Baa's and Bleat's - The AASRP Podcast
Baa's and Bleat's - The AASRP Podcast
If You Can't Measure It, You Can't Manage It
Today we are talking with Dr. Joan Dean Rowe from UC Davis and Ryan Andrus from Bridgman Hill Farm about the importance of utilizing permanent individual animal identification and records in maintaining milk quality and animal health.
Topics discussed include: Importance of permanent/official ID, options for identification types, when to apply ID, integrating ID with electronic records, goats losing ID, record system types, frequency of recording data, deciding who records data, and tracking drug use & equipment maintenance as well as production metrics.
Helpful links:
American Dairy Goat Association - How to tattoo a dairy goat
https://adga.org/adga-tattoo-policy-how-to-tattoo-a-dairy-goat/
This podcast is sponsored by the American Association of Small Ruminant Practitioners as well as USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Agricultural and Food Research Initiative Competitive Program, Antimicrobial Resistance grant # 2020-04197.
Questions or comments about today's episode can be directed to DairyGoatExtension@iastate.edu
Hello, I'm Dr. Michelle Buckley from Iowa State University's College of Veterinary Medicine. Thanks so much for joining us on Baas and Bleats, sponsored by the American Association of Small Ruminant Practitioners. Just a quick note before we get started, this work is also supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Agricultural and Food Research Initiative Competitive Program, Antimicrobial Resistance Grant No. 2020-04197, which funds my research on improving antibiotic stewardship in dairy goats to assure food safety and milk quality. As always, if you have any questions about any of our episodes, please email them to dairygoatextension at iastate.edu. I hope you enjoyed today's show. Thanks for joining us today on season one of Boz and Bleats, the American Association of Small Ruminant Practitioners podcast. This season we're focusing on improving milk quality and food safety in dairy goats. Today we have Dr. Joan Dean Rao from UC Davis and Ryan Andrus from Bridgeman Hill Dairy in northern Vermont, and we'll be discussing record management and how good record keeping can improve milk quality. Thanks for joining us today, everyone. Let's start with some introductions. Dr. Rao, can you give us a little bit of background information on yourself?
Joan:Yeah, so my name is Joan Dean Rao, and I have a lifelong interest in dairy goats, um, starting as a 4-H project, and then a career-long 30 years at UC Davis as a professor in um dealing uh with uh all livestock food animals, but um with a special interest in dairy goats and both infectious disease and production and health. I also have a small herd of Toggenberg dairy goats myself. And so um uh I and I've worked with a variety of uh types of herds of animals, a variety of practitioners we train veterinarians, so my perspective is one of um a variety of observations.
Michelle:Awesome. Well, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, Ryan. How about you? Can we get a little bit of an introduction?
Ryan:Yeah, so I'm here in northern Vermont, the Northeast Kingdom. Um I've got a farm with about 500 dairy goats and business partners who make cheese, and we collectively we also have a brand where we bottle pasteurized goat milk. It's called Oak Knoll. It doesn't make it too far out of the north the New England area. Um, but we have seen sales going up and we're looking to expand our farm and grow the business. I've been milking goats for about 20 years, um, always in a commercial environment, starting with a smaller farmstead in Central California, and then uh helping start a large dairy in in Northern California up in Humboldt County, uh where I was for about eight years, and then my wife and I moved here to go out on our own and partner with a cheesemaker. So my my focus in the goat industry has been um trying to figure out how to profitably milk goats and provide really high-quality clean milk for artisanal products.
Michelle:And I think I heard that you have a degree in chemistry.
Ryan:I do, yeah. I grew up in Minnesota and I have a degree from the University of Minnesota in chemistry and environmental science as well as a double major. That was a while ago, though, I've forgotten most of that.
Michelle:My bachelor's degree is in history, actually, so uh choose to being well-rounded, right? Yeah. So let's dig in here. Uh, my first question for you both is why is permanent and official identification important, especially on a dairy goat operation?
Joan:All right. So um uh your your theme um mentioned if you can't measure it, you can't manage it. And so uh I think it all starts there that the the the fundamental of being able to measure performance, whether it's at the individual or the herd level, starts with a permanent, unique identification of the individual animal. And then beyond that, there are identification of groups and uh temporary and permanent types of groupings and so on. But if we're focusing on the individual animal, then um that permanent identification is it's foundational for any kind of performance assessment. But in addition to that, uh it um, you know, I view about milk quality. I view milk quality from kind of three perspectives. One is sort of the traditional managing contagious and environmental milk quality and mastitis. But the second is um uh kid rearing. So there are diseases that are transmitted through milk from the time of birth. So whether it's for a herd health perspective or from a genetic assessment and being able to make herd improvements through genetics, lifelong identification, including identification of dams and sire, is really fundamental to any kind of genetic program as well as disease control from birth forward. And those all directly impact milk quality and milk production. And then um the third perspective is the safe and legal use of medications in production and being able to assure wholesome milk that's free of um chemical residues as well.
