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Research Mineral Status of Cattle Via NIRS Fecal Profiling A collaborative sub-project between the GAN Lab and the Montana Natural Resources Conservation Service of the USDA, John Bodner, DVM, and the Stillwater Range Association, focused on prediction of mineral status of free-ranging cattle using fecal NIRS profiling techniques. The purpose of this project is to determine if fecal NIRS profiling could be used as a non-invasive, diagnostic tool to assist ranchers, rangeland management specialists, mineral nutritionists, veterinarians, and technical advisors in assessing the mineral status of cattle. The assumption of this research is that fecal chemistry viewed as a complex of organic bonds via NIRS can reflect mineral induced stress to a level that has diagnostic value. The project is approximately 60% complete with many more analyses to be preformed. NUTBAL For Wildlife NUTBAL Wild for deer and other non-domesticated ungulates will utilize information such as historic population information, weights, antler characteristics and diet quality to report intake, requirements, balance, and weight changes of population subgroups. The GAN Lab currently predicts dietary %CP, %DOM, and %P of deer fecal samples and hope to have NUTBAL Wild available in 2002. Pregnancy Status Via NIRS Fecal Profiling NIRS Fecal profiling shows potential as a non-invasive means of determining pregnancy status for domestic and wild animals. Currently, cattle herds in various regions of Texas and Oklahoma are enlisted in the project. Samples are collected monthly and data is collected regarding calving, breeding, weaning, and pregnancy status. The GAN Lab team envisions a fecal sampling protocol that estimates a herd's pregnancy rate during the breeding season. This information may be used to identify a fertility problem while there is sill time to correct it. Parasite Stress Levels via NIRS Fecal Profiling Early reports indicate that animals experiencing tick induced stress have different fecal NIR "signatures" than those not undergoing stress. The ability to extract nutrition from a given diet seems to be affected; it is yet undetermined if this is a true depression in effective diet quality or just spectral "noise". The effect on NIR spectra has been noted in three different groups of animals in three different years. Analysis of samples from a six-month study involving 24 steers on three treatments is currently underway. Results of this study should help determine if differences in fecal chemistry caused by thick-induced stress are strong enough to by consistently measured by NIRS and used as a diagnostic technique. Soil Testing Via NIRS Profiling Rangeland health is an important issue fraught with conflicting ideas and opinions on scientific methodologies for defining, measuring and monitoring it. Soils are obviously important to this process. Nitrogen, organic carbon and microbial biomass can be measured via NIRS, although efforts to date have been in only blackland soils, other have worked in various soil types with similar success. We hope to develop equations applicable to a wide variety of soil and range situations.
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