Partner Blog Feature: ‘Grober Nutrition: Research trials on young animals’

Since 2009, Grober Nutrition has been conducting research trials on young animals (including calves, kid goats and lambs) at the Grober Young Animal Development Centre (GYADC) located at Discovery Farm Woodstock.  Research trial topics are chosen with the goal of providing new information to producers on how they can better rear young animals to reach their highest potential while also working on product innovation. Some of the past research we have conducted includes:

• Elevated inclusion of medium chain fatty acids in lamb milk replacer on health and performance (2019)
• Use of tributyrate in calf milk replacer on performance and feed intake (2020)
• Evaluation of a supplement when feeding whole milk powder or a milk replacer (2021)
• Addition of DOSTO® Oregano to calf milk replacer on calf health and performance (2022)

Each year, we raise our young stock from just after birth to a week post weaning, allowing us to complete two trials between May to September. We hire two students each summer that are responsible for all things trial related including feeding, bedding, monitoring health, treating sick animals, collecting and recording data. Students also share on our social media channels with frequent Instagram takeovers to show ‘A Day in the Life at the GYADC’ and on YouTube as the hosts of The Dairy Academy. Our students are responsible for caring for the

animals seven days a week, for the entire summer.

The GYADC layout changes from year-to-year based on the needs of the trial being conducted. Over the years, calves have all been housed in group pens, individual calf pens, a combination thereof, or even kept as pairs. Additionally, small group pens have been used to house kid goats or lambs for small ruminant trials. The facility is equipped with different Förster-Technik technology to feed milk replacer to our young animals, which has included: automatic calf feeders for group pens, automatic ECO-Feeders for lambs and kids, or a milk-mobile when feeding calves in individual pens. The automatic calf feeders can be programmed to allow calves to have access to the feeder whenever they are hungry and will track milk intake, drinking speed, visits to the feeder with reward, visits to the feeder with no rewards, and keeps track of how much milk they have left allotted for the day. The feeder will mix the milk replacer fresh for each calf to ensure fresh and warm milk is delivered at every meal. This past year, we used a milk-mobile which allowed us to mix up to 200L of milk replacer, keeping it at the perfect feeding temperature and distributing any preset volume into bottles to be fed to the calves. The milk-mobile also has power steering, so we were able to drive it anywhere in the barn to feed our calves