Cooperative Extension Resources for Livestock Care and Production
Although Alaska is a large state, the livestock density is lower than in many others.
Fortunately, Cooperative Extension offers a network of resources from the USDA, State
Land Grant Universities and extension agents around the country to support agriculture
within the United States.
Livestock production has made significant advances in the past century. Many of these
advances have been achieved with intentional genetic selection, nutrition, and husbandry
practice changes to improve animal health and production. Information on these topics
are readily available through Cooperative Extension websites from various Land Grant
Universities.
Livestock industries have developed many quality assurance programs, some in cooperation
with state and federal agencies. Some of the quality assurance programs include standards
or guidelines for the entire production process and are referred to as process verified
programs. One example of this is the National Beef Quality Assurance Program. This
is a voluntary program that provides guidelines on nutrition, hoof care, animal handling,
transport and more.
Participation in quality assurance programs may offer a marketing advantage, as some
consumers will prefer products that are verified by these programs. The guidelines
for these programs can be an efficient resource for learning industry standards even
if a program does not align with the goals of your farm.
If you are looking for a specific topic, performing a web search that includes the topic and words cooperative extension in the search should provide more focused results. You can also search for short courses or webinars offered by Cooperative Extension programs. On most Extension homepages, you can look for tabs that direct you to Resources, Educational Materials or Publications.
Links to some Cooperative Extension sites and a few popular assurance programs can be accessed here, but there are many others out there for you to benefit from.
Genetic Selection of Animals
Genetic selection can facilitate improved animal health and production. There are multiple ways to select breeding stock. Historically behavioral characteristics, physical traits and pedigree were used to select breeding stock. More recently estimated breeding values (EBVs) that assign numerical scores to an animal’s traits and compare it to others in the breed have been used. Genomic Selection (GS) is a newer tool that looks at the genome of the animal and evaluates genetic marker for certain traits. Animals are selected for traits such as growth rates, feed efficiency, parameters of fertility, milk production, parasite resistance and more.
Estimated Breeding Values (EBVs) and Estimated Progeny Differences (EPDs) are two tools that can be used to help select breeding stock and advance genetic selection towards production goals. They both are estimations and the type and quality of information used to make these estimations will impact their accuracy. Therefore, accuracy data should be considered when using these tools.
Estimated Breeding Values (EBVs) are an estimate of an animal’s genetic merit based on its characteristics. These are often used for small ruminant selection.
Expected Progeny Differences (EPDs) are estimates of the genetic merit of an animal as a parent, or what it will pass onto its offspring. This is considered half of the EBV. This is used to estimate how offspring from this parent will perform compared to other individuals within the same breed. These are often used in cattle selection.
Genomic Selection (GS) is a molecular DNA test that looks for genetic markers of traits and can be used with other tools for estimation of an animal’s genetic merits. Genomic Enhanced EPDs (GE- EPDs) have better accuracy that EPDs alone. Genomic Selection can also be used to evaluate inbreeding.
Resources:
“Using Estimated Breeding Values ”
“Understanding and Using Expected Progeny Differences” (University of Arkansas)
“Understanding EPDs and Genomic Testing in Beef Cattle” (Penn State University)
“Using Expected Progeny Differences for Swine Selection” (North Carolina State University)
Current Topics:
Other Resources:
The Iowa State University Beginning Farmer Center may be worth a look if you are starting an agricultural endeavor.