Have You Herd of the Feed Saved Trait?

In this episode, Dr. Fred Gingrich discusses the Feed Saved trait with Dr. Kent Weigel. Dr. Weigel has been involved with genomic research in cattle and discusses the research on this newly identified genetic prediction. Feed Saved looks at a cow’s maintenance cost and her residual feed intake (RFI). RFI predicts if a cow is consuming more that her body weight and milk production predict. This trait has economic implications to predict a more feed-efficient cow, as well as environmental sustainability implications. The heritability of the trait is 15%, which is lower than milk and growth heritability but higher than health and fertility traits. Dr. Weigel explains that the current dataset involves 6000 Holstein  cows, therefore reliability is low, however future research will hopefully improve the reliability as well as allow for the trait to be studied in other breeds of dairy cattle, as well as beef cattle and other food animal species.  

For information about the release of new genomic evaluations in cattle and other genomic information, visit the Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding website. 

 Relevant publications:

 Li B, Fang L, Null DJ, Hutchison JL, Connor EE, VanRaden PM, VandeHaar MJ, Tempelman RJ, Weigel KA, Cole JB. High-density genome-wide association study for residual feed intake in Holstein dairy cattle. J Dairy Sci. 2019 Dec;102(12):11067-11080. doi: 10.3168/jds.2019-16645. Epub 2019 Sep 25. PMID: 31563317.

 Li B, VanRaden PM, Guduk E, O'Connell JR, Null DJ, Connor EE, VandeHaar MJ, Tempelman RJ, Weigel KA, Cole JB. Genomic prediction of residual feed intake in US Holstein dairy cattle. J Dairy Sci. 2020 Mar;103(3):2477-2486. doi: 10.3168/jds.2019-17332. Epub 2020 Jan 15. PMID: 31954583.

 Lu Y, Vandehaar MJ, Spurlock DM, Weigel KA, Armentano LE, Connor EE, Coffey M, Veerkamp RF, de Haas Y, Staples CR, Wang Z, Hanigan MD, Tempelman RJ. Genome-wide association analyses based on a multiple-trait approach for modeling feed efficiency. J Dairy Sci. 2018 Apr;101(4):3140-3154. doi: 10.3168/jds.2017-13364. Epub 2018 Feb 1. PMID: 29395135.

 Hardie LC, VandeHaar MJ, Tempelman RJ, Weigel KA, Armentano LE, Wiggans GR, Veerkamp RF, de Haas Y, Coffey MP, Connor EE, Hanigan MD, Staples C, Wang Z, Dekkers JCM, Spurlock DM. The genetic and biological basis of feed efficiency in mid-lactation Holstein dairy cows. J Dairy Sci. 2017 Nov;100(11):9061-9075. doi: 10.3168/jds.2017-12604. Epub 2017 Aug 23. PMID: 28843688.

 Pryce JE, Wales WJ, de Haas Y, Veerkamp RF, Hayes BJ. Genomic selection for feed efficiency in dairy cattle. Animal. 2014 Jan;8(1):1-10. doi: 10.1017/S1751731113001687. Epub 2013 Oct 16. PMID: 24128704.