Dairy
The Elora Dairy Research Centre has a unique combination of tie and free stalls with access to a common parlour, physiology, maternity and biotechnology wings. A separate barn at the centre serves as a heifer rearing facility for replacement animals, housing 154 heifers in 26 pens. There are 124 stalls in the tie-stall barn and 48 stalls in the free-stall barn. The maternity barn consists of 12 box stalls, adjacent to which are 3 calf nurseries each housing 10 animals in individual pens. There also exsists in total 64 tie-stalls between the biotechnology and physiology wings. The parlour is a 16 unit, double eight herringbone design equipped with automatic cow identification, take offs and production recording. Currently the centre milks twice daily and has around 150 mature cows and 160 replacement heifers. The physiology wing is serviced by a pipeline and the maternity area by a bucket milking system, allowing for collection of colostrum and milk.
Fistula Cows (To view photograph click attachment)
One of the studies being carried out at the centre on Fistula cows was the use of a cordless system for continuous recording of ruminal pH in dairy cows. This looks at different techiniques to measure ruminal pH and to assess rumen acidosis in cattle. Rumen acidosis is often caused by over feeding of highly fermentable carbohydrates and low fibre diets to meet the high demand for milk production. Rumen acidosis is classified as acute and sub acute. Sub acute ruminal acidosis (SARA) is defined as reapeated bouts of depressed rumen pH from 5.2 top 5.6, and is associated with mild transient anorexia, decreased milk production, intermittent diarrea, poor condition and laminitis. The common techniques used to measure ruminal pH include rumenocentesis, oral stomach tube and cannulation.
Rumen cannulation is considered more accurate as it provides direct access to the rumen. Rumen pH is evaluated by either collecting rumen fluid samples through the cannula or by positioning an indwelling probe inside the rumen. The latter method provides a more accurate tool to evalute the diurnal variation in pH and the severity of the SARA based on the three daily pH profiles.
The system was designed to enhance the accuracy and reliability of continuous rumen pH recording by implementing more advanced software and hardware bearing in mind cow comfort. This system allows researchers to record pH under different management settings such as free stall operatios or during grazing.