Translational Animal Science最新文献

The effects of feeding corn fines (screenings) containing mycotoxin levels greater than the FDA guidance (fumonisins) and advisory (deoxynivalenol) levels were evaluated using 150 crossbred pigs (initial BW: 6.42 ± 0.06 kg; 90 barrows and 60 gilts) in an 8-wk study by adding contaminated corn fines to create six diets. The corn fines used contained prestudy analyzed mycotoxin levels of 20,334 ppb total fumonisin, 1,499 ppb zearalenone, and 5,075 ppb total deoxynivalenol. The corn fines were added into a corn-soybean meal basal diet at 0%, 20%, 40%, and 60% corn fines (Diets 1 to 4, respectively). Diet 5 was created by adding 40 ppm of boron (as sodium tetraborate decahydrate, 11.34% B) to Diet 4. Diet 6 was created by adding 0.25% Biofix Plus with FUMzyme (BPF; dsm-firmenich, Plainsboro, NJ) to Diet 4. Dietary treatments were fed for 6 wk; after that, all pigs received a common corn-soybean meal basal diet without fines for about 2 wk. The lightest, median, and heaviest pigs in a pen were selected at week 3, and serum was collected from those pigs on weeks 3, 6, and 8. Serum clinical chemistry and sphinganine:sphingosine ratio (SA:SO) were determined at week 6. Increasing fines linearly decreased ADG during weeks 1-6 (P = 0.03). Comparing Diets 4 and 5 to Diet 1 during weeks 1-6, there was a decrease in ADG (P < 0.05); subsequently, the difference in Diets 4 and 5 compared to Diet 1 was no longer significant for weeks 1-8. Comparing Diet 6 to Diets 1 and 4 during weeks 1-6, pigs fed Diet 6 were able to recover 57% of the lost ADG that occurred when corn fines were increased from 0% to 60%. During week 7-8 (all pigs on a common diet), pigs on Diets 5 and 6 had an increase in ADG compared to Diet 1. SA:SO linearly increased as fines in the diet increased (Diets 1 to 4; P = 0.001), but the addition of BPF ameliorated 95% of this increase. In conclusion, as mycotoxins increased, pigs exhibited negative effects in ADG, but the additive Biofix Plus with FUMzyme ameliorated a portion of these effects. Further, the recovery from week 7-8 from all pigs does show the importance of feeding clean corn to optimize ADG, ADFI, and gain/feed ratio.

Brazil is a major pork producer, with increasing market demands driving heavier slaughter weights. Sexual condition is a well stablished factor influencing pig performance, carcass composition, and pork quality, with previous studies focusing primarily on lighter pigs. This study compared the performance, carcass characteristics, and pork traits of heavy-slaughtered barrows and gilts. A total of 144 pigs (72 barrows; 72 gilts), with an average weight of 55.68 ± 6.48 kg, were utilized in a randomized complete block design. They were allocated into 48 pens based on sex and body weight. Each pen (three pigs of the same sex) was considered the experimental unit for performance evaluation across the growing, finishing 1, and finishing 2 phases, with ad libitum access to water and feed. After a 63-d trial, one pig per pen (n = 48; 24 barrows, 24 gilts) was slaughtered for carcass and pork trait analysis. Data analysis was conducted using SAS (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC), and the effects of sexual condition were analyzed by ANOVA. Data were presented as least squares means, with differences deemed statistically significant at P < 0.05. Throughout the study, barrows exhibited higher average daily gain (1.306 vs. 1.206 kg, + 8.25%, P = 0.0004) and feed intake (3.378 vs. 2.957 kg, + 14.24%, P < 0.0001), while gilts showed superior feed efficiency (0.409 vs. 0.387, + 5.74%, P = 0.009). However no final weight was observed between barrows and gilts at the end of the trial, where they achieve 153 days of age (P > 0.05). Although hot and chilled carcass weights did not differ (P > 0.05), gilts had greater hot carcass yield (+ 2.83%) and chilled carcass yield (+ 3.08%) than barrows (P < 0.0001). Gilts also exhibited lower initial pH (-3.28%, P = 0.006) and initial temperature (-4.46%, P = 0.01), with no differences in final temperature. No differences were found in L* and a* color indices, but gilts had lower b* (-3.98%, P = 0.004) and Chroma (-4.06%, P = 0.008) values compared to barrows. These results suggest that increasing slaughter weight above 130 kg leads to minimal practical differences between barrows and gilts in performance, carcass traits, and pork quality, reinforcing the suitability of both sexes for heavier slaughter weights in Brazilian production systems.

