ARS | Publication request: Physiology and Endocrinology Symposium. Factors controlling puberty in beef heifers

Submitted to: Journal of Animal Science
Publication Type: Other
Publication Acceptance Date: December 7, 2011
Publication Date: April 1, 2012
Citation: Fricke, P.M., Cushman, R.A. 2012. Physiology and Endocrinology Symposium. Factors controlling puberty in beef heifers. Journal of Animal Science. 90(4):1150-1151.

Technical Abstract: The Physiology and Endocrinology Symposium on “Factors controlling puberty in beef heifers” was held at the joint annual meeting of the American Dairy Science Association and the American Society of Animal Science in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, July 10 to 14, 2011. The objective of the symposium was to provide attendees with new insights and perspectives from recent research findings on puberty in beef heifers. To that end, the 2011 physiology and endocrinology symposium program was organized to review recent research findings in beef cattle puberty with a broad overview of areas affecting puberty including management, genetics, nutrition, and hormonal manipulation of the estrous cycle. Raising replacement beef heifers is a significant cost for beef cow-calf operations. The Symposium encouraged attendees to consider novel nutritional management approaches to hasten the onset of puberty in beef heifers (Lamb et al., 2011; Funston et al., 2011), to apply basic knowledge gained through research to hormonally manipulate the reproductive process to improve reproductive success (Perry, 2011), and to consider new technologies such as SNP that may play a future role in selecting beef heifers for reproductive success (Snelling et al., 2011). The 2011 Physiology and Endocrinology Symposium enhanced our understanding of the latest nutrition, physiology, and genetic research on puberty in beef heifers.