South Devon Cattle Rank Highly for Feed Efficiency
Evidence from the Midland Bull Test, Leachman Cattle of Colorado system and U.S. Meat Animal Research Center (MARC) all suggest that the South Devon breed of cattle is highly feed efficient. In a recent article by MARC, South Devon females outranked all other breeds for the weighted feed efficiency index.
"Using a combination of intake and gain data, both found to be moderately heritable, should allow for the genetic selection of feed efficiency. The correlations between steer PWADG and TESTADG were moderate and correlations between heifer PWADG and TESTADG were strong. Further research including TESTADG on shortened intervals used in conjunction with PWADG data could lead to shortened feed intake data collection standards. This study is the first of its kind to dissect breed differences in feed efficiency in such a diverse population. Breed differences for feed efficiency were observed and significant in this population, confirming variation among breeds. These observations will enable producers to select breeds or breed mating systems for their operations."
-Retallick et al. 2017