The cattle industry has made considerable efforts to adopt more sustainable beef production practices. Still, the social pillar of sustainability-especially workforce well-being-often receives less attention than the environmental and economic pillars. There is also limited information about the perspectives of U.S. cattle transporters, who play a critical role in ensuring animal welfare during the final stages of the beef supply chain. This study explored cattle transporters' perspectives on management practices related to cattle care and well-being, training, work environment, and community. Cattle transporters (N = 74) from three trucking companies operating in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, and Texas participated in focus group discussions and completed a short, written survey. In total, 12 focus groups were conducted. In the written survey, 98.7% (n = 73) of survey respondents agreed with the statement "I have pride in the job I do," and 97.3% (n = 72) agreed with the statement "Animal well-being is a critical component of my job." Additionally, 96% (n = 71) of respondents agreed with the statement, "The training I have received at this job has prepared me well for transporting cattle," highlighting the success of current education and training programs. Thematic analysis of focus group transcripts identified ten themes, including (1) Animal Welfare and Safety; (2) Feelings; (3) Human Welfare and Safety; (4) Learning and Training; (5) Money; (6) Opportunities for Improvement Throughout the Supply Chain; (7) Pride, Responsibility, and Care in Job; (8) Specialized Knowledge, Skills, and Commitment; (9) Unique, Positive Characteristics of the Job; and (10) Work Environment. Transporters expressed a strong sense of pride and responsibility in their work and viewed their role as essential to ensuring the well-being of cattle during transportation. However, they also identified several challenges, including ensuring human and animal safety, dealing with inadequate facilities, and a lack of cohesion among different supply chain sectors. As vital links between supply chain sectors, transporters offer unique insights. Listening to their daily observations could lead to improvements in operational efficiency and cattle welfare.

As dog owners continue to seek to feed their dogs similarly to themselves, there is demand for high protein, low carbohydrate (HPLC) diets. The consumption of HPLC diets can improve glycemic control, similarly to high fiber diets. However, the effects of HPLC and high fiber diets on cardiac function have yet to be evaluated in healthy dogs. The objective of the present study was to investigate the glucose, insulin, glucagon and amino acid (AA) postprandial response and echocardiographic measurements in laboratory-housed, adult large breed dogs fed a commercially available HPLC, a moderate protein, moderate carbohydrate (MPMC), or a commercially available MPMC, high fiber, "metabolic" diet for 42 d. This study was conducted as a 3 × 3 Latin square where dogs received: 1) a commercial HPLC diet (48% of metabolizable energy (ME) from protein, 10% of ME from nitrogen-free extract; NFE), 2) a MPMC diet (28% of ME from protein, 39% of ME from NFE) formulated with the same ingredients as HPLC or 3) a MPMC, high fiber, "metabolic" (MET) diet (30% of ME from protein, 37% of ME from NFE) as a commercial control. An echocardiogram and a 12-h glucose, insulin and glucagon response and 6-h AA meal response were performed on day 42 of feeding. Data were analyzed using proc glimmix in SAS (version 9.4). All echocardiographic parameters remained within a healthy reference range for dogs of this size. Dogs fed HPLC had a larger net area under the curve (NetAUC) for plasma glucagon (P < 0.001) compared to dogs fed MPMC and MET, a smaller NetAUC for glucose: insulin (P = 0.039) compared to dogs fed MPMC but MET was similar to both. Glucose NetAUC tended to be different among treatments (P = 0.057), where dogs fed MPMC had a greater netAUC than dogs fed HPLC and dogs fed MET tended to have a greater netAUC than HPLC. Dogs fed HPLC had greater concentrations of Ile, Leu, Lys, Thr, Tyr and Val over time compared to dogs fed MPMC and MET, and dogs fed MET had greater concentrations of Gln and Met over time compared to dogs fed HPLC and MPMC (P < 0.05). Dogs fed a HPLC diet may have improved glucose uptake compared to dogs fed a MPMC diet. This research provides the first insight into the cardiometabolic health of dogs consuming three diets differing in their protein, carbohydrate and fiber content.

