Month: October 2024

Financial pressures associated with high pre-weaning rearing costs, result in dairy calves (Boulton et al., 2017) being weaned from milk much earlier than would occur naturally. This limits the time available for the digestive system to develop from a milk-fed pseudo-monogastric system to a functional ruminant system able to digest complex, fibre-based diets. Calves weaned with a poorly functioning digestive system may have lower growth rates post-weaning (Steele et al., 2017) and consequently may be older at first calving (Heinrichs et al., 2005). Strategies to predict sufficient digestive development for weaning to occur have been developed (e.g. concentrate intake or weaning weight); however, these are often impractical commercially. Identifying the precise point at which a calf is ready to be weaned is therefore challenging (Welk et al., 2024).This project will use already obtained gut tissue, content, and faecal samples from a time-series study on calves to identify molecules in the faeces that have potential to act as markers of digestive tract maturity.

Bovine mastitis represents a major economic and welfare problem to the dairy industry worldwide, estimated to result in annual costs of €20 billion. Streptococcus uberis is a leading cause of bovine mastitis and the second most common cause in Scotland. Treatment often relies on antimicrobials, but with growing concerns over antibiotic resistance across all of human and veterinary medicine, there is a need to develop alternative treatments to preserve conventional antimicrobials. One promising approach to new antimicrobial drugs is phage therapy. Bacteriophages (phages) are naturally-occurring, free-living viruses that infect and kill bacteria. Despite promising results in human medicine, phage therapy has received limited attention for the treatment of veterinary infections. This proposal aims to identify and characterise phages active against S. uberis mastitis isolates from Scotland as validating the potential to develop phage therapy against this important dairy cow pathogen and as a route to preserving effective therapies.

Traditional dairy systems remove calves from their mothers soon after birth. Some Scottish dairy farms have explored ‘cow with calf’ (CwC) systems whereby calves are left with their mothers for up to six months, during which time the cow is also milked for human consumption. There may be health and welfare advantages to CwC systems; internationally, work has begun to study these, but no UK work has compared disease incidence and transfer of passive immunity (TPI). Calves must ingest adequate quantities of quality colostrum soon after birth to confer immunity from their dam; failure to do so (FTPI) increases disease susceptibility. Calf colostrum ingestion may differ in CwC systems, thus altering calfhood morbidity and mortality and cow disease risk (e.g. mastitis). This project will compare traditionally reared calves with CwC calves; investigating the incidence of FTPI and of disease in calves and cows in the first three months after calving.

Agricultural technologies have been commended for their potential to increase farm productivity, but there is limited knowledge about their social impact. This research will investigate the impact of one technology – wearable biosensors for cows – on dairy farmers’ work and wellbeing. Qualitative interviews will be conducted with dairy farmers who have adopted wearables to understand their experiences of using the technology, focusing particularly on how it has influenced their work (i.e. labour processes) and wellbeing (i.e. occupational stress). Additionally, a focus-group will be held with adopters and non-adopters of wearables to further explore perceptions and experiences of the technology. Fieldwork will take place primarily in Scotland, with a small number of interviews in Ireland and southwest England to provide a wider geographical perspective. Outputs will be of interest to a range of agricultural, technology, policy and academic audiences and will inform the development of a larger funding application.