Michelle:Brian, do you have any other thoughts to add to that?
Ryan:Well, that pretty much covered all of it. The only thing I might add is uh just for from a managerial basis, to um to know where your goats are, what stage in lactation they're at, um what their previous performances have has been in the past, and how you're going to make decisions on that animal moving forward when it comes time to rebreed or dry or cull. Um needing that permanent record is it's critical to make any meaningful decision as you move forward with your herd. And as we know, goats often wiggle their way out of collars or chew off leg bands or chew out each other's ear tags. So having that permanent record is is essential.
Michelle:Sure. What kind of ID systems have you seen used? Which ones do you think work best in goats?
Ryan:Yeah, I've I've seen lots of different systems. There's most of it's adapted from the cow side of the industry and people trying to find ways to make those uh RFID components or neck tags work for goats. Uh, one difficult thing with neck tags is the nature event of goats, or they're gonna get them caught on things, on fences, um, on each other. So it can be a challenge depending on what your infrastructure looks like to have goats all chained and collared. Uh, but with leg bands, they are prone to fall off, or as a goat reaches her close-up stage in gestation and she's retaining more water, they might get too tight, and then you loosen them, and then they're too loose during lactation. So there's all these nuances that are that are difficult to manage with goats with these permanent ID tags. Um, but I've seen some very functional systems, and I've got one here that that works well for us that has to do more with uh tattooing at birth and then having an RFID system from there on that's linked to that ID. Uh and so that's that's the basis that I've seen. Um, you know, all the all the common tag companies that are out there offer some options, and it's it can be difficult, it's it's very expensive. Uh there's lots to consider when you're when you're looking at what ID program to go with.
Michelle:Fair enough. Dr. Rao, do you have thoughts?
Joan:Yeah, I first I was really pleased to hear Ryan mention the tattooing from the time of birth. Because um again, to have really a comprehensive genetic or disease management program, you need a permanent ID from time of birth or as near birth as possible. And some system, many systems would be um uh, for example, leg bands um and even ear tags to some degree. Um really if applied at time of birth, both the rate of loss or the appropriateness of the device really is more suitable, say, for the adult animal. So, so some kind of unique ID that's permanent from the time of birth, and that's where tattoos, even in the large-scale commercial herds, uh uh done at the time of despotting, for example, really can be fundamental to maintaining lifelong identification and also replacing lost identification in the adult animal. So it is the one you know, you need to have something permanent. I would comment that um that the the internal microchip or ID it it would have some promise if in fact there was the technology to do some additional biosensing or um advantages of uh some overcoming the challenges of antenna and redistance and things like that. Um and so I I would have hope for that in the future where we might be able to add some biologic um biosensing component. And so that might end up being another option, but at present the tattooing and then combined with an appropriate visible ID, um what we see more common, most commonly uh neck uh neck chains or neck bands. And um uh, you know, I'm aware of herds that use the leg bands and uh with ear tags, um with uh electric with electronic ear tags, again, then the the type is going to be so management dependent and facility dependent. And what I would say is that some of the um the smaller um tags that are um uh for example, the Shearwell tag is is becoming really very popular in terms of its interface with software and so on. Um but then uh an additional larger visible component may be needed in order to be able to identify. They know we need to be able to identify them visibly at a distance as well as pick up an electronic signal for our um other data recording.
Michelle:Gotcha. That's some really great insight. And I've been wondering about microchips as well. Anything to add, Ryan?
Ryan:Um, I I think really the essential part of this is to link the um genetic history of the animal to whatever ID system you're using throughout their lifetime, which it's very hard, as as Dr. Joan just mentioned, it's very hard to link those things right at birth or at dehorning. So you're gonna have to have two different forms of ID at some point, and linking those two things together depending on what sort of management software you're choosing to use, if you're using any at all, uh it is is really the crux of your whole genetic growth pattern. Is is are you able to link this information properly and use it, or is it just sort of being lost, or is it you know, are you halfway committed to it? And how is your approach and how committed to it are you?
Joan:Um I want to revisit the um identification from time of birth because Ryan mentioned genetics and being able to link that up. But in addition to that, there are health reasons that knowing who she is from the time of birth, what colostrum she received, and the disease status of her mother is important. For example, if later in life she is diagnosed with Yoni's disease, or later in life, or you're working on a mycoplasma um outbreak in a herd, it's vital to be able to go back to the kid records and see whether she nursed or not. Or if you if you're using um a colostrum colostrum rather than a colostrum replacer, whose colostrum she received. Even if it's a lot number on a colostrum pool or whatever, so that as that mycoplasma goat is identified, you can go back and see who's a colostrum, who got her colostrum. Um and so both as she becomes an adult, what her disease status is, but then also being able to go to the juvenile herd and identify at risk animals from adult exposures.
