ISU FSVM Dairy Group are currently involved in a variety of projects, including:
- A study in bedding materials for dairy cows, which looks at the value of recycled sand versus organic compounds
- Several on-farm investigations looking into metabolic problems, poor production and mastitis
- Active research on the study of mechanisms for minimizing disease transmission from colostrum and waste milk.
A new one-week intense course in Ruminant Nutrition is being offered over the winter. This course will focus on ration balancing but also will include lectures on feed additives, mycotoxins, dealing with corn co-products, etc. A new senior dairy rotation is being offered to the senior class this year. This course will focus on trouble-shooting milk quality and nutrition problems. There has been enough interest for two sections to be offered.
Milk Quality
The value of milk quality testing is becoming clear to Iowa dairy producers and milk quality specialists at ISU VDPAM are available to help troubleshoot milking equipment and cleaning problems. The ISU VDL Bacteriology Section focuses on rapid testing turnaround and processed over 5,000 samples during the first 6 months of 2008 including following milk culture testing options:
- Basic Milk Culture designed to isolate & identify aerobic contagious pathogens (Staph aureus & Strep ag.) and genus identification of environmental organisms. Testing may also include Mycoplasma spp. culture.
- Aerobic culture results available in 48 hours
- Bulk tank cultures with or without Mycoplasma spp. culture
- Standard plate count, preliminary incubation, lab pasteurized count, and coliform count testing
- Bedding & environmental culturing
Clients utilizing Dairy Comp 305 can create electronic submission files resulting in increased accuracy and efficiency. When test results are complete, they can be downloaded to a computer to assist with herd management in addition to currently available reports.
Contact Dr. Patrick Gorden (515-294-3096) with questions or for more information.