Jan 2016 Your Buzz Latest Partnership News

January 25, 2016

Welcome Readers!

You've come to the right place to read the latest success stories from Partnership-funded programs in Research, the Agriculture & Food Laboratory, Animal Health Laboratory, and Veterinary Clinical Education. Enjoy!

VCEP Means Training, Research, Knowledge Mobilization and More

The Partnership's Veterinary Clinical Education Program (VCEP) provides experiential learning for veterinary students to help them develop hands-on skills. Prior to graduating, all students complete an eight week placement in a rural, mixed veterinary practice.

But VCEP is much more than the development of highly qualified personnel (HQP) through the externship and graduate training programs. VCEP

also supports the OMAFRA - U of G Partnership research program by delivering research that matches

OMAFRA priority areas, specifically within animal production, emergency management, and agriculture & rural policy. Those research results are then mobilized to users through OVC's faculty who work with producers and animal industries. Other targeted communications spread the latest knowledge in animal welfare, public health and zoonoses

A dam Kleinberg completed his 2015 externship at the Eldale Veterinary Clinic in Elmira, a mixed practice with a dairy herd health management focus. Read Adam's blog at:
https://externship.ovc.uoguelph.ca/blog/externship- check

In This Issue

VCEP Means Training, Research, Knowledge Mobilization and More

More Milk on its Way

Early Life learning ... for Cows

Building a Disease Surveillance Plan

Green Machines

Upcoming Events

Key Partnership Dates

KTT Program

Full proposals due Mar. 2 (for invited LOIs)

Gryphons LAAIR

Applications. due Mar.9

Townhall Info Meeting

Feb.12, 12:30 - 1:30 pm

Pathobiology Bldg. Rm. 1810 U of G

HQP Competition

Applications accepted

Feb 1 - 26.

Research Program

Full proposals due Feb.17 (for invited LOIs)

More Milk On Its Way

For more than four decades, the Agriculture and Food Lab has provided analytical and quality testing of milk for the Dairy Farmers of Ontario, the Ontario Dairy Council and OMAFRA.

In the fifth and final year of a renewable contract, the AFL successfully collaborated with the Dairy Farmers of Ontario to secure an extension of the current contract for an additional two years (2017). The lab tests over 800,000 samples annually.

Early Life learning ... for Cows

Evidence suggests that the feeding behaviours of lactating dairy cows are learned early in life and significantly impact cow productivity, health, feed efficiency, and welfare. In a series of studies, Trevor DeVries and his research team found that providing calves a high amount of milk early i n life not only promotes greater growth, but the development of more consistent feeding patterns.

They also learned that provision of physically-effective forage (with feed particles large enough to benefit digestion, but small enough to discourage feed sorting) in addition to concentrate, was important for calf rumen development and growth. It also discourages feed sorting behaviour post-milk weaning, Finally, social housing, with limited competition for feed seems to help calves make better transitions from milk to solid feed, and p romotes the development and persistence of desirable feeding patterns .

Building a Disease Surveillance Plan

Through 2015-16, the Animal Health Lab has been working with OMAFRA to build networks of health experts in Ontario for all 10 animal species groups. It's part of the Partnership's new 'Disease Surveillance Plan' that AHL is developing in collaboration with OMAFRA to better understand the animal health landscape in Ontario.

Through the networks, AHL and OMAFRA will be better able to monitor disease and to respond as quickly as possible. A rapid response generally means the disease can be contained more easily and with less costly consequences for producers, consumers and all along the food chain.

Green Machines

The demand for electronic devices that are light, easy to wear, flexible, rechargeable and green continues to grow. Profs Manju Misra, Amar Mohanty and Stefano Gregori and of U of G's 'BioProducts Discovery and Development Centre' are researching the potential of nanocellulose (a green, r enewable material derived from agriculture waste) for use in these products. The researchers have found they could create electrical capaci-

tors which could be used to harvest energy from mechanical vibrations, as well as store energy.

Target applications for this technology are portable systems, wireless sensor networks, and wearable technologies that harvest and store energy from machine or human motion.

Green Machines

tors which could be used to harvest energy from mechanical vibrations, as well as store energy.

Target applications for this technology are portable systems, wireless sensor networks, and wearable technologies that harvest and store energy from machine or human motion.