Genetic analysis of breeding traits in a Charolais cattle population segregating an inactive myostatin allele

The objective of this study was to quantify the effects of the Charolais-specific inactive myostatin allele on phenotypic means and genetic parameters of heifer breeding traits. Records were registered from 1996 to 2006 in 282 herds dedicated to the on-farm French Charolais purebred progeny test. Data consisted of 36,867 female calf records, including 17,518 inseminated heifers that were bred by 186 genotyped sires, of which 43 were heterozygous and 6 were double muscled bulls. Six traits were analyzed under a univariate animal model accounting for maternal effects and myostatin sire genotype: calving difficulty, birth and weaning weights, muscle and skeleton scores at weaning, and fertility of artificially inseminated heifers. The inactive myostatin allele had a large positive effect on weaned heifer muscle score, unfavorable effects on calving difficulty and skeleton score, and small effects on birth and weaning weight. This allele did not induce an adverse effect on heifer fertility. Univariate estimates of polygenic variance parameters were almost unaffected by the estimation of the myostatin sire genotype, except for heifer morphology traits. Direct and maternal genetic variances and covariances were significantly reduced under a model accounting for the myostatin sire genotype effect on muscle score. The myostatin genotype explained 45% of the direct genetic variance and had a pleiotropic action across both direct and maternal effects on muscle score. Because the myostatin sire genotype had no significant effect on birth weight, the multitrait sire analysis concerned only the 5 other traits. Accounting for the myostatin sire genotype, estimates of polygenic correlation between skeleton score and muscle score, on the one hand, and calving difficulty on the other hand, were largely modified: from a negative estimate of –0.3 to 0.0 and from a positive estimate of 0.4 to 0.7, respectively.

Day 5 3.5 Miles, Day

Day 5 3.5 Miles, Day 6 1.4 Miles

My web stats appear

My web stats appear to have taken viagra… this is good. Me like.

Phenotypic aspects of lamb survival in Australian Merino sheep

Lamb survival in Australian Merino sheep was investigated using survival records from 14,142 lambs born between 1975 and 1983. This data set included roll calls of live lambs at birth, 7 d, marking (30 d), and weaning (110 d), which allowed 4 binomial traits (alive or dead) to be recorded for each lamb at each time interval. The average survival to weaning was 72.4% with 23% of singles, 32% of twins, and 45% of multiple-born lambs not surviving to weaning. The timing of lamb loss was consistent across birth types; 6% died within 24 h of birth, a further 14% by 7 d, 3% between 7 and 30 d, and 8% between 30 and 110 d. Partitioning of phenotypic variation revealed that after the first postpartum week, mothering ability of Australian Merino ewes is not an important factor in lamb survival. Some ewes repeatedly lose lambs at birth and in the early postnatal period, but the intraclass correlation decreased by a factor of 10 for survival after 7 d of age (0.096 at birth and 0.100 at 7 d, falling to 0.009 at marking and 0.018 at weaning). This study examined the relationships of lamb survival with lamb birth weight and found varying relationships at each time period. Whereas birth weight had a highly significant curvilinear relationship with survival to weaning, the relationship was flatter for survival to 24 h with only small differences between average birth weights and the birth weight at which survival was optimized (–0.04, 0.28, and 0.54 kg for single-, twin-, and multiple-born lambs, respectively). This suggests that any management interventions to increase birth weight may increase the risk of death to both lamb and ewe during the lambing process due to dystocia. Among twin-born lambs there was a carryover effect of losses at birth on subsequent loss in the first week of life. Survival to 7 d of age was highly dependent on the survival of the littermate, favoring those whose littermate survived, but after the first week, this trend was reversed. Lamb birthcoat score had a small positive impact on survival only at birth.

