The 2002 USDA Consensus of Agriculture reported a total of 160 beef cow/calf ranches in the US with greater than 2,500 cows. Of these 160 ranches, 60% reside in just four states with Florida, Texas, Nebraska and New Mexico possessing 38, 28, 19, and 10, respectively. These results illustrate a significant anomaly when considering the fate of weaned feeder calves from these major calf producing ...

Records of 2,449 births and 2,120 weanings of terminal-cross calves were used to characterize maternal productivity of first- and second-generation cows from a diallel of Angus, Brahman, Hereford, Holstein and Jersey when mated to third-breed sires. Third- and later-parity cows were randomly assigned after each parturition to Charolais and Red Poll bulls in multiple-sire pastures. Calves were w...

BACKGROUND Sixteen, spring-born, single suckled, castrated male calves of Limousin x Holstein-Friesian and Simmental x Holstein-Friesian dams respectively, were used to investigate the effect of weaning on total leukocyte and differential counts, neutrophil functional activity, lymphocyte immunophenotypes, and acute phase protein response. Calves grazed with their dams until the end of the graz...

Selenium (Se) is an essential micronutrient in cattle, and Se-deficiency can affect morbidity and mortality. Calves may have greater Se requirements during periods of stress, such as during the transitional period between weaning and movement to a feedlot. Previously, we showed that feeding Se-fertilized forage increases whole-blood (WB) Se concentrations in mature beef cows. Our current object...

Holstein calves were fed pelleted starter diets with crude protein (CP) concentrations of 18%, 22% and 24% per dry matter (DM) containing soybean meal (SBM) (SBM18, SBM20 and SBM24), respectively, for 10 weeks from 14 days of age. Another diet with a CP concentration of 18% per DM was tested using commercial xylose-soybean meal (XSB; Yasminomax) instead of SBM. Each diet was fed to 24 calves an...

BACKGROUND Cryptosporidium spp. are common parasites of humans and animals. Farm animals, especially pre-weaned calves, are considered to be one of main animal reservoir hosts of Cryptosporidium in the transmission of human cryptosporidiosis. The aim of this study was to determine the distribution and genotypes of Cryptosporidium spp. in pre-weaned calves using molecular tools and to assess zoo...

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of three levels of supplement on forage intake and animal performance of early weaned calves grazing rye-ryegrass pastures from January to May. Treatments were three levels of concentrate (1, 1.5, and 2% of body weight [BW]), and animals were 90-d-old Angus-crossbred early weaned calves. Calf ADG increased from 1.6 to 1.9 lb/d as supplement...

OBJECTIVE This study evaluated the effects of different levels of protein concentrate supplementation on the growth performance of yak calves, and correlated the growth rate to changes occurring in the plasma- amino acids, -insulin profile, and signaling activity of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) cascade to characterize the mechanism through which the protein synthesis can be improved in ...

OBJECTIVE This study was conducted to investigate the effects of weaning times on the growth performance, rumen fermentation and microbial communities of yellow cattle calves. METHODS Eighteen calves were assigned to a conventional management group that was normally weaned (NW, n = 3) or to early weaned (EW) group where calves were weaned when the feed intake of solid feed (starter) reached 5...

The prevalence of Cryptosporidium species in 1-2-year-old heifers was determined for 571 animals on 14 dairy farms in seven states on the East Coast of the United States. A fecal specimen collected directly from each heifer was processed to concentrate oocysts that were then examined by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). For every PCR-positive specimen the 18S rRNA gene of Cryptosporidium was seq...