Featured Articles

  • Feb
    23
    EPA to study concentrated animal feeding operations


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    The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released the Effluent Guidelines Program Plan 15 (Plan 15), which lays out how the Agency will work to protect the nation’s waterways by following the science and the Clean Water Act to develop technology-based pollution limits and studies on wastewater discharges from industrial sources. Part of Plan 15 includes a new study on the impact of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) on water quality.

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  • Feb
    23
    FARM Act introduced


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    The Foreign Adversary Risk Management (FARM) Act has recently been introduced in the House and Senate. The FARM Act will amend the Defense Production Act of 1950 to prevent harm and disruption to the United States agriculture industry by protecting against foreign influence over agriculture production and supply chains, and for other purposes.

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  • Feb
    23
    New ARS administrator selected


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    The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has named Simon Liu, Ph.D. as the Administrator of the Agricultural Research Service (ARS). While Liu was officially named as ARS Administrator on January 4, 2023, he has been acting in this role since June 2022. In this role, Liu will lead the agency in its efforts to leverage the latest advances in science and technology and develop innovative solutions to agricultural challenges facing the nation and world.

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  • Feb
    23
    SOTU address highlights


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    President Joe Biden recently spoke to the American people and Congress through the State of the Union Address. President Biden conveyed a message of bipartisanship as well as discussing his legislative agenda. Job growth, inflation, and the COVID-19 pandemic were the themes of the address.

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  • Feb
    23
    US dairy exports break records


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    New data for the United States Commerce Department shows that United States agricultural exports increased 11 percent, or $19.5 billion, from the previous record set in 2021. This is the best recorded year, with international sales of U.S. farm and food products reaching $196 billion.

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  • Feb
    23
    USDA invests in food waste reduction programs


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    The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced a $9.4 million investment to reduce food waste. The funding will support 45 cooperative agreements through the Compost and Food Waste Reduction (CFWR) cooperative agreements, which are funded by the American Rescue Plan Act, and part of USDA’s broad support for urban agriculture through its Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production (OUAIP).

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  • Feb
    23
    USDA proposes new nutrition standards


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    The United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Food and Nutrition Services (FNS) have proposed updates to the school nutrition standards. The proposed updates reflect the most recent 2020 Dietary Guidelines, as required by law, and build in plenty of time for planning and implementation to ensure the school meals community and the kids they serve have the best chance for long-term success.

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  • Feb
    16
    Interpretive Summary: Short Communication: changes in gait after 12 wk of shoeing in previously barefoot horses


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    Horses are athletic animals whose quality of movement affects their ability to perform. Management of hooves can influence gait symmetry. Shoeing horses is an accepted standard of care for athletic animals.

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  • Feb
    16
    Interpretive Summary: Dam parity affects fetal growth, placental size, and neonatal metabolism in spring-born beef calves


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    Approximately two-thirds of beef calf deaths prior to weaning occur within the first 3 wk after birth. The goal to have heifers produce their first calf by 2 yr of age likely contributes to factors that limit nutrients available for fetuses and calves immediately after birth. However, little is known about differences in heifers (first parity) and cows (later parities) regarding factors affecting calf resilience.

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  • Feb
    16
    Interpretive Summary: An in silico study of derivative of Newcastle disease virus epitopes based vaccine against hemagglutunin neuraminidase protein


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    Newcastle disease is a viral disease that causes severe problems in poultry birds. The disease is lethal with a high influence and death rate.

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  • Feb
    16
    Interpretive Summary: Integrative proteomics and metabolomics profiling to understand the biochemical basis of beef muscle darkening at a slightly elevated pH


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    A bright cherry-red color beef is ideal during meat retail and carcass grading. Any deviation from a bright red color, such as dark red color, at the interface of the 12th and 13th rib-eye area leads to carcass discounts.

