BETTER TOGETHER: SOCIAL CALF HOUSING STRATEGIES - BALCHEM CORP

hello everyone and welcome to the real science lecture series my name is scott sorrell director of global marketing for balchem today we welcome dr jennifer van os of the university of wisconsin to present a better together social calf housing strategies globally expectations have been increasing for housing strategies for pre-weaned dairy calves this webinar will discuss the various research demonstrated benefits of social calfhousing dr van os will also review some common challenges producers may face when transitioning to pair or group rearing and research-based solutions for addressing them. And now I'd like to introduce Dr. Jennifer Van Oss. Jennifer, you and I first met earlier this year at the ADSA conference and I look forward to having you here today. Just a little bit of background, Jennifer is an associate professor and Extension Specialist in Animal Welfare at the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Van Oss received her Ph.D. in Animal Behavior from the University of California, Davis, then conducted postdoctoral research in the Animal Walfare Program at University of British Columbia. She joined the Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences at University Wisconsin in 2018. The research in her lab focuses on understanding, evaluating, and improving the welfare of dairy animals. The goal of her extension program is to promote best practices in management and housing to help dairy industry adapt as our scientific knowledge about animal welfare continues to grow. Dr. Van As, welcome to the Real Science Lecture Series. The floor is now yours. Thanks so much for having me. Well, today I'm excited to talk about one of my favorite topics, which is social housing of pre-weaned calves. And just as a preamble, I'll mention that this is the topic that I started working on when I came to Wisconsin eight years ago because I was meeting with Wisconsin dairy farmers and asking them about their interests and their challenges relating to animal care and animal welfare. And a lot of farmers had either heard from other farmers who were using this practice or had heard about the research in the last couple of decades and are really curious, what is all this buzz around pair housing or group housing of calves? and so this is why it became one of my central research and extension areas. And in case you're wondering, looking at this cover photo, why some of these calves have squares shaved on their foreheads, it's because they were part of a research study where we were measuring skin temperature, so in case You notice that. So what I want to do first is start with a little bit of context about animal welfare. So I'm an animal welfare scientist, and my background is in applied animal behavior. And so I think it's really important to center this conversation around the animal welfare lens that I'm bringing to this topic. So when we talk about animal welfare, I think most people have a common sense understanding of what that means, but depending on who you ask, people might prioritize different aspects of animal welfare. So when we're thinking about it from a scientific perspective, it's something that we call a hidden target, or you might call it a latent variable. So it's not actually something we can measure directly. And that's because animal welfare refers to an animal's individual internal subjective experience of their quality of life. So, it's an attribute of the animal. It's not something we can provide, but we can set up the environment around the animal to try to promote opportunities for good welfare. So animals can have good welfare, poor welfare, or somewhere in between on this spectrum from good to bad. And this can either refer to a snapshot in time or cumulative quality of life over the course of an animal's lifetime. So when we're thinking about the essence of animal welfare, we call this their affective experience. And that refers to this subjective mental state. And so again, this can be transient or it can be long-term. And another way of putting this is it's how the animal feels or their emotional state. And sometimes people don't like those terms because they think they're anthropomorphic. But what I want to emphasize here is we're not trying to project human complex emotions onto animals such as cattle. So we're nicht trying to say this calf is jealous of another calf or anything like that. But rather, we have been able to validate through scientific studies that animals such cattle are sentient meaning that they're capable of feeling and so on the left side what i'm showing here is an example of adjectives to describe negative affective states so these are states such as pain or fear or hunger or thirst and so this is the emotional experience of these negative states and then on the right side we have positive affective states. So we have things like comfort or contentment or pleasure or reward. And so these adjectives describe things that we are able to validate. And the other thing I want to emphasize is that emotions evolved for a reason. So there's a reason that cattle and dogs and humans have emotions. And that's because these negative and positive states drive the animals to take action. So to perform behaviors that then enhance their fitness. So namely their reproduction, but also their survivals that they're able to reproduce. So things like pain and fear let the animal know that either something is already wrong or that there is a threat that they should avoid. And then positive states such as pleasure or reward drive the animal to do things that allow them to reproduce and to find food, for example. So these aren't just fuzzy anthropomorphic concepts, they're things that are really key that have evolved. But just because we're raising animals now in a farmed or other captive setting doesn't mean that these evolved emotional states have gone away. And so that is why we care about animal welfare. It's something that from an ethical perspective is the right thing to do to make sure that animals aren't experiencing too many negative states and have the opportunity to experience these positive states. So the tricky thing is that we can't always measure welfare directly. And So instead, what we can think about is things that influence welfare. So when we think about everything that a farmer does, a farmer or a person provides animal care. And so I like to summarize this as housing management and handling or housing husbandry and handling. So the environments we keep animals in, the management and husbandry practices that we use, and then the way that we directly interact with or handle or remove these animals so all of these things can have either positive or negative effects on what the animal experiences or their welfare and even though we can't always measure welfare itself directly we can measure some of these influences that mediate the experience of welfare so on the right hand side I'm showing a concept called biological functioning and I think this is very intuitive. So a lot of more traditional animal science or veterinary science focuses on biological functioning or the animal's bodies. So are they healthy? Are they growing? Are they producing? Are they reproducing? And so aspects of their biological fitness do influence the animal's internal mental experience. But on its own, health and productivity doesn't constitute welfare. And that's because those are attributes that also affect non-sentient organisms such as plants. So we have plant pathologists who try to understand diseases in tomato plants, for example, but we're not concerned about causing suffering in plants. But we know that because cattle are able to feel these negative and positive states, we therefore care about their welfare. So in addition to their biological functioning, So for animals, excuse me for just a second, for animals such as cattle who are capable of feeling, we also need to think about the behaviors that they've evolved to perform, which again drive their fitness. And so for specific species, such as cattle, or for specific life stages, such as pre-weaned calves versus adult cows, we know that they've evolved to perform certain behaviors that drive their survival and reproduction. So in a farmed or captive environment, if they're unable to perform certain behaviors, they can experience these negative emotional states. And on the flip side, if they're given opportunities to perform these behaviors, they can then experience positive states. So when we're thinking about welfare, we need to consider not only their bodies, but also their minds and their abilities to perform these evolved important behaviors. so then in terms of what we can actually measure we can measure things like the behaviors the animals perform so how much time are they spending doing these important or natural behaviors how much time do they spend in doing abnormal or inappropriate behaviors and then of course these more traditional metrics such as health outcomes production growth fertility etc And sometimes people like to ask, is there, what is the best measure of welfare? And unfortunately, there is no single indicator. So oftentimes people wish for one magic biomarker that they can measure that will tell us about an animal's welfare status. And what we actually need to do is to integrate these different outcomes, reflecting the animal's biological and physiological states, as well as their ability to perform these behaviors and then draw inferences about their internal mental state. So there is no one indicator, but