Following a welcome address by the Head of Research and Innovation, Dr. Andreas Steinwidder the program included a technical exchange in the fields of analytics and feeding trials with ruminants. Reinhard Resch, Petra Unterweger, Matthias Häusler, and Dr. Margit Velik guided our guests through our laboratories and presented our capabilities in feed, water, meat, and milk analysis. The focus was primarily on an exchange regarding the technical resources available at the HBLFA Raumberg-Gumpenstein and the TTE Institute of the BOKU (University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna), and how synergies in analytics can be leveraged in the future . Currently, there is a collaborative research project, UFE-Kuh_GfE2023 , in which feed samples are analyzed for protein degradability, digestibility of undegraded protein, and amino acid profiles. These protein value characteristics are crucial for implementing the new GfE (Society for Nutrition) feeding recommendations for dairy cows .
Afterwards, a tour of the ruminant barns at the HBLFA Raumberg-Gumpenstein was on the agenda. Dr. Thomas Guggenberger, Dr. Georg Terler, Dr. Margit Velik and Dipl.-Ing. Maria Naynar reported on current trials with dairy and beef cows, beef cattle, as well as sheep and goats, focusing on feeding, emissions from ruminant husbandry and herd protection.
For example, several master's theses on the topic of methane emissions from ruminants have recently been by students at BOKU Vienna in cooperation with HBLFA Raumberg-Gumpenstein . Everyone agrees that this collaboration should be continued, and ideas for doing so already exist.
We were delighted by the visit of the TTE Institute of BOKU to HBLFA Raumberg-Gumpenstein and look forward to further future cooperation with great pleasure.
