@conference {3672, title = {BRIEF COMMUNICATION: Hot years in history and facial eczema}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production}, volume = {77}, year = {2017}, month = {06/2017}, pages = {107-109}, address = {Rotorua}, abstract = {

Facial Eczema (FE) is caused by grazing animals ingesting the toxin sporidesmin which is produced by spores of the fungus Pithomyces chartarum. In order for the fungus to sporulate, a series of weather and environmental events must occur, with warm, moist, humid conditions and leaf dead-matter at the pasture base required (Brook 1969). In New Zealand, the combination of required conditions has historically been confined to summer and autumn months in temperate parts of New Zealand as illustrated in a map published by di Menna et al. (2009).

There is a large body of research that concludes that the world is in a period of climate change, characterised by increasing temperatures and extreme weather events (Ministry of Environment NZ, 2008) with the temperature increases predicted to incrementally increase into the future. Using climate change predictions, modelling work reported by di Menna et al. (2009) and Dennis et al. (2014) demonstrated that into the future the geographical regions in New Zealand affected by FE would increase, as temperature increases would result in more areas achieving the minimum temperatures required for sporulation.

Through using published literature and media articles prior to 2016, the worst years for FE in New Zealands history were 1938 and 1999. Indeed the outbreak in 1938 was what led to the establishment of the Ruakura Research Centre (now AgResearch) in an attempt to understand the cause and control of the then-unknown disease that had resulted in photosensitivity, liver damage, production losses and death in affected animals (di Menna et al. 2009).

The purpose of this paper is to report on the FE outbreak of 2016 and to draw temperature parallels to the outbreaks of 1938 and 1999 using weather data from the Ruakura Weather Station.

}, issn = {1176-5283}, author = {PL Johnson and Cameron CA and Henderson HV and Cullen NG} } @conference {41405, title = {Survival of in vitro-produced cattle embryos from embryo transfer to weaning}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production}, volume = {63}, year = {2003}, month = {Jan}, pages = {57-60}, publisher = {New Zealand Society of Animal Production}, organization = {New Zealand Society of Animal Production}, address = {Queenstown}, abstract = {New reproductive technologies present both the beef and dairy industries of New Zealand with numerous opportunities. A key factor in the successful use of these technologies is the reproductive rate obtained from their use. MOET (multiple ovulation and embryo transfer) is a fairly well established procedure to achieve pregnancy by embryo transfer. As an alternative, harvesting of oocytes, in vitro fertilization, culture, and subsequent embryo transfer (IVP-ET), also has potential. The technology is still relatively new and pregnancy rates of 30\% have been reported. This is at least 10\% lower than that achieved with MOET. As part of another project, approximately 400 recipient cows, in each of three years, were subject to ET using fresh IVP embryos. Pregnancy rates to calving, per embryo transferred, averaged 40, 44 and 33\% in 1999, 2000 and 2001 respectively. Within years, average pregnancy rate varied from less than 20\% to over 50\% depending on recipient source (P<0.05), breed (P<0.01) and condition score (P<0.05). Once cows could be detected pregnant, at about 50 days after embryo transfer, they tended to stay pregnant through to calving. Neither embryo breed nor the type of oestrus-synchronizing device had a significant effect on pregnancy rate. }, issn = {1176-5283}, author = {Smeaton DC and McGowan LT and Scott ML and Tervit HR and Cameron CA} } @conference {41179, title = {The use of body measurements in cattle to predict future live weight}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production}, volume = {60}, year = {2000}, month = {Jan}, pages = {129-131}, publisher = {New Zealand Society of Animal Production}, organization = {New Zealand Society of Animal Production}, address = {Hamilton}, abstract = {Farmers need to select cattle into final slaughter groups in advance. Traditionally combinations of live weight and eyeappraisal are used to make these selections. To improve this process, live weight, length from withers to top of tail, widthacross hook bones and depth from brisket level behind shoulder to top of withers were measured at 3-monthly intervals onAngus steers from 8 to 30 months of age. Of all the individual measurements, previous live weight predicted end weightbetter than any single body measurement. This was improved by including other body measurements selected using stepwiseregressions. Although no particular combination of measurements was best for all time periods the results showed thatlength, width and body depth added value to current live weight as selection criteria for drafting steers into final slaughtertime herds.}, issn = {1176-5283}, author = {Webby RW and Boom CJ and Cameron CA} }