Animal Production Science
Volume 65
Number 2 2025
Reducing the mob size of triplet-bearing ewes increases the survival of their lambs. An economic analysis demonstrated that the optimum mob size for triplet-bearing ewes was approximately 35% that for twin-bearing ewes, regardless of whether that was achieved by subdividing paddocks or differential allocation of ewes to existing paddocks. Identifying triplet-bearing ewes was justified purely from the benefits of differential paddock allocation at lambing if the proportion of triplet-bearing ewes is greater than 3% for Maternal ewes or 7% for Merino ewes.
On pasture-based dairy farms, cows spend prolonged time away from pasture while in transit to and from the dairy and while waiting to be milked, which reduces the milk production of cows later in the milking order as shown in our research. This is likely to be linked to later-milked cows having access to less nutritious pasture. Implementing mitigation strategies that improve the nutrients available to later-milked cows, such as reserving fresh pasture, should be explored.
This article belongs to the collection: Australasian Dairy Science Symposium 2024.
Ensuring clean and hygienic meat production is essential, especially for small-scale producers in India who often lack access to adequate slaughter facilities. This study introduces an innovative Portable Meat Production and Retailing Facility (P-MART) that provides an affordable solution for processing sheep and goats, while maintaining high standards of hygiene and sustainable waste management. The success of P-MART not only improves the livelihoods of small-scale producers but also promotes public health and environmental protection through responsible waste disposal practices.
Bovine, buffalo, and goat oocyte cytoplasm is effective for producing gaur iSCNT embryos, capable of initiating early pregnancies. iSCNT is probably one of the promising reproductive technologies for increasing the gaur. The use of taxonomy closely related animal species applied to methodology and techniques by optimizing culture conditions and procedures across closely related species would greatly benefit laboratory production and field implication (enhancing the chance of probability of surrogate mother), and also saving cost and time, to increase the population size of endangered species.
Many rangeland regions have low phosphorus soils so that the pastures are deficient in phosphorus for grazing cattle. Cows in early lactation are particularly at risk of deficiency due to their high nutritional requirements. An experiment examined the responses of mature lactating beef cows to severe dietary phosphorus deficiency. During early lactation cows were able to mobilise substantial amounts of minerals from bone to alleviate dietary phosphorus deficiency and maintain milk production, albeit with reduced voluntary feed intake and marked liveweight loss.
, Paul R. Kenyon, Lyndon J. Kubeil, Andrew N. Thompson 
