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Genetic-Environmental Interactions in Identical and Fraternal Twin Beef Cattle. III. Weight Change, Feed Consumption and Production Traits during Lactation^{1, 2, 3,}

University of Wisconsin, Madison 53706

Abstract

The first two papers in this series have reported the results of a study of genetic-environmental interaction on growth from 7 to 24 months of age (Kress, Hauser and Chapman, 1971a) and on feed efficiency, reproductive performance, conformation score and fat thickness (Kress et al. 19710) based on identical and fraternal twin beef cattle data.

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the importance of genetic-environmental interactions for weight change, feed consumption and production traits of beef cows during lactation and to determine whether any significant interactions were due to changes in rank of the genotypes between environments.

The experimental design utilized identical and fraternal twin female beef cattle and two diets, one high and one low in energy. Some sets had one member on each diet (split sets) and other sets had both members on the same diet (non-split sets). A more complete description of the experimental design and diets and the method of diagnosing the like-sexed twins as monozygotic or dizygotic has been given by Kress et al. (1971a).

¹ Published with the approval of the Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station. The data were obtained from research conducted in cooperation with the Animal Science Research Division, A.R.S., U.S.D.A., as a part of Regional Project NC-1, Improvement of Beef Cattle Through Breeding Methods.

² Support from Tri-State Breeders Cooperative, Westby, Wisconsin is gratefully acknowledged.

³ Paper No. 1409 from the Laboratory of Genetics and No. 589 from the Department of Meat and Animal Science.

⁴ Present address: Animal and Range Sciences Department, Montana State University, Bozeman.