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Test duration for growth, feed intake, and feed efficiency in beef cattle using the GrowSafe System¹

Z. Wang^*,2, J. D. Nkrumah^*, C. Li^*,, J. A. Basarab, L. A. Goonewardene, E. K. Okine^*, D. H. Crews, Jr. and S. S. Moore^*

^* Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2P5 Canada; and Alberta Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, Lacombe Research Center, Lacombe, Alberta, T4L 1W1 Canada; and Alberta Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, 7000-113 Street, Edmonton, Alberta, T4H 5T6 Canada; and and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Research Centre, Lethbridge, Alberta, T1J 4B1

² Corresponding author: zhiquan{at}ualberta.ca

This study was conducted to determine the optimum test duration and the effect of missing data on accuracy of measuring feed efficiency and its 4 related traits ADG, DMI, feed conversion ratio, and residual feed intake in beef cattle using data from 456 steers with 5,397 weekly averaged feed intakes and BW repeated measurements taken over 91 d. Data were collected using the GrowSafe System at the University of Alberta Kinsella Research Station. The changes and relative changes in phenotypic residual variances and correlations (Pearson and Spearman) among data from shortened test durations (7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49, 56, 63, 70, 77, or 84 d) and a 91-d test were used to determine the optimum test duration for the 4 traits. The traits were fitted to a mixed model with repeated measures using SAS. Test durations for ADG, DMI, feed conversion ratio, and residual feed intake could be shortened to 63, 35, 42, and 63 d, respectively, without significantly reducing the accuracy of the tests when BW was measured weekly. The accuracy of the test was not compromised when up to 30% of the records were randomly removed after the first 35 d on test. These results have valuable and practical implications for performance and feed efficiency testing in beef cattle.

Key Words: beef cattle • feed efficiency • repeated measures analysis • test duration

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