This section provides an overview of the stakeholder events organized throughout the project. It includes detailed information and presentations from each event, highlighting key discussions, outcomes, and contributions from our stakeholders.
Stakeholders workshops
🗓 Wednesday November 26th ⏰ Time: 14.00 CEST 📍 University Foundation, Brussels
👉 Register now and be part of the conversation!
👉 The agenda is available here!
Speakers & talks:
Sabine Scully — UCD School of Veterinary Medicine (Teagasc Walsh Scholar)
Talk: Calf health and the microbiota: exploring early life to support life-long health and performance
How do early-life microbiomes shape heifer development and future performance—and what can farms do now? Drawing on HoloRuminant cohorts from birth through pre-weaning to first pregnancy, this session connects colostrum management, pre-weaning diarrhoea, and respiratory disease to microbial community dynamics, highlighting practical measures to improve outcomes.
Bio: Sabine is a final-year PhD scholar, award-winning presenter, and skilled in knowledge transfer.
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Prof. Veerle Fievez — Ghent University
Talk: Connecting rumen and faecal microbes to metabolic triad challenges in transition cows
The transition period is a physiological stress test—not all cows adapt without metabolic or inflammatory issues. This study links rumen bacterial and faecal archaeal profiles to metabolic/inflammatory status across health clusters. A small set of indicator genera emerged, suggesting potential for risk flagging, targeted feeding/management, and longer-term breeding perspectives.
Contributors: Veerle Fievez, Jeyamalar Jeyanathan, Muluken Girma, Xiaoping Jing, Mingqi Zhang & Stijn Heirbaut.
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Joni Van Mullem — Ghent University & ILVO
Talk: Effect of extruded linseed on methane emissions and rumen microbiota under two basal diets
Adding fat can mitigate enteric methane, but effectiveness depends on fat type and the basal diet. This in-vivo trial compared maize-silage vs grass-silage with extruded linseed, measuring methane output and profiling rumen microbiota to uncover diet–supplement interactions. Because PUFA can influence specific microbes, community shifts were examined for links to emissions—supporting clearer, on-farm recommendations.
Bio: Joni’s PhD research targets feeding strategies to reduce methane and the nutrition–microbiome dynamics behind them.
Contributors: Joni Van Mullem, Jeyamalar Jeyanathan, Bart Ampe, Veerle Fievez, Nico Peiren, Leen Vandaele.
What this event brings you:
Sharper decisions, sooner. Get concise updates on early-life management and microbiome development, methane mitigation, and transition cow, distilled for people who make real-world choices about health, feed, breeding, and policy.
A fast route from research to practice. Meet researchers behind current results and explore how to trial or scale solutions in your context—without reinventing the wheel. Networking that matters. Structured small-group conversations (World-Café style) help you find partners for trials, data sharing, funding applications, or joint communications.
Stakeholder event at IRTA, Spain Thursday, November 21st 2024.
Stakeholders from the farming industry were invited to an afternoon with presentations from researchers about microbiota and cattle health and performance. The presentations were followed by an interesting workshop and a visit of the experimental farm facilities at IRTA.
One of the stakeholder present, Joan Riera Prat, nutritionist at Nutreco, expressed his main points of attention from the event: “It was very interesting to hear from the latest research about the health of calves and the links to microbiota… The study of the microbiota will allow us to make nutritional decisions that will help to improve immunity and thus further reduce the use of antibiotics. Knowing that some microbiota are more favourable to meat development and others to fat deposition may allow us to influence carcass composition. It is on the first point where I see a more immediate application: microbiota control which gives an improved immune response and healthier animals”.
The following presentations were given :
Use of feed additives around weaning in dairy beef calves presented by David Yanez: it reports from an experiment where young dairy calves for beef production received different diets with different yeasts and essential oils before and after weaning. It has shown that the inclusion of these additives in pre-weaning had promoted an increased ruminal fermentation and a greater uniformity in animal weights.
Microbiota and productive performance in ruminants presented by Marina Martínez Álvaro. In this presentation, we discussed a point which sparked discussions for stakeholders about the heritability of microbiome and the possibility of using microbial information to estimate breeding values for productive traits.
Transportation of Young Calves – Study of the effect of transport on blood parameters in suckling calves. Presented by Eva Romera Recio. Eva reported on an experiment involving calves from milking farms that were separated from their mothers immediately after birth. Their blood parameters were checked before transportation from France and again after a 12-hour trip to the destination farm. The results suggest that the nutritional management at the rearing facilities prior to transportation, as well as the transport protocol and conditions, allowed the three-week-old calves to achieve adequate physiological adaptation.
Microbiome and Feed Efficiency in Dairy Cows, presented by Alex Bach. This presentation highlighted that both, ruminal and intestinal microbiomes play an important role in modulating digestion and metabolism Lots of research has explored the impact of supplementing Microbes in the rumen (mainly yeast) but less research is available on bacteria. In both cases, there is a need to identify the right strain, dose, and ration. It seems important to also explore both fungi and bacteria supplementation in the intestine.
Consumer perspectives on interventions affecting calf microbiota presented by Amer Ait Sidhoum. This study reports on the acceptability by consumers of feeding colostrum and probiotics to calves as well as of the « cow-calf system ».
Diarrhoea and the Faecal Microbiome presented by Sabine Scully (EN)/(FR). This study reports findings from an experiment looking at the faecal microbiota of pre-weaned calves before, during and after diarrheoa. It highlights that diversity and composition of the microbiota change based on time and animal health status. It gives us a better understanding of microbiota-host-pathogen dynamics which opens the door to more appropriate development of targeted treatments and preventive practices.
IDELE French stakeholders workshop and focus group was held on October 26th 2022 in Lyon.
Presentation (FR) available here.
IDELE European stakeholders workshop and focus group was held on November 14th 2022 in Bruxelles.
Presentation available here.