The value of Extension programming is the generation of short (knowledge gain), medium (behavior change), and long (condition improvement) term outcomes or impact for clientele. Evaluating impact is a critical step in Extension programming. Effective evaluation can be used to measure outcomes, adapt and improve curricula of ongoing programs, and document public value gained from Extension funding. Although evaluation tools administered during or at the end of program activities can measure short-term outcomes, they cannot measure subsequent change in behavior and condition as a result of the program. South Dakota State University Extension has conducted a program entitled "beefSD" wherein cohorts of beginning beef cattle producers have been exposed to a two-year curriculum to increase their capacity to successfully manage their beef cattle enterprises. Five cohorts completed the program between 2010 and 2022. To measure the medium- and long-term impacts of this program, an online survey instrument was administered to the alumni of all five cohorts in Fall 2022. Twenty-two percent of alumni completed the survey. Survey results indicated that since completion of the program, most respondents expanded their beef cattle enterprises, implemented goals, financial, marketing, grazing, drought, and business plans, and became more profitable. The majority of respondents found high value from practices, tools, and concepts learned in beefSD that they incorporated into their enterprise management plans. Evaluation results indicated beefSD has positively impacted the beef cattle enterprises and lives of alumni, increasing the likelihood of their improved sustainability going forward. Further, this evaluation survey clearly demonstrated program impact, documenting public value from the program. Similar Extension programs could be developed for other regions or commodities, contributing comparable outcomes with program evaluation documenting further public value.

High protein, low carbohydrate (HPLC) diets are often sought out by dog owners. They are reported to have beneficial effects on energy expenditure (EE), fat oxidation, and may alter the serum fatty acid profile. However, there is little to no data to support the feeding of HPLC diets to healthy adult dogs. Thus, the objective of the present study was to interrogate the health claims related to the feeding of HPLC diets to healthy adult dogs using a commercially available HPLC diet (48% of metabolizable energy (ME) from protein, 10% of ME from nitrogen-free extract; NFE), a moderate protein, moderate carbohydrate (MPMC) diet (28% of ME from protein, 39% of ME from NFE) formulated with the same ingredients as HPLC, and a commercially available, MPMC, high fiber, "metabolic" (MET) diet (30% of ME from protein, 37% of ME from NFE) as a commercial control. Diets were fed to 9 healthy, large breed dogs for 42 d in a Latin square design. Fasted blood samples were collected on days -2 (baseline), 12, 26 and 40, and indirect calorimetry was performed on 8 dogs on days 20 and 39 to measure respiratory quotient (RQ) and EE. Statistics were performed in SAS Studio (version 9.4). Dogs fed HPLC had a lower RQ at fasted (0.76), 0 to 4 h (0.78) and 5 to 10 h (0.83) post-meal compared to dogs fed MET (0.80, 0.83, 0.90) and MPMC (0.80, 0.84, 0.91; P < 0.05). All dogs had a similar EE at fasted but dogs fed HPLC had a greater postprandial EE at 0 to 4 h (5.36 kcal/kg^0.75) and 5 to 10 h (5.46 kcal/kg^0.75) compared to dogs fed MPMC (4.79 and 4.84 kcal/kg^0.75; P < 0.05). Dogs fed MET (4.98, 4.96 kcal/kg^0.75) were similar to both (P > 0.05). Alpha-linolenic acid (ALA; 18:3n3), docosapentaenoic acid (DPA; 22:5n3) and total n3 were all greater in dogs fed MET at each week (P < 0.05). In contrast, total n6: n3 and arachidonic acid (ARA; 20:4n6): eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA; 20:5n3) were both greater (P < 0.05) in dogs fed HPLC and MPMC compared to dogs fed MET at each week. This study represents the first to assess EE and serum fatty acids in adult large breed dogs consuming a HPLC diet for 6 wk. Consuming a HPLC diet led to potential beneficial effects of increased EE and fat oxidation after a meal, which has the potential to be useful in managing obesity, a common health concern in dogs.

