Unraveling the Vitamin Requirements of Beef Cattle: A Historical Perspective

From the earliest biblical references to contemporary scientific understanding, the journey of unraveling the vitamin requirements of beef cattle spans millennia. One such biblical passage highlights the importance of green grass for the sustenance of cattle, hinting at a rudimentary awareness of their nutritional needs.

However, it wasn't until the four-decade period between 1910 and 1950 that significant strides were made in the realm of vitamin research. This era witnessed groundbreaking discoveries, laying the foundation for our contemporary understanding of these essential nutrients. Vitamin B12, the last recognized vitamin, was discovered over four decades ago, marking a significant milestone in nutritional science.

Today, vitamins are classified into two main groups: fat-soluble and water-soluble. This classification, based on solubility characteristics, offers valuable insights into the nature of these vital nutrients. Fat-soluble vitamins consist solely of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, while water-soluble vitamins, with exceptions like inositol and vitamin C, also contain nitrogen, sulfur, or cobalt.

Animals equipped with a developed rumen possess the remarkable ability to synthesize all recognized water-soluble vitamins, provided their diet contains the necessary elements. This synthesis capability underscores the intricate relationship between diet composition and vitamin production within the animal's body. However, deficiencies in key elements like cobalt can disrupt this synthesis process, leading to detrimental health effects.

For instance, a deficiency in cobalt impedes the synthesis of vitamin B12, which is vital for maintaining normal hemoglobin levels. Consequently, cattle suffering from cobalt deficiency may exhibit symptoms of anemia, reflecting the crucial role of vitamin B12 in blood health. In such cases, veterinarians often administer supplemental B vitamins, including vitamin B12, as part of a "stress pack" to support the animals' health during periods of heightened need.

In conclusion, the exploration of vitamin requirements in beef cattle represents a journey marked by both ancient wisdom and modern scientific inquiry. From biblical references to contemporary veterinary practices, the understanding of these essential nutrients continues to evolve, ensuring the health and well-being of livestock worldwide.
Unraveling the Vitamin Requirements of Beef Cattle: A Historical Perspective

Fattening cattle

Cattle fattening has gained prominence as an important business project of the livestock industry nowadays.

Fattening cattle prior to slaughter increase the dressing percentage and improves the quality of beef. Thus, the value of the animal is increased.

In some countries, feedlot cattle are fed with harvested crops (mostly grains) so as to put them in good finish.

Feedlot fattening involves the provision of an artificial environment wherein cattle are placed in a confined are to consume a predetermined diet. It is a intensive fattening operation based model where cattle are penned in groups of varying sizes for fattening.

Profit comes from the growth of the animals, efficiency of liveweight gain, and improved carcass value relative to the cost of feed and other inputs. Fattening cattle in feedlot requires simple care and management.
Fattening cattle

Feeder cattle

Feeders are generally divided into three groups based on age and weight. These groups are calves, yearlings and other feeders. Feeder cattle typically weight anywhere from 350 to 1000 pounds.

All cattle are designated as calves until they are 1 year old. Yearlings are between 1 and 2 years of age. Yearlings under 18 month of age are often called short yearlings, and those over 18 months of age are often called long yearlings.

Age is a very important factor in selecting feeder cattle. Age affects: the capital investment, rate of gain, use of different kinds of feeds, length of feeding period, amount of feed required and economy of gain.

The grade of feeder cattle is determined by evaluating three general value determining characteristics - frame size, thickness and thriftiness.

Frame size indicates the size of the animal’s skeleton (height and body length) in relation to its age. When two animal are the same age, the large-framed animal is taller at the withers and hips and has a longer than another animal with a smaller frame.

Thickness in feeder cattle refers to the development of the muscle system in relation to the skeletal size, while thriftiness refers to the apparent health of the animal and its ability to grow and fatten normally.

Feeder cattle are grown until they reach a certain size then they are shipped to feedlots, where they are fattened up for slaughter. Feeder cattle feed is generally corn, wheat or soybean meal.
Feeder cattle

Pellets feed for cattle

The pelleting of feed refers to grinding the feed into small particles and then forming them into a small, hard form called a pellet. Cubing is the same process as pelleting, but the cubes are larger in size than the pellets.

Energy and protein rich feeds can be purchased already formulated and sometimes pelleted as commercial pellets or they can be blended on farm from the raw materials to form a balanced concentrate mix.

Individual feeds or complete rations may be pelleted or cubed. Calf rearing pellets often contain vitamin and mineral additives. Cow pellets are not suitable for rearing calves.

Pelleting has various advantages. Animals are not able to sort the feed which is offered. Moreover, various ingredients may be mixed together and fed as one feed or complete ration.