we need to measure these things in conjunction. So I wanted to bring this up because when it comes to calf welfare especially, I think traditionally the focus really has been on health for good reason because they are at a very vulnerable life stage, as well as on their growth and performance because this is what sets them up to become future productive members of the herd. So these metrics around health, growth, future production, and fertility are important for a reason, but these cannot capture welfare alone without also considering their ability to perform natural behaviors. And so now what I've done is I've added these icons showing we should be measuring the animal's physiology and these productive metrics, but we should also be monitoring behavior. And then together, we can better understand how our management and housing practices affect the animal's welfare. So research on animal science, veterinary science, animal behavior, and welfare can help us understand the calf's perspective, for example, to understand what they need to have a good quality of life. So I wanted to set the stage because I think it's really important to understand why I'm going to talk about some of the outcomes I'm going to be talking about through the animal welfare lens. So what I want to shift to now is to talking specifically about this topic of calf housing and social group size. So in the U.S. industry today, still approximately three quarters of farms house their heifer replacement calves primarily individually, either outdoors in hutches like this one shown or in a calf barn or some other single pen or hutch system. And there are a lot of historical reasons for why this practice became the norm and why a lot farmers still think that this is the best strategy. So the first is when calves are housed individually, this allows the farmer to control how much each calf is fed and then monitor how much she's eating as well as monitor for health issues. So some managers feel that it's easier to monitor calves when they're in their own housing and not commingled with other calves. Another reason is that some managers also find that it is easier to handle calves when they're housed by themselves rather than in a group for routine husbandry procedures such as vaccinations or disbudding, et cetera. And then another reason is that by housing calves individually, in theory, this physical separation can potentially reduce disease risks. But that is if there is actual physical separation, either through a solid barrier or space between hutches or a combination. So the idea is that if you separate calves, you could potentially reduce direct calf-to-calf contact and disease transmission through physical tactile contact. Potentially, if there's a space between calves, you also reduce the amount of shared aerosol, so you could reduce the transmission of respiratory diseases. And then also, if there is a separation or a solid barrier between calves then they're not contaminating each other's feeding equipment and you're not getting bedding moving between the hutches, again, potentially introducing pathogens between calves. The caveat there is sometimes farms house calves without full social contact. So there's a fence separating hutches or pens, but the calves still have nose-to-nose contact and the bedding can still get between the pens. So in that case, the calves don't have full social contract, but potentially you don't get some of these benefits that could, in theory, come with individual housing. So individual housing has been the norm in our industry for over half a century. It came about for good reasons, and this was to address these concerns around calf health, as well as promote this individual control over feeding and being able to monitor. But worldwide, as Scott mentioned at the beginning, we are starting to see a shift. So social housing, which means housing calves with at least one other calf with full social contact has been commonplace in Europe and elsewhere for many decades now. And this trend seems to be spreading. So I'm just showing some quick survey data here from the United Kingdom, where in 2010, approximately 40% of dairy farms were using social housing for calves. And then by 2021, a survey found that this pattern had flipped. So now nearly two-thirds of farms were using Social Housing. And these came about primarily because of changes in supply chain expectations. And then recently in Canada, they updated what they call their code of practice. And what this means now is that five years from now, so by spring 2031, all indoor house calves, meaning they're housed in a calf barn rather than an outdoor hutches, need to be paired or grouped by the time they reach four weeks old. So there are some limited exceptions there, but this is going to be a national expectation in Canada. And so there is still this transition time, but this has become a very hot topic in Canada about how to help farms who aren't already pairing or grouping calves transition toward this practice. So what I want to mention now is in the U.S. there is no equivalent expectation. So sometimes people get distracted seeing the information here about Europe and about Canada, and they think that I'm saying that there is a requirement in the US. And again, that's not the case. There is no national expectation. There are some specialty labels that some farms may participate in who have an equivalent expectation, but there's no nationwide expectation. But I think that it's prudent to have this conversation in the U.S. industry because this has been a trend for a while. A lot of farmers are aware of the research or they've heard about other farms doing this. And so I think it's a good idea to talk about why is this practice growing in popularity worldwide? Why are there now some national standards in some countries outside of the U.S.? And what can farms consider if they're looking at potentially transitioning to pair or group housing? So first, I want to just pause and say, what do I mean by social housing? Sometimes in this presentation, you'll hear me say pair housing or groupizing or social housing. And I use those terms somewhat interchangeably. The reason I don't always say group housing is because sometimes when people hear group, they picture large groups of calves with an automatic milk feeder system, which is what you can see in the upper left. And that is one option, but that is not the only option and it's not the most common option. So what I want to highlight is that there are ways to pair or group house calves, both indoors in a barn and outdoors in hutches, and that these are real life examples taken from farms across the U.S. And so these are farms that are actively doing some kind of social housing. So on the upper right, what you can see is an example of what's called the buddy hutch system. So this is a modified super hutch used for pairs of calves. So they don't have additional outdoor access, but they have a larger space in this sort of outdoor context. And in this particular system, there is an optional indoor divider that can be used to initially separate calves, and then that's removed to form pairs and then below that is an example of how you can use existing individual hutches to create pair housing and so the hutches are adjacent and then the fencing is modified to now enclose two hutches so the calves have a shared outdoor space and then two hutges that they can enter at will and that's just an example from Texas where the weather is different than here in Wisconsin and so they've actually created a larger outdoor run area for those calves. And then on the lower center there is an example inside of a calf barn where there are these modular plastic pens where, again, a divider can be removed to just create pairs or small groups in the barn rather than individual pens. And then, on the left, is an sample of a smaller medium-sized group pen that's designed for that purpose. And so, here, there are groups of five calves which are mob-fed with a nipple mob feeder. And there are many, many more other kinds of examples, both in the U.S. and internationally, of different ways that you can approach social housing, either by modifying existing individual housing or by purchasing or installing custom-made group or pair housing. So I'm going to use this as a framework as I move through the rest of the talk. I'm gonna introduce three reasons, or I guess three steps, when a farmer is considering pair or group housing. So why should a farm consider pair or group housing? And so the first thing I want to talk about is that there are numerous kinds of research-backed benefits. And this is research that's been done over the past two or three decades. So none of this is cutting edge or radical. It's all very well-established science. And there are many, many studies showing that there's this variety of different benefits. So it's not just one type of benefit, and it's not just a one study. And for the most part, I won't go into the nitty-gritty of showing graphs. I'm just going to summarize again because it is many studies. So the first set of benefits of social housing is that cattle are a herd species, and so they have a strong drive to be with others of their own kind. And so when we pair or group house calves, this can benefit them because it provides an outlet for this innate motivation and preference for social contact with their own kind. So studies have found that calves will actually perform tasks to gain access to another calf and that they prefer full contact compared to fence line or partial contact. And