Le symposium sur les bovins laitiers delivers on new and innovative topics for the Québec dairy industry.
Members of the Cowlife lab took a road trip to Drummondville recently to attend Le symposium sur les bovins laitiers. The conference touched on a number of timely topics, from improving nutritional management and antibiotic use to specialty milk marketing and dairy cattle welfare, with loads of interesting topics in between! To cap off this wonderful day of learning, knowledge transfer, and networking was a wine and cheese featuring all kinds of delicious Québec cheeses!
The conference was attended by a number of members from our lab: Dr. Vasseur, MSc candidates Véronique Boyer and Stéphanie Bélanger-Naud, PhD candidate Elise Shepley, Post-doc Maxime Leduc, and research assistant Tania Wolfe.
Our two graduate students were selected to present posters on the findings of their recent research. Veronique presented her research on the effects of providing double-width stalls to lactating dairy cows. Elise, with the French linguistic aid of Tania, presented her research on the effects of housing tie-stall cows in loose-pens during the 8-wk dry period on cow lying behaviors.
Dr. Vasseur was selected to serve as an invited speaker for the conference, presenting the current findings from research conducted within the Cowlife lab and painting a picture of the research to come! Elsa pressed upon the audience the importance of proper housing and management to maximize cow welfare and comfort. Methods of increasing cow ease of movement and providing cows with greater opportunity to move and express normal behaviors were important components of Elsa’s presentation.
Overall, another fantastic conference and opportunity to share the work we are doing with producers and industry partners that can put it to good use!