Economic effects of nutritional constraints early in life of cattle

Abstract

An experiment was conducted at the Grafton Agricultural Research Station on the northern coast of New South Wales whereby low and high pasture nutritional systems were imposed on a herd of Hereford cows during pregnancy and from birth to weaning in a factorial design. Offspring representing extremes of growth to birth and/or weaning were then selected for study of long-term consequences of growth early in life. Implications of the nutritional treatments of cows on subsequent weaning rates were also tested with data from previous studies. The extent to which these extreme maternal nutritional and offspring growth scenarios affected herd profitability was tested with the Beef-N-Omics decision ..