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Angus Productions Inc.

April 20, 2011

Research Will Focus on
Health, Efficiency in Feedlot

Research teams receive $14 million to study feed efficiency in cattle, bovine respiratory disease.

The United States has the world's fourth-largest cattle population. More than 970,000 farms raise beef cattle, contributing to a $71 billion retail value. Yet, farmers and feedlot operators spend millions of dollars every year feeding some cattle that don't grow efficiently. Simultaneously, when cattle are brought together in feedlots, they can be exposed to bovine respiratory disease (BRD), leading to significant economic losses and reduced animal well-being.

Now, with the help of two grants totaling more than $14 million from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), research teams led by investigators from the University of Missouri (MU) and Texas A&M University will combine their resources to battle these two problems.

First grant focuses on feed efficiency

"Currently, we have no highly effective tools to improve feed efficiency," said Jerry Taylor, Wurdack Chair in Animal Genomics in the MU College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, and project director of a $5 million grant to study feed efficiency in cattle.

"Historically, the only way we have improved the efficiency of cattle growth was by selectively breeding cattle that grew fast," Taylor said. "While this reduced the time it took to bring an animal to market, it did not tackle the fundamental issue of improving the efficiency of converting nutrients from feed into beef. An animal that is efficient in converting nutrients into muscle will grow faster and emit less methane and manure in its lifetime, which also is beneficial for the environment."

With the new grants, Taylor and his colleagues will study the feed efficiency of cattle with several techniques, including using DNA-based models to predict genetic merit for feed efficiency. During the study, the researchers will genotype 8,000 cattle and identify how genetic differences affect feed intake and efficiency. The researchers also will identify the specific bacteria and microbes that reside in the animals' stomachs. These bacteria and microbes are a key factor in feed efficiency as they assist the animals in digesting the food.

One of the major challenges of feed efficiency research is the need to collect and measure individual feed intake, said Dan Shike, University of Illinois (U of I) assistant professor in the Department of Animal Sciences.

"U of I will be instrumental on the front end of this project," Shike said, explaining how the research will utilize its state-of-the-art facility and GrowSafe technology to obtain individual feed intake data within a pen setting. "In order to complete this study, we need information on thousands of animals to have a cross-section of phenotypes to work with."

Iowa State University, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the University of Minnesota, Texas A&M University, Washington State University, and the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center (USMARC) are also collaborating in the "National Program for Genetic Improvement of Feed Efficiency in Beef Cattle."

The researchers plan to evaluate intake differences between concentrate-based and forage-based diets to see how they relate to each other. This is important because the cow herd consumes primarily a forage diet as compared to high-concentrate diets in the feedlot, said Dan Faulkner, U of I animal scientist. The goal is to identify cattle that are efficient on both types of diets.

Feed efficiency is a complex trait that takes many factors into consideration. This trait considers intake, gain, host specificity for microbial populations in the rumen, protein turnover, heat production and a whole list of things that will improve feed efficiency, Faulkner said. Hundreds of genes work together to regulate efficiency in cattle.

"Our goal is to develop DNA-based technology that breed associations can use to develop EPDs for feed efficiency," Faulkner said.

This research is critical to the future of the beef industry, Shike said. "In order to ensure that we can produce the food demanded by the world more efficiently on the same amount of land, we have to find ways to more efficiently utilize our available feedstuffs."

"If we can identify and selectively breed the animals that have the best combination of genes for producing high-quality beef with the least amount of grain, their offspring could reduce environmental impacts and save producers millions of dollars," Taylor said. "Limiting the amount of feed used to produce beef could open farmland for other important crops, such as corn for ethanol, which could decrease dependency on fossil fuels and foreign oil."

Second grant focuses on BRD

James Womack, W.P. Luse Endowed & Distinguished Professor at the CVM, is the project director for the five-year grant to help reduce the incidence of BRD in beef and dairy cattle. BRD is the leading cause of disease death in beef and dairy cattle, resulting in annual losses of more than $690 million nationally.

With this grant, researchers hope to accomplish the goal of reducing the incidence of BRD through the identification of genetic components that provide resistance to pathogens that cause the disease. For this, Womack and his team will work with commercial feedlots to analyze the DNA of more than 6,000 cattle. The investigators will then develop selective breeding programs based on their research, which will result in improved animal health management strategies and provide an understanding of the biological interactions between the host and the disease-causing pathogens.

In addition to funding research, this grant will also help fund undergraduate, veterinary and graduate education. It will also facilitate the translation of research into practical application in feedlots and dairy farms through a dedicated extension component.

"We have assembled an extremely strong team of research scientists, educators, and extension specialists to combat a serious and complex animal health issue with modern genomic technology," explained Womack. "We have known for years that individual cattle vary in their response to the pathogens responsible for bovine respiratory disease and that much of this variation is genetic. We now have the genomic tools to identify the basis for this variation at the DNA level and to utilize this information in selective breeding programs and animal health management. This project will be a model for the power of cooperation of major research and educational institutions and animal industries to make basic scientific discoveries, to train professionals in the application of these discoveries, and to translate new knowledge into economic gain along with improved animal health and welfare."

While Texas A&M is the lead institution on this project, the team includes scientists and educators from the University of Missouri, Washington State University, University of California-Davis, New Mexico State University, Colorado State University, the University of Wisconsin, and the USDA ARS unit in Beltsville, Md.

Outreach and teaching components

Both grants have outreach and teaching components. A demonstration project involving several farms and commercial feedlots in the Midwest will evaluate the DNA diagnostics developed from the study to predict the feed efficiency of calves. Undergraduate, graduate and veterinary students will be involved in the research to learn about feed efficiency and disease resistance during the five-year projects. The research teams also will utilize cattle within industry feedlots for research and demonstration projects to show farmers and feedlot producers how to implement procedures and practices that will improve feed efficiency and reduce the prevalence of BRD.

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