Project title: “Improving the health and welfare of dairy cows”
Dan and Mary Luckwaldt own Luckwaldt Dairy, a 1,300-cow dairy near Woodville in the heart of Western Wisconsin, and 30 minutes from River Falls. Sylvia Kehoe first met the Luckwaldts when they opened their farm to students preparing for the North American Intercollegiate Dairy Challenge Contest. This competition involves students touring working dairy farms and making management recommendations based on their observations.
Fast forward a few years, and a new calf facility was built at Luckwaldt Dairy. The calf manager at the time was a former student of Kehoe’s and the two often discussed the new facility as they stayed in touch.
In early 2020, Kehoe was preparing several funding proposals about dairy calf disbudding with the Dairy Innovation Hub, which was just coming online. In all, three projects were funded, each involving a unique aspect of calf disbudding and pain behavior.
“All of my disbudding research to this point has been done on private farms because UW–River Falls’ Mann Valley Farm does not have the calf numbers needed for a significant sample size,” says Kehoe. “A 1,300-cow dairy like Luckwaldts was the perfect farm size for this research.”
Kehoe contacted Dan and Mary Luckwaldt and asked if she could conduct her Hub-funded trials on their farm. Thankfully, they agreed.
“Most modern dairy owners want to be part of university research. From our perspective, there was no downside,” says Dan Luckwaldt.
Kehoe’s research involved students traveling to the farm twice per week and managing all calf disbudding for the duration of the studies. The Luckwaldts found that participating in the research didn’t interrupt their workflow at all. In fact, they thought the student researchers were great to work with and were very professional.
Education is very important to the family; Dan is an alumnus of UW–Madison and Mary an alumna of UW–River Falls.
“We are always looking to improve, from reading articles to attending conferences, we know that research is important,” says Mary Luckwaldt.
Having access to an expert like Kehoe was also a benefit to participating in the research studies. “When Sylvia came out, we got to ask her questions about other things related to our calves, not just the disbudding trial. She is a great resource,” says Dan Luckwaldt.
Even though data wasn’t shared during the study, the Luckwaldts observed improvements with calves disbudded by the research team. “We noticed the paste was much more contained and localized. Prior to the studies, we used too much paste,” says Mary Luckwaldt.
“We have really learned a lot and if Sylvia ever called again about another research project, we would gladly say yes,” she added.