URBANA, Ill. – Cattle feeders choose distillers grains in feedlot diets as an inexpensive alternative to corn and soybean meal. But until now, no one had studied the effects of the common feed ingredient on bull development and fertility. With bull fertility to blame for a significant portion of reproductive failures in cow-calf operations, University of Illinois researchers decided it was worth a look.

URBANA, Ill. – University of Illinois Extension has announced it will hold its annual Beef Selection and Reproduction Management Seminar on Jan. 29 at the American Legion in Lincoln. The meeting will start at 5:15 p.m. and conclude at 8:30 p.m.

The program will include experts sharing practical knowledge on a range of topics.

• Dairy cattle diets are often deficient in the essential amino acid methionine; supplements have been shown to increase milk production and protein concentration.
• A new study shows that rumen-protected methionine supplements can change gene expression in the ovarian follicle, potentially leading to shorter time between ovulation events.
• Methionine supplements also decrease expression of genes related to inflammation in the cells of the ovarian follicle.

• Rumen-protected methionine (RPM) added to the diet of Holstein cows improves the survival rate of preimplantation embryos.
• Cows fed methionine have more lipid droplets inside the preimplantation embryo, which could be used as energy by the embryos.
• Embryonic death has been shown to drop from 19 percent to 6 percent in cows fed methionine.