The Rumen Room Podcasts

This is the second in a two part series all to do with Autumn Ill thrift in grazing ruminants. Part one (Episode 61) explored some of the nutritionally-based reasons that may contribute to animals appearing ‘ill thrifty’ when pasture quality shifts from standing, poor quality summer pasture to very high quality, lush autumn green feed.

The potential for animal-health related challenges to contribute to autumn ill thrift issues is c...

After a long, hot and often dry summer when pasture quality might be rather poor and in short demand, we’re always keen to see the onset of autumn rains. At last, we can expect improved amounts of pasture on hand and the silage wagon can be parked up for a while. Improved feed quality of autumn pasture is an added bonus, likely being much better than what stock have been grazing through the summer months. With the change of season ...

Like anything in life, too much of a good thing can end badly. The same can be said for copper nutrition in ruminants. Required in just trace amounts, copper is needed by all ruminants - but too much copper places the wellbeing of ruminants at risk. Worst case, too much copper can prove fatal for our farm animals.

Part four in our four-part copper themed podcast covers off risk factors for copper toxicity. Just why some ruminant sp...

What are some of the ways that we can test feed or other samples to assess the likelihood of copper deficiency in sheep, cattle or deer? Part three of this four-part copper themed miniseries moves the topic to defining the copper status of your farmed ruminants. The strengths and weaknesses of different testing methods for copper status are discussed. If a copper deficiency is very likely / has been defined, this episode covers dif...

Dairy, sheep, beef, or deer farming? There’s something for everyone in our latest “bite sized” copper-themed miniseries podcast. Building on the introduction to copper nutrition in Episode 57, this podcast explores signs that ruminants might (or might not) show when copper deficient. Often we don’t see obvious signs of copper deficiency - this is called a “sub-clinical” deficiency. Which means animals simply don’t grow or perform w...

Read the side of any bag of trace mineral additives or feed products, and there’s good chance copper will be listed as one of the ingredients. Just what is copper and why should we be interested? Our latest copper-themed miniseries offers in a “bite-sized” manner four short and snappy podcasts all to do with copper.  Why do ruminants (sometimes, but not always) need copper?  What “jobs” does copper do throughout the body? How do de...

This latest “bite sized” short podcast takes a look at summer crop establishment in New Zealand, including a detailed look at the tiny (unwanted) herbivores that eat forage crops. Charlotte Westwood chats with PGG Wrightson Seeds agronomy guru Greg Zeuren to hear about the successful establishment of spring planted summer forage crops in the Waikato region of the North Island of New Zealand.

In a down to earth, practical manner, Gr...

Amazing feed quality or compost? This second of a two part podcast series focuses on how to make sure we get the very best quality feed from plastic-wrapped bales. Part 1 focused on how to assess baleage, and the importance of getting the dry matter (DM) % right to ensure a  tasty, good quality end product. In this, part 2 of our baleage series, we look at further factors that impact balelage quality, including chop length, bale co...

Baleage can be a fantastic way to conserve pasture or crop, moving forage from times of feed surpluses to times of feed deficits. Once wrapped in plastic, all baleage looks somewhat the same. Yet behind that plastic lurks all types of feed, from very high quality baleage through to absolute compost. This latest podcast focusses on assessing the quality of baleage as a feed for your stock. After discussing how to assess baleage, we ...

Hypothermia is a real risk for newborn lambs and calves - and is a significant cause of loss of newborns born outdoors during cold weather.  

When body heat is lost to the environment faster than a lamb or calf can replenish core body heat from within, hypothermia is likely. What factors influence the amount of heat that a lamb or calf can generate to keep itself warm, from the 'inside-out'? In our latest podcast, we investigate h...

Building on this mid-winter topic introduced in Episode 51, this podcast explores practical, farm-based things that we can do to help our cows well in cold weather.  As a nutrition-themed podcast series, our latest episode focuses unashamedly on the importance of nutrition, but other topics are explored too.  The role for shelter for reducing effects of wind chill is discussed. Just why cows need more feed during a range of differe...

Cold winter weather. Great if you love skiing, not so great for us and our ruminants when we’re out and about in rough weather. That said, ruminants can be remarkably resilient in cold winter conditions – to a point.

In this, part one of a two part podcast series, we explore why ruminants (focusing specifically on dairy cattle) can tolerate moderately cold winter conditions.  Risk factors that influence the degree of tolerance by c...

Ingestion of soil during grazing of pastures and forage crops is a common and unavoidable event.   Soil contamination of silage and baleage is another challenge that we sometimes need to deal with. Our latest episode explores the whole topic of soil ending up where it doesn’t belong. How much mud and dirt do animals eat during grazing? What factors increase risk of animals eating too much soil? Are there any health or nutrition iss...

Well known New Zealand-based veterinarian, nutritionist and farmer Dr Sue Macky joins Charlotte Westwood in our latest podcast. Sue steps us through everything to do with the individual dairy cow during the dry and transition periods - from the cow's point of view. Too often we get overly focused on the detail of the diet and management dry and transition dairy cows - and forget about focusing specifically on the cow herself. Not i...

All plants would be green slime growing sideways along the ground if it wasn’t for lignin– True!  Find out more in our latest podcast covering everything from the good, the bad and the ugly about lignin. Learn how lignin impacts overall quality of ruminant feeds, and how feed management decisions change how animals process and digest lignin in their day-to-day diets. Find out how the lignin content of feeds changes with feed type a...

Sliced on our morning cereal or perched on top of our iconic New Zealand dessert Pavlova, kiwifruit deliver a tasty powerpack of valuable nutrients for us humans. What about ruminants? Are reject kiwifruit from your local packhouse equally as good for our dairy cows and other animals on farm? Yes! A valuable source of energy delivered largely as water soluble carbohydrates, whole kiwifruit can be a very useful feed.  However… as fo...

A fundamental basic of ruminant nutrition – energy density of feeds – is covered in this latest Rumen Room Podcast.

Expressed as Megajoules of Metabolisable Energy per kilogram of dry matter (MJME/kgDM), energy density is an important driver of animal productivity and profitability.

In a down to earth, practical “gumboot level” manner, Dr Charlotte Westwood explores the basics of MJME as a concept and covers how feed testing labora...

Our latest podcast explores DCAD - one specific aspect of the diet of “springer” (“close-up”) dairy cows.

The Rumen Room Podcast has briefly discussed DCAD previously (Episodes 10 and 34).  Changing the DCAD of a springer cow diet potentially reduces risk of hypocalcaemia (low blood calcium) in cows before, during and immediately after calving.

This latest episode takes a deeper dive into the detail of DCAD, explaining what DCAD is...

Our latest podcast carries on with our heat stress 'theme' from episode 43, where we explored the challenges of hot temperatures on pasture species.

We’ve moved the theme of heat stress across to how heat stress effects dairy cows. We discuss how heat stress bothers cows, and investigate strategies to reduce the effects of summer heat on lactating cows of hot summer temperatures.

Featuring expert heat stress guest podcaster, Lori G...