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  • Feb
    16
    Interpretive Summary: Influence of a sodium-saccharin sweetener on the rumen content and rumen epithelium microbiota in dairy cattle during heat stress


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    Mitigating the effects of heat stress is becoming more and more important with global increases in temperatures. Heat stress negatively affects livestock health and performance. One way to mitigate the effects of heat stress on livestock is to increase feed intake during stress conditions by enhancing palatability of the feed by adding artificial sweeteners.

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  • Feb
    16
    Interpretive Summary: H-ferritin in sows’ colostrum- and milk-derived extracellular vesicles: a novel iron delivery concept


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    Colostrum and milk are the primary sources of nutrition for lactating mammals. Iron is an essential nutrient for nursing mammals. Piglets are routinely iron deficient and do not obtain adequate iron from sows’ milk further contributing to anemia observed in young pigs.

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  • Feb
    09
    Interpretive Summary: A review of the application of active learning pedagogies in undergraduate animal science curricula


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    Animal science undergraduate curricula face the issue of motivating and interesting students from diversified backgrounds to meet the growing job market (Benson et al., 2020; Lugar & Stewart, 2019). Students are entering animal science majors with different expectations and values as explained by the expectancy-value theory, so higher education systems face the struggle of meeting diverse student interests while fulfilling required course content.

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  • Feb
    09
    Interpretive Summary: The effect of harvest time of forage on carbohydrate digestion in horses quantified by in vitro and mobile bag techniques


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    Feedstuffs contain different carbohydrate fractions that are digested in different parts of the gastrointestinal tract of horses. Grass for grazing or harvesting contains variable amounts of structural carbohydrates such as cellulose and hemi-cellulose (named fibres) and nonstructural carbohydrates which in temperate grass species include sugars and fructans (named water soluble carbohydrates (WSC)).

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  • Feb
    09
    Interpretive Summary: Effects of thermal conditions on gestating sows’ behaviors and energy requirements


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    Ambient temperature may influence the energy requirement of gestating sows, but this factor is not yet integrated daily in the calculation of this requirement. The objective of this study was to quantify the effect of temperatures on sow’s behavior, physical activity, and energy requirements on gestating sows.

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  • Feb
    09
    Interpretive Summary: 3-Nitrooxypropanol supplementation of a forage diet decreased enteric methane emissions from beef cattle without affecting feed intake and apparent total-tract digestibility


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    This study evaluated the effects of supplementing forage fed cattle with 3-nitrooxypropanol (150 mg/kg dry matter) on feed intake, rumen fermentation and microbial community composition, methane emissions, and nutrient digestibility. Eight ruminally cannulated beef heifers were used for the experiment.

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  • Feb
    09
    Interpretive Summary: Understanding the relationship between weather variables and intake in beef steers


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    Dry matter intake (DMI) models for beef cattle in the Northern Great Plains may not be a good fit because of extreme weather conditions experienced in this region. The objective of this study is to include additional weather variables (temperature, dewpoint, wind speed, range of temperature, and solar radiation as well as 2-wk lag and monthly lag for each weather variable) that may influence DMI models to improve accuracy.

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  • Feb
    09
    Interpretive Summary: The effects of a Nutritional Packet (live yeast, vitamins C and B1, and electrolytes) offered during the final phase of feedlot steers on growth performance, nutrient digestion, and feeding behavior


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    Excessive intake of rapidly fermentable nutrients by feedlot cattle can result in clinical or subclinical disorders that impair nutrient digestion, while negatively affecting animal development and health. Incidences of subclinical digestive disturbances may increase during the last days on feed in cattle fed in confinement.

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  • Feb
    09
    Interpretive Summary: Pooled analysis on the effects of inclusion, moisture, and oil removal from distillers grains on cattle performance and economic returns in diets with different corn processing


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    A pooled analysis of research was conducted to evaluate the effect of corn processing method, distillers grains type, oil removal from distillers, and distillers inclusion on cattle performance within studies conducted at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln between 1992-2020. Two corn processing methods were included in the dataset, steam-flaked corn (SFC) or any combination of high-moisture (HMC) and dry-rolled corn (DRC), fed with and without distillers gains, a by-product of the dry milling ethanol industry.

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