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

贝尔法斯特女王大学（QUB）的这项研究项目与雷丁大学（UoR）合作，也将受益于荷兰希尔斯堡农业食品和生物科学研究所（AFBI）和特鲁营养反刍动物研究中心的农场动物研究设施。奶牛小牛的一生生产性能受到其健康、营养和环境的影响，在这些影响动物实现其遗传潜力的能力的因素中，任何一个都处于次优位置。犊牛早期营养物质的种类和组成可能与犊牛新陈代谢的变化有关，并有可能在其一生中持续存在，对犊牛的生产性能、寿命和福利都有影响。此外，营养会影响肠道微生物群，对肠道微生物群的破坏会对免疫系统的发育和功能产生长期的影响。鉴于疾病的经济影响和随之而来的环境影响，这是畜牧生产系统中的一个重要考虑因素。这种微生物群还与成年奶牛的行为发育有关，在较平静的奶牛中发现了牛奶质量和产量的改善。然而，目前人们对奶牛早期营养对后期生活的影响知之甚少，也不知道某些营养制度是否可以用来产生对生产、健康和福利有益的性状。该研究项目将扩展我们对生命早期营养影响的理解，并有助于制定犊牛营养策略，为未来奶牛群的代谢规划提供帮助。这将有助于制定有针对性地选择性状的战略，这将有助于建立一个环境可持续、高福利和高产的乳制品系统。该项目将在希尔斯堡农业食品和生物科学研究所的研究农场评估犊牛断奶前和断奶后营养状况对生产性能和行为特征的影响。随着犊牛生长并过渡到奶牛群，该项目将检查代谢型的纵向稳定性以及代谢型与动物表型（如饲料效率、产奶量、行为）之间的相关性。该项目还将在昆士兰大学和德克萨斯大学的研究机构使用最先进的组学方法评估营养制度对代谢型和肠道微生物群的影响。

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.