Nutrition Graduate Students Receive Awards at Plains Nutrition Conference

Graduate students of Oklahoma State University’s Department of Animal Science claimed top prizes for graduate poster presentations at the Plains Nutrition Conference in San Antonio, Texas on April 13-15. The poster presentation contest received a record number of participants this year from major universities including Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Colorado State University, Kansas State University, University of Nebraska, South Dakota State University, University of Minnesota, and The Ohio State University. “Our students placed three out of the top five among 49 competitors,” said Dr. Gerald Horn, Graduates of Distinction Professor of Animal Science.

Casey Maxwell, an Animal Science Ph.D. student from Stinnett, Texas was awarded first place for his poster presentation entitled "The effects of castration method and antibiotic administration protocol on health, performance and economics of high-risk calves." His research demonstrated castration methods (knife cut vs. banding) had no effect on performance and economics of calves over a 42 day period. Steers purchased at the same time experienced lower morbidity, improved performance, and decreased cost of gains compared to bulls.

OSU Animal Science beef cattle nutrition graduate students claimed two additional awards. Dana Christensen, a M.S. student from Ruskin, Nebraska, received the Award of Merit for her presentation entitled “A comparison of two diets and two methods of adaption on feedlot cattle performance.” Her research demonstrated that adapting cattle to high concentrate finishing diets can be done equally well with traditional step up diets or a system that used a blending of two diets over a 28-day period. Her results further indicated that use of a low-forage, high-wet distillers grains diet results in lower performance than more traditional diets.

Evin Sharman, Ph.D. Nutrition student from Brush, Colorado, received an Award of Merit for his research on “Effects of energy supplementation and a combination grazing implant on grazing/finishing performance and carcass merit of wheat pasture stocker cattle.” The grazing implant increase daily weight gain of stocker cattle by 0.31 lb, increased profitability by about $20/steer, and increased final carcass weight without impacting carcass quality. “Proper use of grazing implants increase cost competitiveness of the beef cattle industry as a whole and help the industry to more efficiently produce a safe, quality product” said Dr. Horn, faculty advisor to Mr. Evin Sharman.