Under range feeding conditions when supplementation is required, one of the more convenient and practical ways of feeding cattle is by pellets or cubes. Different sizes of pellets can be prepared by changing the diets on the machines.

Pelleting grains gives an increase in feed efficiency of up to 5 percent. Feed efficiency is increased because less feed is wasted when it is pelleted. Complete pelleted rations will slightly increase feed intake.

In United States, Illinois Station indicated greatly increased nutritive value of hay as a result of pelleting it. Pelleting of corn cobs also improve their nutritive value, similarly dehydrating and pelleting the whole plat corn silage will improve its value.
Pellets feed for cattle

Artificial insemination of cattle

Artificial insemination is the placing of sperm in the female reproductive tract buy other than natural means. The breeder uses an inseminating tube to deposit sperm in the cervix and uterus of the cow.

In the UK, around 80% of insemination in cattle is by artificial means.

Artificial insemination of cattle has become standard practice in nearly all industrial countries and is a highly successful conventional method of propagating the traits of a few of the most precious breeding bulls.

In Nordic and Western European countries, artificial insemination in dairy cattle has been used extensively.

On the technical front, the discovery of cryoprotectants, the freezing of  semen using liquid nitrogen as the refrigerant and the introduction of the plastic straw as a semen container have been noteworthy milestone.

The advantages of using artificial inseminations are:
*permit use of superior, performance-tested bulls, in any herd
*Semen from a desired characteristics bulls even though it is hundreds, even tosudnas of kilometers
*Permits easier use of exotic breed bulls
*Improves records for performance testing
*Increases the number of cows that can be bred to superiors bulls
*Coordinates well with estrus synchronization programs
*Semen can be frozen and transported easily as well as be kept for year, often long after the death of the donor bull.
*Reduces the spread of disease
Artificial insemination of cattle

Mishima cattle

In several areas of Japan, beef is shipped with area names. Some examples are Kobe, Mishima, Omi and Sanda. There are five major breeds of Wagyu: Japanese Black, Japanese Brown, Japanese Polled, Japanese Shorthorn and Kumamoto Reds.

Mishima cattle have the same characteristics to the Japanese Black founder cattle. Mishima Island cattle had never been influence by foreign breeds and were designated as a protected species in 1928. It is among the most highly prized beef in Japan.

The breed is named after tiny Mishima Island in the Sea of Japan, 40 m northwest of Yamaguchi Prefecture. The Mishima wild cattle on Mishima Island have never been crossed with modern European breeds.

The Mishima Island cattle have a brownish black coat and skin. They produce excellent meat for high marbling quality. The meat is richer and it has sought nuttiness.
Mishima cattle

Quality beef desired by consumers

Beef is graded on the basis of those characteristics that provide the best indication of its relative desirability to the consumer. Consumers desire the following qualities in beef:
Palatability. Palatability is influenced by the tenderness, juiciness and flavor of the fat and lean.

Attractiveness. The color of the lean, the degree of fatness and the marbling are leading factors in determining buyer appeal.

Moderate amount of fat. Fat finish and marbling were considered indicative to better eating quality. These factors affect the juiciness.

Tenderness. Consumers want fine grained, tender beef in contrast to coarse-grained, less tender meat. Pasture-fed beef is generally les tender and less desirable to consumers than beef from concentrate-finished cattle.

Pasture finishing cattle typically takes longer period of time and therefore results in greater age of the animal harvest which leads to decreased tenderness.

Small cuts

Repeatability. Housewife wants a cut of beef just like the one that she purchased last time, which calls for repeatability.

Ease of preparation.

Consumers who preferred Choice beef did so because of its advantages in palatability while those who preferred Select beef did so because of its advantages in leanness.

Higher quality beef products are desired in the hotel-restaurant and retail markets. Fast-food industry firms on the other hand, purchase lower quality beef products.
Quality beef desired by consumers

Foot and mouth disease in cattle

Foot and mouth disease is a highly contagious viral vesicular disease of cloven-hoofed animals.  Foot and mouth disease virus is the prototype member of the Aphthovirus genus of the family Picornaviridae.

Although seldom lethal in adult animals, it causes serious production losses and is a major constraint to international trade in livestock and livestock products.

Foot and mouth disease spreads mots rapidly during the summer months because of the greater traffic in animals then.

Foot and mouth disease is most commonly associated with movement of infected animals and their contact with susceptible animals.

During the early stages of disease, infected animals shed virus in all their excretions and secretions, including their breath. The disease is characterized by depression, fever, and the appearance of vesicles filled with clear fluid in certain mucous membranes and portions of the skin.

