Twinning in Beef Cattle

Twinning in Beef Cattle: an Opportunity to Improve Reproductive and Economic Efficiency of Beef Production?

The possibility of improving the rate of reproduction in beef cattle by selection for an increased rate of twinning has been debated with both pessimism and optimism since the early days of animal breeding. The success of selection for multiple births in sheep lifted hopes that a similar program for cattle would also be successful. Pearl (1912) wrote, “From the standpoint of practical breeder i...

Twinning in cattle.

INTRODUCTION The biological efficiency of traditional systems of beef production is low due to the low reproductive rate and the high proportion of total energy which is required for maintenance of the breeding herd. Dickerson (1978) estimated that 56% of the total feed energy intake for adult and market cattle is required solely for body maintenance (the non-productive energy requirement rises...

Twinning Beef Cows

gestibility or protein quality of SBM, the urease assay is good for detecting underprocessing and the KOH protein solubility assay is good for detecting overprocessing. A combination of the latter two assays is needed to ensure that SBM has neither been underheated nor overheated. The protein dispersibility index (PDI) assay may be superior to the urease and KOH assays as an indicator of minimu...

Genetic aspects of twinning in cattle.

Twinning in cattle ranges from about 1% for beef breeds to about 4% for dairy breeds. The incidence of double births may have both positive and negative effects, which mainly depends on the purpose for which the cattle are raised. Because of freemartinism, as well as management problems connected e.g. with a greater risk of dystocia and retained placenta, it is an undesirable trait in dairy her...

Twinning and Efficiency of Beef Production