Boundless Science Season 2: Building Better Brahman

Learn about the University of Florida’s Brahman Project with program director and associate professor, Dr. Todd Thrift. The Brahman Project is a stakeholder-focused project that encompasses the three missions of the land-grant university, research, teaching, and extension. Dr. Thrift explains what he and the rest of the faculty in the UF/IFAS Department of Animal Sciences are currently working on to improve the Brahman breed. This episode of Boundless Science was hosted by Jessica Czipulis, a University of Florida master’s student studying agriculture and natural resources communication. #boundlessscience #season2 #BoundlessScienceseason2

Keywords: cattle, brahman, animal science, research

Transcript

Jessica Czipulis  

Welcome back to the podcast series Boundless Science brought to you by Streaming Science a student driven program that works to connect you with scientists to learn how science impacts all of us in our everyday lives and interests.

The following episode was made in partnership with the University of Florida Department of Agricultural Education and Communication. I'm Jessica Czipulis, a first year Master's student in Agriculture and Natural Resources Communication at the University of Florida, and I will be your host.

In this interview, I spoke with Dr. Todd Thrift from the University of Florida IFAS Department of Animal Sciences. Dr. Thrift received his bachelor's in animal sciences from the University of Kentucky, his master's degree in ruminant nutrition from Oklahoma State University and his PhD in physiology of from Texas A&M University. He is nationally known for his work with Bos Indicus influenced cattle and has been a beef cattle production professor at UF for 23 years now. From our discussion, I hope you learned about UF's Brahman Project and how it encompasses the three pillars of a land grant university. Thanks for joining us today, Dr. Thrift!

Dr. Todd Thrift  

Thank you for having me. 

Jessica Czipulis  

So today we are here to talk about the UF Brahman Project, which I've heard you are now the director of the project. Can you tell me a little bit about it? 

Dr. Todd Thrift  

That is correct. And it this is a very multifaceted project and we'll go through but I think I'd like to start with a little bit of an introduction on the Brahman breed as a whole. This breed was the first breed that was introduced into the United States. It was not introduced as breed, but rather as some strains of cattle predominantly from India. The Nelore, the Krishna Valley, as well as the Guzerat and the Gyr. In addition, later on, there was some influence of Indu-Brasil that came from South America via Mexico and when was infused in breed. So it technically was the first breed originated in the United States. The Association actually just had its 100th year anniversary. So it was formed in 1924. And this year at Houston, they celebrated 100 years of the Brahman breed here in the United States. As far as a history goes in Florida, Brahman cattle came to Florida from Texas predominantly in the early 1930s, shortly after the association was formed. They were used predominantly in commercial production. By the 40s, there were a few purebred herds in the state. And in the late 1940s, the producers in the state suggested that maybe the University of Florida should have herds of Brahman cattle. And in 1949, 10 head of heifers were donated from what what was called in the Eastern Brahman Association to the university. Those females were housed here at Gainesville, there was also a herd at Ona. At one time, I believe there were herds at Belle Glade and various other stations around the state. As time went by, those cattle metamorphosized into a the largest group of them being at the Brooksville USDA substation. Brooksville closed approximately 10 years ago, and in closing, we obtained about 60 purebred Brahman cows from the USDA for use here in Gainesville at one of our units. We have since increased that herd size to 200 to 250 breeding aged females, and we're doing a lot of different things related to the Brahman Project that we'll talk about, and elaborate on. 

Jessica Czipulis  

Wow, I didn't realize Brahman cattle had been both in the US and Florida for so long. 

Dr. Todd Thrift  

They certainly have and they've played a major role in in transitioning the Florida beef industry from cracker cattle, many which were graded up to Brahman. In the 50s, and 60s and 70s, they played a major role in the beef industry and modernizing the beef industry here. And we'll talk about that as we go through. Predominantly their use was in crossing with other breeds and that is still true today. 