Genetic analysis of breeding traits in a Charolais cattle population segregating an inactive myostatin allele

The objective of this study was to quantify the effects of the Charolais-specific inactive myostatin allele on phenotypic means and genetic parameters of heifer breeding traits. Records were registered from 1996 to 2006 in 282 herds dedicated to the on-farm French Charolais purebred progeny test. Data consisted of 36,867 female calf records, including 17,518 inseminated heifers that were bred by 186 genotyped sires, of which 43 were heterozygous and 6 were double muscled bulls. Six traits were analyzed under a univariate animal model accounting for maternal effects and myostatin sire genotype: calving difficulty, birth and weaning weights, muscle and skeleton scores at weaning, and fertility of artificially inseminated heifers. The inactive myostatin allele had a large positive effect on weaned heifer muscle score, unfavorable effects on calving difficulty and skeleton score, and small effects on birth and weaning weight. This allele did not induce an adverse effect on heifer fertility. Univariate estimates of polygenic variance parameters were almost unaffected by the estimation of the myostatin sire genotype, except for heifer morphology traits. Direct and maternal genetic variances and covariances were significantly reduced under a model accounting for the myostatin sire genotype effect on muscle score. The myostatin genotype explained 45% of the direct genetic variance and had a pleiotropic action across both direct and maternal effects on muscle score. Because the myostatin sire genotype had no significant effect on birth weight, the multitrait sire analysis concerned only the 5 other traits. Accounting for the myostatin sire genotype, estimates of polygenic correlation between skeleton score and muscle score, on the one hand, and calving difficulty on the other hand, were largely modified: from a negative estimate of –0.3 to 0.0 and from a positive estimate of 0.4 to 0.7, respectively.

New Year,New Server, and New Blog

I really hate moving my websites around. You end up with all sorts of errors if you are using software packages. And you never know how long you’re complete move is going to take. But on the other hand sometimes it’s a refreshing start when you’re focus has been diluted. I have worked out a deal where I recieve my hosting for free at least for now. And you can’t beat that when you have more expenses to worry about such as marketing.

 This past year I started well but things kind of flopped halfway through but I learned a lot of very important lessons that I hope will help me this year. I surpassed my goals in the first half and then they just flopped halfway through due to my personal responsibilities so I am trying this again to see what I can do with all of my new found knowledge. I hope that some of you will keep up with my journey and learn from it. Because that’s what being a web developer, webmaster, web designer, or internet entreprenuer is all about. Learning from other mistakes as well as you’re own and becoming successful at what you do. Well let’s be successful together. It’s a new year and I have new goals and I hope that you do as well. Lets get started at making this the best year so far!

BOARD-INVITED REVIEW: The biology and regulation of preadipocytes and adipocytes in meat animals

The quality and value of the carcass in domestic meat animals are reflected in its protein and fat content. Preadipocytes and adipocytes are important in establishing the overall fatness of a carcass, as well as being the main contributors to the marbling component needed for consumer preference of meat products. Although some fat accumulation is essential, any excess fat that is deposited into adipose depots other than the marbling fraction is energetically unfavorable and reduces efficiency of production. Hence, this review is focused on current knowledge about the biology and regulation of the important cells of adipose tissue: preadipocytes and adipocytes.

Strategies to improve fertility in postpartum multiparous Bos indicus cows submitted to a fixed-time insemination protocol with gonadotropin-releasing hormone and prostaglandin F2{alpha}

