Lallemand Ruminant Center of Excellence

Texas A&M University

Beef Nutrition: Inside and Out

Amarillo and Canyon, Texas

Gordon Carstens

Department of Animal Science

Texas A&M University

Headquarters

Data-

acquisition

computer

GrowSafe

feed-intake

facility

Feed storage

and mixing

facility

McGregor

AgriLife

Research

Center

Lallemand

Nutrition

GrowSafe

facility

4 pens (23 x 76 ft)

3 GrowSafe bunks

per pen

Total capacity

(96 head)

4 pens (76 x 92 ft)

4 GrowSafe bunks

per pen

Total capacity

(128 head)

McGregor

AgriLife

Research

Center

5 Wireless communication

5

4 Weight and reader panel

4

3 RFID tag

3

2

2 Antennae

1 Load cells

1

GrowSafe SystemIndividual-animal DMI and

feeding behavior patterns

King Ranch Study

(120 steers) Repeatability P-value

ADG 0.23 0.01

F:G ratio 0.03 0.74

DM intake 0.58 0.001

Residual feed

intake0.42 0.001

Bunk-visit frequency 0.75 0.001

Meal frequency 0.77 0.001

Bunk-visit duration 0.82 0.001

Meal duration 0.79 0.001

28-day receiving phase compared with subsequent 70-day growing phase

Paddock et al. (2007)

Feeding Behavior Traits Highly repeatable

Feeding behavioral traits:

Changes in intake must be

mediated through changes

in feeding behavior

Feeding behavior can have

a direct impact on rumen

health and productivity

Moderately heritable in beef

cattle (Nkrumah et al., 2007;

Durunna et al., 2011)

Moderately correlated with

RFI and DMI (Lancaster et al.,

2009; Kelly et al., 2010)

Highly repeatable

Feeding behavior traits:

o Daily head-down duration

o Daily frequency and duration of bunk visit (BV) events

o Meal criterion: Longest non-feeding interval considered

to be part of a meal; Used to quantify frequency and

duration of meal events

o Daily frequency and duration of meal events

o Average length (min) and size (lb) of meal events

o Meal eating rate: DM intake per meal duration per day

o Time to bunk: Time from feed-truck delivery to 1st

recorded BV event each day

GrowSafe System Feeding behavior traits

2-min1-min1-min

1-min 1-min

2-min 1-min

15-min 4-min

Meal #1 = 6 min Meal #2 = 7 min

Feeding Behavior Patterns Associations with RFI

Steers (N = 502)

Low

RFI

High

RFI

Low vs

High RFI

RFI, lb/day -2.0a 1.9b --

ADG, lb/day 3.78 3.74 Not different

DM intake, lb/d 20.2a 24.2b -16%

F:G 5.35a 6.45b -17%

Parsons et el. (2018)

Bunk-visit (BV) based traits:

BV frequency, #/d 45a 53b -15%

BV duration, min/d 56a 72b -22%

Head-down, min/d 37a 55b -33%

Time to bunk, min 96a 86b +12%

Meal-based traits:

Meal frequency, #/d 5.8 6.1 Not different

Meal duration, min/d 116a 133b -13%

BV events per meal 8.3a 9.4b -12%

Low vs high RFI based on ± 0.5 SD from mean RFI.

Feeding Behavior Patterns Associations with RFI

18.1

21.4

17.1

2.5

16.0

18.7

13.1

2.3

0 5 10 15 20 25

BV frequency SD, #/d

BV duration SD, min/d

HD duration SD, min/d

DM Intake SD, kg/d

Day-to-day variation (SD)

Low RFI

High RFI

Day-to-day variances of DM intake and feeding

behavior traits for steers with divergent RFI (*P < 0.05)

*

*

*

*

Parsons et el. (2018); Proc. Herbivore Nutrition Conf.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

0 7 14 21 28 35 42 49 56 63 70

Day on trial

Feeding Behavior Patterns Associations with RFI

Day-to-Day variation for head-down duration for

steers with divergent RFI

o To evaluate the effects of Saccharomyces cerevisiae boulardii I-

1079 (ProTernative®) on growth efficiency, and feeding behavior

in newly-weaned beef heifers

o Crossbred beef heifers (N = 72; Initial BW = 445 lb)

o At weaning:

Vaccinated for viral and bacterial pathogens (days 0 and 28)

Shipped 500 miles and returned to the research center

o Treatments (n = 36):

Control heifers fed receiving diet without live yeast

Treatment heifers fed same diet with Saccharomyces

cerevisiae boulardii I-1079 @ 10 billion CFU per head daily

(ProTernative®)

Heifers placed in pens (2 pens/treatment) equipped with

GrowSafeTM feed bunks for a 56-d trial

Research Objective Experimental design

o First 14 d of study (n = 17):

Sensors (iButton™) placed intra-

vaginally (CIDR) to record

temperature

Accelerometer devices (HOBO™)

attached to hind legs to record

physical activity

o Health status assessed twice daily:

Heifers pulled if clinical scores >

5, and antimicrobial therapy

administered if RT > 104º F

o Feed intake and feeding behavior

(bunk visit frequency and duration)

measured daily

Materials and Methods Experimental procedures

o Heifers removed from the trial:

