Featured Articles

  • Feb
    23
    USDA invests in food waste reduction programs


    100x100 ASAS Blog Template (100)
    The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced a $9.4 million investment to reduce food waste. The funding will support 45 cooperative agreements through the Compost and Food Waste Reduction (CFWR) cooperative agreements, which are funded by the American Rescue Plan Act, and part of USDA’s broad support for urban agriculture through its Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production (OUAIP).

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  • Feb
    23
    USDA proposes new nutrition standards


    100x100 ASAS Blog Template - 2023-02-23T001546.899
    The United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Food and Nutrition Services (FNS) have proposed updates to the school nutrition standards. The proposed updates reflect the most recent 2020 Dietary Guidelines, as required by law, and build in plenty of time for planning and implementation to ensure the school meals community and the kids they serve have the best chance for long-term success.

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  • Feb
    16
    Interpretive Summary: Short Communication: changes in gait after 12 wk of shoeing in previously barefoot horses


    100x100 ASAS Blog Template (91)
    Horses are athletic animals whose quality of movement affects their ability to perform. Management of hooves can influence gait symmetry. Shoeing horses is an accepted standard of care for athletic animals.

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  • Feb
    16
    Interpretive Summary: Dam parity affects fetal growth, placental size, and neonatal metabolism in spring-born beef calves


    100x100 ASAS Blog Template (90)
    Approximately two-thirds of beef calf deaths prior to weaning occur within the first 3 wk after birth. The goal to have heifers produce their first calf by 2 yr of age likely contributes to factors that limit nutrients available for fetuses and calves immediately after birth. However, little is known about differences in heifers (first parity) and cows (later parities) regarding factors affecting calf resilience.

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  • Feb
    16
    Interpretive Summary: An in silico study of derivative of Newcastle disease virus epitopes based vaccine against hemagglutunin neuraminidase protein


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    Newcastle disease is a viral disease that causes severe problems in poultry birds. The disease is lethal with a high influence and death rate.

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  • Feb
    16
    Interpretive Summary: Integrative proteomics and metabolomics profiling to understand the biochemical basis of beef muscle darkening at a slightly elevated pH


    100x100 ASAS Blog Template (88)
    A bright cherry-red color beef is ideal during meat retail and carcass grading. Any deviation from a bright red color, such as dark red color, at the interface of the 12th and 13th rib-eye area leads to carcass discounts.

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  • Feb
    16
    Interpretive Summary: Influence of a sodium-saccharin sweetener on the rumen content and rumen epithelium microbiota in dairy cattle during heat stress


    100x100 ASAS Blog Template (87)
    Mitigating the effects of heat stress is becoming more and more important with global increases in temperatures. Heat stress negatively affects livestock health and performance. One way to mitigate the effects of heat stress on livestock is to increase feed intake during stress conditions by enhancing palatability of the feed by adding artificial sweeteners.

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  • Feb
    16
    Interpretive Summary: H-ferritin in sows’ colostrum- and milk-derived extracellular vesicles: a novel iron delivery concept


    100x100 ASAS Blog Template (86)
    Colostrum and milk are the primary sources of nutrition for lactating mammals. Iron is an essential nutrient for nursing mammals. Piglets are routinely iron deficient and do not obtain adequate iron from sows’ milk further contributing to anemia observed in young pigs.

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  • Feb
    09
    Interpretive Summary: A review of the application of active learning pedagogies in undergraduate animal science curricula


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    Animal science undergraduate curricula face the issue of motivating and interesting students from diversified backgrounds to meet the growing job market (Benson et al., 2020; Lugar & Stewart, 2019). Students are entering animal science majors with different expectations and values as explained by the expectancy-value theory, so higher education systems face the struggle of meeting diverse student interests while fulfilling required course content.

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  • Feb
    09
    Interpretive Summary: The effect of harvest time of forage on carbohydrate digestion in horses quantified by in vitro and mobile bag techniques


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    Feedstuffs contain different carbohydrate fractions that are digested in different parts of the gastrointestinal tract of horses. Grass for grazing or harvesting contains variable amounts of structural carbohydrates such as cellulose and hemi-cellulose (named fibres) and nonstructural carbohydrates which in temperate grass species include sugars and fructans (named water soluble carbohydrates (WSC)).

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  • Feb
    09
    Interpretive Summary: Effects of thermal conditions on gestating sows’ behaviors and energy requirements


    100x100 ASAS Blog Template (83)
    Ambient temperature may influence the energy requirement of gestating sows, but this factor is not yet integrated daily in the calculation of this requirement. The objective of this study was to quantify the effect of temperatures on sow’s behavior, physical activity, and energy requirements on gestating sows.

