MODULATING INFLAMMATION DURING THE PERI-PARTURIENT PERIOD: UNDERSTANDING THE LINK BETWEEN RUMEN MICROBIOME AND INFLAMMATION

Project: Research project

Project Details

Description

The period around calving is a challenging time for dairy cows as cows experience challenging, though normal, physiological events such as inflammation and stress. Overweight cows, first calving cows, and cows that experience a difficult calving may experience a higher inflammatory response during this period. This exacerbated inflammatory response has been associated with a higher risk of cows developing diseases, underperforming, and ultimately, being removed from the herd. Because of this, these groups of animals should be considered high-priority groups for proactive disease prevention therapies. Considering that 40% of cows may be overweight around calving, 33% of the US dairy cows may be first lactation cows, and >15% of dairy cattle may experience calving issues in US dairy operations, this is not only an important animal welfare concern that requires immediate attention, but also represents great economic losses for dairy farmers. This impairs farm profitability, ultimately threatening the nation's food sustainability. Blanket treatments (which means treating all animals regardless of animal's risk factors) with aspirin after calving has been proposed as a proactive management strategy to reduce inlfammation and alleviate discomfort after calving in dairy cattle.However, there is a lack of research investigating the effects of targeted (e.g., treating only high priority cow groups) aspirin treatment during the pre-partum period when the inflammatory process actually begins. Furthermore, the effects of aspirin on the rumen microbe populations, which could be one of the main reasons of the positive effects observed in cows treated with this product, have not been assessed yet. The specific objectives of this study are to assess the effects of pre-partum oral aspirin treatment 14 days from expected calving date on: 1) milk yield and milk quality, clinical disease events, and cow fertility, 2) systemic inflammation and metabolic stress, and 3) rumen microbial diversity and metagenomics, in high-priority cow groups during the peri-parturient period. We hypothesize that this pre-partum therapeutic treatment may modulate early pro-inflammatory responses, and positively alter the rumen microbial composition, decreasing the likelihood of diseases and improving performance in post-partum cows. The proposed therapy will be applicable/easy-to-implement (adjust to farm logistics), and cost-effective (less labor involved, less animals treated). If this treatment is effective, it would greatly improve animal welfare by enhancing health of high-priority cow groups and decreasing unnecessary animal treatments (handling stress). Furthermore, the proposed therapy would optimize farm profitability by decreasing cow disease losses (e.g., treatment costs, loss in cow performance) and the costs of implementing disease prevention treatments (selective treatment vs blanket treatment) in dairy operations.

StatusFinished
Effective start/end date1/1/2212/31/24

Funding

  • National Institute of Food and Agriculture: $636,750.00

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