Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to Dairy Intelligent, a podcast by VESR Techs.
Speaker: Together we will meet dairy industry intellects and passionate dairy producers to discuss all things cows and connected technologies.
Speaker: Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of VESR Texas podcast, Dairy Intelligent.
Speaker: Today I'm joined by Kevin Bousquet of Worldwide Sires.
Speaker: Clean, comfortable cows are happy, healthy cows that are productive in both the bulk tank and reproductively.
Speaker: Any stressor we subject a cow to will compromise immune function and shift nutrients away from normal biological processes such as reproduction.
Speaker: Cow comfort is one of the most overlooked factors affecting fertility.
Speaker: So we're really excited to have Kevin here with us today to continue the conversation on cow comforts effect on fertility.
Speaker: So thank you so much for being with us, Kevin.
Speaker: Let's begin the conversation by having you introduce yourself.
Speaker: My name is Kevin Bousquet.
Speaker: I work for Worldwide Sires.
Speaker: I'm on the technical team.
Speaker: So there's a team of us.
Speaker: There's a couple of vets, some other reproduction people, which makes sense.
Speaker: We're really, when it comes down to it, a reproduction company.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I mean, genetics don't work unless a cow gets pregnant and has a calf.
Speaker: So I've been in the industry for 35, 36 years.
Speaker: I've been in animal science dairy production from Washington State University that I got a long, long time ago.
Speaker: And so probably for the last 20 years, I've focused on upskilling technicians.
Speaker: It's kind of how I got to Worldwide Sire's.
Speaker: worked for two different major stud companies, Select and ABS.
Speaker: And really the motivation for me at the time, which was in the late 90s, to start a training program for reproduction was really that the industry was growing and the dairyman's expectations were different of the people that are in charge of creating their pregnancies.
Speaker: because now they're heat detecting and breeding the cows that they found in heat, which was a game changer.
Speaker: So really, it wasn't a difficult thing, but no one was doing it.
Speaker: So we started a training program.
Speaker: I happened to be with Genis at the time.
Speaker: And, you know, no surprise, the results were incredible when you upskilled people to be better heat detectors, make better decisions.
Speaker: And then I, that's, I made the move to worldwide sires and, and of course that's international, which, which, uh, is fascinating.
Speaker: Uh, it's life changing when you start spending 80% of your time out in the world, whether that's Saudi or China or Pakistan or UK, it doesn't matter.
Speaker: I mean, you get so many, um,
Speaker: experiences and have a completely different perspective on, on everything.
Speaker: So that was a gift.
Speaker: But I've been with, with worldwide sires for 14 years.
Speaker: Um, and, and now we have expanded not just reproduction, but management, which, which makes sense because almost everything you do on a dairy is really about being able to create enough pregnancies to run your dairy and be profitable.
Speaker: And, and the, the heat detecting and breeding the cows, one aspect of it, it's, it's, there's always going to be a big, huge management component.
Speaker: And that's why we have the veterinarians on our, on our team.
Speaker: So now we, we have groups that come here to our training center.
Speaker: That's in our houses in Prosser, Washington, and we're using the dairies in the Yakima Valley.
Speaker: So it's all international.
Speaker: And that's about 20% of our time for our team.
Speaker: And then the rest of the time we're traveling.
Speaker: So I just got back from Egypt.
Speaker: One of our guys is still in Saudi.
Speaker: So we're doing two different things.
Speaker: Both of them really important, but, but again, so worldwide sires, you can look at it as where the international marketing arm of select sires because they own us.
Speaker: So really we're, we're select sires.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: So the bottom line of our job is there's two parts of the genetic equation.
Speaker: And one is, of course, having good genetics that you're selling to somebody.
Speaker: But unless you can manage those cows properly, you'll never get the genetic expression out of them.
Speaker: I used to say that
Speaker: less than 20% of dairymen are actually getting the complete genetic expression out of the genetics they've invested in.
Speaker: And, and, uh, Jeff Ziegler, a friend and a, and a colleague at select sires corrected me and said, it's less than 5% of dairymen around the world are actually getting the maximum genetic expression out of the genetics that they have invested in.
Speaker: And that's, that's very, that's very telling.
