Red Holstein Friesian Research Articles

An oesophageal benign stricture: Endoscopy treatment limitation and surgical management in a heifer

A 4-month-old female red Holstein Friesian heifer was referred with intermittent meteorism and regurgitation associated with poor weight gain. The subject showed a fair physical condition with an increased respiratory rate, normal food prehension, mastication, and swallowing activity. The blood gas analysis showed mild respiratory acidosis. An oral gastric tube introduction followed by an endoscopy confirmed the provisional diagnosis of benign oesophageal stenosis. An endoscopic balloon and bouginage did not result in any stricture release, probably due to the degree of fibrosis of the stenotic ring. A surgical approach with a mucosectomy was performed, which restored the normal oesophageal function. Based on the authors’ knowledge, this is the first description of a bovine oesophageal mucosectomy as a definitive surgical treatment for a stricture after the failure of both balloon dilation and a bougienage technique.

CONCOMITANT FACTORS AFFECTING GESTATION LENGTH AND PERINATAL MORTALITY IN HOLSTEIN-FRIESIAN COWS

The objective of this study was to identify and quantify factors presenting simultaneous moderate or strong influence on gestation length and perinatal mortality (until 4 days postpartum) in Holstein-Frisian dams. The overall gestation length least square mean was 278.2 ± 0.2 days (n = 962). According to the multivariate model (p < 0.001), a shorter gestation length was observed in Holstein-Friesian (–2.0 days) and Red Holstein-Friesian (–3.9 days) breed sires whereas Brown Swiss (2.0 days) and Aberdeen-Angus (2.3 days) breed sires showed a longer gestation length. Primiparous cows and twin pregnancies, as well calving in June and July, shortened gestation length in –1.4, –4.0, –1.9 and –1.8 days, respectively. The perinatal mortality incidence was 7.4% (n = 72) and was more likely to occur in twin pregnancies (p < 0.01) than in pregnancies carrying female (odds ratio = 8.1) or male (odds ratio = 7.9) singletons, as well in primiparous (odds ratio = 2.6) than multiparous dams (p < 0.05). In conclusion, parity and twinning were the major factors which influenced simultaneously gestation length of dams and perinatal mortality incidence. Nevertheless, all studied factors had a significant impact on gestation length and should be considered for reproductive management programs of dairy herds.

Genome-wide mapping of the dominance effects based on breed ancestry for semen traits in admixed Swiss Fleckvieh bulls

Heterosis is the beneficial deviation of crossbred progeny from the average of parental lines for a particular trait. Heterosis is due to nonadditive genetic effects with dominance and epistatic components. Recent advances in genotyping technology have encouraged researchers to estimate and scan heterosis components for a range of traits in crossbred populations, applying various definitions of such components. In this study, we defined the intralocus (dominance) component of heterosis using local genetic ancestry and performed genome-wide association analysis for admixed Swiss Fleckvieh bulls and their parental populations, Red Holstein Friesian and Swiss Simmental, for semen traits. A linear mixed model for 41,824 SNP, including SNP additive genetic, breed additive, and breed dominance effects on 1,178 bulls (148 Red Holstein Friesian, 213 Swiss Simmental, and 817 Swiss Fleckvieh) with a total of 43,782 measurements was performed. In total, 19 significant regions for breed dominance were identified for volume (2 regions on Bos taurus autosome 10 and 22) and percentage of live spermatozoa (17 regions on Bos taurus autosome 3, 4, 5, 7, 13, 14, and 17), and genes associated with spermatogenesis, sperm motility, and male fertility traits were located there. No significant region for breed dominance was detected for total number of spermatozoa. The signals for breed dominance were relatively wide, most likely due to limited numbers of recombination events in a small number of generations (10-15 generations) of crossbreeding in the recent Swiss Fleckvieh composite.

Effects of breed proportion and components of heterosis for semen traits in a composite cattle breed.