Michelle:Awesome. That's that's a lot of really great insight. And I love that dual adoption of the tattoo, and then when they're a little bit larger and uh can handle the ear tags um or leg bands or neck neck bands, um adding that as well. So thank you.
Joan:Oh, could I say one more word about tattoos? That um a tattoo is only as good as the quality of the tattoo that is placed in the ear at the time it's done. And so whether you're a veterinarian or a producer, um identifying um excellent technique for applying tattoos and um and then um reading them at a time where you can identify that there are no duplications, um, other errors have not happened with that process. And that's true whether it's tagging or tattooing or whatever ID, but but that tattoo is only as good as the quality of the tattoo that is placed at the time of birth.
Michelle:Awesome. That's a great point. Thank you. And that's something that producers and veterinarians should work together on to make sure that we've got that technique down.
Ryan:Yeah, it's an art, it's an art form. It's very difficult. I would say it's just as hard as disbudding. It's uh to get it right to where it's legible quickly, and you don't need like a headlamp, and you're not doing some sort of like hieroglyphic like translation while you're in the milking parlor. It it's very difficult to get it right, and I tend to wait a little bit longer. I don't do it as at disbutting. I wait a little bit longer because I need like a larger canvas, because I do the side of the tail, because I have a lot of La Mancha in my herd. Um, and I like to be able to look at goats from the parlor. I don't want to have to climb up on my stanchion and try and look in their ears for a tattoo. And you know, over half of my goats don't have ears, so it's it's uh it's hard to get it right. You're it's a very good point, and you don't want to be guessing later. Does that is that a one or a seven or what is that, a six or an eight or a zero? So it's uh it's an art form. Start practicing.
Joan:So I I have a question for Ryan. Um, so to your point's well taken. I have a breed where they're all the same color and they have ears with a large canvas for the tattoo. So that favors early tattooing. Your point about us actually the numbers, the digit size with growth and so on is really an important one. How do you identify your kids at the time of birth until the time of tattooing? Do you uh what is your temporary ID for your kids?
Ryan:Yeah, for our kids, uh, as you've already mentioned, for disease management, we we pull them at birth, um, we record the the dam, the date of birth, uh the siblings, and every female gets uh an ID, which basically consists of the the letter that corresponds to the year as prescribed by the American Dairy Goats Association. And then every year on January 1st, we start over. So we start with one, and then two, and then three. So the number that goes with the letter is an indicator of her birth order for the calendar year. And then it goes on a small paper, um, like a concert wristband. I just buy them on like Amazon. They're like uh disposable wristbands, right? And uh they can be colored or plain, it doesn't really matter, but I I give that exact number that links them in our database to their mom, to their father, to their grandparents, everything. Goes into uh goes into the into the file, and that paper tag stays on them until about six weeks or four weeks when they're outgrowing them, and then we switch over to a plastic neck chain with a blank all flex small tag with that same that same corresponding letter and number written on it. And she she's probably tattooed at that point, but I don't like to read tails when I'm in my kid barn, so I'm I'm not I don't usually read tattoos unless I absolutely have to. I if I do my job correctly, I don't read tattoos. It's a last resort kind of a thing for me because I have so many animals, I'm not gonna grab everybody's tail and and have someone else hold them while I look. So um so that's what we do here with our kids.
Michelle:Definitely sounds like it requires a lot of uh detail orientation in order to do that type of system right um and make sure that you keep everything separated uh and then obviously being meticulous with your tattoos as well. So I think that goes for all records or all ID systems though. You really need to be meticulous and detail oriented in that aspect. So that kind of leads us into utilizing those identification systems with record systems. So what are the, I mean, I know there's a wide range, you could you have a little notebook in your pocket, an Excel spreadsheet. There's a lot of different phone apps or computer apps out there. Um so which ones have you both utilized um on your operations and and what do you use now?