Speaker: So I always say that our genetic advancement has surpassed our ability to manage the cow that we've created.
Speaker: And I think that's very true.
Speaker: And I see that all the time out in the world all the time.
Speaker: So the other part of the equation is the epigenetic part that we rarely talk about.
Speaker: But I think in the next slide,
Speaker: year to two years, you will see a lot of research coming out about epigenetics, you know, are we are, and that all has to do with boom, a cow's just calved in your maternity pen.
Speaker: There's a calf that's just born right there at that moment.
Speaker: She has the maximum genetic potential she's ever going to have in her life.
Speaker: Now, depending on how we manage that animal, as she,
Speaker: grows up has everything to do with, are we turning on good genes?
Speaker: Are we turning off good genes?
Speaker: Are we turning on bad genes?
Speaker: That's a huge part of genetics that really, for me, we don't talk enough about.
Speaker: And so the whole reason why we exist at Worldwide Sires is we want our customers to have the ability to manage their cows
Speaker: correctly to get the maximum genetic potential out of them.
Speaker: So we're the epigenetic part of that equation.
Speaker: That's the best way to look at it.
Speaker: I think that was a wonderful way to set the scene for our conversation, really honing in on managing your herd and getting that genetic potential to as high as you can.
Speaker: So let's start off by having you explain the physiological connection between cow comfort and fertility, particularly in the context of artificial insemination.
Speaker: Well, I think the best way to put that, you know, I'm not a PhD researcher.
Speaker: Um, and, and the, the, the interesting thing is, you know, cows are very stalwart creatures.
Speaker: They don't show really, you know, it's, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see a cow's stress, but you do have to, you do have to look and they don't show outward signs of stress.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: But as soon as the cows stress, it doesn't just have to be heat stress, it's any kind of stress.
Speaker: Like you said in that quote, it literally changes their biology and where they put their energy.
Speaker: And that's a big one because I think what I find myself telling people, explaining to people
Speaker: is that we have to get some perspective here in the cow that we're dealing with.
Speaker: You know, if you go back to when we started in the 50s, you know, it was a mid-sized cow, gave 10 to 12 kilograms of milk.
Speaker: Conception rate, 60, 70 percent.
Speaker: Doesn't tell us what the preg rate was, but they were very fertile.
Speaker: And, and, and now if you look at the cow in 2024, we got cows, you know, we got herds producing 50 kgs of milk, which means they're peaking at probably 70, which is incredible.
Speaker: Of course, they're way too tall.
Speaker: We've all, uh, we've all noticed that and we're working on that.
Speaker: But, but the bottom line is for 70 plus years, we chose for two things really.
Speaker: Um, we didn't have genomics back then, but it was milk and type and genetics were incredibly powerful.
Speaker: And so we are, you know, we're, we're dealing with a cow that the, probably the best way to put it.
Speaker: Um, and I'll give credit to Dr. Abbott, my partner in this for coming up with this, but she's really an Olympic athlete.
Speaker: She's a super cow.
Speaker: She's a genetic freak, quite frankly.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And there is no Olympic athlete, whether they're in training or competing, that chooses what they eat, right?
Speaker: They just don't.
Speaker: They sit at a training table.
Speaker: And where I'm driving at here is, you know, this cow needs to be managed at a super, super, super high level.
Speaker: And that's why I say I don't think our
Speaker: ability for most people to manage this cow has kept up with, with the performance that she is capable of.
Speaker: And, you know, we did that with genetics.
Speaker: It's, it's a, it's a different cow.
Speaker: And, and, you know, you can get away with a lot of stuff when you're, when you're dealing with a cow, given 20, sometimes even 30 kgs of milk.
Speaker: but these cows are predisposed to produce a tremendous amount of milk.
Speaker: And we've changed this cow biologically to begin with.
Speaker: And, you know, we know, we know some of the main issues that we have in reproduction.
Speaker: And one of them is low progesterone.
Speaker: And that's because cows that produce lots of milk have to take in tremendous amounts of feed.
Speaker: And then our main hormones are being metabolized at a quicker rate.
