Project Grant 20236701539667

This four-year, $650,000 project grant from the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture's Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program (CFDA 10.310) will fund research at Cornell University to understand how dairy cow intake, inflammation, and immune system activation impact calcium regulation and milk production. Specifically, the researchers aim to critically assess the long-held belief that all mild hypocalcemia experienced by dairy cows early in lactation is detrimental. They hypothesize that cows with good food intake and appropriate mammary gland function will experience only short periods of hypocalcemia and produce high volumes of milk, while cows with poor intake, altered glands, chronic inflammation, and immune activation will have longer hypocalcemic periods and reduced milk production. Cornell will identify differences in the periparturient period leading to short or long-term mild hypocalcemia and determine the mammary gland's impact. The University of Wisconsin-Madison, under subaward, will perform tissue collections, experiments, and assays outlined in the first objective given their expertise in whole animal physiology and intensive experimentation using their 84-cow tie-stall facility. The project's results are expected to provide producers direct knowledge on calcium monitoring and intervention needs to improve cow health and milk production.