This lesson offers an understanding of the historic and economic implications of the livestock industry to our state and nation. Learners will recognize the best management practices for specific food animal species, as well as identify the important breeds of each species. This represents a portion of the Introduction to Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources (AFNR) series in Nebraska middle and high school agricultural education.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Ruminants are the only animals not dependent on dietary amino acids as a source of nitrogen. They have ureolytic bacteria in their rumen that hydrolyze urea into ammonia and use it as a nitrogen source. However, very few ureolytic bacteria have been isolated and studied in pure culture to date. To close this gap, researchers established and used a new integrated approach on bacteria from cattle rumens. They started with urease gene (ureC) guided enrichment and then embedded single cells in agarose microspheres for in situ cultivation. This allowed them to isolate and characterize diverse ureolytic bacteria with demonstrated urease activity. The researchers sequenced a subset of the isolated bacteria and found 28 strains from 12 species with urease genes. These bacterial species had not previously been found in the rumen, but this team detected them in metagenomes from 6 ruminant species. The new strains contained unique genes compared to known related strains, indicating new metabolic functions..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

These materials have been put together to help students and youth to learn the basics of judging and evaluating dairy cattle using various methods. This resource was designed to be used with other resources to help teach basic dairy cattle judging and evaluation. There are numerous 4-H, Cooperative Extension and Breed Association booklets freely available, referred to in the document. However, this resource differs as it is intentionally full of visual examples and videos. The objective is to provide educators with additional resources to help beginning cattle judges understand visual evaluation and comparative judging techniques, as well as breed standards, linear scoring, oral reasons and the basics of fitting and showmanship.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"In the fight against global hunger, dairy milk plays an important part. Now, according to new research, there might be a way to make milk even more nutritious. Researchers previously discovered that even when fed the same diet, some cows make higher-protein milk than others. To find out why, they recently examined the microbiome of cows’ rumens. Multi-omics analysis showed that a large proportion of variations in milk protein yield, or MPY, could be traced to differences in rumen microbiota. A closer look revealed that cows producing high-protein milk hosted a high abundance of certain species of bacteria, including Prevotella, and lower abundances of methane-producing bacteria. This unique assembly of microbes could help cows increase their microbial protein synthesis and amino acid supply, improving their MPY. These findings could help clarify the microbiome- and host-dependent contributions to MPY and inform precision feeding and genetic strategies to increase milk quality and production..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"As the human population grows, so does the competition for resources between people and livestock. To meet the growing demand for dairy under these conditions, we need to optimize feed efficiency in dairy cattle. In ruminants, feed efficiency is determined by the ability of the rumen, and the microbes within it, to break down complex plant fibers. But the details of how the rumen microbiome contributes to feed efficiency are poorly understood. To close this gap, researchers examined the ruminal metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, and metabolomics of dairy cows with varying feed efficiency. Co-occurrence network analysis revealed that ‘high-efficiency’ animals had stronger and more numerous associations between microbes than animals with low feed efficiency. High-efficiency animals also showed positive interactions between members of the Selenomonas and Succinivibrionaceae bacterial families..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Dairy cows emit large amounts of the greenhouse gas methane due to microbial fermentation in their stomachs, which poses an environmental problem. It also decreases the cows’ growth efficiency, as some energy from feed is lost as methane. The supplement 3-nitrooxypropanol (3-NOP) can help reduce methane emission by inhibiting a methane-forming enzyme, but 3-NOP’s effects on the microbiome in the rumen (the stomach compartment where fermentation occurs) haven’t been investigated. It’s also unclear why hydrogen gas (H₂) accumulates less than expected when methane production is blocked by 3-NOP. To learn more, researchers recently characterized the rumen microbes in 3-NOP-supplemented dairy cows. 3-NOP reduced the abundance of Methanobrevibacter species, which make methane from carbon dioxide. To a lesser extent, it also reduced the abundance of Methanosphaera species, which make methane from methanol..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.