Jessica Czipulis  

You mentioned that the Brahman Project is multifaceted like the land grant mission, which includes research, teaching and extension. Can you tell me about the research portion of the project looks like? 

Dr. Todd Thrift  

Certainly. All of these cattle are here in a very non-traditional manner. They're, they're here to earn a living helping us do research so to speak. Along with that we'll talk about the teaching and extension that we do is a part of that puzzle but a lot of faculty are involved in this. Dr. Binelli is doing work on puberty, which is one of the issues Brahman cattle have is later age of puberty. So he's working on puberty and early fertility. In addition to that he's working on synchronization and artificial insemination strategies that will work better with purebred Brahman cattle. 

Jessica Czipulis  

You mentioned synchronization and artificial insemination can explain what those terms mean?

Dr. Todd Thrift  

Under natural conditions, we would utilize a bull to mate these cows. But if we want very specific genetics, one of the things we can do for over 100 years now we've been able to free semen on a bull. And then we can use that bull in in much greater amount, or we're using very specifically for matings. And one of the things that happens though, when you do that is you have to catch a cow in heat in order to do that. So synchronization is just using a set of hormones to manipulate a cow's cycle, so that she will come into heat when you want her to be in the heat. And then we can use semen and artificially inseminate her basically on the clock. And we can do it on our time instead of doing it on her time. 

Jessica Czipulis  

So how long have these been used as a method for livestock reproduction?

Dr. Todd Thrift  

Certainly AI has been around for almost 100 years now. It's been viable in the dairy industry for a long time. It's the original AI if that's what you want to call it, versus the AI that we talk about in the news today all the time. And so it's it's not new technology. But what is new is some of the work that we've done to generate this herd and increase the numbers in this herd is something called in vitro fertilization, where we can actually go into those cows and we can pull eggs right off of the ovary. Those eggs can then be placed in a petri dish, and there might be 10 or 12 eggs in there. We can then use one straw of semen and mate all or fertilize all 10, 12, 15, 20 of those eggs with one straw semen. So we have a bull that's particularly rare, and we don't have a lot of semen on him, we can propagate him that way. We can propagate the cows genetics of some of our superior cows. And in fact, we do use that technology as well to increase the herd numbers that we have within that herd. So there's a lot of technology that goes into the reproductive side. Dr. Hansen is working a lot with IVF. And doing studies on embryo survival. He's adding different substances to the embryo media to look at how those embryos grow and see how they might mature and how we might be able to do a better job at getting more of those embryos all the way to term. So there's a lot of work on the reproductive side going on with artificial insemination, synchronization, and in vitro fertilization. 

Jessica Czipulis  

We've talked a lot about reproduction research and how calves for the Project are being created. You also mentioned genetics, which is a key aspect of creating any livestock. Is there anyone working on the genetics of the Brahmans? 

Dr. Todd Thrift  

Absolutely. Genetics is a big, fascinating area of a lot of research. Today, Dr. Mateescu and Dr. Rezende are both working on that area. Some of this is very traditional animal breeding work. Some of it is very cutting edge, what we call genomics. And genomics is just looking very specifically at the genes that these animals might have. So maybe I might be looking for genes that are related to meat quality, or genes that are related to tenderness or genes that are related to leanness, or marbling. They can look at genes related to growth. Dr. Rezende is looking at genes that affect immune function. In addition to that, genes that affect flies and different pests. The Brahman is very unique, in that it's a very pest resistant animal. What genes are driving that? What things are affecting that? Brahman are noted for their thermotolerance, their ability to stand high heat. And she's doing a lot of work looking at elucidating the hair coat, the sweat glands, and how that all impacts the ability of an animal to regulate its body temperature. 

Jessica Czipulis  

And genetics was one of the main reasons a project was created, right? 

