The Animal Behavior, Health and Well-Being symposium at the Midwest ASAS meeting focused on describing welfare challenges faced currently faced by livestock producers, and how animal scientists, veterinarians and welfare specialists are working to address these challenges.

After another year of hard work, ASAS Midwest members celebrated the work of their colleagues at the 2021 Virtual Awards Program.

Several graduate and undergraduate student competitions took place this week during the Virtual Midwest Meeting.

The Growth and Development Symposium held on Tuesday, March 9 , 2021 at the ASAS Midwest Meeting gave speakers an opportunity to discuss meat supply and animal growth during a global pandemic.

This symposium gave speakers the opportunity to discuss in vitro and fertilization.

Bill Rishel began the Harlan Ritchie Symposium discussing historical events that lead to considerable economic shifts within the beef industry.

Dr. Mark Trotter, Central Queensland Unviversity, began his presentation defining that precision livestock management would be “Automating the collection of information on animals and their environment to increase the resolution at which decisions are being made.”

We had an exciting Academic Quadrathlon competition this past weekend. Teams endured the added challenge of competing in a virtual environment, but they definitely rose to the occasion.

Dr. Mitch Hockett, ST Genetics, began the symposium discussing some relevant points for the significant impact of artificial insemination in dairy Industries.

Today, several speakers presented on strategies to manage stress physiology in pigs and statistics use in non-ruminant nutrition at the Non-Ruminant Nutrition (II) symposium at the Midwestern section of the American Society of Animal Science meeting on March 9, 2021.

Dr. Brian Kerr started off the Dr. Gary Allee Symposium talking about "A Metabolic Understanding of Nutrition".

Dr. Jack C Whittier from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln described the impact of 40 years (1978-2018) of the Gudmundsen Sandhills Laboratory (GSL) on Beef Cattle and Range Systems during today’s Klopfenstein Lecture.

The swine translational symposium started out with a presentation from Jonathon Hoek from SummitSmarFarms.

The Symposium focused on the form and function of supplemental amino acids in swine nutrition.

The Ruminant Nutrition Symposium on March 8, 2021 focused on feed additives in Dairy and Beef Cattle. Four speakers representing industry and academics spoke.

Today, March 8, 2021 at the virtual Midwestern Section of the American Society of Animal Science meeting, Dr. Thomas Burkey from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln, also a member of the international steering committee for the Digestive Physiology of the Pig symposium, presented a concise perspective on the past, present and future of the Digestive Physiology of the Pig (DPP) symposium. The triannual DPP symposium has always been well represented by multiple countries and has represented a discussion of the newest findings in digestive physiology of pigs.

We are very pleased that you have taken the opportunity to engage in the 2021 ASAS Midwest Section Meeting. While we will miss not being able to meet in person for this meeting, we are confident that the virtual format will offer the same high-quality, impactful science that the Midwest Section is historically known to provide.

In addition to all the great on-demand 12-minute oral talks and poster talks there are live symposia, lectures, and social events.

A recent study published in the Journal of Animal Science aimed to explore the correlations among circulating amino acids and insulin-like growth factor-I, growth hormone, and prolactin concentrations in plasma and producing tissue of lactating rats fed diets with varying protein content.

A study recently published in the Journal of Animal Science evaluated the effects of 0%, 1%, 2%, 3%, and 4% dietary resistant starch (Hi-maize 260) on apparent total tract macronutrient digestibility, fecal characteristics, fermentative end-product concentrations, and microbiota of healthy adult dogs.