To evaluate the endocrine responses associated with the relocation process, 22 Holstein heifers (326.4746.8 kg BW) were randomly assigned to control (CON) or relocation (RELOC) treatment groups. On d 0, heifers were weighed and fitted with indwelling rectal temperature (RT) monitoring devices and jugular catheters. On d 1, baseline blood samples were collected from all heifers for 2 h prior to ...

Prepubertal beef heifers at 60 and 200 d of age, born in the fall or spring, were assigned randomly to one of three treatment groups: (1) intact = 1; (2) bilateral ovariectomy (OVX); or (3) OVX plus estradiol-17 beta(E2) administered in silastic implants (OVX + E2). Luteinizing hormone (LH) was measured in serum samples collected at 20-min intervals for 4 h from heifers on -1, +7, +21, +35 and ...

A total of 85 beef heifers were used to determine if vaccination with a modified-live virus (MLV) vaccine containing bovine viral diarrhea virus types 1 and 2 (BVDV1 and BVDV2) approximately 1 year prior to challenge with virulent BVDV1b and BVDV2a will protect against fetal infection. BVDV1 and BVDV2 seronegative heifers were vaccinated at approximately 15 months of age with a commercially ava...

Intramammary infections in breeding age and pregnant heifers are much higher than previously thought. Many of these infections can persist for long periods of time, are associated with elevated somatic cell counts, and likely impair mammary development during gestation and affect milk production after calving. Prepartum intramammary antibiotic infusion of heifer mammary glands a few weeks befor...

Behavioral and physiological changes were measured following tail-docking in primiparous heifers. One month before projected first parturition, 21 heifers were assigned to control (nondocked), docked, or docked with lidocaine groups. Heifers were banded to initiate tail-docking and the necrotic tail was removed after 144 h. Physiological, immunological, and behavioral measures were taken for 24...

While an increasing number of animals are produced by means of somatic cloning, behavioral studies on cloned animals are still rare. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the somatic cloning procedure has an influence on locomotion, exploratory, vocal and social behaviors of heifers. Ten heifers were used in the present study. Five of them were cloned heifers derived from somatic cel...

Two hundred sixty-four crossbred heifers (initial BW = 354 kg ± 0.5) were used to determine effects of corn processing method and wet distillers grains plus solubles (WDGS) inclusion in finishing diets on animal performance, carcass characteristics, and manure characteristics. The study was conducted as a randomized complete block with a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement of treatments. Dietary treatm...

Replacing cows in the herd is second only to nutrition as the single greatest input cost in cow/calf beef production. The increased availability of cereal grains for feeding livestock has allowed replacement heifers to enter the production system at younger ages. Many heifer development programs feed to ensure heifers reach puberty before the time that they are mated to calve at 2 yr of age. Nu...

The objective of this study was to determine if the forage-to-concentrate ratio (F:C) of diets fed prior to and during (PRE) feed restriction (FR) and diets fed post-FR (POST) affect the recovery for DMI, ruminal fermentation, and short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) absorption following FR. Twenty ovariectomized and ruminally cannulated Angus × Hereford heifers were used in this study and were fed (a...

The effects of acute nutritional change on endocrine and ovarian characteristics were studied in cyclic (intact; n = 20) and long-term ovariectomized (ovx; n = 18) heifers being fed 1.2 x maintenance (1.2M). On d 7 of an 8-d progesterone and estradiol treatment, intact and ovx heifers were randomly allocated to diets providing .4, 1.2, or 2.0M until emergence of the second follicular wave after...