The aim of the study was to deploy computer vision models for real-time detection of digital dermatitis (DD) lesions in cows using Android or iOS mobile applications. Early detection of DD lesions in dairy cows is crucial for prompt treatment and animal welfare. Android and iOS apps could facilitate routine and early DD detection in cows' feet on dairy and beef farms. Upon detecting signs of DD, dairy farmers could implement preventive and treatment methods, including foot baths, topical treatment, hoof trimming, or quarantining cows affected by DD to prevent its spread. We applied transfer-learning to DD image data for 5 lesion classes, M0, M4H, M2, M2P, and M4P, on pretrained YOLOv5 model architecture using COCO-128 pretrained weights. The combination of localization loss, classification loss, and objectness loss was used for the optimization of prediction performance. The custom DD detection model was trained on 363 images of size 416 × 416 pixels and tested on 46 images. During model training, data were augmented to increase model robustness in different environments. The model was converted into TFLite format for Android devices and CoreML format for iOS devices. Techniques such as quantization were implemented to improve inference speed in real-world settings. The DD models achieved a mean average precision (mAP) of 0.95 on the test dataset. When tested in real-time, iOS devices resulted in Cohen's kappa value of 0.57 (95% CI: 0.49 to 0.65) averaged across the 5 lesion classes denoting the moderate agreement of the model detection with human investigators. The Android device resulted in a Cohen's kappa value of 0.38 (95% CI: 0.29 to 0.47) denoting fair agreement between model and investigator. Combining M2 and M2P classes and M4H and M4P classes resulted in a Cohen's kappa value of 0.65 (95% CI: 0.54 to 0.76) and 0.46 (95% CI: 0.35 to 0.57), for Android and iOS devices, respectively. For the 2-class model (lesion vs. non-lesion), a Cohen's kappa value of 0.74 (95% CI: 0.63 to 0.85) and 0.65 (95% CI: 0.52 to 0.78) was achieved for iOS and Android devices, respectively. iOS achieved a good inference time of 20 ms, compared to 57 ms on Android. Additionally, we deployed models on Ultralytics iOS and Android apps giving kappa scores of 0.56 (95% CI: 0.48 to 0.64) and 0.46 (95% CI: 0.37 to 0.55), respectively. Our custom iOS app surpassed the Ultralytics apps in terms of kappa score and confidence score.

