Grant: Alliance Grants

This project will support the dairy industry by addressing targeted emerging and unmet needs identified by our partners in the National Dairy Research Strategy. We developed this project with our industry partners, Dairy Farmers of Ontario, Dairy Farmers of Canada, Lactanet, and Veal Farmers of Ontario. Meeting our partners' needs based on consumers' expectations requires sustainable production of milk from healthy animals. We will complete 15 studies over 5 years with two pillars of investigation. Theme 1 supports sustainable milk production by addressing critical health, environmental, and economic concerns that face the Canadian dairy industry. We will determine optimal reproduction targets considering profitability, animal health, and environmental impacts, optimize reproductive performance with minimal use of reproductive hormones, improve detection methods for uterine inflammation, identify factors contributing to a successful transition to lactation, and understand barriers to adoption of best management practices. We will quantify the effects of disease in early life on the longevity and productivity of dairy cows. Our work will develop and validate decision supports to reduce antimicrobial use to treat diarrhea in calves. Theme 2 addresses key infectious disease and biosecurity concerns on Canadian dairy farms. We will focus several studies on enzootic bovine leukosis and Salmonella Dublin, gaining new insights into how and when these diseases are spread. We will apply that new knowledge to develop new strategies for control and test these under real-world conditions. We will develop and validate industry-scale infectious disease surveillance using bulk tank milk, and uncover the transmission networks that allow for spread of disease between farms. We will implement a comprehensive knowledge translation and transfer plan including peer-reviewed publications, as well as videos, lay articles, and social media to ensure the results reach and are implemented by producers. We will make actionable progress on high priority issues to position the Canadian dairy industry to sustain efficient production from healthy animals that meets social expectations and supports consumer demand.