Speaker: So we don't have them
Speaker: in the system as long as we need them progesterone and estrogen that you know are our main drivers of of everything whether it's heat detection fertility all that stuff and that that's a game changer so in a way she needs to be pampered you need to treat her like the high performance individual that she is she's a she's a race car man she's not a she's not a uh
Speaker: Kia.
Speaker: So, so once you start changing the biology of a cow beyond what we've already done because she's heat stressed or she's just stressed and, and to expect that she's going to, you know, be this, this animal that's super fertile is insane.
Speaker: It's not going to happen.
Speaker: And when, you know, the thing is it's really common sense stuff and,
Speaker: And I always, and I'm saying this based on traveling international, you know, everybody looks to North America for everything ag, doesn't matter if it's apples or cows, our producers are the best in the world.
Speaker: They just are.
Speaker: But I always tell people humbly, we are the best because we're capitalists, it's supply and demand.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: and low milk price because the only people surviving in our dairy business are business people.
Speaker: They treat it as a business.
Speaker: It's not, you know, when you look back in the seventies, we had like 450,000 dairy operations.
Speaker: I think now we have less than 30,000 and they're, and really with that same 9.3, 9.5 million cows.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: We've weeded all these people out and the people that are controlling that 9.3, 9.6 million cows are business people and they can absolutely do what it takes to manage cows.
Speaker: So that's kind of a game changer, but kind of the missing link in my opinion is animal husbandry, is animal welfare.
Speaker: You know, not enough people take that as serious as they really should based on what I just said that we're now dealing with this Olympic athlete.
Speaker: And that to me is the magic bullet that everyone seems to be looking for to fix all the problems on their dairy.
Speaker: Because it's true, not as much in North America, but when you go outside of North America, which is where we spend all of our time,
Speaker: People think there's some quick fix and God knows there's, there's companies that have made millions off of people, you know, some crazy little supplement.
Speaker: Some of the supplements obviously are, are legit and our cows need those, but you, everyone sees it.
Speaker: They know exactly what I'm talking about.
Speaker: You know, everyone's looking for this thing that's going to fix their dairy and what fixes their dairy is taking care of the cow that they're trying to make a profit on.
Speaker: It's animal husbandry, which seems to be a lost art, at least out in the world and some here in North America.
Speaker: But those business people, when you go on their dairies, usually the biggest dairies, man, if you picked out three things that they concentrate on that allow them to produce so much milk, and if you have a lot of milk, your reproduction is fantastic.
Speaker: They go hand in hand.
Speaker: It would be
Speaker: Nutrition, they're obsessed about nutrition to the point that they'll turn away commodities if they're not, they don't look right.
Speaker: Their flake corn isn't right.
Speaker: So nutrition is a big one.
Speaker: It's not just the ration.
Speaker: It's the feed management part.
Speaker: And the second one would be cow comfort.
Speaker: Pay attention to cow comfort big time.
Speaker: It's a big part of their management plan.
Speaker: And the third one that I think is one that most everybody misses is training their employees.
Speaker: You go to what I call big boy dairies, the person that gets hired on to be the cow pusher is trained, has a mentor to work with for a while.
Speaker: I mean, it makes sense.
Speaker: Who's going to pick out your lame cows or cows that need to see the hoof trimmer?
Speaker: It's going to be the cow pusher guy.
Speaker: Absolutely, it's going to be.
Speaker: But they, everybody is trained and they usually are, are promoting from within.
Speaker: And, and it just makes absolute sense because those people are touching your profit units, your cows almost 24 hours a day.
Speaker: So why wouldn't you want them trained to do their job effectively?
Speaker: That's the, those are the three common things that I see on the dairies I go to where you, you,
Speaker: You walk on the dairy and you can just feel it's got this great culture.
Speaker: And you can almost tell from just walking on the dairy what you're going to see in the data, which is usually really high production, great reproduction, you know, not a lot of health events.
Speaker: So that's why I say that.
Speaker: Again, it's just from observation on the dairies I go to.
Speaker: That was really, really well said.
Speaker: And I want to hone in a little bit more on that.
Speaker: That second point, when you were talking about your big three on the cow comfort.
Speaker: And obviously with all of your global experience, I'd want to know how do factors such as stall design, ventilation, and temperature control really impact the cow's comfort and in turn their fertility?
