Location: Nutrition, Growth and Physiology
Project Number: 3040-31000-102-006-R
Project Type: Reimbursable Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Aug 1, 2024
End Date: Jul 31, 2026
Objective:
The objectives of this proposal are to: 1) Determine whether accelerometer activity data as a measure of temperament is correlated with feed efficiency, flight speed, and meat quality traits and begin to collect data for a future GWAS, 2) determine whether there are differences in circulating blood cells, long term stress, skeletal muscle and brain gene expression between animals with high and low steps and mounting behavior. These data will be useful as a novel approach to evaluate behavior in beef cattle, to examine the relationships between behavior, economically important production traits and physiological responses.
Approach:
The hypothesis for this proposal is that monitoring an animal’s activity over the course of a feed efficiency study can be equated with temperament and will produce a better scoring system than traditional measures such as flight speed or chute scores, which are momentary snapshots of behavior and can change as animals learn the handling system, and that ultimately a more accurate measure of behavior/temperament will result in stronger genetic associations. We also hypothesize that there are relationships between behavior, feed efficiency, meat quality and physiological responses. ARS will perform the assist with sample collections at the University of Wyoming and be responsible for the molecular assays described in the project including RNA-sequencing, cytokine and acute phase protein assays, cortisol ELISAs.