The aim of this study was to estimate the non-additive genetic effects of the dominance component of heterosis as well as epistatic loss on semen traits in admixed Swiss Fleckvieh, a composite of Simmental (SI) and Red Holstein Friesian (RHF) cattle. Heterosis is the additional gain in productivity or fitness of cross-bred progeny over the mid-purebred parental populations. Intralocus gene interaction usually has a positive effect, while epistatic loss generally reduces productivity or fitness due to lack of evolutionarily established interactions of genes from different breeds. Genotypic data on 38,205 SNP of 818 admixed, as well as 148 RHF and 213 SI bulls as the parental breeds were used to predict breed origin of alleles. The genomewide locus-specific breed ancestries of individuals were used to calculate effects of breed difference as well as the dominance component of heterosis, while proxies for two definitions of epistatic loss were derived from 100,000 random pairs of loci. The average Holstein Friesian ancestry in admixed bulls was estimated 0.82. Results of fitting different linear mixed models showed including the dominance component of heterosis considerably improved the model adequacy for three of the four traits. Inclusion of epistatic loss increased the accuracy of the models only for our new definition of the epistatic effect for two traits, while the other definition was so highly correlated with the dominance component that statistical separation was impossible.

Morgagnian cataract resulting from a naturally occurring nonsense mutation elucidates a role of CPAMD8 in mammalian lens development.

To investigate the genetic basis of hereditary lens opacities we analyzed 31 cases of bilateral congenital cataract in Red Holstein Friesian cattle. A genome-wide association study revealed a significant association on bovine chromosome 7 at positions 6,166,179 and 12,429,691. Whole genome re-sequencing of one case and four relatives showed a nonsense mutation (g.5995966C>T) in the PZP-like, alpha-2-macroglobulin domain containing 8 (CPAMD8) gene leading to a premature stop codon (CPAMD8 p.Gln74*) associated with cataract development in cattle. With immunohistochemistry we confirmed a physiological expression of CPAMD8 in the ciliary body epithelium of the eye in unaffected cattle, while the protein was not detectable in the ciliary body of cattle with cataracts. RNA expression of CPAMD8 was detected in healthy adult, fetal and cataractous lenses.

Estimation of local genetic ancestry in an admixed cattle population applying different methods

In current study, we estimated local genetic ancestry for Swiss-Fleckvieh dairy cattle population using two alternative approaches implemented in LAMP and MULTIMIX software. Swiss-Fleckvieh is a composite descending from Simmental and Red Holstein Friesian. Illumina BovineSNP50 Beadchip data for 485 animals were used. Genetic ancestries averaged across admixed animals indicated a high correlation of individual admixture at global levels (0.99), yet the correlation between genetic ancestries averaged across 7914 windows (5 SNPs each) was 0.55. The highest correlations of window-wise estimates were along chromosomes 2, 5, 12, 15, 21, 27 and 29 (≥0.80) and the lowest was −0.71 on chromosome 24. Based on LAMP results, a region on chromosome 13 (46.3–46.7 Mb) and three adjacent regions on chromosome 18 (18.8–19.2, 20.1–25.7 and 23.9–25.7 Mb) passed the threshold based on deviation from normal distribution of local ancestries assuming 1000 independent segments. Regarding MULTIMIX, another region on chromosome 22 (9.3–10.3 Mb) was significant. Although estimates from both programs are comparable at the global levels, there was considerable difference at the local levels.

Locus-specific ancestry to detect recent response to selection in admixed Swiss Fleckvieh cattle.

Identification of selection signatures is one of the current endeavors of evolutionary genetics. Admixed populations may be used to infer post-admixture selection. We calculated local ancestry for Swiss Fleckvieh, a composite of Simmental (SI) and Red Holstein Friesian (RHF), to infer such signals. Illumina Bovine SNP50 BeadChip data for 300 admixed, 88 SI and 97 RHF bulls were used. The average RHF ancestry across the whole genome was 0.70. To identify regions with high deviation from average, we considered two significance thresholds, based on a permutation test and extreme deviation from normal distribution. Regions on chromosomes 13 (46.3-47.3Mb) and 18 (18.7-25.9Mb) passed both thresholds in the direction of increased SI. Extended haplotype homozygosity within (iHS) and between (Rsb) populations was calculated to explore additional patterns of pre- and post-admixture selection signals. The Rsb score of admixed and SI was significant in a wide region of chromosome 18 (6.6-24.6Mb) overlapped with one area of strong local ancestry deviation. FTO, with pleiotropic effect on milk and fertility, NOD2 on dairy and NKD1 and SALL1 on fertility traits are located there. Genetic differentiation of RHF and SI (Fst ), an alternative indicator of pre-admixture selection in pure populations, was calculated. No considerable overlap of peaks of local ancestry deviations and Fst was observed. We found two regions with significant signatures of post-admixture selection in this very young composite, applying comparatively stringent significance thresholds. The signals cover relatively large genomic areas and did not allow pinpointing of the gene(s) responsible for the apparent shift in ancestry proportions.