Speaker: Huge, huge.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, the dairies we see that
Speaker: You know, once you've got concrete poured and steel up, there you are.
Speaker: And just as an aside, because this is a serious deal in our industry, we're at this point now where all these great people that were the dairy designers, you know, I think the one that I know of that I think is one of the best in the world is Jake Martin.
Speaker: Those guys, we're aging out here of some...
Speaker: you know, some of the icons that are the ones traveling the world and dealing with the cow comfort issues, all those things.
Speaker: The Tom Furmans of the world, they're aging out and I don't know who's going to replace them.
Speaker: That's a big deal.
Speaker: But it's
Speaker: The whole design of a dairy is so huge, whether we're talking cow movement, are the stalls wide enough and long enough?
Speaker: Because that's a cow comfort issue.
Speaker: And God, you see this all the time.
Speaker: Where if you put a camera up in the barn, and of course, we've done that, and you watch how little time cows are actually laying down because they don't have the properly designed stall or facilities.
Speaker: Or, you know, you just see
Speaker: for a freestyle, you can just see concrete.
Speaker: They're not even hardly a mat.
Speaker: And there's not even a good bad out there.
Speaker: There's some that are better than others, but they always break down.
Speaker: So if your cows aren't laying down, that just goes right into more lameness.
Speaker: And we all learned a long time ago, the time budget of a cow.
Speaker: She needs to be laying down
Speaker: A minimum, a minimum 12 hours.
Speaker: That's when she's making milk.
Speaker: So, so all those things are huge and you know, heat stress, we spent a lot of time in the middle East.
Speaker: So I just got back from Egypt and going to Pakistan.
Speaker: All those places are so hot and so humid.
Speaker: And rarely do you, you happen upon a dairy that actually was designed properly.
Speaker: and is cooling their cows properly.
Speaker: And of course, everybody wants to know, hey, what can I do in the summertime?
Speaker: My reproduction crashes.
Speaker: Hey, what about you cool your cows?
Speaker: Yeah, it's expensive, sure.
Speaker: But the damage you end up doing to a cow is huge to the point where she probably will never be, even if you started cooling as productive as she could have been, had you always cooled her.
Speaker: I met Lucy,
Speaker: Was that the DC, was it DCRC or ADSA?
Speaker: But he's done some great research, really like Matt and enjoy listening to him, where those tissues that are damaged, they have a memory.
Speaker: You know, the more research we do about that, the more we find out, you know, even the cooling dry cows and the effect that
Speaker: heat stress has on a fetus.
Speaker: And of course, enough times pass where we know how much less that animal given her lifetime compared to the fetus that was gestating when the dam was cooled during late gestation in the dry period.
Speaker: All that stuff is huge.
Speaker: I don't think that goes right to my point I just made.
Speaker: But if you're not, that's animal husbandry, that's caring how comfortable your cow is.
Speaker: And it makes zero sense to me that that is overlooked in 2024.
Speaker: It just boggles my mind.
Speaker: So I had, you know, when that question is posed to me, I always use Saudi as my example.
Speaker: And of course, some of the highest milk production in the world comes from
Speaker: Saudi.
Speaker: There's four big dairies, El Marai, El Tafi, Nadek, and, and nada.
Speaker: And, and that, that, uh, those big four, they are who they are because of North American consultants that went over there, whether it was Tom Furman or all their, their nutritionists are from North America.
Speaker: Their cooling comes from America.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And if you look at their pregnancy rate, their 12 month pregnancy rate, come July, August, and it's 50 degrees there.
Speaker: Trust me.
Speaker: We go in the, it's, it's horrific, but that doesn't deviate man because they cool their cows.
Speaker: So they never have those big lags where they, you know, their reproduction crashes and they have these big holes in their cabins because they cool their cows.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: It's just a matter of recognizing that and making the investment because it absolutely pays for itself.
Speaker: There's no doubt about that.
Speaker: So it's a big deal.
Speaker: Yes, proper cooling and barn design are essential.
Speaker: And especially, as you mentioned, working with someone who knows what they're doing, knows what is best for your herd is going to pay off immensely in the long run.
