Click on the day to discover the different short courses on the specific day.
Jump into the future: dairy farming 2050 - Room "Het Kraakhuis"
Description
In the year 2050, the world population will reach 10 billion people. Can we feed all these people within our planetary boundaries? Dairy farming contributes positively to the planet and people. What is required to meet the future demands of all different stakeholders? How will this impact the health and welfare of dairy cattle? Beluga Animal Health and Royal GD (Dutch Animal Health Service) organize this short course for all dairy professionals, both doers as well as thinkers, interested in solutions for today’s problems and answers to tomorrow’s questions. Today’s issues like antimicrobial use, environmental policies, and prolonged cow-calf contact will be addressed. Also, the trends of environmental- and welfare policies, farm technology, nutrition, and farm dynamics will be assessed for their impact on animal health and welfare. Global experts on behaviour, technology, nutrition, management, sensor technology, and epidemiology provide scientific context to the trade-offs and transitions to be made.
Managing compost bedded pack barns for optimal milk quality - Room: Loge 1
Description
Because of potential cow comfort and nutrient management advantages, interest in compost bedded pack barns continues to increase internationally. When managed well, these barns can be excellent alternatives to freestall barns. However, when mismanaged, high levels of clinical and subclinical mastitis may be observed. Over the last decade, we have worked with compost bedded pack barns around the world. In this course, we will share our practical and research experiences to help you understand how to build, manage, and troubleshoot these barns.
Chair/speakers
Training and motivating milk harvest technicians with Implementing SOPs, roadmap and TWI - Room: Loge 2
Description
Level: intermediate level
Intended audience: dairy farmers, consultants, and other professionals working with parlor training.
Training employees and maintaining routines on dairy farms is an essential part of everyday life for many dairy farmers and consultants. A survey of 33 percent of dairy farms in Denmark shows that only 13 percent had a training plan for new employees. The rest did not have any plan for training new employees at all. Further, the same dairy farms also lacked any plan for maintaining routines implemented at the farms. As a new employee, there is much to learn, and our brain has difficulty handling too much information. Humans have a rational capacity; we can only incorporate new knowledge a few hours a day. We use our routines the rest of the time and are left to our knowledge, experiences, habits, feelings, and instincts. Therefore, as a trainer, you must ensure a promising and efficient start-up of new employees on the farm – especially as many employees are unskilled. The more efficient training in “do the task right,” the faster the employee gets into the tasks and becomes an essential asset for the farm. Another challenge is that different people perform the same job in multiple ways; therefore, there will be slight variations in how the job is done over time. This workshop will introduce you to three methods: SOP, Roadmap, and TWI. We review the qualities of the different techniques for rapid training to perform the tasks uniformly, aiming at people where culture and language can be a barrier.
During the course, we will break it down into three parts;
- Understand human psychology and what motivates people
- Have to combine the data from the parlor with motivation
- Have you, as a consultant, used the tools in a herd-specific
We will demonstrate this through the three methods: standard operating procedure (SOP), roadmap, and training within the industry (TWI). Implementing this will kick off employees rapidly and motivate them to achieve results in the milking parlor.
Learning outcome:
- Get an introduction and understanding of the psychological aspects you must consider when working with people during the implementation of new knowledge and procedures in the milking process
- Understand the three methods of training and maintaining routines. Gain insight into which methods work best in different situations and how the processes ensure faster training and motivation by the milking staff.
Chair/speakers
Fact or fiction: reviewing nutritional strategies and feed additives for mastitis control & prevention - Room: Loge 3
Description
It’s been well established that there is a link between nutrition and mastitis. While poor nutrition does not cause mastitis, poor nutrition can lead to immune incompetence which can increase incidence of mastitis. We’ll review the critical nutrients that should be supplied to limit mastitis. Also, it seems like every week there is a new nutritional additive, essential oil, or probiotic that is advertised as an immune stimulating product to help lower SCC or prevent clinical mastitis incidence. In this course we will cut through the noise and investigate the peer-reviewed literature about nutritional immune stimulation and utilize case-based analyses to evaluate nutritional strategies for controlling mastitis on dairy farms.
Chair/speakers
Ready to perform an udder health audit? - Room: Loge 4
Description
In this course, the fundaments of an udder health audit will be addressed following a methodology intended to help those who are willing to initiate consultancy or simply identifying risk factors that may originate mastitis. A systematic approach in collecting information will be explained and examples of checklists and scorecards will be shared. Practical cases for each step of an audit will be shown and enriched with real situation videos and photos.
Course structure
- The fundaments of the 4 pillars of udder health consultancy
- Cow confort
- Milking Routine
- Milking machine
- Data analysis, epidemiology, and immune system
- Final report and communication with the client
Chair/speakers
Bridging research gaps in bovine mastitis - Room: Het Anatomisch Theater
Description
This workshop is intended for mastitis researchers from academia and industry. The aim of the workshop is to establish an international group developing research roadmap for the next generation solutions in bovine mastitis control. The event is set to feature pitches from renowned experts on vaccine development and other promissing non-antimicrobial approaches. This will be followed by moderated discussions on the main research bottlenecks to advance the delivery of new control solutions. The inputs received will be integrated in STAR-IDAZ IRC research roadmaps and a summary report which will be published on the website. This in turn will inform funders globally to support their next funding priorities.