Ryan:Uh well, in the past I've used various different brands of herd management software, all of them having a link to an RFID system. So all the goats are chipped, the parlor has an antenna upon entrance, and so the goats are indexed into the parlor with their microchips. So we're recording milk weights on goats at every milking. I've probably been using one system like that or another for the past 10, 12 years uh and have found varying degrees of success. Um, a lot of parlor manufacturers will sell you equipment that integrates with the system, and then it's up to you to figure out what you're going to use to process that data. And that's uh that's a relatively intimate question, and some people have powerful opinions one way or another. Um, at the moment, I'm I'm getting very accurate data from my parlor, and then I'm using that um and integrating it into a database and this and a management system that I've built through Excel and Google Drive because I just wasn't interested in the fees associated with some of the software, and it wasn't quite doing what I wanted, so it was I was ending up having to customize it anyway. So I just decided to build my own that's really pulling out the data that I want and using it to manage. But when I'm talking with other producers who are considering RFID systems, I'm always asking them, what are you gonna do with this data? How is this data going to impact your day to day life and the management decisions you make on a daily and monthly and annual basis? And if you're not prepared to sort of crunch those analytics and turn them into decisions, it might not be the right investment. It's very expensive to get into this equipment and this software. And it's time consuming when you're not used to it and you're kind of inventing it as you go. There's a lot out there for the cow industry, but a lot of it doesn't cross over seamlessly for the small ruminants. So you do have to have some savviness when it comes to just like working with spreadsheets to create something that's going to be functional and effective for generating decisions on your farm. So we have leg bands on our goats, and uh I've tried probably all the leg bands out there. I've tried ear tags shoved into leg bands, I've tried ear tags punctured into leg bands, I've tried all sorts of different things, but we now have a tag that I believe comes from France. It's called DatumARS, and uh I don't work for the company or anything, but it's the only leg band I've found that doesn't come off. It won't come off. It is slightly adjustable, so you can you can make them larger as the animals grow. Um, and you can have numbers printed on them. So we have right now we're working through a box of one through one thousand, and every so often one of them will just break, and I just cut it off and put a new one on, and then I go into my database and I I link the old number with the new number to make sure that the data is contiguous across, and uh that's about the only problem we have, but they the goats cannot get them off. Um, it's the first time I've ever come across something like that. But it's I've been using it now for four years and actually longer, but I I haven't had too many problems with them. But I I was actually involved in trying to develop an RFID for small ruminants, and we were using a 3D printer, and we were having some effective uh bands coming out, but I couldn't get enough people interested. I needed to, the minimum order was like 15,000 tags, and I I couldn't find enough customers to justify that that run through the manufacturer. So it's a tough one. Um, but if you're really looking at milk weights, um and you know, DHIA might give you monthly records, which you can then extrapolate and make a graph out of. But I really like to look at data uh daily, all the time. Um, and especially I'm using my data to tell me when to breed goats. So I pursue extended lactation whenever possible, which is a relatively unique thing, but um I I don't breed goats unless their milk tells me I need to breed them. And so a lot can change in a month, and that's why DHIA has never been something that I've pursued. I prefer to see data every day.
Joan:Uh what's relevant for my small seed stock herd is probably not um, you know, the important part of this discussion. The important part of this discussion really is kind of what's out there in the range, and that's why I was excited to hear Ryan speak first, because I know that he's using data on a daily basis. And so he has a real-time uh snapshot of what's going on in the herd on a day-to-day basis. And so my experience is more with herds that are using, for example, DHI records to monitor melt quality. And again, it's it's always kind of a the moving averages or the rolling averages, you know, are averaged over 12 months. Your monthly sheets are on a one-month. So you're really looking at either historical data or at least some time lag of data that doesn't put you on a day-to-day uh basis. So I'm excited to hear about Ryan's um work and um, you know, I'm familiar with it, and I know that he's able to manage them on a real-time basis compared to DHI, which is always a little bit historic. Although then you can take things like your um high somatic cell count list and then go out to the barn and then do a follow-up either, you know, on a more crude level at CMT test and say, is that still real or not? Um, or so there's so there's ways you can take that and you'll know that it's two weeks at least out of date by the time you get that information. Uh but then you can go out to the barn and palpate others, use your CMT if you have access to somatic cell count testing, and then that can be an action item that will lead you to milk cultures or maybe even looking more broadly at a string status. Um so so it's just uh important to reappreciate that there's a time lag there and that, and then was she an estrisk? So then your quality of the other data that you're recording. Was she an estrus? Was she sick? Were there other things? So your whole herd management information um still is important in understanding how to interpret that single test day result, whether it's for production components or somatic cells.
Michelle:Awesome. That that makes a lot of sense. And that honestly sounds a lot like what we're used to on the bovine side with you know our large uh softwares that they utilize on the the big dairies, um, and looking at data every day, looking at you know, tracking as much information as we can and then using that to make management decisions. I know when I was practicing, I had a lot of small-scale producers that would maybe um would just kind of keep a little paper file uh stuck up in the barn and update it when they thought of it or once a week, or um when I was out there, if we needed to treat someone, I'd say don't forget to write down what we gave them and and when it's okay to use her milk again um and things like that. So um you're kind of going back to what Ryan said earlier with if you're not going to use that data super intensively, an intensive um uh software program may not be for you, but certainly we need to uh keep track of things one way or another.