3 for failure to eat from GrowSafe bunks

2 for lameness

o BRD cases (10%; days 21 to 28):

4 control heifers

3 ProTernative heifers

All responded to 1st antimicrobial therapy

o BRD clinical symptoms (27%):

8 control heifers (mean morbidity score 3.25)

10 ProTernative heifers (mean morbidity

score 3.20)

ProTernative® Effects Health status

Item Control ProTernative® SE P-Value

Performance traits

Initial BW, lb 442 449 10 0.64

BW (56 d), lb 546 554 13 0.52

ADG, lb/day 1.83 1.89 0.05 0.60

Feed efficiency traits

DM intake, lb/day 14.5 ± 0.92 14.4 ± 0.59§ 0.19 0.98

F:G ratio 8.21 ± 1.74 8.21 ± 2.54 0.54 0.99

RFI, lb/d 0.08 ± 0.73 0.00 ± 0.48§ 0.15 0.76

†Effects of CIDR and interactions with treatment non-significant (P > 0.10).

§Between-animal variance significant at P < 0.05.

ProTernative® EffectsPerformance and feed

efficiency (56 d)

Item Control ProTernative® SE

P-

Value

Time to bunk, min 27.6 31.4 3.3 0.26

Bunk visit (BV) traits

BV frequency, events/day 88.5 87.6 4.4 0.83

BV duration, min/day 105 108 7 0.77

Eating rate, g/min 62.1 61.3 2.1 0.65

Meal traits

Meal criterion, min 5.02 4.48 0.50 0.28

Meal frequency, events/day 14.6 16.8 1.1 0.04

Meal length, min/meal 14.9 12.8 1.2 0.08

Meal size, lb/meal 1.21 1.06 0.08 0.04

†Effects of CIDR and interactions with treatment non-significant (P > 0.10).

ProTernative® Effects Feeding behavior (56 d)

Item

Beef heifers

(Jenks et al., 2016)

Productivity 56-d ADG (NS)

DM intake, lb/d (NS)

Feeding behavior

Bunk visit duration, min/d (NS)

Eating rate, g/min (NS)

Meal frequency, events/d ↑ 15%*

Meal size, kg/meal ↓ 14%*

Meal length, min/meal ↓ 13%†

Rumination rate, min/d Not measured

Time rumen temperature

> 102 F, minNot measured

Effects of live-yeast

supplementationSummary of results

Lactating dairy cows

(DeVries et al., 2014)

Milk yield (NS)

(NS)

(NS)

(NS)

↑ 12%*

↓ 11%*

↓ 8%†

↑ 5%*

↓ 4%*

NS = Non-significant; *Treatments differed at P < 0.05; †Treatments differed at P < 0.10.

o Overall morbidity rates of newly-weaned ship-stressed

heifers (10%) were not affected by live-yeast

supplementation during the receiving period

o Temperature, and frequency and duration of standing

bouts were not affected by live-yeast supplementation

o Although the live-yeast supplementation tended (P =

0.09) to improve ADG during the first 28 d, overall

performance and feed efficiency was affected during

the 56-d study was not affected

o Heifers supplemented with ProTernative ate 15% fewer

meals per day that were shorter in length and smaller

in size

ProTernative® Effects Summary of results

o To evaluate the effects of Saccharomyces cerevisiae

CNCM I-1077 (Levucell SC®) on growth efficiency,

physiological (rumen temperature), feeding behavior

and carcass quality responses in yearling steers

o Crossbred beef steers (N = 48):

Initial BW = 968 lb

o Treatments (n = 24):

Control steers fed finishing diet without Levucell

SC®

Treatment steers fed same diet with Levucell

SC®

Steers placed in pens (2 pens/treatment)

equipped with GrowSafeTM feed bunks for a 70-d

trial

Research Objective Experimental design

Item 1st 28-d 70-d

DM intake, lb/d ND ND

DMI day-to-day variance, lb/d ND ND

Bunk visit (BV) traits:

BV frequency, events/day ↓ 11% ↓ 9%†

BV duration, min/day ↑ 17%† ↑ 22%

BV eating rate, g/min ↓ 18% ↓ 18%

Meal traits:

Meal frequency, events/day ↓ 12%† ↓ 13%†

Meal length, min/event ND ↑ 27%

Meal size, kg/event ND ↑ 15%†

Meal eating rate, g/min ↓ 9%† ↓ 10%

Intensity traits:

Time to bunk, min ↓ 57% ↓ 41%

Head-down duration, min/day ↑ 32%† ↑ 41%

†Treatments tended to differed at P = 0.05 to 0.10.

Levucell SC Effects DMI and feeding behavior patterns

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22

Control

LY

Levucell SC Effects DM eating rate

DM eating rate, g per hour

Hour of the day

Levucell SC Effects Summary

o Levucell appears to favorably alter

feeding behavior patterns in beef

cattle

o Longer meal feeding times and(or)

slower eating rates may favorably

affect rumen health:

Increased salivary secretion (Beauchemin et al., 2008)

Improved digestibility (Aikman

et al., 2008)

Mitigate risk of acidosis