Abstract #346

# 346
The perspectives of a beef cattle nutritionist.
Shawn L. Archibeque*1, Gerald B. Huntington2, 1Department of Animal Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 2Department of Animal Science, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC.

There are numerous changes in beef cattle in both their symbiotic and physiological aspects as they are adjusted to various diets associated with varying production states and research needs. Within the beef industry, there is a need to address changes within diet types as well as across diet types (i.e., high roughage vs. high concentrate). These changes will influence our understanding of how nutrients are used during varying production states. These variations in treatments that deal with source more than daily supply will allow for minimal variation in measurements within a shorter period of time than those studies with large changes in particularly nutrients or overall plane of nutrition. In particular, these adaptations are greatly varied in the literature. This is of particular interest in studies that use a study design that minimizes animal-to-animal variation through the repeated use of animals in the study, such as a Latin square or crossover design. To highlight the significance of this issue, over 35% of the articles in the ruminant nutrition section of the Journal of Animal Science used these research techniques and had a range in adaptation periods from 9 to 27 d, with an average of 14.6 d. There is a need for greater understanding and homogeneity in these adaptation periods for future understanding of data, particularly those that will be happening over a fixed period of time.

Key Words: homeorhetic adaptation, ruminal adaptation, variance

Speaker Bio
Dr. Shawn Archibeque, a ruminant nutritionist, began his scientific training and education at Colorado State University, where he earned a B.S. with a double major in Environmental Health and Animal Sciences.  He continued his training as a ruminant nutritionist at North Carolina State University.  Following his M.S. Shawn earned a Ph.D. at Texas A&M with Dr. Stephen Smith, an expert in adipose development of livestock species.  Shawn conducted research with the meat science components of beef cattle production, and it enabled him to apply cellular and enzymatic-based mechanisms for describing nutritional manipulations of beef carcass quality.  Dr. Archibeque was employed at the USDA Meat Animal Research Center as a postdoc Research Associate under the guidance of Dr. Calvin Ferrell. Shawn's program was focused on manipulating dietary regimens to optimize nutrient utilization and minimize negative environmental impacts of animals housed in confined feeding operations.  Shawn would like to continue to develop his research program to mitigate environmental issues without sacrificing productivity or carcass quality.