Joan:Yes, I I I would like to go back to um what you just said about um barn records and so on. And that is that um how information gets in that one, there's a lot more information than just uh the measuring of milk weights and so on. So real time in the barn, uh palpation of udder, observation of milk during milking, um the dose general health status, uh, those things shouldn't be overlooked. They, in fact, the data may drive you back to the barn to look at the goat to see what's going on, whether she has ketosis or whether she's um, you know, not able to get to the feed bunk or whatever. So the data can actually drive you back to the goat, but it's important not to overlook your goat observations and have some way to insert comments if needed to um to to give the complete view of the goat. The one um you mentioned about treatment records. And it is really I I see many um like whiteboards uh in parlors. And while that's good for instantaneous recording, um, those get erased or they get uh washwater on them and then the permanent record is gone. So um the transfer of information is really important, and especially where there's some kind of temporary, whether it's putting it in your phone or jotting it on a piece of paper or putting it on a whiteboard, those are all just very temporary forms of data recording. And there has to be some really systematic way to see that they get into your record system regardless. And and for treatment records, there's a legal component to that as well.
Michelle:Absolutely. Do you have a recommendation that you make to your clients, like you need to do this every day, you need to do this after every milking, or do you let them go, you know, once a week or let them make that decision on their own?
Joan:So as a veterinarian, my obligation is to be sure that that data is properly recorded to enable me to prescribe medications. Um how they do that, it will be a different fit for different operations, depending on scale, um, technological competence. And um, so the important part isn't how you do it, but that it's something that's uh easy enough and fits the routine enough that it got gets done reliably.
Michelle:And what do you guys think are the minimum observations or categories that producers should be recording on a regular basis?
Ryan:Well, I can tell you what we do. Um probably the most important part is to make sure you're aware of any withholds that exist in any of your animals at any given time, um, both with milk and with meat, depending on what's happening. So I have all of my medication in a refrigerator with a clipboard hanging on the front of it, and anytime we ever get anything out of there, it gets recorded, the date, the dough, the dosage, the drug combination, the reason, um, and then it goes from there, it goes into my uh software system or my my um spreadsheet, really. It's just one spreadsheet. And my recommendation to people that keep goats is to have a very simple system that, as Dr. Joan just mentioned, needs to be reliably uh upheld. Um, and so if you write things down in different places, you record a note on your phone, or you write it on a whiteboard or on a cardboard box that's sitting there, it's just not you're not gonna get have the big picture, it's not gonna be uh buttoned up. So simplify it, record it, have a have a simple, have a system that sets you up for success. So you're not running around like which goat did I give that antibiotic to? I can't remember now. And you know, never dose goats on a whim. Always make sure you're you're going through proper measures to to indicate which animal uh needs it and why and what water temperature is, and all of the things you would do when you're when you're trying to identify illness in an animal uh and record all the notes, get it all in the same place so that you can reliably and confidently know which animals might have withholds and which animals do not have withholds. And whiteboards, I use a whiteboard, um, but it's it's in my office, it's away from the hoses and the parlor and the activity there. Um but I've also had that same experience where information gets lost or it gets wiped off, or if somebody brushes past it, it rubs it off. So it's it's critical to have a functional system that is not going to uh cause you to pull your hair out trying to find where you wrote something down or where you recorded it. And likewise, document management on your computer is equally as important. If you're recording information in several different places, that can lead to confusion as well. So you really just want to have one sort of drug residue. I start a new one every year, so 2022 drug residues, and that's where any goat on the farm, whether it's a kid or an adult, that's where that information goes. And I also can then take that information and upload it to their individual file so I can track individual health histories separately, because I don't want to be digging through those year after year to try and find a single goat and figure out how many times she's had subclinical mastitis or some issue like that. So that's what we do, but it's a roundabout way of answering your question. I I we also have a program where every every time a goat freshens, we plate her. We wait a week and we plate her and we look to see what's gonna grow and what's not. And if we see growth, we will have it typed out, or we type it out ourselves, and then we will treat accordingly. Um or we will cull if it looks like something that we can't uh get rid of. And we do that with every goat at least every year. So some of our goats milk for several years on the same lactation, and we'll make sure she gets plated multiple times. But we're not uh we don't have the way to identify somatic cell on site, so we have to send that off. Um so we're really just plating everybody as they freshen and then routinely a year later going from there. So we're looking at utter health um through through the plate system and and production. That's really what we're looking at.
Michelle:And when you say plate, you mean you're culturing.
