Centre for Dairy Science Innovation (CDSI)

The nutritional research facilities allow nutritional studies with up to 100 individually-fed high-yielding dairy cows (dry and lactating) and heifers to test nutritional products, concepts and systems. Dietary treatments can include a variety of forages, compounds and straights. Animal responses will include milk production and composition, feed intake and live-weight change, but can be extended to measures such as blood metabolites and hormones, rumen function, digestibility, greenhouse gas emissions, reproduction and health indicators, feeding behaviour and milk fatty acid profile.

A unique flexible housing facility for two groups of 30 animals enable exact evaluations of the impact of the environment on the health, welfare and physiology of housed dairy cows. For example, testing the effects of building layout, stocking rate, access to indoor and outdoor loafing space, feed space and bedding on cow physiology, production, health, welfare and economics. The CDSI complements and extend the Dairy Herd Health Group’s existing core skills in epidemiology and endemic disease research and control.

To complement the campus’s existing expertise in dairy cow infection and immunity, the new category 2 containment facility expand the capacity to investigate mastitis therapies and vaccines derived from new genomic technologies.

Calf rearing is known to be an important determinant of lifetime health and productivity. Getting a good start in life sets an animal up for life. Many factors can influence this, including nutrition, passing on passive immunity through colostrum, mixing with other animals and the disease challenges it faces early in life. This facility is designed to explore how such factors impact on lifetime performance of dairy cows. Calves and heifers can be followed through the youngstock facility to the CDSI milking herd to assess the impact of different factors on performance. Such research informs the updating of advice on best practice in the rearing of dairy youngstock.

The CDSI brings together existing expertise in Dairy Science, Dairy Herd Health and Welfare and Dairy Food Science.

The formation of CDSI sees a substantial investment in the dairy facilities at the University of Nottingham’s Sutton Bonington Campus, considerably expanding and redeveloping the existing research unit, creating internationally leading dairy science research facilities.

The facility is co-funded by CIEL (Centre for Innovation Excellence in Livestock), one of four UK Agri-Tech Centres of Agricultural Innovation created with the support of Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency. CIEL brings together 12 world-class research institutes creating one of Europe’s largest livestock research hubs to develop new industry-needed solutions with the ultimate aim of delivering improved food quality and farming systems.