Out-wintering yearling dairy heifers on a woodchip pad saw improvements to animal health and behaviour, largely owing to higher space allowances and better underfoot conditions than the outdoor environment.
Feeding incremental plant extract to grass-silage-fed beef steers resulted in enhancement of the fatty acid 18:3n-3 and increased the longer chain derivatives EPA and DHA, resulting in improved polyunsaturated:saturated fat and n-6:n-3 ratios.
Finishing beef cattle on legume/cereal wholecrop silage had no effect on muscle fatty acid composition or instrumental meat quality relative to grass silage based diets.
Selection for improved feed efficiency will not have any unfavourable repercussions for carcass traits.
There is a potential benefit that can be achieved from including genomic information in selection programmes in beef cattle.
The low heritabilities estimated for meat quality traits, such as juiciness and tenderness, and the obvious difficulty involved in measuring these phenotypes, limits the effectiveness of traditional quantitative breeding.
Many aspects of cattle transport contribute to bruising.
There’s no evidence of a direct link between stockperson personality and milk yield, but it does appear that attitudes are important.
Introducing heifers to the resident group after the afternoon milking appeared to improve welfare in the immediate post mixing period by reducing levels of aggression to which they were exposed.
Cows like to be housed, at least some of the time.