Ryan:Correct, yes, correct. And and part of that commitment is that we don't dry treat any of our animals because I find that to be a source of risk on a large farm in terms of uh the withhold that follows when they freshen. And if you're dry treating, lots of farmers either do it to everyone or they do it to no one because it's too risky to just dry treat selectively and then trust that you're going to be able to manage those records over a dry period and a gestation, and then when they freshen, you know, when you're moving goats out of the fresh pen to the to the clean cleared milking group, you know, there's always that, you know, you're rolling the dice if you don't have your records, you know, buttoned up correctly. So a lot of people uh in the industry will either just do everyone or not do anyone. And I choose to not do anyone, and I just wait to see uh who needs it at freshening. And we've we have a very um we've we have a very closed herd that's been closed for like 30 years. We bought our goats from some very skilled farmers who had wanted to retire and were looking for uh succession plans. So I'm in a unique position where I didn't have to buy animals in and mix them together and and have these like questionable animals walking around spreading disease through my herd. I don't have any of that, and I haven't had that, and I don't miss that. I've had it in the past. Uh it's it's worrisome and it'll keep you up at night. So um that's a benefit and a luxury I have with my my current facility. So I I I tell you kind of what we're doing, but there is that caveat which is that we have a closed herd, um, and we it's not like it's not without issue, but it most of it's predictable, and I know who's a culprit and who's not, and and we manage accordingly.
Michelle:Sounds like you have the Cadillac of goat dairies over there, Ryan. I'm super jealous. It sounds like a lovely spot and very well managed.
Ryan:I've been around it for a long time and uh I knew what to look for. And when I when I found this couple that was um they were milking about five, six hundred goats and had a business and had a had they sold milk, excess milk to a cheap creamery out here, and they they had a proven system that was profitable and the herd was healthy and they were meticulously managed, and ID was really important, and they were pulling kids at birth and heat treating colosterum. They're doing all the same things that I'd I've done, and that's it's an uncommon thing in the industry as a whole. So I would I immediately was interested in collaborating with them in the future.
Michelle:Awesome. It's great to find management styles that align, that allow you to continue on doing something that was pretty great to begin with, it sounds like. So I think over the course of this episode, we've talked a lot about the things that that we want to track, right? We've got some reproductive metrics, um pharmaceutical use, um production metrics. Dr. Rao, is there anything else that comes to your mind that you like to see uh producers track to help them improve milk quality or animal health on a dairy goat operation?
Joan:I I did want to just um add on to some of Ryan's comments. So, first, it's great to hear about a manager like Ryan who's using information to the fullest. And so it really gives us an example to look to for the comprehensive use of records and management systems. There's a few points I want to add to that relative to the medication records. Um continuing to record, so I like the idea that he has them where the drugs are stored because every dose then will get recorded. Um often we see I infused her or I injected her with eggs, but we don't know what day that treatment stopped. And so knowing uh the last day of treatment is just as important as maybe more important than knowing the first day of treatment. And so uh having that record, again, that's easy enough to do that it reliably gets recorded. And the other is um if, for example, in a multibreed herd or if you don't have constant use of the information, uh adding a secondary um uh uh identifier to so I I worry about herds where there may be duplicate numbers or do there maybe a yearling that is number green 222. And then lo and behold, you get to uh you know the the permanent another string and then there's another 222, but maybe it's a brass tag, especially where people have purchased animals. Um and so having some redundancy of recording, and this is especially true like at ultrasound recording or actually any milk culture recording, um having from the veterinary perspective, having some cross-identifying things so that when you end up with two duplicate numbers on a herd bleed or on a milk culture or on a ultrasound, if you call her pregnant with the triplets and she's gonna be due on uh you know May 30th, um, then back at the time you were ultrasounding, or if you have the wrong goat number and it's really a different 222 or whatever, you you've gone hurt caused her great harm and then you're missing someone else. Maybe she's not even in the inventory. So really, if you're on DHI test, then for the herds that aren't using the daily information, looking over those reports for duplicate numbers, looking who's missing. So a goat that freshened where the fresh date wasn't recorded, she won't have a milk weight, she might or might not get recorded as going through the barn. And so um catching those catching the that they're present and adding in their kidding date, an accurate kidding date, then um can really help avoid uh catastrophic uh misunderstanding of an animal's ID. So, so in for the veterinarians, especially looking at multiple herds, I I look for missing identification and then what what the follow-up is on those. Um I try to record extra information, either a a breed or a birth date or other, maybe a different tag that uh that if they've got duplicate tags or other tags so that so that when you have a um uh a confused entry that it's easy to tell which animal is actually which. So that's looking kind of at the at the other end of uh of accuracy of records, but there's things that producers and veterinarians can do to help sort those out by by having a more complete recording at the time of observation. And the other thing is just going back to the kid records, I know this is about milk quality, and uh but milk quality really starts from the time of birth. If she gets infected with mycoplasma at the time of birth, then that may or may not become um apparent until she enters the milking stream. And so these lifelong diseases, um, kid kid ID is really vital in not just for genetics, but also for health or for health reasons.