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  • Feb
    09
    Interpretive Summary: 3-Nitrooxypropanol supplementation of a forage diet decreased enteric methane emissions from beef cattle without affecting feed intake and apparent total-tract digestibility


    100x100 ASAS Blog Template (81)
    This study evaluated the effects of supplementing forage fed cattle with 3-nitrooxypropanol (150 mg/kg dry matter) on feed intake, rumen fermentation and microbial community composition, methane emissions, and nutrient digestibility. Eight ruminally cannulated beef heifers were used for the experiment.

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  • Feb
    09
    Interpretive Summary: Understanding the relationship between weather variables and intake in beef steers


    100x100 ASAS Blog Template (78)
    Dry matter intake (DMI) models for beef cattle in the Northern Great Plains may not be a good fit because of extreme weather conditions experienced in this region. The objective of this study is to include additional weather variables (temperature, dewpoint, wind speed, range of temperature, and solar radiation as well as 2-wk lag and monthly lag for each weather variable) that may influence DMI models to improve accuracy.

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  • Feb
    09
    Interpretive Summary: The effects of a Nutritional Packet (live yeast, vitamins C and B1, and electrolytes) offered during the final phase of feedlot steers on growth performance, nutrient digestion, and feeding behavior


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    Excessive intake of rapidly fermentable nutrients by feedlot cattle can result in clinical or subclinical disorders that impair nutrient digestion, while negatively affecting animal development and health. Incidences of subclinical digestive disturbances may increase during the last days on feed in cattle fed in confinement.

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  • Feb
    09
    Interpretive Summary: Pooled analysis on the effects of inclusion, moisture, and oil removal from distillers grains on cattle performance and economic returns in diets with different corn processing


    100x100 ASAS Blog Template (77)
    A pooled analysis of research was conducted to evaluate the effect of corn processing method, distillers grains type, oil removal from distillers, and distillers inclusion on cattle performance within studies conducted at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln between 1992-2020. Two corn processing methods were included in the dataset, steam-flaked corn (SFC) or any combination of high-moisture (HMC) and dry-rolled corn (DRC), fed with and without distillers gains, a by-product of the dry milling ethanol industry.

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  • Feb
    09
    Interpretive Summary: Post-weaning management of modern dairy cattle genetics for beef production: a review


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    The number of dairy steers contributing to the U.S. fed beef supply has increased from 6.9% to 16.3% over the last two decades. Raising dairy cattle breeds for beef production offers unique opportunities and challenges when compared with feeding beef cattle breeds.

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  • Feb
    02
    Interpretive Summary: Effects of replacing corn silage with alfalfa haylage in growing beef cattle diets on performance during the growing and finishing period


    100x100 ASAS Blog Template (69)
    The potential for growing systems in beef cattle operations depends on the development of cost-effective alternatives for adding value to cattle after weaning. Alfalfa provides several ecosystem services to beef operations through greater opportunities for manure spreading, longer soil cover, pollinator habitat, and greater carbon sequestration compared to corn silage.

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  • Feb
    02
    Interpretive Summary: Roughage level and supplemental fat for newly received finishing calves: effects on growth performance, health, and physiological responses


    100x100 ASAS Blog Template (70)
    The low intake of feed that beef calves exhibit during the first weeks after feedlot arrival results in inadequate nutrient intake, especially energy, which leads to low rates of gain and decreased immune function and likely increases the risks for respiratory diseases. Increasing the energy density of receiving diets (Mcal/kg of dry matter) could result in increased energy intake of newly received finishing cattle.

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  • Feb
    02
    Interpretive Summary: One-carbon metabolite supplementation to heifers for the first 14 d of the estrous cycle alters the plasma and hepatic one-carbon metabolite pool and methionine-folate cycle enzyme transcript abundance in a dose-dependent manner


    100x100 ASAS Blog Template (71)
    The strategic inclusion of one-carbon metabolites, which include vitamins and minerals that are found in human prenatal vitamins, to beef cattle feeding and management protocols during the periconceptual period (the time around breeding) is a novel concept. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the feeding and injection doses of one-carbon metabolites in beef heifers to maintain increased circulating concentrations of one-carbon metabolites for use as a model from which other studies could base their treatments on.

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  • Feb
    02
    Interpretive Summary: Effect of DL-methionine supplementation above requirement on performance; intestinal morphology, antioxidant activity, and gene expression; and serum concentration of amino acids in heat stressed pigs


    100x100 ASAS Blog Template (72)
    The exposure of pigs to ambient temperature above their comfort zone affects several functions of the small intestine, especially those related with digestion of feed and absorption of nutrients, which in turn reduces the availability of nutrients for growth.

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