When a treatment influences both the primary response and the covariate, a standard analysis of covariance may misrepresent the real treatment effect by adjusting out that part of the effect which is manifest in the covariate. What parametric function should we examine if the treatments influence the covariate? An informative analysis would let the complete effects of the levels emerge, yet per...

Two studies were conducted to evaluate a wireless rumination monitoring system (Hi-Tag; SCR Engineers Ltd., Netanya, Israel) for recording rumination in beef cattle. The system operates based on acoustics of rumination and has been used previously for monitoring rumination in both young and adult dairy cattle. Study 1 consisted of beef cattle in tie-stall housing with 72 observations for 4 catt...

The main purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the presence of Neospora caninum infection in beef cattle from Hamedan province, Western Iran. Blood samples were collected from 514 industrial beef cattle and tested using ELISA. IgG antibodies against N. caninum were found in 102 (19.8%) sera. Significant differences were observed between seropositive cattle and age group (p=0.022). No si...

During the past 23 yr, a large number of human illness outbreaks have been traced worldwide to consumption of undercooked ground beef and other beef products contaminated with Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC). Although several routes exist for human infection with STEC, beef remains a main source. Thus, beef cattle are considered reservoirs of O157 and nonO157 STEC. Because of the ...

For over a century, the word temperament has been used to define the fear-related behavioral responses of cattle when exposed to human handling. As cattle temperament worsens, their response to human contact or any other handling procedures becomes more excitable. Within the beef cattle industry, producers select cattle for temperament primarily for safety reasons. However, recent studies demon...

Marbling is an important trait regarding the quality of beef. Analysis of beef cattle transcriptome and its expression profile data are essential to extend the genetic information resources and would support further studies on beef cattle. RNA sequencing was performed in beef cattle using the Illumina High-Seq2000 platform. Approximately 251.58 million clean reads were generated from a high mar...

We determined the prevalence of Escherichia coli O157:H7 in organically and naturally raised beef cattle at slaughter and compared antibiotic susceptibility profiles of the isolates to those of isolates from conventionally raised beef cattle. The prevalences of E. coli O157:H7 were 14.8 and 14.2% for organically and naturally raised cattle, respectively. No major difference in antibiotic suscep...

The aims of this study were to determine the occurrence of Listeria monocytogenes in cattle feces and ground beef, to characterize these strains by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis and to compare them to three listeria strains found in humans. Cattle from different origins (n = 250) and ground beef obtained from supermarkets (n = 40) were sampled. The results show low occurrence in cattle feces...

A survey was conducted to quantify incidence of Beef Quality Assurance (BQA)-related defects in market beef and dairy cows and bulls selling at auction during 2 seasons in 2008. Twenty-three BQA-related traits were evaluated by 9 trained personnel during sales at 10 livestock auction markets in Idaho (n = 5; beef and dairy), California, (n = 4; dairy only), and Utah (n = 1; beef and dairy). Ove...

The current review focuses on characterization and conservation efforts vital for the development of breeding programmes for indigenous beef cattle genetic resources in Southern Africa. Indigenous African cattle breeds were identified and characterized using information from refereed journals, conference papers and research reports. Results of this current review reviewed that smallholder beef ...