Ryan:Yeah, definitely. And I've been in situations in the past where we have culled any kid that fed from the dam because there was such a sort of uh disease load on the the dam population. Not every one of them was was sick, but if if we figured they fed or they're born overnight or we missed them, we would just sell 'em outright. And That's that's not a situation you want to be in. You want to be able to keep, well, I know that this dam is clean, and even though the kid fed from her, we're gonna keep this kid because the dam was clean and the dam's a good producer, so we want to keep this stolen. So it's good to have those records, and uh you're you're totally right. The kid managing kids and maintaining ID from birth is really that's your future. You're that's your future right there, is is right on the ground when the kids drop, and your production two years later is going to be determined in that moment.
Michelle:So who maintains records? Is this something where anyone on the dairy can have access to your record system and inputting things into the actual system, or is there a hierarchy of okay, the milkers can write things on this whiteboard or you know, this treatment sheet, and then one person is responsible for going around and collecting that data? Um, and how do you ensure compliance with that?
Ryan:It's a good question. Um, a lot of farms do it differently. Uh again, I'll tell you what I do, but um it really depends on my staffing. So currently I'm the only one entering data. I have had employees in years past that uh were more than proficient at helping me manage data. And we just developed uh a system, again, that's very replicable, that's reliable, that's easy, that's no one's guessing on which document do I put this in or where do I put that. But I would say the simplest thing is to have one person doing it or to have one person and a trained person doing it together for a while so that there's uh coherency across different individuals. But you know, we we our R Fighty system is leg band based, as I mentioned, but all of our goats have neck uh collars. Most of them are metal with a plastic link. So if something got caught, the plastic link would give and the goat uh would break free. But uh we haven't had too many issues with that and up on wood, thankfully. Um and so the reason we have neck chains, which I'd love to not have neck chains, but when you're walking the barns and you see something and you you have an observation you want to record, uh maybe a goat is in heat and she's in a breeding pen and she's being mounted, and you want to record that the date of that breeding and the buck, um, you you really can't spend your time chasing goats around trying to find leg bands, and that stresses them out and is not it it's not really um a good practice for many reasons, but you want to be able to from the feed bunk or the feed lane look in, see a goat breeding, write down her ID, and go record it again in a in a in one location. Um and so we have uh different systems in place for that. So my my employees that help me milk and help me feed, they all they all know where to record breedings, they all know where to record health observations. Um if a goat is isolating and doesn't seem to be eating or is scouring or has some other issue that's observation-based, we have one place where we make that recording, um, and then we have a place to record readings. And there's clipboards hanging on a wall that the goats obviously can't reach, thankfully. And uh that's where we make our records, and and uh from there I take that information and I determine where it's gonna go, if it's gonna go into a file or a database or a spreadsheet, and then I and I go through, and when I've when I've updated them, I highlight them so I know they've gone into the system, and then I put the support back. So that's kind of how we handle that.
Michelle:But so how do you ensure employee compliance?
Ryan:Yeah, I mean with that one, it's just uh training people. It's just basic training and coaching people and making sure that that they feel confident in what information you want recorded and why, and and just helping them see the big picture of what's important in terms of managing a herd and managing individual animals and how to go about keeping track of that information.
Michelle:Awesome. What do you think, Dr. Rao? Anything to add?
Joan:Yes, um, so again, Ryan really lays out uh a level of organization and training and consistency that um serves as a great roadmap. I'm gonna take a little bit of the opposite viewpoint and say, as a veterinarian, then walking onto a farm, um, how do I know that Ryan is really doing what he says he does? And so I have full confidence that he does. But I'll use that as an example because in many cases we will need to judge the even the ability and understanding of everyone from the owner to the most skilled worker to the new, maybe less well-trained or less competent worker. And so um I will one, um, you know, as I'm working with the with the with the owners and the workers, then um have the conversation about what the policy is on the farm. But then I'm looking for cues about a practice. Are the practices matching the policy? So for example, on um on identification. So how many animals are missing leg bands? How many animals don't have a tag, or the tag's not readable because it's a plastic one and they've chewed it? Or um or do do the owners really understand how to tell when a doe's in heat? He mentioned breeding. And so erroneous um uh, you know, flags are being made because maybe she's wagging her tells she's happy to see you, or something like that. So that that's kind of a, you know, one is is the event really happening? But from the records perspective, um, is do the workers really understand or does the owner really understand what the goal is? And so that's a conversation that's ongoing. And then my independent observations are going to tell me um Ryan might not even notice that the workers aren't doing it the same way they were doing it a few weeks ago, or one worker might be trying some of their own ideas. And yet as the third party, then I may pick up that things are, you know, the the I Ryan tells me it's going this way, but then the milker in the barn is actually doing something different. And so that they won't might not even do in front of him if it's intentional or if it's accidental, maybe we none of us notice. So as the veterinarian, I I'm that third party observer that's always looking to see. And we even do have some cases. I'm trying to assess literacy.
unknown:Uh-huh.
