The Dairyland Initiative Podcast

Oct 22 2024 13 ep. 35 mins 3

The Dairyland Initiative Podcast artwork

Welcome to The Dairyland Initiative Podcast, where your hosts, Courtney Halbach and Dr. Nigel Cook, discuss practical dairy cattle housing solutions and showcase approaches dairy farmers are taking to enhance cow welfare and animal health in their herds through improved barn design and management. This podcast will cover all aspects of facility design from ventilation to freestall design to calf housing and more, plus touch on hot topics related to lameness prevention, cow comfort, and productive life. Tune-in for an entertaining dive into how you can optimize cow well-being.

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Episode 13: Cow Behavior Around Transition

Oct 22 2024 39 mins

Our understanding of transition cow management and facility design has advanced significantly over the past 20 years with our focus shifting solely from nutrition to emphasizing the importance of understanding cow behavior around calving. This episode delves into feeding behavior, re-grouping stress, and what key performance indicators of transition cow health managers should look

Episode 12: PPTV in the Field

Oct 08 2024 40 mins

Designing a PPTV system is one thing, but putting it in the barn is another. Challenges with where to place the fan and tube, and how to direct the air jets into the calf pens all need to be considered. Once the system is installed, how do you know that it's working? This episode covers the practical aspects of PPTV installations so that you're confident the system is worki

Episode 11: Overstocking

Sep 24 2024 34 mins

To overstock or not to overstock? That is the question! We discuss the negative impacts of overstocking on cow behavior, the economic impacts, and what overstocking means for the industry.

Episode 10: Principles of PPTV

Sep 10 2024 31 mins

Almost every calf barn in the Midwest has a positive pressure tube ventilation system (PPTV) installed, but what is it and how does it function? We cover the primary principles of choosing a fan, picking a tube, and positioning the holes so that a known quantity of air is delivered to the calf pen without creating a draft in the winter.

Episode 9: Troubleshooting Adult Cow Barn Ventilation

Aug 27 2024 38 mins

You installed a ventilation system, now what? How do you know if your ventilation/heat abatement system is up to par? We outline how to measure air speeds in stalls, what observations to make in the barn, and how to measure cow respiration rate.

Episode 8: Adult Cow Ventilation

Aug 13 2024 50 mins

There is no one perfect ventilation design that can be used universally given the wide variety of dairy barns and climates, but there are key criteria that need to be met when designing ventilation systems for adult dairy cows. We discuss how heat stress affects cows, the 6 common ventilation systems, and the 4 criteria for effective ventilation design.

Episode 7: Calf Barn Ventilation

Jul 30 2024 40 mins

There are various ways to ventilate a calf barn (natural, cross, tunnel, or neutral pressure ventilation systems), with natural ventilation supplemented with positive pressure tubes (PPTV) being the most common way. We go through the elements of naturally ventilated barns such as sidewall heights, ridge openings, and curtain management, and discuss how PPTV systems became of intere

Episode 6: Essential Elements of Calf Barn Design

Jul 16 2024 32 mins

In this episode, we discuss what design elements every calf barn should have no matter how calves are raised. Stocking density, resting space, nesting scores, drainage, and ventilation are all part of the equation for ensuring that calves have a comfortable, dry place to rest and thrive.

Episode 5: Managing Sand Bedding in Freestalls

Jul 02 2024 39 mins

Deep loose bedded sand stalls are best for cow comfort because we see fewer lame cows, fewer hock and knee injuries, and higher producing cows who stay in the herd longer. While there are many benefits to sand, there are also some challenges when it comes to manure handling and bedding management. In this episode, we discuss the benefits of sand and how to manage it in a freestall

Episode 4: Cow Comfort and Optimizing Rest

Jun 18 2024 37 mins

What is "cow comfort" and how do we optimize rest in dairy cows? Building off of some of the first studies on lying time behavior, we discuss what we learned from watching hours of footage of freestall-housed cows and how that research has led to our design and management recommendations for allowing cows to achieve adequate rest.