General Session III
What Weighting Should be Given to BRD Resistance in Selection Decisions?
BOZEMAN, Mont. (June 3, 2011) — Livestock researchers have focused efforts on bovine respiratory disease (BRD) since the 1800s, yet the disease claims about 1.4%, or 350,000 head, of cattle each year in U.S. finishing operations, Alison Van Eenennaam, University of California, Davis, told attendees of the 43rd annual research symposium hosted by the Beef Improvement Federation (BIF). These BRD fatalities equate to millions of dollars lost each year.
Van Eenennaam believes that an intense, extensive research project on low-heritability, high-value traits like disease resistance could prove valuable to the cattle industry. She and more than 20 other researchers from six universities were recently awarded a $10 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to begin such a massive research project this summer.
“The fact that there is genetic variation means that disease resistance is a heritable trait,” she said. “This will be useful in more than one way. The American public has expressed concern over vaccinations and continues to demand more and more drug-free product. Additionally, we know that bacteria gradually become resistant to vaccines, so cattle producers could benefit from additional methods to help prevent disease.”
This isn’t a groundbreaking concept. “The dairy industry selects for cattle with mastitis resistance,” Van Eenennaam noted. “Chicken breeders have used breeding to improve resistance to avian flu and Marek’s disease.”
Recent research on BRD has shown a genetic link, albeit relatively weak, between animals with higher disease resistance. BRD most often affects cattle in feedlot situations, so the challenge may be in establishing economic incentives for seedstock producers and commercial producers to select for such traits when they may or may not generally experience problems with BRD, said Van Eenennaam.
“Producers will need to ask themselves how to compare the value of a disease-resistance trait with all the other EPDs (expected progeny differences) available, like marbling, weaning weight, birth weight, etc.,” she said. “If disease-resistance traits are to become a crucial decision-maker for the seedstock producer or commercial cattleman, there needs to be a price signal moving back to those producers to help pay for these traits.”
To listen to this presentation and to view the proceedings paper or the PowerPoint that accompanied it, visit the Newsroom at www.BIFconference.com.
BIF’s 43rd Annual Research Symposium and Annual Meeting was hosted June 1-4 on campus at Montana State University, Bozeman, Mont.
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