In Exp. 1, we evaluated the effects of 2 lengths of progesterone exposure [CIDR (controlled intravaginal drug release); 7 vs. 14 d] before a modified CO-Synch protocol [50.0-µg injection of GnRH 6.5 d before a 25.0-mg injection of PGF₂ followed by another injection of GnRH and fixed-time AI (TAI) 2 d after PGF₂], with or without temporary weaning (TW) before GnRH treatments, on fertility of suckled multiparous Bos indicus cows (n = 283) and on calf performance. Timed AI pregnancy rates for cows receiving 7 d CIDR + TW, 7 d CIDR, 14 d CIDR + TW, and 14 d CIDR were 53, 47, 46, and 41%, respectively (P > 0.10). Calves submitted to two 48-h TW 6 d apart had decreased mean BW at 240 d (187.9 ± 2.7 vs. 195.5 ± 2.7 kg; P < 0.05), but BW at 420 d was not affected by TW (240.1 ± 5.1 kg). In Exp. 2, we evaluated the effect of no treatment and treatment with or without a CIDR insert between GnRH and PGF₂ treatments of a modified CO-Synch protocol on pregnancy rate to TAI, and throughout a 90-d breeding season in suckled multiparous Bos indicus cows (n = 453). The inclusion of a CIDR between first GnRH and PGF₂ treatments of a modified CO-Synch protocol did not improve pregnancy rate (29 and 33% for cows receiving CO-Synch + CIDR and CO-Synch protocol, respectively), and cycling cows had poorer TAI pregnancy rates than anestrous cows treated with either synchronization protocol (21.7 vs. 40.7%; P < 0.05). However, regardless of treatment with CIDR, cows submitted to TAI protocol had greater (P < 0.05) pregnancy rates at 30 (54.8 vs. 11.2%), 60 (72.1 vs. 38.8%), and 90 d (82.0 vs. 57.9%) of breeding season than untreated cows.

Hosting

Getting started is always the hardest part as an aspiring web publisher. What if you do something wrong? What if you spend too much money on something you can’t use? These are the same doubts that ran through my mind in the beginning but honestly you’re just going to have to get over your fears and start somewhere. I can only point you in the right direction it is up to you to find your own path.

If you already have an idea of what you want to do the first thing any web publisher needs is hosting. You should definitely check out my favorite webhost so far Host Monster.  They have moderate rates, an awesome hosting package and more than enough room to expand your growing network of sites. But the main thing that seperates Host Monster’s webhosting for me is the fact that you can host unlimited domains.  Plus they currently give you 600GB… yes that’s right Gigabytes of data storage and 6000 Gigabytes of data transfer… it’s perfect for a startup to medium sized web company. And this is what you get for the current price of $5.95 a month. It’s hard to find a better deal than that. Don’t get me wrong there are other great hosts, very few with a bigger package for the price, but all seem to be lacking something and I will attest that Host Monster has the best support I have ever dealt with. They come highly recommended by me personally.

CLICK HERE TO SIGNUP FOR HostMonster.COM NOW.

The only thing Host Monster lacks that would make them the perfect web host in my opinion is ASP scripting capabilities. ASP is the microsoft alternative to the PHP scripting language and I have one site that is coded in ASP and it is such a hassle to have to recode it from scratch instead of just slapping it onto my server. So if anyone from Host Monster just happens to read this if you could ad ChiliSoft ASP support to my account… you would make me a very happy man indeed.

And as for more hosting packages there are many great hosts and I will attempt to name some of the best out there. Some are affiliate links and some are not, regardless I have made the best available and if I could put an affiliate link I did, you don’t have to sign up under me but it would be appreciated.

The Story of Hawaiian Jeff and How He Became Embalmed Jeff

Jeffrey Kapule was a pretty normal teenager about 13 years ago, however like most of his peer group he dabbled with drugs in his teens, however unlike his friends he jumped off the high dive before he knew how to swim.

I met Jeff when I was about 17 going to high school, I don’t recall anything about him standing out or being out of the ordinary but then again I didn’t really “hang out” with him at the time. What I do remember is hanging out with my friend Stuart Whitehead and hearing about how bad ass of a guitar player he was.

By now I’ve heard him play and yes, he was an awesome guitar player, and we had an idea for a band with 3 bass players so we were talking to anyone and everyone with some potential our age.

But that’s getting off track a bit, Jeff’s story hasn’t even began yet. When Jeff was young he had experimented with embalming fluid. In case you don’t know that is what the frog you dissected in science class came in. Now all I want to know is what person in their right mind looks at that, smells it, and things…. hey I bet that would FUCK ME UP! Gross. But anyway whatever, someone smoked it. Hey… maybe they were smoking.. dropped their last cigarrette in it, and was like. Fuck it, I’m gonna smoke it anyway! lol But anyway Jeff tried embalming fluid and was on a trip for a couple of years before I met him.

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