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Reducing the cost of beef production through the genetic improvement of net feed efficiency

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 November 2021

R.M. Herd ,
J.A. Archer ,
P.F. Arthur  and
E.C. Richardson
R.M. Herd
Affiliation:
NSW Agriculture, Beef CRC, University of New England, Armidale, 2351, Australia
J.A. Archer
Affiliation:
NSW Agriculture, Agricultural Research Centre, Trangie, 2823, Australia
P.F. Arthur
Affiliation:
NSW Agriculture, Agricultural Research Centre, Trangie, 2823, Australia
E.C. Richardson
Affiliation:
NSW Agriculture, Agricultural Research Centre, Trangie, 2823, Australia
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Extract

Feed is the single largest cost in most animal production systems. Feed conversion ratio (FCR) is a commonly used measure of growth efficiency. Previous research has shown that FCR is moderately heritable and highly related to growth rate. While selection for FCR is beneficial to those feeding growing cattle for slaughter, any associated increase in the size of breeding females will mean this benefit will be at a cost to the calf breeder, as larger breeding cows require more feed.

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Programme
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Proceedings of the British Society of Animal Science , Volume 1998 , 1998 , pp. 45
Copyright
Copyright © The British Society of Animal Science 1998

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References

Archer, J.A., Arthur, P.F., Herd, R.M. and Richardson, E.C. 1998. Genetic variation in feed efficiency and it’s component traits. Proceedings of the 6th World Congress on Genetics Applied to Livestock Production: In press.10.1017/S030822960003258XCrossRefGoogle Scholar