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Stark-Billings County |
Extension Spotlites
March 27, 2008
Feed Efficiency Getting Attention in Beef Industry
The rising cost of feeding cattle is causing producers to look for ways to improve the efficiency of the animals consuming expensive feed.
The high demand and price for corn and other commodities is raising finishing costs and devaluing feeder cattle.
Feed storage, processing, additives and delivery that minimize waste and maximize utilization are critical to improving efficiency. Genetic improvements that make cattle more metabolically efficient in their use of feed may also have economic impacts. Research has identified heritable differences in cattle for feed efficiency.
Feed yards routinely have tracked pen feed conversion (pounds of feed consumed per pound of gain) as a key economic benchmark. However, feed intake never has been pushed widely as a genetic trait for several reasons. One is that measuring actual feed consumption for individual animals is difficult. Two, good conversions are favored by high feed intake in which maintenance energy needs are diluted over high average daily gains. Better feedlot conversion ratios are associated with higher growth rate and larger-sized cattle.
Feed intake soon may be a bigger factor in animal genetics, though. Some advancing technologies for measuring individual animal feed intake and expressing feed efficiency are moving the industry toward being able to select cattle that eat less while gaining the same.
Using feed intake information to calculate a residual feed intake (RFI) identifies metabolic efficiency differences among animals independently of average daily gain and body size. RFI is defined as the difference between what an animal actually consumed and what was expected based on its growth and maintenance.
In yearling bulls on feed tests, the variation is more than 5 pounds less feed per day for similar performance. Selection for low RFI could reduce cow herd maintenance requirements by up to 10 percent through time.
A third factor - the discovery of several genetic markers related to an animal’s ability to convert feed – could have an impact on improving efficiency.
Because of the cost and complexity of measuring actual feed intake and calculating RFI, DNA profiling would be a much simpler means to evaluate a larger number of animals for their genetic ability to use feed more efficiently.
Current markers identify a portion of the variation in RFI, with the most favorably rated genotypes saving about 2.5 pounds of feed per day at similar gains, compared with the least favorable genotypes. For many breed populations, the practical range of variation that current markers identify is more likely to be .5 to 1 pound.
The economic potential from widespread improvement in feed efficiency is huge for the cattle industry. At today’s high grain and feed prices, the measurement, evaluation and application of improving feed efficiency are rightly receiving a lot of industry and academic attention.
For more information contact:
Kurt Froelich, Extension Agent
NDSU Extension Service
Stark-Billings County
1340 W. Villard St.
Dickinson ND 58601-4646
(701) 456-7665