Approximately 20% of the beef tonnage produced in the United States is derived from Holsteins, through harvested dairy beef or cull dairy cows (Randy Blach, Cattle-Fax, personal communication). This represents a significant contribution to the U.S. beef supply. More and more large commercial feed yards have seen the opportunity available with feeding Holstein steers. Inherent variation between ...

Milk somatic cell score (SCS) typically reaches a minimum early in lactation and then rises. Nonlinear mixed effects models were used to describe this trajectory while accounting for between and within-cow variation. A total of 2387 SCS records from 217 Holsteins were analyzed. Four nonlinear and two linear functions were studied. Approximate maximum likelihood estimates indicated that cows fre...

Genomic selection has revolutionized dairy cattle breeding. Since 2000, assays have been developed to genotype large numbers of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) at relatively low cost. The first commercial SNP genotyping chip was released with a set of 54,001 SNPs in December 2007. Over 15,000 genotypes were used to determine which SNPs should be used in genomic evaluation of US dairy cat...

• Work schedule during pregnancy and spontaneous abortion. • Genetic evaluation of stillbirth in United States holsteins using a sirematernal grandsire threshold model. • Combining internal and external validation data to correct for exposure misclassification: A case study. • Activation of 5-HT1A receptors in the paragigantocellularis lateralis decreases shivering during cooling in the conscio...