Joan:And so if we're asking them to record things, do they really understand and do they have the written capabilities, the writing skills to record? And we may even need to go to picture examples for instruction sheets in order to have for visual learners have things that maybe don't rely so much on written instruction or word, and then and then have them explain it back to me. So I always try to have them explain it back to me. Um, and that gives me a better sense of what uh of how I can help be sure that um everyone has the same level of understanding on the farm um as the the, for example, as the manager. So having having those kind of checks and balances. I do want to say one other thing about having visual cues to aid in management. And that is for farms, for example, that have a staph aurea string, does every goat in that string have some unique identifier, such as a colored collar or maybe a second leg band, something that if she's in a different pen, everyone can see that. Because um, not having those visual cues, and I would consider that an ID issue or even a records issue, then then that then that goat is in another pen, as they do what goats do. And then she lives in that pen maybe until next next test day. So meanwhile, she's infected a bunch of other goats. So so having visual cues on the animal that that allow everyone to see that something is different will help in in compliance with all the policies in the herd.
Michelle:That's a great point. And I think it's something that's practiced really commonly on bovine dairies, is if she got uh an intramammary treatment or if she's you know been treated with antibiotics and is currently having her milk withheld, then uh she gets a leg band or or some kind of different colored paint or even breeding pens get different colored tail chalk. So um I think that's a great thing that we can translate into goat production as well, is uh making sure that we're double checking ourselves with extra flags on the animal as well as in the record system.
Ryan:I once visited a farm that had, I don't know, like 4,000 goats, and it was divided into white goats, brown goats, and black goats because they had no ID system, no way of managing uh the workers. There was very little communication. It was an absolute disaster, as you might imagine, but uh that just goes to show it's uh grouping goats. Um, you know, all of these things are it's so critical to have this information because you can curtail their nutrition program to match their milk production output and really optimize individual animals that way. And if you don't have this this ability to manage your herd and use the data and identify your goats and move them around, it's you're you're sort of just playing playing darts in the dark, so to speak. So this this is really critical for people to understand the importance of it and why it isn't just about having this sort of uh genetic mastery of your herd. It's it's more about day-to-day management and and ultimately profitability.
Michelle:Yeah, it really sounds like I mean keeping tabs on each individual animal with appropriate and permanent identification is absolutely the foundation of um of being able to track what's going on with each individual animal and then keeping accurate, up-to-date records um is it's really just essential to to keeping a dairy running smoothly, keeping our animals healthy, and producing the highest quality milk and and cheese products that we possibly can. So um I really can't see a downside to to having individual ID and um tracking uh as much information as we possibly can and learning how to utilize that on our goat dairies. Uh do either of you guys have any final thoughts on that?
Joan:Yes, I I I wanted to add one more element of record keeping. And that has to do we've we've really focused on the animal. And um equally important would be focusing on the equipment and the people. And so um if we're trying to work up a milk quality problem, then having some records about how the milking system uh is maintained, whether it's when the inflations have been changed or some event that has happened that might affect milk quality, if you're troubleshooting the the more records and identification there are on the system side, malfunctioning clusters, um, you know, they're just all kinds of things that can happen, or even tracking things where you think something's going wrong, being able to identify that particular element so people can track it on the equipment side. And then on the worker side, the training records and um and and and also records of or at least an understanding of um employee training and compliance and so on, uh, because we assume that people understood what we told them. And um as uh is often the case, I I may think that um that that I understand how something works, but unless I'm able to kind of repeat that back and then reinforce whether that's whether it's something about the animals or the equipment or so on, um, it I don't have the ability to troubleshoot unless I'm I'm actually sort of documenting training, documenting my equipment uh maintenance and documenting changes of um changes, just like we would document feed changes, documenting changes in um hygiene practices or milking, you know, supply materials, something like that can help solve problems when you get into a trouble spot.
Michelle:That's such a great point. And I think we could probably do a couple more episodes on uh employee training and then milking equipment maintenance as well. But that's a great aspect to touch on is records are not just about animal records. There's everything that happens on a dairy should really be um documented and then signed off on so we know who did it, when it happened, um, and then we can go back and utilize that to trace back if we're having any issues or concerns. So thanks, Dr. Rao. Well, I think that's just about all we have time for today. I really appreciate both of you joining us, and I feel like we've had some really insightful conversation, and uh I really think our listeners are gonna get a lot out of this chat. So thank you both so much for your time, and um, I hope we get to chat with you again soon on here.