The essential pathological change in the tongue is necrosis of epithelial cells in the stratum spinosum, intracellular edema and granulocytic infiltration.

The disease is endemic and at a high prevalence in many countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia and is also present in parts of South America.
Foot and mouth disease in cattle

Holstein cattle

The Holstein, as it is commonly known today, was originally known as Holstein-Friesian because of its origination in the province of Friesland in the Netherlands and the Holstein region of northern Germany. In Holland, they were bred to make the best use of the grass pastures available.

Holsteins came to the United States in large importations during the 1860s and 1870s.

Some Holsteins possess a recessive gene for red hair color and red and white animals commonly live alongside their black and white counterparts.

The Holstein is a large-framed animal, the mature cow mass varying from 550 to 650 kg. Bulls often exceed 1000kg. Because they are fleshy animals, the Dutch types of Holstein are often classified as dual-purpose animals rather than as dairy cattle.

Their large size is beneficial in reducing the labor requirement per liter of milk produced, as labor input is largely a function of the number of cows on a farm.

Holsteins are known for their ability to produce large quantities of milk that can, in many cases, approach the butterfat and protein content of other major dairy breeds.

The average Holstein cow produces about 18,000 pounds of milk a year with 3.2 percent protein and 3.6 percent butterfat averages.
Holstein cattle

Stocker cattle

There are typically three stages of beef production: cow-calf, growing and finishing.

Most calves go through some sort of post weaning growing –programs, although specific program vary in structure and type.

Stocker cattle refer to the beef cattle between the weaning and finishing stages when they add an extra 200 to 400 pounds to reach their mature weight so they are ready for slaughter.

Stocker calves are developed on high quality forages until they enter the feedlot.
They may be produced as a preliminary phase before a cattle feeding operation.

Most producers maintain cow herds and produce calves for sale at about seven to ten months. When calves sold they go to stocker buyers who grow them until they are ready to enter the feedlots for fattening.

Stocker cattle represent an important segment of the beef production and marketing chain.

Finished weight depends on breed; most grass fed cattle breeds are finished at about 1000 to 1200 pounds. Stocker cattle typically weight between 400 and 600 pounds when they are purchased after weaning.

Stocker operations have more flexibility than cow-calf operations because they do not have to wait out their cattle’s natural breeding and nursing cycles to buy or sell animals.

The core components of stocker production include nutrition, pasture management, quality assurance and animal health, marketing and risk management, genetics, and business management.
Stocker cattle

History of cattle in United States

Cattle are not native to the United States, Christopher Columbus brought cattle to the New World on his second voyage in 1493. Texas longhorn can be traced back when Christopher Columbus landed in Santo Domingo with Spanish cattle.

Cattle were essential to the survival of the Spaniards in Mexico; the animals furnished meat, leather, and tallow. Descendents of these cattle were brought to the United States from Mexico in 1521.

More cattle were brought by Portuguese traders in 1553. The English were the first to bring large numbers of cattle to the United States with the founding of the Jamestown colony in Virginia in 1611.

The first cattle imported into New England form England were those brought over in 1620 for the Massachusetts Bay Company.

About the same time the Danes imported cattle from Denmark into New Hampshire and the Swedes made importations from Sweden, in Delaware as early as 1630.

In 1821, Mexico gained independence, homesteaders and ranchers from the United States poured into Texas, bringing their cattle with them. When Texas won its independence from Mexico 15 years later, thousands more American began moving south.

In 1900 the vast majority of beef cattle in the United States of America were Shorthorn, Hereford or Angus. The first meat packing plant in America was founded by William Pynchon in 1640 near Springfield.
History of cattle in United States

Domestication of cattle

Cattle were the first domestic animas capable of pulling a plough. The earliest evidence for the domestication of cattle, during the 8,000 BC, points toward the marshland and forest of the Middle Euphrates Basin. 

Humped Zebu (Bos indicus) are believed to have been domesticated around 7000 to 8000 years ago, in the Indus Valley region of modern Pakistan.

Early man used cattle for draft, meat and milk. Cattle were also a measure of wealth.

Several breeds of domesticated cattle were known by 2500 B.C. An interesting frieze from Ur, dating from 3000 B.C, shows that cows were then milked from the rear.

About this same time the fattening of cattle by forced feeding was practiced in Egypt.

In the late nineteenth century, Eduard Hahn has argued that domestication of cattle emerged from religious practices based on awe, fear and admiration of the great bulls, which sometimes stood two meters at the withers.

Modern cattle are descendants of Bos taurus and Bos indicus. Bos taurus are domestic cattle that came from either the Aurochs or the Celtic Shorthorn.
Domestication of cattle