Speaker: So one question I have, and you've kind of touched on this and given us quite a bit of examples, but in your opinion, what are some practical measures that dairy farmers can take to enhance cow comfort and improve fertility outcomes?
Speaker: Well, I would say, you know, big one is, is, is in hot areas is obviously having a way to cool your cows, keep them comfortable.
Speaker: So they want to lay down.
Speaker: And when you go to good dairies, you know, they have, they have the right cooling, evaporative cooling,
Speaker: They're not only soaking their cows, but they have not just fans over the feed, but also over the free stall.
Speaker: So their cows do lay down.
Speaker: That's a huge one.
Speaker: But man, if you can have deep bedding in your stalls, no doubt about it, they want to lay down in those stalls.
Speaker: Sand obviously is the absolute best.
Speaker: Dried manure, properly dried manures is the other one.
Speaker: The, you know, back to the properly designed building, the problem is, is that if people don't do their research, because
Speaker: You know, in this, especially now, everything is moving so fast in, in research on, on all things.
Speaker: So, uh, you know, you've always got to keep up and, you know, of course you see smart dairymen before they build a barn, uh, milk parlor or whatever, they go out and they look at lots of different barns and talk to people and, Hey, I love this part of it.
Speaker: I wouldn't do this.
Speaker: I would, why wouldn't you?
Speaker: It's a, it's a huge, uh,
Speaker: amount of money that they're going to, they're going to put in that.
Speaker: But when I see dairies that, you know, have, have great hoof health.
Speaker: So that's a well-maintained foot bath.
Speaker: When their cows come out of the parlor, they have water available to them on the way back to their, their pen.
Speaker: That's a big one.
Speaker: And that's, that's very cheap.
Speaker: Also, very cheap.
Speaker: And they're going back to a barn that is clean.
Speaker: I got great pictures of really good dairies.
Speaker: Uh, one of them's in, in China and they just, they, they clean their water troughs every other day.
Speaker: Um, they're all there.
Speaker: They're sand bedded.
Speaker: Their, their bedding is, is fluffed up after before, you know, before the cows come back to coming back to a completely clean alley.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: manicured stalls, there's fresh feed, um, for them to, to eat.
Speaker: They know what's going to be there.
Speaker: So they're all standing up.
Speaker: It's, it's, it's basic, simple things that, you know, what, what happens in the dairy, most dairies is, is they forget who who's making the money.
Speaker: So, you know, I, I get it.
Speaker: There has to be a compromise, but I would lean towards, um,
Speaker: my cows more than people because it all comes down to we're doing things that are convenient for us, not the cow, right?
Speaker: Whether that's how many times a day I'm going to feed calves or whatever.
Speaker: I mean, there, there has to be some, some compromise.
Speaker: But at the same time, if you're depending on the cows to produce the profit, to run the business and keep it right, it makes sense that you,
Speaker: You lean more towards the cow.
Speaker: What's better for this cow?
Speaker: What's going to yield me the highest production?
Speaker: And of course, you know, the... I always say this is that, man, when I got into this, because I don't come from a dairy background, but I fell in love with it early in college.
Speaker: And I wanted my own dairy so bad.
Speaker: And every decision I made was I wanted my own dairy.
Speaker: You couldn't give me one today.
Speaker: I'd be upset that you wanted to give me your dairy because it's such a difficult business to make money in.
Speaker: It just is, whether it's a small margin or all the regulations that come into play.
Speaker: You couldn't give me one today.
Speaker: It's just such a high stress, difficult business to make money in.
Speaker: But again, I'll always go back to this because it's life-changing when you have business people running the operation.
Speaker: And that doesn't mean they're not good cow people, but most managers are not cow managers anymore.
Speaker: They're people managers.
Speaker: I would say 15 years ago, if you had asked a North American dairyman, what do you get up every day and worry about?
Speaker: He'd say, are my cows getting pregnant?
Speaker: Now you'll say, what HR issue do I have to deal with today?
Speaker: Then are my cows becoming pregnant?
Speaker: You know, it's completely changed to where, you know, it's just true that the worst thing that ever happened to a Holstein cow is a human being.
Speaker: It's just, it just is.
Speaker: That sounds harsh, but it's reality.
Speaker: Yeah, no.
