US looks to Australia for feed-efficient cattle

The US is looking to Australia for feed-efficient cattle as production costs rise, according to a release from the Australia's Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Beef Genetics Technology.

 

The release quotes Dr Robert Herd, Principal Research Scientist with NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) as saying that the American feedlot industry in particular is keen to improve feed efficiency. Herd has just returned from the annual conference of the American Society of Animal Science in Indianapolis.

 

US scientists and the US beef industry have watched with interest Australian research that has lead to trial breeding values for feed efficiency being developed for Australian cattle producers, he said.

 

As a result, producers there are now rapidly developing their own testing capacity to find feed efficient bulls, said Dr Herd.

 

As US beef producers find themselves competing with ethanol producers for limited corn supplies, lot feeders are under pressure to reduce feed costs by raising feed efficiencies, he said.

 

At the same time, producers are looking to reduce greenhouse emissions by tacking it through feed conversion. 

 

Even though the US has not signed international treaties it is still keen to develop technology which reduces greenhouse gas emissions from livestock, Herd said.

 

Dr Herd said Australian researchers were trying to identify the DNA markers associated with feed efficiency in cattle. As it is an expensive and time consuming process, most bull breeders do not do it.

 

But Dr Herd said scientists needed to determine whether selecting animals with genes for improved feed efficiency also affected other production traits.

 

This would be the focus of the CRCs ''Maternal Productivity'' project, being conducted in South and Western Australia. Early work indicates selecting cattle for improved feed efficiency can lead to improved efficiency in steers and help improve the productivity of cows.

 

However, this is only one experiment for cows and would be nowhere near enough to convince the industry that pushing for improved feed efficiency would not have negative effects on the lifetime productivity of the cow herd, Dr Herd said.

 

Researchers would still have to the ensure feed efficient cows still have a calf every year, produce adequate milk and can store sufficient fat reserves over a number of years and varying nutritional environments, he said.