CALF_News_October_November_2019

33 CALF News • October | November 2019 • www.calfnews.net W hen West Texas A&M University (WTAMU) meat scientists cloned a USDA Prime, Yield Grade 1 bull in 2012, they hoped they were en route to developing an advanced method of producing higher-quality beef. The cloned bull was named Alpha. He was a laboratory-generated identi- cal twin of the original carcass, a steer that graded Prime. Subsequently, three females, Gamma 1, Gamma 2 and Gamma 3, were later cloned from a single heifer carcass. Ty Lawrence, WTAMU animal science professor and head of the Beef Carcass Research Center in Canyon, has headed the program. Unfortunately, Alpha died last summer. Lawrence says a post-mortem necropsy performed by the Texas A&MVeterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory indicated he died of natural causes. However, Lawrence and his students are seeing the results they anticipated from Alpha-Gamma offspring. Calves sired by their F1 bull, AxG1, recently out-performed calves from high-per- forming sires of various breeds in an independent test in southwest Kansas. "His calves performed better than calves from other sires in the study," Lawrence says. Forest Francis, a WTAMU animal science graduate student, is writing his master's thesis on the study. In the research, a commercial cowherd was AI’d at Syracuse Feedyard. "They represented a broad spectrum of the U.S. cowherd," Lawrence says. Cows were randomly AI'd with semen from one of five sires used in the study. Gestation occurred at the feedyard, where calves were given Inforce 3® and Calf-Guard® at birth. At processing, steers were banded and received a teta- nus vaccination. Calves were processed and administered Bovi-Shield GOLD® 5, ULTRABAC® 7, then identified with visual and electronic ID tags. A DNA sample was taken to ID the sires of calves in the study. "Calves were implanted with Revalor®-G and administered CyLence® Pour-On insecticide, Synanthic®, Dectomax®, Presponse® SQ and Ultrabac 7 during weaning in the feedlot," Francis says. "Wean- ing weights were recorded." They were moved to a sepa- rate feedyard and implanted with Revalor IS, XS or IH and sorted according to Performance Cattle Company's commercial sorting system. "Cattle were administered Synanthic, Bovi-Shield GOLD and Nasalgen® IP," Francis says. "Body weights and second- ary DNA samples were taken at arrival sorting. They were fed until marketed at Tyson in Finney County, Kan." Carcass data was measured at the packer and analyzed using a mixed model with a fixed effect of sire and random effects of harvest date, sex and pen. Law- rence says the AxG1 progeny exhibited the least 12th rib fat thicknesses and lowest USDAYield Grades, while also having the largest ribeye areas. Calves also had the highest marbling scores and high- est frequency of USDA Prime. "Data shows that 23 percent of the AxG1-sired were USDA Prime," Francis says. "The overall data suggests that Alpha Would Have Been Proud By Larry Stalcup Contributing Editor Ty Lawrence, WTAMU meat science professor, left, and graduate student, Forest Francis, are pleased with results from research that showed calves from an F1 bull sired by Alpha out-performed others in the test. AxG1 competed extremely well against other, higher-performing industry sires." Lawrence, his associates and students will conduct further research in the Alpha-Gamma program. WTAMU's Nance Ranch and research feedyard continue to provide prime learning envi- ronments for the Paul Engler College of Agriculture and Natural Sciences. The college's new facilities make it attractive to more ag students. The Texas A&MVeterinary Edu- cation, Research & Outreach Center facility is also under construction on the Canyon campus. It is designed to enable Panhandle-area veterinary students to spend the first two years of their Texas A&M veterinary curriculum in Canyon on the WTAMU campus.  Alpha, a Prime-grade bull cloned from a prime steer, has proven to be as productive as was hoped. Unfortunately, Alpha died of natural causes last summer, but his offspring are generating high-quality calves.