Dr. Todd Thrift  

Absolutely. The genetic studies have always been a big piece of this. We have another herd called the multi-breed herd that is a giant genetic studies that's been going on for 30 years. That herd has everything from Angus all the way to Brahman in it. And so they can look and they use it predominantly look at post weaning growth, growth after the calf is weaned. In addition to that a lot of meats traits. Dr. Jason and Tracy Scheffler work on meat tenderness and the impacts that different breed characteristics might have on meat tenderness, cause there are certainly some differences. The Brahman brings a lot of great things to the table, but one of their weaknesses is with the tenderness of their product. And so a lot of work is being done in that arena. There are a lot of tender Brahman cattle out there. What we need to do is work to find the genetics behind what makes some of them tender and what makes some of them a little less tender. And then maybe in the future, we can propagate those that have more desirable meat qualities. 

Jessica Czipulis  

I know we've talked a lot about what some of the other faculty members are doing in terms of research with the project, what has your research looked like within the project? 

Dr. Todd Thrift  

So Jesse Savell is the herd manager here, and I have worked with Jesse. All of the steers this this herd, I should back up and say that this herd is 200 to 250 cows. That means we have about a 90 to 100nmales born every year. We'll come to discussion later on about what we do with those males, but many of them turn into steers. With those, we'll finish those out here, we'll harvest them at our meat lab and we'll collect samples to study the tenderness on them, to look at their pedigree and see if we can find any trends and find out well, these cattle that over here that tended to be more tender, they all are out of this line. And that might point us in a direction of areas where we can look. One of the things that has happened and most of the research that I have done is not directly with the purebred Brahman herd, but with Brahman influenced cattle. We've done some work with implants or growth promoting implants that are commonly used in the feedlot segment of the industry, increased rate of gain, to increase feed efficiency. And a lot of that work has been done with Angus or Charolais cattle across the country. Very little has been done with Brahman influence cattle. So we've done quite a bit of that kind of stuff. In addition, though, most of my work with the Brahmin project is focused on selection. We've spent quite a bit of time applying selection pressure on this herd, particularly in the last five years for intensely good dispositions. They have to be very calm and gentle. We pay a lot of attention to structural soundness. Their feet have to be good and sound. They have to be able to walk freely. Udder quality is a big trait that we look at in the cow herd. We try not to sell any animals, who may have had a problem with udder. Those animals will not stay in the purebred herd, they will not be mated purebred. We're only trying to propagate those that have really good udders. We're also paying a lot of attention to moderation and frame size. The Brahman breed as a whole tends to be very, very large, particularly a lot of the cattle that are in the show ring aspect. And our cattle tend to be more frame score five, which is right in the middle for size. They tend to be probably more along the lines of about a 1960, early 1970 model frame size Brahman. Brahman are a maternal breed and so I don't need as much size maybe as that breed is has selected for over the course of the last 40 or 50 years. And the last trait we're putting a lot of emphasis on is fertility. There's been a tremendous amount of work done on fertility. Imentioned IVF earlier, in vitro fertilization. A cow does not get to become a candidate for that unless she caved two years of age, three years of age, and four years of age. She has to have exhibited fertility and early fertility, before we will actually consider using her and propagating her genes. On top of that, we will not use a bull in artificial insemination unless he passed his breeding soundness exam by 15 months. So we're putting a lot of old fashioned selection pressure on these cattle. That's turning out some cattle that are very functional in the commercial world. 

Jessica Czipulis  

You mentioned this position that is essentially how common individual cow is right? 

Dr. Todd Thrift  

Absolutely. It's one of the more critical things that we deal with in our industry. Brahman cattle have a bad reputation for poor disposition. That's probably not deserved. They are smarter than most other breeds cattle. They're more intuitive than most of the breeds of cattle. You have to handle them differently and you have to think differently. We disposition score all of our bulls at weaning, one through five. One is a very calm animal that really doesn't care. I can approach the animal get within three or four feet before they even begin to move away. Two is an animal that doesn't really want to be petted or anything, but doesn't is not scared may walk away at six or eight feet. And that's as close as they want to let me get. A three would be an animal that never really slows down when they get in the pen. They continue to walk. They're not maybe as calm as I would like to see but not crazy. A four would be an animal that tends to run when they're in the pen. They never do really slow down. They're on the move all the time. They're looking for an escape route. And a five would be an animal that makes me leave the pen. So our fours and fives they immediately get turned into steers. And so we don't propagate anything with the disposition issue. We will not sell a bull that has a disposition problem and we really try to work on making sure these cattle are very handleable for the commercial industry. 