that when they are in a group setting, they will cluster together. So they have a preference to be close to each other. And there's a specific kind of test that we use in animal welfare science to try to somewhat more directly measure emotional state. And it's called a judgment bias test. And this kind of test has shown, and it's been replicated, that when calves are housed in pairs or groups, their responses in these tests are more reflective of positive welfare compared to when they're housed individually. And so one set of benefits of social housing is that we think it's something that the calves want, and It's something that they care about, and that improves their emotional state or welfare directly. Another set of benefits is that when calves are housed in social groups, I like to say that they learn how to play with others, both literally and figuratively. So when cows are housed and social groups we recommend that you maintain at least the same space allowance per calf. So not putting two calves into one hutch, making sure that they have the same per-calf space. And what we see is that that social contact and that larger overall space work together to stimulate play behavior. And across species, play behavior in young animals is seen as an indicator of positive welfare, and it's something that is actually important for their development. And even though it just looks cute and fun, it actually does have an evolutionary function, and we think that it's Something that prepares them for challenges that they'll face in adulthood. So we literally see this play behavior. But then figuratively, calves also learn to play with others of their kind, meaning they learn about appropriate social interactions and appropriate ways of communicating with others. And so some studies have shown that this actually benefits them as they mature and become adult cows and that they end up with a higher rank in the social hierarchy and they gain better access to resources, not by being more aggressive, but just because they know how to interact with other cattle. So it's good for their social development. And then yet another set of benefits, which I think is very important, is that when calves are raised in pairs or groups from a young age, they show better stress resilience, particularly in the context of weaning. So we know that weaning is always a stressful time in a calf's life because they're making this nutritional transition from liquids to solids, and that no matter what, they are going to experience both physiological stress and also behavioral indicators of stress. But when calves are raised in pairs or groups, that stress response is dampened. And so this is also a topic where research in my lab is continuing to look for additional indicators of distress resilience during weaning. And we're also looking at calves responses to transportation stress following pair or individual housing. Other studies have shown that pair or group housing from a young age leads to cognitive and behavioral flexibility. And so I'm grouping this under the same umbrella, but I'm talking actually now about a different result. So multiple studies, again, it's been replicated, have put calves into these specific learning scenarios and tested their cognitive performance. So how well can they learn a spatial challenge? And then what's called reversal learning, when you actually change what they're expected to do. So calves that are raised in social groups are more cognitively and behaviorally flexible and able to adapt to changes in these test situations. And then also they're more adaptable to new things. So this could be new social groups as well as new food items. And we know that this is really important because we change the diets of dairy cattle many times throughout their lives. And again, many studies have replicated that when you expose calves to feed items they've never seen before, they show what's called reduced feed neophobia. So they're less hesitant to try these new feed items. So a lot of these benefits might sound a little bit esoteric at first glance, but I think that they have a lot practical implications. So why does cognitive ability or learning ability or behavioral flexibility matter for dairy cattle? And I think this is important because when we picture the lifetime of a dairy cow, we expect them to learn a lot of new things and encounter a lot of challenges and adapt to them over the course of their lifetimes. So if we picture a calf who may have been raised in an outdoor hutch, eventually moving to post weaning group housing, and then into adult housing, maybe in a freestyle setting, over her lifetime, she's going to encounter new diets. So moving from milk or milk replacer to a fully solid diet and then adapting to TMR, a dry cow diet, many different types of diets and feed items. They need to recognize that these new things are something good to eat. And then in these different housing systems, they need to recognise the elements of the housing. So where do they find feed? Where do they fine water? Where is a good place to lie down? So they need to understand that a stall is a place to lie down, not the alley. They need to recognize these different drinking sources. They Need to recognize, okay, now I'm not eating from a bucket. I need to eat from a feed bunk. I Need to adapt to headlocks. And then also, there is going to be social mixing and social regrouping, and they Need to be able to adapt to reforming those social groups. And Then also, maybe most importantly, from a farmer's perspective, when a cow becomes an adult, she Needs to be able to do her job and enter the milking string. So especially if you have, say, a double parlor or even a rotary, any kind of milking system, the cow needs to be able to learn how to enter this system and adjust to these environments. So say you have a double Parlor, there might be cows who easily go in on one side, but then they balk when going in on the mirror image side. And so that would be an example where behavioral flexibility or reversal learning could be beneficial. And then also if you have an automatic milking system, then the cows need to essentially learn how to milk themselves. And so there actually isn't direct research evidence yet that calves raised in pairs or groups learn how milk themselves in an AMS better, although I know some groups are working on this. But anecdotally, there are veterinarians now who are recommending to their clients who use AMS, hey, if you're having trouble with your heifers learning the AMS maybe consider pair or group housing so that you have these calves who learn better. So anecdotally, I've heard of some farmers who have tried this and they seem to feel like it works. So I want to now describe even more additional benefits of pair group housing. And so this is something that I think benefits the calves own physical development, but then from a farmer perspective, this can also have implications for profitability. Although we still need research actually doing a more direct economic analysis. So many studies have found that when calves are housed socially from early in life, they show greater solid feed intake and that this then often translates into greater weight gains and average daily gain. And what I want to emphasize is, again, this isn't just one study or even just a small handful of studies. This has been replicated repeatedly. So what I'm summarizing here is the number of studies in the last couple decades reported in these two different review papers that have compared individually housed calves and then calves housed either in pairs or small groups. And what I mean by small groups is up to about eight calves. And, what you're seeing there in terms of the numbers is the number of studies that either detected a benefit of social housing, so that's the green plus signs for each of these different indicators. So, dry matter intake of starter, average daily weight gain, or body weight at weaning, and then the gray minus signs indicate studies where they didn't detect a statistical difference. And then the red minus signs would indicate studies where the pair or group housed calves underperformed compared to the individually housed calves. So a few kind of summary messages on this slide. The first is that some studies don't detect a difference. So calves housed individually or calves housed in pairs or groups perform with no statistical difference. But many studies have found that calves housed in pairs or groups grow better and eat better at a young age compared to those housed individually. And no study to date has ever found that cows housed individually ate better and grew better than calves housed socially. That's a pretty striking pattern. And what I also want to mention here is that these studies didn't all compare calves at the same age, so some of them were paired earlier, some were paired later, some of the measurements were only in the pre-weaning period, some also included that week or two right after weaning, but you can see that overall the pattern is that social housing is either equivalent or better than individual housing when it comes to calf growth performance. I want to supplement this slide with some meta-analysis data. So this was a paper that was published last year. And so they did a quantitative meta- analysis to look at, well, what is the effect size of this benefit of pair or small group housing? A couple of caveats is that they only included studies when the calves were put into the pairs or groups by the time they reach two weeks of age. So they didn't consider studies where