Chair/speakers
Dr. Fernando Souza
Dr. Latifa Elhachimi
Dr. Vinicius da Silva Duarte
Dr. Luís Melo
Dr. Orla Keane
Dr. Ruth Zadoks
Staphylococcus aureus is back!?! - Room: Loge 1
Description
Staphylococcus aureus has been a notorious contagious mastitis pathogen that has plagued the dairy industry for more than 50 years. Overall prevalence has been reduced significantly, but it continues to be a threat to nearly every dairy herd and, in some instances, has resumed its place as the biggest threat to milk quality at the bulk tank level. In large herds, especially, this pathogen may fly under the radar for several years before the impacts are noticeable in the bulk tank, at which point the outbreak is already established and it is difficult to regain control.
This course will focus on several aspects of Staph aureus mastitis:
- Cow and herd level characteristics
- Laboratory protocols and diagnostics
- Herd level management protocols
- Outbreaks
- Case study
Participants will take away key points regarding the impact and importance of Staph aureus mastitis on individual cows and bulk tank milk quality, laboratory diagnostic role and herd management decisions.
Chair/speakers
Teat health, chemicals and milk quality: how do the pieces fit together? - Room: Loge 2
Description
In this course, the instructors will address the basics of pre- and post-milk harvest chemicals. They will discuss different types of pre- and post-teat milking sanitizers for conventional and robotic systems, and how they affect teat health and milk quality. We will discuss different types of chemicals used for CIP and focus specifically on strategies for optimizing milk quality. Attendants will learn the validation process of chemicals, from product ideas to shelf availability.
Chair/speakers
Cow side evaluations of milk harvesting - Room: Loge 3
Description
This short course aims to deliver the techniques required to carry out an effective evaluation of the interaction between the milking equipment, the cow and the milker. It is targeted towards veterinarians and consultants who wish to become more involved in milk harvesting but feel they require greater knowledge and do not possess expensive testing equipment. The course will include an introduction to the operation of the milking machine, explore the role of the milking routine and cow side tests including cow behaviour, teat condition scoring and interpretation of parlour software.
Chair/speakers
Udder health guru. Reach your next level in advising on mastitis - Room: Loge 4
Description
Even after decades of research, mastitis remains one of the most expensive and frustrating diseases on a dairy farm. In this short course, you will discover how to unlock the udder health potential as dairy consultant. Practical tips and tricks for effective farm visits that motivate real change will be shared. During this short course, you will have the opportunity to discuss in small groups a practical case using videos and pictures. The most relevant key factors related to mastitis management and communication will be touched upon. You will learn how to effectively communicate your findings and advice to your farmers. After this course you will be able to motivate and inspire change in mastitis management. Joining this course will increase your ability to make a lasting impact on farm and farmer. Because you know what you are talking about, and you know how to talk about it.
Chair/speakers
How do you validate your mastitis diagnoses based on the level of diagnoses available to you? - Room: Meeting room
Description
Diagnosing udder infections and using these diagnoses for treatment and culling decisions on dairy farms is essential to tailored farm-specific udder health management. To enable optimal udder health decisions, dairy practitioners and farmers must be up to date on mastitis epidemiology, emerging pathogens, and available diagnostics. Our knowledge of mastitis-causing bacteria and the technological development within diagnostics are moving rapidly forward. Hence, continuing education in udder microbiology is essential to everybody working within udder health management. It is relevant to distinguish between what diagnoses can be obtained at a valid level and what diagnoses are available at different levels of diagnostics. In general, diagnoses made from standard culture must be interpreted with reservations other than diagnoses made on, e.g., molecular level. So, how do you tailor your confidence level within different diagnoses based on your equipment available? The course addresses this question by providing a three-step guide through the limitations, advantages, and disadvantages of different levels of available diagnostics: 1) Low-grade access to technical equipment, i.e., diagnoses primarily obtained through a narrow range of biochemical tests or media. 2) Medium-grade access to technical equipment, i.e., diagnoses primarily obtained through a broad range of biochemical tests, and 3) High-grade access to technical equipment i.e., diagnoses obtained through molecular diagnostics such as PCR, RAPD, and strain-typing. The course focuses on the classical mastitis pathogens including Mycoplasma, but also provides updates on the ever-increasing data on the more complex dynamics of mastitis microbiology. A study including 11 Danish veterinary clinics showed that only approximately 18% of all bacteriological diagnoses made through biochemical testing on clinical mastitis pathogens were correct. Further, the prevalence of antibiotic resistance in mastitis-causing bacteria is increasing. Also, our understanding of the epidemiology of mastitis pathogens is becoming more and more complex. For example, typing various environmental bacteria from the same farm has proven helpful in deciding on a contagious versus an epidemiological understanding of the farm situation and related management decisions. The course provides examples of all these pending challenges to udder health management – based on the limitations set by different levels of diagnostics available.
Learning outcome:
- Get an introduction to various biochemical tests, media, and molecular analyses available within mastitis diagnostics.
- Learn to distinguish the level of confidence each type of diagnostics provides on classical mastitis pathogens.
- Understand the inherent limitations of various diagnostic choices and how these choices affect not only the singular diagnosis but also the farm data you rest on when making large-scale decisions such as strategies for biosecurity, eradication, longevity of cows and, optimizing milk-quality-parameters such as somatic cell count and total bacterial count with more.
- decision make on the base of results?
Chair/speakers
