Wesley Collins

Scaling Relationship of Body Weight to Dry Matter Intake in Domestic Cattle

In order to answer the question of whether the relationship between body weight and dry
matter intake (DMI) had a scalar smaller than 1.0 in domestic cattle, a meta-analysis was conducted
using data from several peer-reviewed articles. All experiments used were controlled feeding
experiments using domestic cattle. While the studies were not all focused on the same variables, such as
cattle ages, breeds, feed regime etc.; they all contained data for the necessary food intake to meet
domestic cattles daily nutrition needs in a laboratory setting. In order to ensure that the sample size
was adequate, it was important to minimize variables to what was available in most of the studies.
The data available across most studies which was used for this analysis were as follows: mean body
weight (kg), mean DMI (kg), number of cattle used. When possible individual cattle weights and DMI
were used, but most studies only contained means across groups for both variables so this was used
most of the time along with the number of cattle for each group. I felt it was important to keep the
number of cattle per study group in the data to make a larger sample size that would weight my
regression based on each individual studies contribution rather than just having one point for each
study.
The data was extracted from studies using growth stages as young as less than a year old steer
(castrated male cow), indicated by a mean weight of 136 kg for the smallest group and up to a mature
cow, indicated by lactation induced by being bred and a mean weight of 685.75 kg for the largest group.
Because all studies used indicated the growth stage of the cattle used, separate analysis was run on
both steers and cows to estimate their individual scalars. Number of cows and steers used were 190 and
66 respectively. The total sample size used for this analysis was 256 cattle.
In order to test if the scalar was smaller than 1.0, data was log transformed in R and put into a linear
model. The linear model provided the regression data and so the slope was extracted and a test was
conducted to determine whether the coefficient for slope was smaller than 1. Hypothesis were as
follows: Ho: 1 = 1.0; HA: 1 < 1.0. The result of the linear model indicated a scalar of 1.13. A test statistic
of 9.07 was generated under 254 degrees of freedom. A p-value of p=1 indicated that we should fail to
reject the null. It appeared the scalar for all cattle were at least 1.
Next we decided to run similar tests on the subgroups of cows and steers again with transformed data.
The exact same hypotheses and tests were used as before. The results were as follows: Steers (1,=.25,
t=1.73, DF=64, p=.04, reject null), Cows (1=99, t=-0.13, DF=188, p=.49, fail to reject null).
The results from this analysis indicate several things. Overall for domestic cattle, it appears that the
relationship between body weight and DMI do not have a scalar less than 1.0. However, our results also
indicate that steers do indeed have a scalar of less than 1.0 while mature cows do not. These results
seem to follow the logic that a smaller cow would require a smaller increase in DMI per percent BM
gained with larger cows needing a larger increase in DMI per percent BM gained.
While this study may not be as important for the overall feeding of domestic cattle, there may be some
important implications regarding the feeding of steers, since there seems to be a scalar less than <1.0
for that class.

Wesley Collins
Data and Code:
Paper
Dias et al. 2011
Alende et al. 2009
Nishida et al. 2007
Nishida et al. 2007
Nishida et al. 2007
Tafaj et al. 2007
Zhang et al. 2010
Zhang et al. 2010
Penner et al. 2009
Maulfair et al. 2010
Couderc et al. 2006
Alamouti et al. 2009
Aikman et al. 2008
Aikman et al. 2008

N
4
59
1
1
1
93
29
6
12
8
22
8
6
6

Type
steer
steer
steer
steer
steer
cow
cow
cow
cow
cow
cow
cow
cow
cow

Mean BW (KG)
136
178.85
599.3
599.3
599.3
658
632
665
685.75
642
630
610
642
443

Mean DMI (KG)

3.4
5.28
6.27
6.38
6.19
22.8
21.9
24
25.5
25.7
22.75
23.975
22.29
15.39

> meanBW=c(rep(136,4),rep(178.85,59),rep(599.3,3),rep(658,93),rep(632,29),rep(665,6),rep(685.75,1
2),rep(642,8),rep(630,22),rep(610,8),rep(642,6),rep(443,6))
> meanDMI=c(rep(3.4,4),rep(5.28,59),6.27,6.38,6.19,rep(22.8,93),rep(21.9,29),rep(24,6),rep(25.5,1
2),rep(25.7,8),rep(22.75,22),rep(23.975,8),rep(22.29,6),rep(15.39,6))
> cattle.df<-data.frame(meanBW,meanDMI)
> cattle.df<-data.frame(apply(cattle.df,c(1,2),log))
> cattle.outfile<-lm(meanDMI~meanBW,cattle.df)
> summary(cattle.outfile)
> (1.13738-1)/0.01515
[1] 9.067987
> pt(9.067987,254)
[1] 1
> steersBW<-c(rep(136,4),rep(178.85,59),rep(599.3,3))
> steersDMI<- c(rep(3.4,4),rep(5.28,59),6.27,6.38,6.19)
> steers.df<-data.frame(steersBW,steersDMI)
> steers.df<-data.frame(apply(steers.df,c(1,2),log))
> steers.outfile<-lm(steersDMI~steersBW,steers.df)
> summary(steers.outfile)
> (.25247-1)/.4326
[1] -1.727994
> pt(-1.727994,64)
[1] 0.04440597
> cowsBW<-c(rep(658,93),rep(632,29),rep(665,6),rep(685.75,12),rep(642,8),rep(630,22),rep(610,8),r
ep(642,6),rep(443,6))
> cowsDMI<-c(rep(22.8,93),rep(21.9,29),rep(24,6),rep(25.5,12),rep(25.7,8),rep(22.75,22),rep(23.97
5,8),rep(22.29,6),rep(15.39,6))
> cows.df<-data.frame(cowsBW,cowsDMI)
> cows.df<-data.frame(apply(cows.df,c(1,2),log))
> cows.outfile<-lm(cowsDMI~cowsBW,cows.df)
> summary(cows.outfile)
> (.99459-1)/.04097
[1] -0.1320478
> pt(-.01320478,188)
[1] 0.4947392