Microbes Help Predict More Efficient Cattle

The number of people in the world is rapidly growing and with more people comes the need for more food. Luckily, cattle are a great resource to help provide more food! These animals can produce more protein than they consume, converting human-inedible grasses into high-quality protein for humans to eat. However, we can still improve this conversion of grasses to meat by making cattle more efficient at the process, otherwise known as making cattle more feed efficient. In this study, we identified stomach microbes and blood nutrients of feed-efficient cattle. Using computers, we were able to show that the nutrients in the blood could predict the microbes living in the stomachs of feed-efficient cattle. This work shows that microbes in the stomachs of cattle may help improve feed efficiency and can be used to predict which cattle are feed efficient.