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Growth and reproductive performance responses to post-weaning supplementation of early and normally-weaned Brahman crossbred heifers raised in tropical rangelands

This study investigated the effect of five post-weaning supplementation strategies and two weaning weight groups on long-term growth, puberty and pregnancy percentage of Brahman crossbred heifers. Early-weaned (118 ± 6 kg liveweight) and normally-weaned (183 ± 6 kg liveweight) heifers were allocated...

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Autores principales: Silva, Tiago A. C. C., Quigley, Simon P., Kidd, Lisa J., Anderson, Stephen T., McLennan, Stuart R., Schatz, Timothy J., McCosker, Kieren D., Poppi, Dennis P.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8830633/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35143577
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263786
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author Silva, Tiago A. C. C.
Quigley, Simon P.
Kidd, Lisa J.
Anderson, Stephen T.
McLennan, Stuart R.
Schatz, Timothy J.
McCosker, Kieren D.
Poppi, Dennis P.
author_facet Silva, Tiago A. C. C.
Quigley, Simon P.
Kidd, Lisa J.
Anderson, Stephen T.
McLennan, Stuart R.
Schatz, Timothy J.
McCosker, Kieren D.
Poppi, Dennis P.
author_sort Silva, Tiago A. C. C.
collection PubMed
description This study investigated the effect of five post-weaning supplementation strategies and two weaning weight groups on long-term growth, puberty and pregnancy percentage of Brahman crossbred heifers. Early-weaned (118 ± 6 kg liveweight) and normally-weaned (183 ± 6 kg liveweight) heifers were allocated to group pens (n = 4 and n = 5/pen for early- and normally-weaned respectively) and offered one of five levels of post-weaning protein supplementation: 0, 1, 2.5, 5 and 10 g of supplement/kg liveweight.day with ad libitum access to a low quality sabi grass (Urochloa mosambicensis) hay during the first dry season (169 days) after weaning. After the post-weaning supplementation period, all heifers grazed the same pastures as a single mob until the end of the experiment and were exposed to fertile bulls from January to May 2016. During the first dry season, supplement intake had a positive linear effect on liveweight gain and hip width gain with no difference in the response between weaning groups. Overall, heifers with higher supplement intakes (i.e. 5 and 10 g/kg) had higher hip height gain (P < 0.005), hip width gain (P < 0.001), body condition score (P < 0.001), and concentration of insulin-like growth factor-1 (P = 0.001), triiodothyronine (P = 0.04) and insulin (P = 0.05) in plasma compared to unsupplemented heifers. These changes resulted in thicker proliferative and hypertrophic zones (both P = 0.03) of the tuber coxae growth plate, larger diameter of terminal hypertrophic chondrocytes (both P = 0.004) at the end of the post-weaning supplementation period when comparing the highest level of supplementation with unsupplemented group. Unsupplemented heifers from both weaning weight groups demonstrated compensatory liveweight gain over the first wet season while evidence of catch-up growth in skeletal dimensions was observed in the second wet season. The main determining factor for pregnancy status of two-year-old Brahman crossbred heifers was pre-mating liveweight (P < 0.001), the pre-mating liveweight was in turn affected by post-weaning supplementation (P = 0.02) or weaning weight group (P < 0.001). This study further demonstrated the positive relationship between premating weight and the occurrence of pregnancy, with an approximate 300 kg pre-mating liveweight required to achieve approximately 80% (67.1–90.3% for a 95% confidence interval) probability of pregnancy in two-year-old Brahman crossbred heifers mated for 4 months.
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spelling pubmed-88306332022-02-11 Growth and reproductive performance responses to post-weaning supplementation of early and normally-weaned Brahman crossbred heifers raised in tropical rangelands Silva, Tiago A. C. C. Quigley, Simon P. Kidd, Lisa J. Anderson, Stephen T. McLennan, Stuart R. Schatz, Timothy J. McCosker, Kieren D. Poppi, Dennis P. PLoS One Research Article This study investigated the effect of five post-weaning supplementation strategies and two weaning weight groups on long-term growth, puberty and pregnancy percentage of Brahman crossbred heifers. Early-weaned (118 ± 6 kg liveweight) and normally-weaned (183 ± 6 kg liveweight) heifers were allocated to group pens (n = 4 and n = 5/pen for early- and normally-weaned respectively) and offered one of five levels of post-weaning protein supplementation: 0, 1, 2.5, 5 and 10 g of supplement/kg liveweight.day with ad libitum access to a low quality sabi grass (Urochloa mosambicensis) hay during the first dry season (169 days) after weaning. After the post-weaning supplementation period, all heifers grazed the same pastures as a single mob until the end of the experiment and were exposed to fertile bulls from January to May 2016. During the first dry season, supplement intake had a positive linear effect on liveweight gain and hip width gain with no difference in the response between weaning groups. Overall, heifers with higher supplement intakes (i.e. 5 and 10 g/kg) had higher hip height gain (P < 0.005), hip width gain (P < 0.001), body condition score (P < 0.001), and concentration of insulin-like growth factor-1 (P = 0.001), triiodothyronine (P = 0.04) and insulin (P = 0.05) in plasma compared to unsupplemented heifers. These changes resulted in thicker proliferative and hypertrophic zones (both P = 0.03) of the tuber coxae growth plate, larger diameter of terminal hypertrophic chondrocytes (both P = 0.004) at the end of the post-weaning supplementation period when comparing the highest level of supplementation with unsupplemented group. Unsupplemented heifers from both weaning weight groups demonstrated compensatory liveweight gain over the first wet season while evidence of catch-up growth in skeletal dimensions was observed in the second wet season. The main determining factor for pregnancy status of two-year-old Brahman crossbred heifers was pre-mating liveweight (P < 0.001), the pre-mating liveweight was in turn affected by post-weaning supplementation (P = 0.02) or weaning weight group (P < 0.001). This study further demonstrated the positive relationship between premating weight and the occurrence of pregnancy, with an approximate 300 kg pre-mating liveweight required to achieve approximately 80% (67.1–90.3% for a 95% confidence interval) probability of pregnancy in two-year-old Brahman crossbred heifers mated for 4 months. Public Library of Science 2022-02-10 /pmc/articles/PMC8830633/ /pubmed/35143577 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263786 Text en © 2022 Silva et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Silva, Tiago A. C. C.
Quigley, Simon P.
Kidd, Lisa J.
Anderson, Stephen T.
McLennan, Stuart R.
Schatz, Timothy J.
McCosker, Kieren D.
Poppi, Dennis P.
Growth and reproductive performance responses to post-weaning supplementation of early and normally-weaned Brahman crossbred heifers raised in tropical rangelands
title Growth and reproductive performance responses to post-weaning supplementation of early and normally-weaned Brahman crossbred heifers raised in tropical rangelands
title_full Growth and reproductive performance responses to post-weaning supplementation of early and normally-weaned Brahman crossbred heifers raised in tropical rangelands
title_fullStr Growth and reproductive performance responses to post-weaning supplementation of early and normally-weaned Brahman crossbred heifers raised in tropical rangelands
title_full_unstemmed Growth and reproductive performance responses to post-weaning supplementation of early and normally-weaned Brahman crossbred heifers raised in tropical rangelands
title_short Growth and reproductive performance responses to post-weaning supplementation of early and normally-weaned Brahman crossbred heifers raised in tropical rangelands
title_sort growth and reproductive performance responses to post-weaning supplementation of early and normally-weaned brahman crossbred heifers raised in tropical rangelands
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8830633/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35143577
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263786
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