This study explores the biological role of the Fat Mass and Obesity associated (FTO) gene locus on milk composition in German Holstein cattle. Since FTO controls energy homeostasis and expenditure and the FTO locus has repeatedly shown association with obesity in human studies, we tested FTO as a candidate gene in particular for milk fat yield, which represents a high amount of energy secreted ...

AIM The present study was performed to investigate the effect of genetic and non-genetic factors affecting milk fat yield and to estimate genetic parameters of monthly test day fat yields (MTDFY) and lactation 305-day fat yield (L305FY) in Murrah buffaloes. MATERIALS AND METHODS The data on total of 10381 MTDFY records comprising the first four lactations of 470 Murrah buffaloes calved from 1...

Milk yield and composition data from 7 nursing Lusitano mares (450 to 580 kg of body weight and 2 to 9 parities) were used in this study (5 measurements per mare for milk yield and 8 measurements for composition). Wood's lactation model was used to describe milk fat, protein, and lactose lactation curves. Mean values for the concentration of major milk components across the lactation period (18...

The effects of the bovine myostatin gene on chromosome 2 on birth and carcass traits have been previously assessed. The objective of this study was to identify additional quantitative trait loci (QTL) for economically important traits in two families segregating an inactive copy of myostatin. Two half-sib families were developed from Belgian Blue x MARC III (n = 246) and Piedmontese x Angus (n ...

The major goals of the poultry industry are to increase the carcass yield and to reduce carcass fatness, mainly the abdominal fat pad. The increase in poultry meat consumption has guided the selection process toward fast-growing broilers with a reduced feed conversion ratio. Intensive selection has led to great improvements in economic traits such as body weight gain, feed efficiency, and breas...

ABSTRACT: Video image analysis (VIA) images from grain-fi nished beef carcasses [n = 211; of which 63 did not receive zilpaterol hydrochloride (ZIL) and 148 received ZIL before harvest] were analyzed for indicators of muscle and fat to illustrate the ability to improve methodology to predict saleable meat yield of cattle fed and not fed ZIL. Carcasses were processed in large commercial beef pro...

Finnish genetic evaluation of dairy cattle is based on test-day (TD) yields, applying a multiple-trait random regression TD model. The model considers the first lactation milk, protein, and fat yield, plus the later lactation milk, protein, and fat yield as different traits, where all the later lactations are modelled as repeated observations (Lidauer et al., 2000). Currently, yields are scaled...

The objective of the study was to evaluate genotype by environment interaction (GxEI) for yield traits in Holstein, Simmental and Brown breed cattle in Slovenia using multiple trait analysis. Data from Slovenian milk-recording scheme was used. The lactation records on cows having first to third calving in the period 1990-2004 and milk, protein and fat yield in 305 days were studied. The variabl...