Theo Quemener and Jeanne Durieu recently spent time at the UBC Dairy Education and Research Centre as Visiting International Research Students from L’Institut Agro Dijon with the Animal Welfare Program. Both Theo and Jeanne are from Brittany, France and grew up on dairy farms but wanted to gain more experience in the animal behaviour and research realm of commercial dairy operations, for which the UBC Dairy Centre is perfect. Visiting from a different country gave both Theo and Jeanne the opportunity to learn how commercial dairy systems work in another part of the world.
When asked what a highlight of her time at the UBC DERC was, Jeanne said she loved working alongside the farmers and participating in daily chores and spending time with the calves, as well as the other students. She also mentioned gaining valuable experiences such as living away from family and developing skills in teamwork and collaboration while adapting to a foreign country.
Theo emphasized how much he learned about the scientific process from working with PhD student Malina Suchon on his first research project. For his project, he focused on pre-weaning factors influencing weaning performance in calves, aiming to identify calves more likely to struggle at weaning based on their first days of life. Theo was also involved in other projects such as that of Ph.D. student Elizabeth Russell helping her collect measurements of heifer calves on around a dozen commercial farms. Additionally, he was very excited to be able to practice his English in an English-speaking country!