Jessica Czipulis  

When you were talking about the bulls, you mentioned breeding soundness exams. Could you explain what those tests are? 

Dr. Todd Thrift  

Certainly. A breeding sounding exam is where we would get a bull up and we'd have our veterinarian come in and he would obtain a semen sample from that bull. It involves more than that. He looks at his feet, his legs, his eyes, his structure, anything that might affect his ability to breed a cow. But the big piece of it would be he get a semen sample, and then he put that semen sample under a microscope. And he would look to see that there were progressively motile sperm there and that those sperm were were very normal. That they didn't have defects of the head of the sperm, defects in the mid piece or the tail. Any of those could affect his fertility potentially. And so all of breeding soundness exam is a snapshot of his fertility today. It's not a guarantee he will always be fertile, but it is a pretty good idea if he can pass a breeding status exam at 14 to 15 months, that at least lets us know he has early fertility. And that's very important in the selection criteria were placing on these animals. 

Jessica Czipulis  

We talked a lot about the different selection criteria you were using. But what is the need and importance for them? 

Dr. Todd Thrift  

One of the things we've really tried to focus on is some of the weaknesses that the Brahman breed has and in correcting those. Not all of those are actually weaknesses. A lot of them are based on preconceived notions. But there are still some cattle out there with disposition problems, with soundness problems, with udder problems, with fertility problems. As time goes by, we'll add more carcass traits to that mix and put more pressure on that. We've tried to place emphasis on the weak points and make them better. You might look at this like a blueberry breeder, or a strawberry breeder would select for certain traits. Maybe it was sweetness, or maybe it was the ability for that fruit not to spoil as quickly. We're looking at the same kind of thing. The selection we're placing on these traits is ultimately with the end game of I want an animal it's very fertile, very easy to handle and contributes genetically to the cattle industry in a very positive manner. I don't want to have to apologize for any of the traits that these cattle might have as time goes by and I hope that we might turn out a variety so to speak of Brahmans that are very sound, with good dispositions, good udders, good fertility, very moderate frame, and ultimately, with great carcass quality. 

Jessica Czipulis  

It sounds like you and other animal science faculty are working hard in the research realm to improve Brahmans for the average producer. Moving away from the research piece of the project, what benefits do students receive for the project?

Dr. Todd Thrift  

So there's a lot of ways and that's actually the way a lot of this got started. We had these cattle, we wondered what to do with them. We suggested well, maybe we should hold a sale. So each year we will hold a bull and heifer sale in May associated with our Beef Cattle Short Course. We sell 15 head of bulls and 15 head of heifers. The bulls are two year olds and the heifers, our yearlings. The bulls all the best of the best. They're the pick out of about this year sale, we picked we had 90 had to pick from and we ended up with 15 that will be in the sale. So they've put they've had a tremendous amount of selection placed upon them. The heifers are actually our late born heifers. Genetically, there's not a thing in the world wrong with them. They're just born later in the season and they don't fit the research projects, because they're two months, two and a half, maybe three months younger than the early born heifers that go on a lot of the research projects. So that sale goes on. And actually that sale is a lot of the prep work for that sale is done through a class that I teach, called seedstock management and marketing, where we talk about all that's involved in being in the purebred business. Florida is not traditionally a purebred state. I've taught that class now six times, and each time it's a little different. And we look at things a little bit differently. But it's giving students exposure to the purebred industry, what's involved in marketing, what's involved in data collection, what's involved in putting together a catalog for a sale, how to hold a sale, what type of sale, what are some of the pitfalls people run into when they get into purebred business, and what the opportunities are for students in terms of careers in the purebred industry. 