calves were, say, paired at six weeks ofage, right, when they were weaned. And they only included measurements taken in the pre-weaning period. So many other studies have detected growth advantages during those week or two right after weaning. And so this meta-analysis doesn't include those. So it's just benefits during the pre-weening period for calves paired or grouped in the first two weeks of life. And so this figure clusters the different studies effect sizes based on the group size. So this top set of studies compared pair house calves against individually housed calves. And then that second cluster is for calves in groups of three to six compared to individual housing. And then the bottom pair of studies is groups of seven to 15 calves compared to individual housing. So those blue squares are the effect sizes in those particular studies. And then the orange diamonds are the overall effect sizes depending on the group size. And then that green diamond is the overall effects size, regardless of whether the calves were in pairs or small groups. So what you can see is that the net effect is positive. So when calves are socially housed from a young age, they do have greater average daily gain during the free weaning period. So we now also have more recent evidence that these performance advantages persist. So up until a few years ago, this was more speculative, but now we have a handful of studies coming out that have looked at these calves longitudinally and found that these growth advantages in the pre-weaning period do carry over. So calves previously pair housed have greater body weight at a year old, and then also at a year and a half old. And now also a couple of studies have found that when these calves mature, then their lactation, their first lactation milk yield is greater. Depending on the study, this is either explained by reduced culling. So more of the pair house calves stay in the herd for longer during their first lactation. So their total milk production during that first lactate is greater, and other studies have found that it's not just because of that, but there's this interaction effect where they're producing more and they're staying for longer, and therefore their total first lactation milk yield is greater. So there is now emerging evidence that it is not just earlier growth, but there is also these longer-term performance advantages as well. This is kind of supplemental to the previous point, but our lab did one study, and I'm hoping that others will do more to try and replicate this effect. Looking at how calves perform in outdoor hutch housing in climates like Wisconsin, where we do have these cold winter extremes, and we know that neonatal calves are very vulnerable to cold stress. And so we had hypothesized that when calves are pair housed, they might be more resistant to cold stress in the winter because they can huddle for warmth. And then we also see what's called social facilitation, where they'll both go and feed at the same time instead of just staying huddled in the bedding. And we speculated that this could mean if they're spending less energy on maintenance and staying warm, that they would have more energy towards growth and immunity. So we found some evidence to support this, that perhaps peer housing could be a way to protect calves against cold stress in winter extremes. But again, I would love to see more studies on this topic to try to support This additional benefit of social housing, especially in these outdoor winter settings. And then finally to shift gears, there is another set of potential benefits of social housing that's less about the calves themselves, but more about the long-term social sustainability of the dairy industry. So there's only been two studies that I'm aware of to date. So one study found that consumers preferred pair housing and group housing compared to conventional individual housing. Then there was another study that didn't replicate this effect, But these two studies had some key methodological differences. And the study that didn't replicate it was actually more focused on the topic of early cow-calf separation, which is the norm in our industry. And I think it's possible that by highlighting that practice, consumers were more focused on that issue rather than the way the calves were housed after that separation. But just to quickly summarize the study, that did find an effect. This was done in Minnesota, and they surveyed people at the Minnesota State Fair, and they showed them these three photos of indoor CAP housing in a randomized order. So every person saw all three photos, and they were asked whether they approved, disapproved, or were neutral about each of these housing systems. So when it came to individual housing, only a third of the respondents approved, whereas almost half disapproves. But then that pattern was basically flipped. So when they saw pair housing or group housing, two-thirds and three-quarters of respondents approved and a much smaller percentage disapproved. So again, I think this is an area where more social science research would be beneficial to try to understand consumer perception. And this isn't to say that consumers should dictate the nuances of how the dairy industry raises calves or cows. But I think it is important to pay attention to because consumers have a lot of choices. And it's not mandatory that people consume dairy products. And so if we want the industry to be sustainable long term and to be able to maintain a consumer base, I think it is important to stay tuned to what people prefer and what their concerns are around animal welfare. So just to summarize, there are numerous different kinds of research based benefits for early life social housing of calves. So we see better performance in terms of solid feed intake and weight gains. We see greater resilience to weaning stress, and now we're exploring transportation stress. We see some evidence of protection from cold stress, which might explain some of these growth advantages. And then we also see advantages for the calves' social development. So they play more, they learn how to interact with others of their kind, they're more flexible and adaptable to new situations, and then also there's some potential evidence that this could benefit public acceptance of dairy farming practices. So I want to shift gears now to talk about, again, why should a farmer pair or group house their calves? So first of all, there's numerous benefits, but second of all they need to make sure they're ready. So if a farm isn't ready to proceed with the transition, then they might want to work on making some other changes on the farm before they actually put calves in pairs or groups. So they should take a look at certain health benchmarks and then also examine, do they have the infrastructure in place? What are they going to do in terms of housing facilities? And then also think about aspects around logistics and management. So will they need to adjust their milk feeding program? Will they need to make changes in their labor? And there is going to be a learning curve. Are they prepared to troubleshoot and to be able to deal with some disruptions? So I'm going to talk about two main challenges that producers sometimes face. So the first, I think, goes back to these historical reasons for individual housing, which is how do they make sure that calves are going to be healthy in these social groups? So the first thing that I want to mention is about a quarter of the U.S. industry is already using pair or group housing, and many farms are doing so very successfully, and they're very happy with this practice, and so they're able to achieve good health outcomes. So we have done a survey of farmers in the U。S., and among those using pair group housing about three quarters said that they were satisfied with cap health so this is a subjective self-report we didn't collect any kinds of metrics about their calves health performance but this was pretty close to the same percentage as farmers using individual housing so most of them were happy with their health outcomes what we generally recommend is that farmers take stock of at least two quantitative benchmarks for for calf health before they move to pair group housing. So the first is to look at their pre-weaned calf mortality rate. And so we're using the Dairy Calf and Heifer Association gold standards benchmark. So less than 3% mortality in the first 60 days of life. So between birth and weaning approximately, excluding stillbirths defined as the first 24 hours. So some research papers define stillbirth as the 1st 48 hours, but for this metric, going to exclude that first 24 hours. So you take the number of calves dying in the first 60 days, excluding those stillbirths, and then divide that by the calves born per year, again, excluding those stilbirths. And so if a farm has a higher mortality rate, then we would suggest they take a look at what's going on with health management before moving to pair housing. If the mortality rate is below 3%, that doesn't necessarily mean everything is in the clear, but that's a good sign about their health management program. The second benchmark that we ask farms to think about is transfer of passive immunity. And so what I'm showing is the more recent guidelines. So instead of just looking at pass-fail, looking at the classifications of excellent, transfer, good, fair, or poor. And so I think any farm, regardless of if they're housing calves individually or in groups, should be taking some kind of metric relating to transfer of passive immunity. And so what these