McArt Dairy Cow Lab

Ever wonder how much constituents in milk change throughout the day? Does it matter what time of day we test cows? In our quest to monitor individual cow health in early lactation, we’ve investigated differences in diurnal variation of milk fatty acids in early lactation cows with and without hyperketonemia. This work was led by McArt Dairy Cow Lab graduate student, Claira Seely, and recently published in Animal. With our continued focus on measuring constituents in milk to identify cow health, our collaborations with Dr. Dave Barbano in the Department of Food Science at Cornell University are providing excited results – stay tuned for more! Click on the image below for open access to the publication!

This week Dr. Jess McArt gave a webinar for the Dairy Cattle Welfare Council titled “Being a mom is hard: The importance of managing hypocalcemia on dairy cow welfare”.

A recording of the session is available to active members of the DCWC. For those interested in a PDF copy of the presentation, you can download it below or flip through the slides!

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McArt Dairy Cow Lab members Claira Seely is in Salt Lake City, UT representing our group at the 2021 American Association of Bovine Practitioners Annual Conference. She gave two research talks today on her graduate work which were the first in-person presentations of her PhD program. Look for more on these developing projects in the months to come!

In our lab’s first JDS Communications paper, Dr. Kathryn Bach analyzed the question “Is blood calcium a prognostic indicator of a cow’s post-surgical LDA success?”. With the help of 9 bovine veterinarians from New York state (all women), we collected blood samples at the time of left displaced abomasum diagnosis and correction and analyzed their subsequent milk production and herd removal risk. Check out our results by clicking on the graphical abstract below!

While our first JDS Communications paper is exciting, it is also the last of Dr. Bach’s research as a member of the McArt Dairy Cow Lab. She is already on to bigger and brighter things as you can see here!

We’re hiring a technician to join the McArt Dairy Cow Lab! The main responsibilities for this position include organization of, and participation in, on-farm field trials, lab management, and study mentoring. Job specifics and further explanation can be found here. Application review will begin on or around March 31. Please email jmcart@cornell.edu with questions!

We encourage applications from BIPOC and LGBTQ candidates. The McArt Dairy Cow Lab is committed to building a team that represents multiple backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. The more inclusive we are, the better our science will be.

Dr. Jess McArt gave a webinar this week “in Spain” sponsored by Africor Lugo and @VacaPinta_ on the future of health monitoring in the dairy industry. In it, she discusses a few background studies looking at milk markers of excessive energy deficit and presents some new results from collaborative work between the McArt Dairy Cow Lab and the Barbano Lab in Cornell’s Department of Food Science. You can click on the photo to link to the recording, which is also available with a Spanish translation. 

We have new research out from McArt Dairy Cow Lab graduate student Claira Seely! In the second publication of her graduate work, Claira analyzed the association of subclinical hypocalcemia dynamics with dry matter intake, milk yield, and blood minerals during the periparturient period. If you are curious if there is a difference in dry matter intake between different postpartum subclinical hypocalcemia “types”, click on the link below to find out! This article is newly in press at the Journal of Dairy Science, and you can access and download the article for free until April 4th by clicking on the picture below. Congrats, Claira, on a great retrospective analysis that teaches us  more about cows with hypocalcemia.

In this new work from the McArt Dairy Cow Lab, and the *first* first author publication from Dr. Michael Capel (a private practicing veterinarian and research collaborator), we investigated ketosis treatment protocols in a large randomized field trial. Does treatment of hyperketonemic cows with a combination of dextrose and propylene glycol improve health and production outcomes over treatment with propylene glycol alone? Click on the link below to find out! This article is newly in press at the Journal of Dairy Science, and you can access and download the article for free until January 30th by clicking on the picture below. A big congrats to Dr. Capel for his efforts through the writing and publication process with statistical help and expertise from Dr. Kathryn Bach.

Check out the final publication from Dr. Kathryn Bach’s PhD research in the Journal of Dairy Science looking at the relationship of excessive energy deficit with milk somatic cell count and clinical mastitis in early lactation dairy cows. Although this rounds out the publications from her thesis, we fortunately have more research from Dr. Bach’s post-doctoral work to look forward to!

You can access and download the article for free until January 1st by clicking on the picture below.  Nice work, Dr. Bach!

Check out the first publication from Claira Seely’s PhD research in the Journal of Dairy Science looking at diurnal variation of blood BHB and NEFA in early lactation dairy cows. She rocked this project with the help of a great group of undergrad and vet student researchers. What we found is quite exciting! This was a collaborative project between the McArt Lab and the Barbano Lab in the Department of Food Science – stay tuned for results from our milk analysis!

You can access and download the article for free until December 5th by clicking on the picture below.  Nice work, Claira!

Last summer we conducted an international project on pasture-based dairy farms in Colombia in collaboration with colleagues at Cornell’s Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management and the University de Caldas in Manizales, Colombia. This project was funded by Cornell’s Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future. Our results are now available online in Preventive Veterinary Medicine with free access until 6 February 2020 by clicking on the publication photo below!

Check out some photos of our trial – who says research isn’t fun :).

We’ve got some great research out this month in the Journal of Dairy Science!

The first is a project examining the association of postpartum calcium dynamics with disease and production.  You can access and download the article for free until 4 February 2020 by clicking on the picture below. We’re really excited about this work and have a lot of follow-up projects to come!

Our second is yet another project from Dr. Kathryn Bach evaluating the effect of storage time and temperature on calcium stability in bovine plasma and serum. This was a collaborative project with Dr. Tracy Stokol, a clinical pathologist at Cornell University, and Dr. Rafael Neves, now at Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine. You can access and download the article for free until 4 February 2020 by clicking on the picture below.

Well, she did it! Today Dr. Kathryn Bach received the official notice that her dissertation has been approved by her graduate committee and accepted by Cornell’s Graduate School. Her public thesis seminar was on Friday, November 8th, and Dr. Bach was willing to have it recorded and shared with interested folks. Dr. Bach is an incredible public speaker and teacher, and if you are looking for some cutting edge research on monitoring subclinical metabolic disease in transition dairy cattle, I promise that you will enjoy listening to the recording. You can do so by clicking on the photo below!

Watch a recent webinar from Dr. Jess McArt, sponsored by SoyChlor, by clicking here (for the link to work you have to open this post!). In it she covers postpartum calcium therapies and some considerations and challenges of their use.

Dr. Kathryn Bach is on fire with her research output!  Her latest research looking at the association of milk constituents with early lactation disease and production is in the current issue of the Journal of Dairy Science. This was a collaborative project with the McArt Lab and the Barbano Lab in the Department of Food Science. You can access and download the article for free until November 28th by clicking on the picture below.  Nice work, Dr. Bach!