophy as a dairy nutritionist changed quite a bit as I exchanged many conversations and read many of Jerry Brunetti's book and CDs. So I will highly recommend the one that I think most of the time I'm quoting and making references is the farm as an ecosystem where you can try to view the whole farming in a way that is interdependent. That would be probably one that I would highly recommend. I like also Grass the Forgiveness of Nature by Charles Walters. Quite interesting. He put grass into perspective and how to understand that amazing plant species. I read and referenced many times. Jim Garish book Belief is Management Intensive Grazing, I think is the title or something close to that. And yeah, and I always go back to papers to the Albrecht papers when I try to understand that relationship between health and. And soil. It's just amazing, you know, how much it was discovered at one point and we can use that. And lately I've been recommending Sarah Flack's book the Arts and Signs of Grace.

I think all of those books that you've mentioned are really very good references. And there's also Soil, Grass and Cancer, which I. It's also a very good one. Andre Voisin.

Mm. Yes, I actually have this in my list of rereading. I remember reading all these books when I was like, I explained doing my change of philosophy back in the times when I was taking a phone with the kids and trying to decide whether I will be approaching my career in a different way. And voicing play a huge role in my thinking.

Wonderful. Sylvia, what is the question you wish I would have asked? What's another topic that you think might be important to talk about?

Oh, I don't know. I think, you know, many times I like to talk about animal behavior and how that affects the way they eat and the way they actually show signs of health or not so much Health. I'm finding myself, you know, reading and researching more and more about the aspect, the animal behavior and how that relates to grazing and feeding sequence. What do they like to eat in the morning, what they prefer to do when. When they have pasture that is in certain characteristics. So I'm fascinated by that. So that. That's something that I like to talk.

That does sound like a very fascinating topic. I had no idea that animals would prefer to eat different things at different times of the day.

That. Yes, that is the case, yes.

What have you discovered that surprised you?

Well, I've done, you know, trips outside of the United States and met with excellent veterinarians and nutritionists, and they have pointed out to me to, you know, to observe them and if they have choices in terms of area to go and graze, to observe what they prefer to bite on first and what they prefer to buy after the first room and fill. And it's fascinating to see that cows prefer grass and they like to nibble on fresh, soft blades of grass and they have a memory. They go back and eat that. But that is affected by what the farmer feed before they are let out on pasture. So it's fascinating to see how you can change their behavior by actually changing what you feed them before. Some farmers prefer to feed their grain before they go out and pasture. And we've noticed that more and more that when the cow is, especially in the early season, not let out, too hungry, she actually has a better way to digest if you feed them some good quality grassy hay. You have to train them, though. So sometimes I think we have to make sure that they can eat that fast and in a way that they can go out quickly to what they like, which is the sweet grass. But they do like to have good digestible fiber before they go out on pasture. And many farmers will say, well, once the cows taste the pasture, they. They will never eat any haylage or any hay. That's where the training comes, because you know that they need that particle before they go out and pass through. So you have to sweeten that with a little bit of diluted molasses. Maybe that's a trick that you can use so they actually have the roomen prepared before they have 20, 30 pounds of wet grass getting into their system. So it's just very interesting to see how they change their behavior of feeding when the farmer realizes what needs to be changed.

I was just going to ask you that question. How does the feeding behavior, how does the behavior in the pasture change when they have that hay and the Rumen buffer before they go out onto pasture.

Well, and it's quite interesting, there are a couple of researchers show from Utah State, showing that they then go mostly for the legumes with a higher protein content and higher mineral content. And so when farmers have this mix of grasses and legume pasture and the first feeding, they select the first third of the plants and cows that have been with 3 or 4 pounds of hay in the stomach and then let out to a green pasture. They go out first with the legume and then they come back for the grasses. But the opposite is true when they are fed grain rather than hay before going out on pasta.

Wow, that is intriguing.

Yeah. They are able to sort and select among the plant materials because they have a keen sense of smell and move around in a way that sometimes we think they don't know what they're looking for. But they do know.

There's a lot of inherent wisdom in natural systems, it seems. Aside from the change of feeding dry hay before going to pasture instead of grain, what other feeding changes have you learned about and are you recommending to growers?

Recommending them to make sure that the cows have easy access to water. And the truth should be told, actually, water is less appreciated nutrient. They assume that the cows will only need water and will come back to the barn if they are very thirsty. But in reality, it's just like us. Sometimes we are thirsty and just out of convenience, we decide not to drink. With us, it just shows dehydration. But in a dairy cow and the main product that they put out is 88% to 92% water. So you go fever. That we are restricting an animal that has a high requirement for water. And so I have seen a direct correlation between milk production and water accessibility. And even if the water is in the barn and they say, yeah, but they have it, it is ready for them. If it is too far and it is too hot, guess what? They will just lay down in the shade and they will not go back to the farm and drink the water. Especially the timid cows. If you have a mix of first calf heifers and older cows. Yeah. Again, animal behavior plays a role in there too.

Yeah. And I can speak from experience when I was doing dairy nutrition a decade ago, thinking back, I would say probably half or more of the dairies that I started working with, we changed their watering system, watering capacity, and in many cases there was an almost immediate 2 pound to 4 pound per head per day gain as a result of changing or just having abundant water that is clean in large open top containers rather than small containers. Cows really like drinking out of a water cup. And if you can have a large tank for them to drink out of, they're going to drink more water as a result.

That's right. They will drink more water at a time. So they don't like many trips. They like drinking a lot and satisfying their thirst and then continue on with eating. You know, many times I have problems with people just viewing ruminants as they view people. Because, you know, in reality what makes a cow happy does not make a human happy. So, you know, having water.

Try feeding people grass and see how that works.

Yes, exactly. You know, having water, you know, in rectangular narrow containers and having water with materials that would change the smell. Dairy cows don't like that. We underestimate their ability to relate with palatability and consumption. We want them to eat more, but yet we are not making the most palatable feed for them. We think that we can turn them into a paddock that is full of weeds, that in reality are bitter and they can eat the weeds if they are soft and young once they are grown and overgrown. Reality is that they don't like to bite on that and they bother their eyes and so forth. So yeah, we need to make sure that we tend to their senses too, their smell, their eyesight and so forth.

Sylvia, I want to say thank you so much for joining us for being on the podcast and for sharing the things that you've learned with us and with our audience. We really appreciate you being here, we appreciate the work you're doing. Thank you very much.

Thank you John. I appreciate it very much and looking forward to cross paths one of these summers or winter as we go around and try to help our farmers to become more holistic and self dependent in their dairy farming.

This podcast was brought to you by a great company that I work for, AEA Advancing Eco Agriculture, the leader in regenerative agriculture since 2006. At AEA, we believe in challenging the status quo to find more profitable and regenerative ways to grow crops. We also believe that healthy plants are resistant to pests and disease. And to grow healthy plants, we must first think in a different way about agriculture, about empowering life instead of suppressing life life, about regeneration versus degeneration. To achieve this, we formulate and sell products that help growers produce higher quality yield with less risk of crop failure. In short, we help growers make more money with less risk. If you would like to learn more about our programs and systems, call Jason Stull, a highly regarded AEA consultant at 800-495-6603, extension 300. Again, the number is 800-495-6603, Extension 300. Mention the code podcast10 and get a special incentive with your first order. Thank you for listening.