guidelines recommend is looking for at least 40% of calves having excellent transfer and fewer than 10% of cows having poor transfer. And if your farm generally fits roughly into these categories or even better, then that's a good sign. So not every single calf needs to have excellent transfer, but more is better, obviously. And so what we suggest is that farms take notice of this and especially pay attention to that poor category, which is more like that traditional threshold of pass fail. We want to make sure that very few calves fall into that poor category and that if that's not the case, if there are a lot of calves showing poor transfer, that they pay attention and pay attention. Pay attention to their colostrum program and try to get that running smoothly and to hit those benchmarks before moving on to pairing. Sometimes people ask, well, why aren't you looking at indicators of treatments or morbidity? And I think that that is really important to look at, but that's where definitions really vary in different research studies and in the industry. And so we weren't really comfortable making a blanket recommendation there. So one thing I want to emphasize is that calf health is multifactorial. And so a lot of the same principles apply whether housing calves individually or in groups. And so I think it's important for a farm to have all their ducks in a row around calf health, regardless of their group size. So starting with the maternity pen management, colostrum, which I mentioned already, their nutrition programs, specifically when it comes to the liquid diet, and that'll become really important next when I talk about another challenge farm space. And then also preventative care and monitoring so again some managers prefer to monitor calves individually some actually like to monitor them in groups for health issues and then also having a really good hygiene sanitation biosecurity and biocontainment program having proper ventilation and then enough space allowance so again not putting two calves in one hutch making sure that the facilities can allow for for the per calf space allowance to say the same or greater. And then also making sure calves have enough clean, dry bedding, as well as airspace, which goes along with ventilation. And then lastly, practicing all in, all out moves within a group, as within a barn, if that applies. And so if a farm isn't able to do some of these things, I think that they, I would recommend that they take stock and make sure that calf health is running smoothly because when you go through this transition to pair group housing, sometimes there can be hiccups. But the other point here is that the calf hutch was developed many decades ago for important reasons to try to promote calf health, but it's been many decades since then and there are other more recent innovations available to our industry when it comes to housing and management to ensure that we raise healthy calves. So we can consider all these other factors where we've had so much research coming out in the last few decades And we can raise healthy calves, even in social groups. So just to show a little bit of data to support that, there aren't as many studies looking at calf health outcomes compared to growth outcomes. And part of this is the limitation of doing these studies on research farms, where we have limited sample size, and oftentimes we just have good calf health, and so we aren't really able to detect treatment differences. But in this handful of studies that have compared calf health outcome in pairs or groups of three, compared to individual housing, health outcomes have been similar when looking at respiratory disease or diarrhea. So here you can see in this handful of studies that have been done, most have not detected a significant difference between individuals and pair or triplet housing. And in one study each, the outcomes were actually better in pair or triple housing compared to an individual housing. Then the reverse has also been found. So there's no systematic advantage to individual housing compared to pairs or triples, at least in these few studies. But the story can sometimes be more complex when it comes to larger groups. And so in another review paper, Dr. Olivet summarized specific outcomes relating to respiratory disease. And again, there aren't that many studies, but in this case, group housing performs worse in many of these metrics, again, with a very small number of studies. And in this case, she concluded that larger group size is often a risk factor. And so I think, again this is an area where much more research is needed and that this can also perhaps interact a lot with some of those other factors I mentioned earlier about proper space in terms of airspace, clean bedding, and then also the nutrition program, which can create a protective benefit to try to outweigh some of these risks in larger groups. But the conclusion here is that group size does seem to matter and larger groups are not for everyone. So relating to that topic, what is the optimal group size? I think when a farm is thinking about what size of groups to manage, the goals are to minimize disease and also minimize feed competition. So the larger the age gap between calves in a group, the more competition and the more risk for disease. So you don't want older calves in a group transmitting disease to younger calves with an immature immune system. So when we survey veterinarians, what we found is that what they recommend is no more than a two-week age gap between the oldest and youngest calf in a pair or group, and ideally less than a week of gap. And so that's what four out of five veterinarians recommended was the less than one week age gap. And so then when a farm is trying to decide on their group size, they need to look at how many heifer calves are born within a given time, and that will allow them to determine their maximum group size. So if there are only two heifers on average born per week, then two or a pair would probably be the maximum groupsize they could consider. But if they have more calves born, they could potentially form larger groups. But then regardless of what their maximum potential group size is, they should also think about what is the right group size. So I think pairs are kind of the universal group size that even smaller herds can manage, but larger herds have more options available to them, which doesn't mean that they should go larger, it just means that they can. Okay, separately from group size, there is also a question of what is the right age to pair group calves. So there's starting to be more studies now, but I think we still need more information to be able to make a firm recommendation. So again, we survey veterinarians to ask them, well, what do you think is the right age to form these pairs or groups? In parts of Europe, the requirement is by one week of age or by two weeks of age. In Canada, it's going to be by four weeks ofage. So when we surveyed these vets, I actually expected most of them to say you should wait until calves are three weeks or older and pass that peak age risk period for scours. And that's what farmers had kind of told me that their vet would have said. But when we surveyed over 100 veterinarians, if you add up those bottom three bars, actually two-thirds of them preferred that the pairs or groups be formed when the calves were two weeks old or younger. And so that meta-analysis I showed earlier focused on the first two weeks of life when those pairs were formed. And I would say this practice is actually quite common. So some farms form those pairs or group on the day of birth. Some wait and do it sometime in the first week or two of life. And so there is some evidence to support the idea that pairing or grouping calves younger support some of these benefits in terms of learning and in termsof growth. But again, I think it's at the farm's discretion at this stage. So before I wrap up, I want to talk about the second really important challenge that farms sometimes face. And I would say that I most commonly get questions around this. But that also could be because my training is in animal behavior. I'm not a veterinarian. But something that I think really concerns a lot of farms and even prevents some from trying pair group housing is concerns about these abnormal or unwanted behaviors. So specifically cross-sucking, which refers to a calf sucking on any body part of another calf. So on the upper right, you can see cross- sucking on the ear, for example. And then inter-succing is a subset of cross- sucking, specifically referring to calf sucking on the udder or teats of another calf. And so that's what you're seeing there on the bottom right. That's inter- sucking, which is the type of cross sucking. So in the survey I mentioned earlier, we asked farmers, how often do you feel like you're seeing cross-ucking of any type? in the pre-weaning period. So among those currently using pair group housing, 85% said that they at least occasionally saw cross-sucking, and 11% said that they felt like this was frequent. And then 70% of farmers using individual housing, but where calves had tactile contact through the fence, also said they saw at least occasional cross- sucking, although we didn't ask those specifically about the body parts. And 7% of those individual farms said that they saw frequent cross-sucking in the pre-weaning period. So it's something that farmers notice, and the good news is there have been a lot of studies showing how to reduce this behavior, at least in the preheating period. The two main ingredients are to try to