The objective of this meta-regression was to evaluate the influence of ruminant species, sex, and climatic regions on the metabolizable energy (ME) requirements for maintenance (MEm) and weight gain (MEg) in growing small ruminants raised for meat production across different climatic regions. Data included 655 and 337 treatment means from 173 and 99 studies on sheep and goats, respectively. Metabolizable energy intake (MEI; MJ/kg^^0.75) was regressed against average daily gain (ADG; g/kg^^0.75), with the study included as a random effect. The analysis found that MEm was not affected by species (P = 0.50), but MEg (MJ/g ADG) was significantly different between species (P = 0.02), with sheep requiring 0.032 (± 0.002) and goats 0.026 (± 0.002) MJ/g ADG. Sex did not affect MEm in either species (P ≥ 0.32). However, in goats, intact males had a greater MEg (P = 0.02) than females (0.030 ± 0.003 vs. 0.013 ± 0.006 MJ/g ADG). MEm was lower (P = 0.03) in small ruminants raised in subtropical regions (0.497 ± 0.046 MJ/kg^^0.75) compared to those in semi-arid (0.600 ± 0.038 MJ/kg^^0.75) and tended to be lower than those in arid regions (0.529 ± 0.050 MJ/kg^^0.75). However, these differences disappeared when adjusting for maturity, diet composition, digestibility, or altitude. MEg was significantly higher (P < 0.05) in animals raised in arid regions (0.032 ± 0.006 MJ/g ADG) compared to those in Mediterranean (0.009 ± 0.004 MJ/g ADG) or semi-arid regions (0.009 ± 0.004 MJ/g ADG) after adjusting for diet composition and digestibility. Similarly, ruminants in Mediterranean regions had lower MEg (0.019 ± 0.004 and 0.009 ± 0.004 MJ/g ADG) than those in tropical regions (0.033 ± 0.002 and 0.024 ± 0.002 MJ/g ADG), respectively after adjusting for maturity, diet composition, and digestibility. MEg in semi-arid regions was consistently lower than in tropical regions, regardless of the covariates tested. For predictive purposes, the global model exhibited the best accuracy (CCC = 0.57 and RSR = 0.79), comparable to the model derived specifically for the tropical region (CCC = 0.58 and RSR = 0.80). This meta-analysis provides a comprehensive evaluation of species-specific differences in ME requirements in small ruminants while recognizing the challenges posed by confounding effects and climatic variability inherent in global datasets. The analysis suggests that animals raised in tropical conditions may have lower MEm than current feeding systems that use data from temperate climates.

Two experiments were conducted to determine the effects of a botanical-derived feed additive containing capsicum oleoresin, clove and garlic essential oils (CCG; Fytera Start, Selko, Indianapolis, IN) in nursery pigs fed with or without pharmacological levels of Zn and Cu. In Exp. 1756 pigs (Duroc × Landrace/Large White composite (Smithfield Premium Genetics), initially 7.8 ± 0.09 kg) were used in a 40-d study to determine the effects of CCG level on growth performance of nursery pigs fed pharmacological levels of Zn and Cu. In Exp. 2340 barrows (DNA 200 × 400, initially 6.1 ± 0.08 kg) were used in 38-d study to determine the effect of CCG in diets with or without pharmacological levels of Zn and Cu on growth performance and fecal dry matter (DM). For both experiments, pigs were randomly allotted to pens which were allotted to 1 of 4 dietary treatments in a completely randomized design. There were 9 pigs per pen and 21 pens per treatment in Exp. 1 and 5 pigs per pen and 17 pens per treatment in Exp. 2. Dietary treatments in Exp. 1 were corn-soybean meal based with pharmacological levels of Zn and Cu and included either 0, 25, 50, or 100 mg/kg of CCG. Dietary treatments in Exp. 2 were arranged in a 2 × 2 factorial with main effects of CCG (none or 100 mg/kg) and nutritional or pharmacological levels of Zn and Cu. All Exp. 2 diets contained 110 mg/kg of Zn and 16.5 mg/kg of Cu from the trace mineral premix. For both experiments, pharmacological levels of Zn were added at 3,000 and 2,000 mg/kg in phase 1 and 2, respectively and Cu was added at 250 mg/kg in all phases. For Exp. 1, overall average daily gain (ADG) increased (linear, P < 0.05) and average daily feed intake (ADFI) tended to increase (linear, P < 0.10) as CCG increased from 0 to 100 mg/kg. For Exp. 2, there was a CCG × Zn/Cu interaction observed for overall ADG and ADFI (P < 0.05) where CCG numerically increased ADG and ADFI in pigs fed nutritional levels of Zn and Cu; but reduced ADG and ADFI in pigs fed pharmacological levels of Zn and Cu. There was a Zn/Cu × day interaction (P = 0.001) for fecal DM, in which there was no difference (P > 0.10) in fecal DM on d 10, but pigs fed pharmacological levels of Zn and Cu had lower (P < 0.001) fecal DM on d 21 compared to pigs fed nutritional levels of Zn and Cu. In summary, when included in diets with pharmacological levels of Zn and Cu, feeding increasing levels of CCG increased ADG in Exp. 1 but did not improve performance in Exp 2.