On top of the class and the sale that we offer, there's a lot of other ways. We have a Livestock Judging Team that use utilizes these Brahman cattle for workouts. They will these cattle are used at the at the State Fair. They're used for numerous teaching programs, whether it's Dr. Carr's classes with livestock and meat evaluation where they might be evaluating the carcass traits of some of the steers. They're used a beef practicum class where there would be all the day to day management, whether it was castration or de-horning or deworming or all those things are done. In addition to that,we have a show team. The show team actually travels to the state fair in Tampa. They traveled to Kissimmee to that Brahman show. And for the last two years, they've gone to Houston and competed at the International Brahman show. We're not really at this to be in the show business. But that is a part of the purebred business. It's a piece of the puzzle. And in the Brahman breed it's a huge piece of the puzzle. Probably 90% of the breeders that are out there, the show ring represents a big piece of what they do, and how they market their animals. So we give the students a little bit of opportunity to travel, to see what goes on at those big shows, to exhibit some of our animals, and we've done fairly well and are getting a little bit better as time goes by. With that showed team, Allyson Trimble and Jesse Savell are the ones that are involved in spearheading that. So the students get a lot of opportunity to see Brahmans and we use them in in all of our teaching missions from that standpoint. 

Jessica Czipulis  

You mentioned the sale was one of the educational opportunities students are given through the Brahman Project. Do any other colleges offer sales?

Dr. Todd Thrift  

There are some other places that have a sale. No other schools have a Brahman sale. Kansas State University, Oklahoma State University have traditionally had sales. Penn State had one for years. For years and years, breeders look to the university as a source of genetics, things that may be that they knew a little bit more about. And they could trust explicitly exactly what the data was and how the data was collected. For a long time, going way back in history, they had a sale at Brooksville when the herd was there. But this effort over the last five, six years to do this is certainly the biggest in the nation with the Brahman breed. We've had very successful sales, our bulls have probably averaged $5,000 over the course of five sales so far, and our heifers have probably averaged 4500 over the course of the three sales I think we've had heifers in. So we've been very successful with that. The money from that or the proceeds from that all flows right back into the herd. It goes to support the research that goes on here. It goes to support the show team. It goes to support our extension efforts.

Jessica Czipulis  

Obviously students have numerous ways to be involved directly and indirectly with the Brahman Project. I know several students who have taken your seedstock class and loved it, especially the hands-on approach of it. I want to transition to the last pillar of the project that you just mentioned actually. Extension is the outreach branch of the land-grant mission. How our alumni and stakeholders benefiting from the project?

Dr. Todd Thrift  

Certainly. I do a lot of programming on pros and cons of Bos indicus influenced cattle. Dr. Mateescu writes frequent articles for the Florida Cattlemen's Association on her research and updating what's going on there. Myself and Jesse Seville worked directly with Brahman breeders in the state, cooperate with him a lot. This herd would not be possible at all, if it wasn't for the donations of semen, embryos, heifers from people like the Kempfers, Marcus Shackleford, the Barthle Brothers, Jimmy Chapman. All of them have been huge supporters of this project. And that's just to name a few. The Brahman breeders as a whole in the state are extremely supportive of what we do here. We've done applied projects with many of them looking at purebred Brahman cattle in the feedlot. We've looked at crossbred Brahman cattle in the feedlot. All of that is a piece of the puzzle. Not only that, but several of us will occasionally judge Brahman shows around the state, both youth and open Brahman shows. That serves for extension and outreach where we can talk about the merits of these cattle, what's going on at the university. It also works as a good recruitment tool to bring students in to let them know what's going on here at the university. And what's what's happening here. And what's really important from that standpoint.

