No abstract

Background: Comfortable beds play an important role in increasing the ruminant and milk production efficiency of dairy buffalo. In loose housing systems, cow lying comfort depends on both the bedding materials and bed base. Results: Buffaloes spent more lying time on sand beds at depth of 15 and 20 cm (S-15 and S-20) than on beds of 10 cm (S-10a) beds or in the feed alley in Exp1 (P < 0.01). No significant difference in the cow comfort index (CCI) was detected between S-10a and S-15; however, both showed higher CCI than that of the S-20 bed. In Exp2, buffaloes spent more time lying on the wood shavings at depth of 15 cm (WS-15) bed followed by the WS-20 and S-10b beds, respectively (P < 0.01), and CCI was greater in the WS-15 bed than in the S-10b and WS-20 beds (P < 0.05). Conclusion: A depth of sand or wood shavings at 15 cm can meet the lying comfort requirements of dairy buffaloes when bedding materials are used above drainage beds.

Objective: The objective of the present experiment was to construct self-draining beds to keep surface bedding materials clean and dry for beef cattle comfort in a temperate climate. Methods: In Experiment 1, a self-draining bed was covered with sand at depths of 10 cm (S-10a), 15 cm (S-15) and 20 cm (S-20) respectively. In Experiment 2, self-draining beds of different sizes were covered with 10 cm of sand (S-10b) and wood shavings (WS) at depths of 15 cm and 20 cm (WS-15 and WS-20). Fifteen cattle were engaged to evaluate the comfort of self-draining beds covered with different bedding materials. Results: No cattle lay in the feed alley and cattle spent more time lying on S-10a than S-15 or S-20 in Experiment 1 (p < 0.01). No difference in lying time was detected between S-15 and S-20 (p > 0.05). In Experiment 2, no cattle selected the feed alley as the lying area. Cattle preferred WS-15 as the lying area and time spent lying on WS-20 was slightly higher than on S-10b (p < 0.05). Feces weight was higher in the feed alley than in the different bedding areas in both Experiments 1 and 2 (p < 0.01). Conclusion: Sand-bedding depth at 10 cm and wood shavings at 15 cm above the self-draining bed can provide for the lying comfort of beef cattle. Design of a special feed alley to hold most of the feces to keep bedding materials clean and dry is desirable for organic beef cattle in a loose barn.

Background: Chronic heat stress (CHS), aggravated by global warming, reduces the production efficiency of the buffalo dairy industry. CHS changes protein abundance, and low-abundant proteins take important roles in biological processes. Results: The objective of the study was to assess differences in low-abundant serum proteins in dairy buffaloes at thermoneutral (TN) or under chronic heat stress (CHS) conditions with proteomic approaches. Six dairy buffaloes as reference animal raised in TN season, and another six dairy buffaloes raised in CHS to discover the molecular mechanism of thermal fitness in hot season with serum proteomics. After the removal of multiple high-abundant proteins in serum, 344 low-abundant proteins were identified in serum with label-free quantification. Of these, 17 low-abundant differentially expressed serum proteins with known functions were detected, and five of these differentially expressed proteins were validated with parallel reaction monitoring. These five proteins were associated with various aspects of heat stress, including decreased heat production, increased blood oxygen delivery, and enhanced natural disease resistance. Conclusions: Lipase (LPL), glutathione peroxidase 3 (GPX3), cathelicidin-2 (CATHL2), ceruloplasmin (CP), and hemoglobin subunit alpha 1 (HBA1) were shown to play cooperative roles in CHS fitness in dairy buffalo. Dairy buffaloes adapt to CHS and hypoxia with high levels of RBCs, HBA1 and CP increased blood oxygen delivery capacity and thermal fitness.