Speaker: And I mean, I really like what you said about really, we need to be focusing way more on the cow.
Speaker: The cow is queen of the barn.
Speaker: Um, and so I think that really leads us into our, our last question, which actually is, um, a tradition here on the dairy intelligent podcast, a question I've asked all of our interview guests, but I'd like to know what an animal centered environment means to you.
Speaker: Well, if you ask the cow, she'd like to, as a Holstein, she'd like to be back in the Netherlands grazing in the perfect climate, right?
Speaker: That's where she thrives.
Speaker: And then we took her and we sent her all over the world.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: You know, it'll never happen, but there's nothing natural about freestalls for a cow.
Speaker: It just isn't.
Speaker: So pasture is the best thing.
Speaker: Well, that's not realistic.
Speaker: We have billions of people to feed.
Speaker: But it's a calm, quiet environment.
Speaker: Yeah, we brought her into confinement.
Speaker: That's the way it has to be.
Speaker: But in that confinement, she's always going to be comfortable.
Speaker: That's temperature.
Speaker: That's a place to lay down.
Speaker: That's a barn that's not overcrowded.
Speaker: That's trained people in the maternity barn who understand when to intervene, how to intervene.
Speaker: That starts the maternity pin.
Speaker: Everything starts the maternity pin.
Speaker: Um, that's, that's people surrounding that cow that, you know, really, truly care about her are, are, are trained.
Speaker: Um, she has great walking surface.
Speaker: She's, she's fed, always has feed, um, in front of her always, always has, um, the best care, uh, great facilities in the milking barn, uh, milkers that, uh,
Speaker: really truly know their job.
Speaker: It's, it's being surrounded by people who, who have her best interest in mind.
Speaker: Cause there are slaves, they have no choice in, in whether they're going to be a cow in Pakistan or around some wonderful dairy in, in North America.
Speaker: She just doesn't have a choice.
Speaker: So, so for me, it, it really encompasses the three things I, I said, trained employees, cow comfort,
Speaker: Again, if you go on a dairy and there's a bunch of noise, that's a dairy that doesn't get it.
Speaker: You know, good dairies, you can hear the hum of the vacuum pump.
Speaker: There's no one yelling or banging on a pipe to get cows up or yelling.
Speaker: It's quiet.
Speaker: It's absolutely quiet.
Speaker: No doubt, they're creatures of habit and they like calm.
Speaker: That's when they thrive.
Speaker: But clearly, you know, if you were a cow, you'd still want access to
Speaker: to pasture, right?
Speaker: That's, that's, that's their thing, but I'd want to be fed correctly.
Speaker: Cause that, that, that dictates health.
Speaker: Um, and, and that dictates fertility.
Speaker: If I was a cow, I'd want every, the best chance to keep living and have another calf.
Speaker: So, so I'm going to stay in the herd if it's a good herd.
Speaker: Oh, absolutely.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: really working to make sure that that freestyle environment is mimicking the pasture environment as close as possible.
Speaker: And I think you, you summed that up really nicely there.
Speaker: I think that's, I think that's, that's the key.
Speaker: We got to make some compromises with this animal.
Speaker: Boy, Dr. Nigel Cook has got some great quotes and all those guys do some, some great research on cow comfort.
Speaker: And I think that's one of his,
Speaker: his points is we, you know, once we brought them into confinement, now we have to make some compromises with her and try to mimic her normal environment as best we can, knowing that we have to have this animal in confinement in order to manage the amount of cows we have to manage to get the amount of milk we need to get to feed people.
Speaker: And don't even get me started about the war on agriculture, because it drives me absolutely insane.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We'll stick to this topic, but I think this was a really, really great conversation.
Speaker: So thank you so much, Kevin, for your insights and your time.
Speaker: So when looking to improve conception rates and overall fertility on your farm, looking to improve your cow comfort should definitely be the first place you should start.
Speaker: So thank you everyone for listening in.
Speaker: Thank you for joining us for another Dairy Intelligent episode.
Speaker: We hope you have found some suggestions to improve cow comfort on your farm or simply just learn something new.
Speaker: If you have not already, please be sure to subscribe to our channel on your favorite podcast platform and let your friends know about us.
Speaker: We would love to have them listen and learn.