Jessica Czipulis  

Now that we've discussed the research, teaching and extension efforts behind the project, what is your vision for the next 10 years of the project? 

Dr. Todd Thrift  

I continue to see it metamorphosizing over time, I think we're getting a good handle on what cattle in the herd really do work and are very functional. That's not a quick thing. You have to understand with today's modern technology, things like we talked about earlier, like in vitro fertilization, if I select a cow based upon her appearance, and I think she's a great cow, and I really like her, and we propagate her through something like in vitro fertilization, I might create 40, 50 60, 200 offspring out of her before I find out, you know what, she wasn't as great as I thought. And so you have to be careful with a lot of this new technology. I think we're finding out which cows truly do work, which cows truly are effective, and which bulls truly are effective. So I think you'll see a little more fine tuning. I think we're going to propagate some some cows that are exceptional. We're already starting to identify some of those that are really exceptional at making beef. And that's what we're really all about. This isn't just about the Brahman industry. This is about how we can use the Brahman breed most effectively to continue to make beef to feed the people in this country. And not just any kind of beef, but high quality beef that we can make and be economically efficient, as well as produce an end product that the consumer is going to want. So I think we're fine tuning which animals that we're really going to talk about propagating. I think as time goes by genomics will play a bigger role as we identify some of these genes that are really important for some of these traits that we're looking at. It will take time for that to happen, maybe it won't be in the next 10 years, but it's coming. I think that's a big piece of the puzzle. I think there's a lot of things going on, where we're going to look at their positive traits that this breed brings to the table and how we might utilize those traits in a bigger picture across the southern third of the United States. I think you're gonna see a resurgence of some of the breeders looking at some of the fundamental important things like fertility and how important that is, and how we might better select to improve that within this breed. There's a lot of positives about the breeds and if we can work on a few of the weaknesses, then then I think we're going to find that we're going to have a unique herd of cattle that a lot of people are going to be interested in. I will say one of the things the big highlights of what we've got going on right now is and Jesse Savell would be the one that was would be key to making this happened. Our herd at the University of Florida was voted the American Brahman Breeders' Performance Breeder of the Year just recently.That is a big honor that some of the best herds in the country have been awarded that before. And it's one of those things, it's really based on our attention to selecting cattle based upon data and information and how they actually perform. That's that's been a big accolade just recently that we received and I think that's, it says that a lot of the breeders out in the country are looking at what we're doing, and that we're heading in the right direction, and they're very much in support of us continuing the path that we're on. 

Jessica Czipulis  

As we begin to wrap up, what would you like listeners to take away from this episode?

Dr. Todd Thrift  

Brahman is a very unique animal that brings some very unique characteristics. Key to this to me is I'm not interested in so much promoting the Brahman as a pure breed. But I'm interested in promoting what the Brahman brings to the table from a crossbreeding standpoint. That's where they fit. They're a maternal breed. And I think that's important to keep that in mind. If you really need exceptional carcass quality, there are breeds that excel in that and we probably ought to look to those breeds and cross them with Brahman that brings our heat adaptability that brings some fertility and a hot climate that brings moderation in size and all the other things that we're working on here. End game and this is how can I use them most effectively in a crossbreeding plan to make sure that producers in the southern third of the United States have the genetics they need to deal with the heat, the humidity and all that goes along with that here in the south. 

Jessica Czipulis  

Thank you for sitting down with me today and sharing all of your knowledge about the UF Brahman Project Dr. Thrift. 

Dr. Todd Thrift  

Thank you for having me. 

Jessica Czipulis  

To learn more about the UF Brahman Project, visit the UF/IFAS Department of Animal Sciences website. 

Thank you for listening to the Boundless Science series on Streaming Science Podcast. Make sure to check out our website and social media for more of our work. If you enjoyed this episode, we encourage you to tune into our other episodes in our series to see what else our student team has created. Once again, I'm your host, Jessica Czipulis. Thanks for listening. 

For more information about this episode, visit the links in our show notes.