PREDICTION OF GLOBAL AND LOCAL SIMMENTAL AND RED HOLSTEIN FRIESIAN ADMIXTURE LEVELS IN SWISS FLECKVIEH CATTLE

PREDICTION OF GLOBAL AND LOCAL SIMMENTAL AND RED HOLSTEIN FRIESIAN ADMIXTURE LEVELS IN SWISS FLECKVIEH CATTLE

Prediction of breed composition in an admixed cattle population

Swiss Fleckvieh was established in 1970 as a composite of Simmental (SI) and Red Holstein Friesian (RHF) cattle. Breed composition is currently reported based on pedigree information. Information on a large number of molecular markers potentially provides more accurate information. For the analysis, we used Illumina BovineSNP50 Genotyping Beadchip data for 90 pure SI, 100 pure RHF and 305 admixed bulls. The scope of the study was to compare the performance of hidden Markov models, as implemented in structure software, with methods conventionally used in genomic selection [BayesB, partial least squares regression (PLSR), least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) variable selection)] for predicting breed composition. We checked the performance of algorithms for a set of 40492 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), subsets of evenly distributed SNPs and subsets with different allele frequencies in the pure populations, using F(ST) as an indicator. Key results are correlations of admixture levels estimated with the various algorithms with admixture based on pedigree information. For the full set, PLSR, BayesB and structure performed in a very similar manner (correlations of 0.97), whereas the correlation of LASSO and pedigree admixture was lower (0.93). With decreasing number of SNPs, correlations decreased substantially only for 5% or 1% of all SNPs. With SNPs chosen according to F(ST) , results were similar to results obtained with the full set. Only when using 96 and 48 SNPs with the highest F(ST) , correlations dropped to 0.92 and 0.90 respectively. Reducing the number of pure animals in training sets to 50, 20 and 10 each did not cause a drop in the correlation with pedigree admixture.

Inbreeding in Danish Dairy Cattle Breeds

The purpose of this study was to monitor current and predict future rates of inbreeding in the Danish dairy breeds. Calves born from 1999 until 2003 and registered as Danish Holstein (1,883,983), Danish Jersey (336,966), or Danish Red (261,047) were reference populations. Average complete generation equivalent was approximately 7. For calves born in 2003, average inbreeding was 3.9, 3.4, and 1.4% for Holstein, Jersey, and Danish Red, respectively. In recent years, effective population sizes were 49, 53, and 47, respectively. Based on coancestry statistics, future effective population sizes will be 43, 42, and 51, respectively. The effective number of founders, effective number of ancestors, and effective number of founder genomes were calculated. These measures of genetic diversity were all low for Holstein and Jersey and somewhat larger for Danish Red. The most important ancestors of Danish Holstein were Elevation (13.8%), Chief (10.9%), and Bell (8.5%). The most important ancestor of Danish Red was Momentum (9.4%), a Red Holstein-Friesian. The most important ancestor for Danish Jersey was FYN Lemvig (12.1%) with a large number of progeny in the reference population. The results of this study indicate the necessity for active management of the rate of inbreeding in the future.

Feed intake and performance of dairy cows during feeding of fodder beets supplementing grass silage

