Use of 15N abundance in tail hair to predict feed efficiency and response to a urea supplement in young cattle fed a tropical grass forage

B. C. Fraser; K. Eyre; J. B. Gaughan; G. Wijffels; L. F. P. Silva

doi:10.1071/AN24210

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

Previous Next Contents Vol 65(6)

Use of ¹⁵N abundance in tail hair to predict feed efficiency and response to a urea supplement in young cattle fed a tropical grass forage

B. C. Fraser ^A , K. Eyre

^A , J. B. Gaughan ^B , G. Wijffels ^C and L. F. P. Silva

^A ^*

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, The University of Queensland, Gatton, Qld 4343, Australia.

^B School of Agriculture and Food Sustainability, The University of Queensland, Gatton, Qld 4343, Australia.

^C CSIRO Agriculture and Food, Queensland Bioscience Precinct, St Lucia, Qld 4067, Australia.

^* Correspondence to: l.pradaesilva@uq.edu.au

Handling Editor: Wayne Bryden

Animal Production Science 65, AN24210 https://doi.org/10.1071/AN24210

Submitted: 27 June 2024 Accepted: 23 March 2025 Published: 11 April 2025

© 2025 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Context

Beef cattle performance varies substantially in environments with low protein forage. Nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) explains a large portion of this variation. The natural abundance of the ¹⁵N isotope (δ¹⁵N) in biological tissues can be used as a proxy for NUE.

Aims

This study aimed to use tail hair δ¹⁵N from Brahman steers fed a medium-quality forage-only diet to assist in predicting their performance and nitrogen metabolism response to a ureasupplemented diet.

Methods

A complete randomised block design with two distinct periods (diets) was conducted using 24 Brahman steers with an initial liveweight of 238 ± 29 kg (mean ± s.d.) and aged 10–12 months. The steers were fed a medium-quality hay diet (baseline diet with crude protein (CP) 76 g/kg DM) for 56 days, followed by an N-supplemented diet (hay plus molasses and urea, 92 g CP/kg DM) for another 56 days. Each feeding period concluded with a 7-day evaluation in metabolic crates to assess nitrogen metabolism parameters.

Key results

Steer rankings based on δ¹⁵N levels in tail hair were consistent across both diets. Significant individual variation was observed in average daily gain (ADG) on the baseline diet (−125 to 181 g/day) and in response to the urea supplemented diet (−11 g/day to 480 g/day). Markedly, δ¹⁵N from the baseline diet was significantly correlated with ADG, NUE, and feed conversion efficiency (FCE) during the urea supplemented diet.

Conclusions

Tail hair δ¹⁵N from the baseline diet assisted in predicting ADG, NUE, and FCE during the urea supplemented diet.

Implications

Tail hair δ¹⁵N may be used to identify more productive and efficient cattle.

Keywords: average daily gain, Bos indicus, cattle, feed conversion efficiency, nitrogen isotopes, nitrogen metabolism, nutrition physiology, supplements.

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