: Nutritional programming in replacement dairy heifers: Future-proofing herd performance, health and behaviour

：替代奶牛的营养规划：面向未来的牛群性能、健康和行为

• 批准号: 2903752
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Queen's University Belfast
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2903752
• 关键词: Nutritional; programming; replacement; dairy; heifers

This research project at Queen's University Belfast (QUB) is in collaboration with University of Reading (UoR), and will also benefit from the farm animal research facilities at the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI), Hillsborough and Trouw Nutrition Ruminant Research Centre, The Netherlands. The lifetime performance of a dairy calf is impacted by its health, nutrition and environment, with a sub optimal position in any of these factors affecting the animal's ability to achieve its genetic potential. The plane and composition of nutrients provided to calves in early life may be linked to changes in the calf metabolism and have the potential to persist throughout the animal's lifetime, with implications for performance, longevity and welfare. Further, nutrition can impact the gut microbiome, disruptions to which can have a long lasting impact on immune system development and function. This is an important consideration in livestock production systems given the economic impact of disease and accompanying environmental implications. The microbiome has also been linked to behavioural development in adult dairy cattle, with improvements in milk quality and production found in calmer dairy cows. However, little is currently known about the impact of early life dairy calf nutrition on later life, and if certain nutritional regimes can be used to generate positive traits for production, health and welfare.This research project will extend our understanding of the effects of early life nutrition and help to develop nutritional strategies in calves for metabolic programing of the future dairy herd. This will allow development of strategies for targeted selection of traits which will contribute to an environmentally sustainable, high welfare and productive dairy system. The project will assess the impact of pre- and post- wean nutritional regime in dairy calves on performance and behavioural traits at the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute research farm in Hillsborough. As the calves grow and transition into the dairy herd the project will examine the longitudinal stability of metabotype alongside the correlation between metabotype and animal phenotype (e.g. feed efficiency, milk production, behaviour). The project will also evaluate the impact of nutritional regime on metabotype and the gut microbiota using the state-of-the-art omics methods at the research facilities in QUB and UoR.

这项研究项目在女王大学贝尔法斯特（QUB）是在合作与阅读大学（UoR），也将受益于农场动物研究设施在农业食品和生物科学研究所（AFBI），希尔斯伯勒和特劳营养反刍动物研究中心，荷兰。乳牛的一生表现受到其健康、营养和环境的影响，在任何这些影响动物实现其遗传潜力的能力的因素中处于次优位置。在生命早期提供给小牛的营养素的平面和组成可能与小牛代谢的变化有关，并有可能在整个动物的一生中持续存在，对性能，寿命和福利产生影响。此外，营养会影响肠道微生物组，对肠道微生物组的破坏会对免疫系统的发育和功能产生长期持久的影响。鉴于疾病的经济影响和伴随的环境影响，这是畜牧生产系统的一个重要考虑因素。微生物组也与成年奶牛的行为发育有关，在平静的奶牛中发现牛奶质量和产量的改善。然而，目前还不知道的影响，早期生活奶牛犊牛营养对以后的生活，如果某些营养制度可以用来产生积极的性状，为生产，健康和福利。这项研究项目将扩大我们的理解的影响，早期生活营养，并帮助制定营养策略，在犊牛的代谢规划的未来奶牛群。这将有助于制定有针对性的性状选择策略，这将有助于建立一个环境可持续、高福利和多产的乳制品系统。该项目将在希尔斯伯勒的农业食品和生物科学研究所研究农场评估断奶前和断奶后营养制度对奶牛性能和行为特征的影响。随着小牛的生长和过渡到奶牛群，该项目将检查代谢型的纵向稳定性以及代谢型和动物表型之间的相关性（例如饲料效率，产奶量，行为）。该项目还将在QUB和UoR的研究设施中使用最先进的组学方法评估营养方案对代谢型和肠道微生物群的影响。