In a feeding experiment 3 x 12 dairy cows (German Simmental x Red Holstein Friesian) were used to investigate the influence of different amounts of fodder beets on feed intake, milk yield and milk composition. The fodder beets (variety Kyros) were fed in exchange for concentrate. The amounts of fodder beets were either 22 kg cow-1 d-1 or 44 kg cow-1 d-1 or zero (control group). All groups received 4 kg hay cow-1 d-1, grass silage ad libitum, and concentrate corresponding to the milk yield. In order to balance the rations the concentrate was either rich in protein or rich in energy. Feeding 22 kg or 44 kg fodder beets increased forage intake (including fodder beets) significantly. However, the total feed intake diminished on average from 18.3 kg DM cow-1 d-1 (control group) to 17.2 kg DM cow-1 d-1 (fodder beet groups). In each treatment the intake of hay was 3.3 kg DM cow-1 d-1. However, the intake of grass silage offered ad libitum was significantly suppressed by the fodder beets. Considering the different amounts of concentrate the quantity of suppression of grass silage by feeding fodder beets was calculated at -0.8 kg DM of grass silage per kg DM of fodder beet intake. The milk yield decreased linearly with increasing fodder beets on average up to 4 kg cow-1 d-1. However, the milk composition was scarcely influenced. The fat content increased a little, the mean alterations of the protein and lactose content were below 0.1 percentage points. Therefore, the change in daily excretion of milk fat, protein or lactose were similar to the change in milk yield. In conclusion, feeding fodder beets in combination to grass silage causes a positive effect on forage intake (including fodder beets). However, the amount of concentrate should not be reduced equivalently to the energy contents of the added fodder beets.

Supplementation of zero-grazed dairy cows with molassed sugar beet pulp, maize or a cereal-rich concentrate

Experiments were carried out to investigate the effects of different carbohydrate sources on food intake, milk yield, composition of the milk and its urea content. The experimental design was a complete randomised block with four treatments per block. The treatments were: herbage only (OS), herbage plus molassed sugar beet pulp (MSB), herbage plus maize (M) and herbage plus a mixture of oats, wheat and soybean meal (CON). The experiments were carried out on three replicates (E1, E2, E3) with 20, 24 and 24 pure and cross-bred cows (Simmental, Simmental × Red Holstein Friesian). All cows were offered freshly cut herbage ad libitum. Each experiment lasted 10 weeks, including a preliminary period of 2 weeks. Supplements were fed per block on an equal energy basis for daily milk yields of 13–25 kg. Cows with a daily milk yield exceeding 25 kg received an additional supplement according to milk production and treatment (MSB, M and CON). Average (E1 to E3) total daily dry matter (DM) intakes were 15.0, 17.8, 17.6 and 17.4 kg DM for Treatments OS, MSB, M and CON, respectively. Only the total DM intake between Treatment OS and the other treatments differed significantly ( P < 0.05). Herbage DM intakes were in general highest for cows on OS (14.9 kg DM), with cows on MSB, M and CON consuming on average (E1 to E3) 12.1, 12.6 and 11.8 kg herbage DM day −1. The average daily milk yield (E1 to E3) was 18.6, 20.8, 22.4, and 22.9 kg for OS to CON with only the difference between Treatments M and CON being non-significant ( P > 0.05). The treatments had no significant effect on milk fat and protein contents. The supplementation of herbage with maize (M) or a mixture of cereals (CON) increased the lactose content compared with Treatments MSB ( P < 0.05 only in E1) and OS ( P < 0.05 only in E2). The highest intake of crude protein (CON) resulted in a significantly higher urea content of the milk compared with Treatments MSB and M.

Feed consumption and performance of dairy cows with alternate feedings of grass silage and maize silage

A feeding experiment was conducted with 10 dairy cows of the Fleckvieh breed and the cross Red Holstein Friesian × Fleckvieh, to study whether feeding with grass silage at the morning meal and maize silage at the evening meal (treatment B: alternating forage allocation) affects forage intake and milk production, in comparison with combined feeding with these two silages at each meal (treatment A). In order to prevent a selective forage consumption in treatment A, the two silages were given as a homogeneous mixture of nearly equal portions (51.6% maize silage, 48.4% grass silage) of dry matter (DM). The experiment was of switch-back design, with the treatment sequences ABA and BAB, and three experimental periods of 6 weeks. The daily forage consumption averaged 12.3 kg DM when the silages were given as a mixture and was significantly higher than the total forage consumption of 11.8 kg DM ( P < 0.05) during the alternating allocation of the silages. In treatment B, daily intake of maize silage (7.10 kg DM) was greater than that of grass silage (4.70 kg DM/day). Furthermore, variation between cows in forage intake was significantly higher in this treatment than in treatment A. Average daily milk yield for treatment A was 18.75 kg with 3.84% fat and 3.70% protein, and 18.10 kg with 3.76% fat and 3.68% protein for treatment B. Production was significantly higher ( P < 0.05), by 0.65 kg milk or 0.90 kg FCM, for treatment A.