mimic natural milk ingestion behavior. The way that these calves have evolved is they are mammals, and they're highly motivated to suckle. These two ingredients are, first, reducing hunger, so making sure that they're drinking enough milk and getting satiated from the liquid diet. And the second is making sure that they have some kind of outlet for this suckling instinct. So give them enough opportunity to suckle appropriately because otherwise they will find a way to suck on something. So in individual housing, they actually spend the same total amount of time suckling as they do in pair group housing. It's just because they can't cross suck. Depending on the housing, you may see them sucking on buckets or on the hutch or other things in their housing environment. Whereas if they're pair group house, that's when you can sometimes see cross sucking or inner sucking, but the total amount of suckling behavior is actually the same. So first in terms of reducing hunger, we know that in our industry, a lot of nutritionists and a lotof farmers prioritizing getting calves to transition very quickly to the solid diet. But we know that at least in the first few weeks of life, calves are still heavily reliant on milk because that is how young mammals have evolved. And so if you are going to consider pair group housing, you need to make sure you're feeding a fairly generous milk volume. And So I'm saying generous here in North American terms. So we're talking at least eight to 10 quarts or liters per day, or ideally more. And Europe, I would say that it's more common to feed even more than that. But we know that making sure calves are getting enough from their liquid diet is one key to making sure that we reduce cross-sucking and other abnormal behaviors. Paired with that, we know that if we're feeding calves more milk, it is going to take them a little longer to fully transition to the solid diet, which means weaning needs to start a little bit later and that it needs to be done with a step-down program and not abruptly stopping milk feeding. And studies have shown ideally this would be done on an individualized basis depending on starter intake. Of course, there's a catch-22 where once calves are housed in pairs or groups, sometimes it can be harder to tell exactly how much each individual calf is eating. But the key here is just making sure that weaning is a little bit later and much more gradual so that we are confident that those calves are really adapted to starter before we take away the milk. So the second thing is to make sure that calves have enough opportunity to suckle appropriately. So again, young mammals evolve to drink milk. So they're highly motivated to suckle and they are going to find a way. So if we want calves to not cross suck on each other, we need to make sure that they're spending enough time suckling in a way that we think is more appropriate. So the number one most effective way of reducing cross sucking is by feeding the milk or milk replacer itself through some kind of nipple. So I'm showing a lot of different options here. There are even more that I'm not showing. But for example, traditional bottles or mob feeders where you have a bucket that actually has nipples attached, or you can have single nipple buckets. So I'm showing an example on the upper right of paired calves who each have their own bucket in contrast to one mob feeder with multiple nipples. Particularly if these nipples are slow flow, that slows down the milk meal. And that direct time suckling the milk is one factor that reduces the cross sucking. But then the second management factor is to leave access to those nipples even after the calves finish the milk. So studies have shown that there is a time course to suckling behavior. And once it's stimulated, it continues even afterthe milk is gone. And so what we advise is that calf managers not be too quick to come clean up and take those buckets or bottles away. Just make your rounds. And by the time you come back around, if it's been at least 20 minutes, usually calves are then satiated in terms of their suckling behavior, and then they go and lie down. But we need to make sure that they spend enough active time suckling on something that's appropriate so that they don't then turn to cross-sucking on each other. So how much of a problem really is cross- sucking? There only, unfortunately, has been a handful of studies looking at the downstream consequences. So one focused on cross-ucking in the pre-weaning period and then looked at navel infections as an outcome and didn't find any association. Another then looked at cross-sucking after weaning and then looked at what happened in the first lactation. And again, they didn't find an association between the amount of cross- sucking or inter-suckings in that post-weaning period and then mastitis or somatic cell count. But there just really haven't been that many studies. So recently, there have been a couple that have looked at mastitis and subclinical mastitis in the First Lactation after pair and group housing, but didn't quantify the amount of cross-sucking or inner-suckings behavior. So one study found that there were more utter health issues after pair housing than individual housing, but the other study did not find a statistical difference. And again, neither study actually looked at what could be causing that. They didn't directly quantify the amount of inner- sucking behavior. And then in terms of blind quarters, which is what I think producers are actually worried about, you can see numerically, it tends to be in the single digit percentages. And so even though numerically it looks like it might be higher in pair or group housing compared to individual housing, no statistical difference was detected. So this is an area where I think we need more research. Andso this is something that my lab is working on and some of my collaborators are also working on trying to understand why does cross-locking sometimes happen after weaning. So we know this happens even if calves are individually housed, and then the first time they're grouped is post weaning, this behavior can start to emerge. So we're looking at interventions, both pre-weaning and post-weening to try to reduce this behavior, whether or not the calves were previously pair or grouped housed. So I want to acknowledge that farmers really don't like this behavior. Even though it's kind of inconclusive whether it actually has negative downstream consequences, it's something that farmers worry about, and it can affect their willingness to consider pair or group housing. So we are continuing to do research on this topic. And so I have two take-home messages. The first is that social housing can work. About a quarter of the industry is doing it, and it's something that results in numerous benefits that's been supported by the research. I also want to acknowledge that there can be challenges around health or around these abnormal behaviors, but we do have a number of strategies to try to address both of those concerns, although there are still unanswered questions about post-weaving cross sucking. And that because a quarter of the industry is already doing this, it's not something fringe or merging. There are lots of examples of diverse farms with different herd sizes, different housing types, different climate regions already doing the successfully and a lot of them are willing to share their learning. But the other thing I want to acknowledge is that in terms of why farms should think about doing this even though there are a lot research-backed benefits, the farm not only needs to be ready, but they also want to do this. And so there are studies that have interviewed farmers, for example, in Canada, where this transition is going to become mandatory and asking farmers, well, what do you think about this? And I think a farm really has to believe in this practice and be interested and want to, rather than being told that they have to, because there are so many logistical issues to think through in this transition. It has to be something that a farm is interested in doing. So the last thing I want to mention is that we have a set of written resources that go into a lot more detail and has a bunch of scientific citations. It is due for an update. I created this about five years ago, but it's available on my website. It's a series of seven articles. So if you're interested in getting more information, you're welcome to check those out. And then I also wanted to leave you with my email address. I always enjoy hearing questions or observations that people have encountered in the field, as well as photos of different examples of creative ways that people have come up with social housing so you're always welcome to reach out to me email is the best way to reach me thank you all right as a reminder you can still submit questions through the q a tab at the top of your screen dr van os uh i've got a question i i'm curious if we see different behavior differences between the sexes and is there any data related to grouping calves by sex okay that's a really interesting question. So I will say that that's not something I've specifically examined in our research herd. We use only replacement heifers in these studies, but some of those studies that I cited did actually include bull calves. And in some of them, they kept them separate. In some of them they actually did create pairs or small groups mixing the sexes. So, I'm not sure I can directly answer behavioral differences between the sex is at least at that pre-weaning age, obviously later there may be. But some of those studies did mix them. And so when I showed the table with like the growth advantages, for example, some of Those studies did include bulk calves, although a lot of them focus just on replacement heifers. Yep. All right, very well. Key is asking after raising and weaning two calves, what is the ideal timeframe for gradually increasing the number of calves raised together? Yeah, that is a great question. I will say there are a diversity of practices. So a handful of studies have looked at creating pairs or very small groups, and then you don't create these larger groups until maybe a week or two after weaning. But there have been some studies looking at, say, forming pairs in the first week of life and then introducing them into larger groups, whether that's for an automatic milk feeding system or still manual feeding in those first four to six weeks of life. And so it's just very few studies, but they have actually found that the calves that were previously paired, so kind of backgrounded before those larger pre-weaning groups, adjusted better to those larger groups, even in the pre-weening period. So they were more willing to explore. They weren't just hiding in the back of the pen. So they had been already partially socially acclimated. So that is a strategy that some farms use. And I think there is some research support for that. Okay, very well. Tammy's got an interesting question. Does letting calves continue to suck on bottles after the milk is gone cause any problems to the calf if they are sucking in air? And then I've got kind of a follow-up question to that. Is there any research done with like pacifiers for calves you have for kids? Okay. So I'll actually answer the pacifier one first. So yes, a lot of those studies, and I didn't include a slide about this, but the most effective method is feeding the milk itself directly through a nipple and then allowing them that extra time to sort of work out their suckling instinct. But there have been studies looking at functionally a pacifier. So they call them blank nipples that they'll just mount on the wall of a pen. We also did a study where we used Brayden bottles, which is a specialized bottle for pelleted starter grain. Both of those methods do reduce cross-sucking and other abnormal behavior, but they're not quite as effective as feeding the milk itself through a nipple. And then in terms of that question about will they be sucking in air, that is a really common question I get, but we don't have direct evidence that it causes those problems. And so I think if you're trying to weigh against these potential risks of cross-sucking, which again, also aren't proven, any method that you can provide for the calves to express their behavior in sort of a more productive, appropriate fashion, I think is worth a try. But yeah, we don'T have direct evidenCe that sucking on an empty bottle causes problems. All right. Very well. You get two thumbs up from Dr. Hutchins here. Also, Stella's asking, do you see benefits of toys and calf pins for cats to play with? Yeah. So this is kind of a more emerging area, I think, of awareness for the industry, although there has been a lot of research about it. It's called environmental enrichment. So social housing itself is actually a form of enrichment. We call that social enrichment. And enrichment is anything that allows the animal to express these important natural behaviors that also has a proven animal welfare benefit. So it's something I think is really important for welfare. It's just maybe hasn't received as much attention as some of the other issues in our industry. In terms of toys, there is more evidence that things like brushes are something that calves will readily use, even from a very young age. And that is something that at that age, they not only groom themselves, but they will chew on the bristles and that we don't consider that to be a negative or abnormal behavior. I think at that stage, they're still doing a lot of oral exploration. And if we think about ruminants, things like bristles look like their natural food source, right? at that age they are actually already already starting to explore grass or hay if given the opportunity so we think that at that edge that could actually be a benefit so if you're thinking about enrichment for calves regardless of your group size I would say start with brushes there has been interest in putting things like balls in calf pens or even for adult cows and that's where we have a lot more limited evidence so I'm not sure that that's where I would start some people have shown me um they're actually toys meant for sows and they're made I think by easy fix I don't want to accidentally give an endorsement incorrectly but it's like it hangs on a chain and it almost looks like um an udder but it'S meant for sow's to chew on and that's something I think could also be promising for calves to try because they have that oral behavior as kind of a middle ground where maybe if you're worried about them ingesting air like they have something appropriate to suck on instead. So I would think, what is the natural behavior for a calf? It would be suckling, starting to nibble on solid feeds and grooming. So those are options I would consider. All right, good. Mike would like to know, do you see any additional expectations from supply chain for paired or grouped housing beyond those that have that expectation today? Yeah, so I would say specialty labels. So if a farm has some kind of optional animal welfare certification, some of those already require it. In terms of nationwide here in our supply chain, again, it might be specific companies, but most of them are using our national farm program, Farmers Assuring Responsible Management. So almost 100% of farms, unless they're direct to consumer, participate through their co-ops or processors now. And that is not an expectation in the farm program, mainly because the program is trying to be inclusive. So they have a commitment to try to be herd size neutral and facility neutral as much as possible. So, of course, these conversations are being had, especially with the changes coming in Canada. But no, I don't foresee a national expectation at this time. But again, I think it is really valuable to have the conversation because there are a lot of farms already doing this practice. And I think that if we are going to be prudent, knowing that there are changes coming in Canada and elsewhere globally, if a company, say a restaurant chain or grocery chain, is multinational, it could happen. I'll just put it that way. Yeah, sounds good. Stella's got a good follow-up question. will pacifiers after weaning just encourage calves to cross suck when they become cows? I think that's a really intriguing question too. And so I think part of what we should remember is sort of on the evolutionary history of cattle. If we think about how they behave in more naturalistic settings, even if we watch older calves and like a beef cow calf operation, naturally weaning would happen on a much later timescale. So we would see calves still drinking milk at eight months of age, even maybe up to a year. And so it's not that I think it would teach them or reinforce that behavior. It's just that they still have that instinct. And so I think if you were to provide them an outlet post weaning, it's not that you would be reinforcing a bad habit. It that that could potentially be helpful, but there just aren't studies looking at that age so much yet. So that's part of our goal is to understand what can we do with that actually like distract them from cross sucking on each other. And so what some research has found is that hunger is still a factor post-weeding. So for example, for heifers previously individually housed and then put into groups, if they're limit fed at a year old, they start inner sucking. And we think it's actually just because they're hungry and because they'RE still young mammals who would be drinking milk at that age, even if they physiologically adapted to a solid diet, if you then just cut their energy intake, they start looking for food and what they see in the pen is each other. And so I would say that's not completely answered yet, but I know that some producers strongly believe in bucket feeding in the pre-weaning phase because they're worried if I continue to feed them from a bottle, then I'm teaching them to suckle and that this will create these bad habits. But it's actually not a learned behavior. It's an innate behavior. So kind of a convoluted way of saying, I'm not sure. We haven't actually done that study, butI wouldn't think it would actually teach them to cross-sock. Yeah, makes sense. Keith's got another question. For now, is keeping two calves the better option in terms of hygiene, nutrition, and animal welfare, and transitioning from keeping just one calf? If I increase the number beyond three, will the disadvantages in terms of hygiene and the pack hierarchy outweigh the benefits, resulting in poorer performance compared to keeping them in pairs? Yeah, and so I think that you kind of summed it up. There's a reason why that article series that I showed at the end that we wrote, really focuses on pairs, because first of all, I think that's kind of the universal group size for social housing. And I think that that's where you can get a lot of those benefits. So all those studies that have found that there's limited health impacts, and that there are growth benefits starting from groups of two and learning benefits as well. I say, I would say that that'S a comfortable way a lot of producers could tiptoe in, especially if you have existing infrastructure, where you're just removing a divider. Now you can experiment on your own with just pairs. However, I would say anecdotally, some farms believe that small groups are better just in terms of what they see with cross-sucking and with the social dynamics. So for a couple of reasons, one is say a calf becomes sick or you have to cull it or something happens. If you start with a pair and then you have to remove one for whatever reason, then you end up with like an orphan. Whereas if they're in the small groups, you still have that benefit without disrupting that group as much. Anecdotally, again, I don't think this is yet supported by studies because there haven't been as many comparing different group sizes, just a handful now. Some farmers and some veterinarians believe that they see less cross-sucking and inter-suckings in small groups than in pairs. And I think that just has to do with more stimulation and that those calves are keeping themselves occupied otherwise. But I can't say for sure that we have enough studies to support that. So I would say, yes, pairs tend to work really well, but some people believe having a small group can have other advantages. Small being the caveat there. So we're getting, we're 11 minutes past the hour. Do you have a few more moments or at least one more? Of course, I do. All right, very well. So I'd like to bring on Dr. Mariano Moreno. She's a tech service rep here at Balchem. She got a question that came up uh during during our prep uh this morning so uh dr mariana tell us about your experience yesterday where when you were on the website hi everyone mariana here i'm just working behind the scenes yeah jennifer yesterday i was playing with uh your game the moving cows and i thought it was very interesting very entertaining for sure but also very helpful so So do you mind just commenting a little bit about that? Why do you guys create it and maybe the adoptions too? And Mariana, I understand it's also kind of addicting. You spent several hours on that thing, right? It is. And it's hard to not yell. You cannot put your arms up. Yeah, thank you so much for bringing that up. So as Scott mentioned in the beginning, I'm a researcher, but I'm also an extension specialist. So my job is to do applied research to help dairy farmers solve their challenges around animal care and animal welfare. So when I came to Wisconsin eight years ago, I was meeting with a lot of farmers and asking them, well, what are your main challenges with animal welfare and animal care? And so a lot OF people did bring up parent group housing of calves. They were very curious about how to make that work. But I would say the most popular request I got was, can you please come to my farm and train my parlor staff on how to move cows properly? Because we've seen a big shift in the demographic of the workforce on dairy farms. So a lot of people are coming on as milkers or herds people and they don't have any previous cow experience. And people who work with cows know that cattle see the world differently than humans do. They're prey animals and that to learn how to move them without being forceful and stressing them out, it's kind of like a dance. So you have this spatial relationship between your body and the cows and the barriers in the environment. And it takes a lot of practice to do this correctly and not get the cows stressed out because we know when they're stressed, it's bad for their welfare and it's also bad for their milk letdown. And so somehow a light bulb went off and I thought, well, maybe we can simulate this and that this would be a good way for people to learn, especially if they're beginners, because when you're trying to teach people to do something that involves physical space in their bodies, you can watch videos and there's a lot of fantastic videos out there that show how to do it. But then when you ask people to actually try it themselves, they tend to make a lot of the same common mistakes until they have a chance to practice. So the idea was if we can simulate it in this game environment, there can be a lot OF advantages. So it doesn't completely replace real life practice, but it allows them to try it out rather than just passively watching a video. And then the other advantage is that so we collaborated with a company that specializes in educational games. So there's this principle they taught us about called learning from failure. So we force people to make mistakes, which you wouldn't want them to do in a real life handling, because then it's dangerous for people, it's dangerous or stressful to cows. But in a game, we make them do things you shouldn't do, like yell, or hit a cow, we don't want people doing these things. But you can do it in the game. And then they can see, oh, that caused the cows to panic that caused milk production to go down. And so then you can learn by deliberately doing some of these wrong things. So that was kind of the idea behind it. And so we released it a few years ago. And at this last time I checked, maybe a couple months ago, we had over 40,000 downloads worldwide. So it's a free app. It's available both for Apple devices and Android devices, and we encourage people to download it. So I mentioned earlier, in the US, we have this farm program. So, it's our national industry standard that co-ops and processors expect farms to participate in. And they have an expectation that every year, anybody who interacts directly with cows on a dairy farm needs to have refresher continuing education and stockmanship and moving cows is certified to fulfill that requirement so when you finish playing it you get a certificate of completion with your name on it and that serves as the documentation of your annual continuing education. And so how can people get access to this again? Yeah so if you whether you're an Apple user or an Android user you go into your phone or your tablet's app store and you just search for moving cows so it's m-o-o moving cows. So it's M-O-O V-I-N-G cows. Very well and Mariana share just some of your experiences with it right you were sharing that you know it shows the cow stress level and yeah. Yeah it is interesting because you have levels I'm very competitive so I was going through the levels and they would give you a score at the end and I was trying to get above 90 all the time but some cows they'll have lame cows cows are slow cows are crazy and they give you the option you can yell at them you can do anything you want so at parlor was the only time that i was yelling at them but i stretched them out didn't get 90 percent yeah exactly so you know then when you when you do those practices it has consequences yeah exactly all right very well thank you yeah you're very welcome yeah dr van os thank you for joining us today this has been uh enlightening i i've certainly enjoyed it uh also want to thank everybody out there in the audience for attending today's webinar as well if you have additional questions please submit them to anh.marketing at balchem.com and we'll we'll attempt to answer those for you the real science lecture series continues with educational topics each and every month including our next few tomorrow october 7th we'll host our next companion animal webinar with the pet sustainability coalition on designing for a more sustainable pet industry data-backed trends in ingredients, packaging, and innovation. Then on October 27th, we're proud to host our third installment of the Real Science Lecture Series in Español. Joining us will be Dr. Ximena Laporta of the University of Wisconsin, another Badger joining us, who will discuss managing heat stress in the dry period. Finally, on December 1st, we welcome Dr. Francisco Penegaracan. hmm yeah and you know because he's yet another badger uh and uh he'll be covering reducing methane emissions from the dairy from dairy cattle progress challenges and opportunities visit valchem.com slash real science for more details on future webinars and to register for upcoming events valchem's podcast series continues to offer a deeper dive into our webinar topics Log on to your favorite podcast platform and search for Real Science Exchange or visit balchem.com slash podcast. We're dropping one today that's going to be featuring Dr. Lance Bumgard from Iowa State University. He's going be talking about the impact of diet and management on gastrointestinal barrier integrity. Joining in on the conversation will be Dr. Bill Weiss from Ohio State, Dr. Laura Nihus from DNMC, and Steve Massey from Renaissance Nutrition. Then on October 8th, we're going to have a student showcase that'll feature Dr. Jose Santos and Giovanna Evangelista from the University of Florida, and they're going be talking about genetic influences on colostrum yield and composition. Then, on October 13th, We're going have Dr. Ximena Laporta, University of Wisconsin. She's going to be talking about strategies to improve heat stress resilience in dairy cows. Joining her for the conversation will be Dr. Maya Zucut from the Volcani Institute in Israel, Dr. Yun Jiang from University of Wisconsin, and Dr. Vincenzo Lopriato from the University of Messina. Follow The Real Science Exchange on your favorite podcast platform to get notifications of these and future episodes. Lastly, if you want a really cool Real Science Exchange t-shirt, just subscribe to the Real Science Exchange. Send us a screenshot along with your address to anh.marketing at balchem.com. We'll get that off to you right away. And on behalf of Balchem and Dr. Van Os, thank you for joining us today. Thank you.