Grazing beef cow with calf before its weaning reduces cost and labor of calf production. However, growth of calf on pasture tends to be worse than indoor fed calf because of various stress; hot or cold temperature, wind and rain, bad nutrition condition and walking long distance with its mother. Recently bovine leukemia virus (BLV) which is the causative agent of enzootic bovine leukosis, a malignant B cell lymphoma. BLV has spread worldwide and also come up to the surface among Japanese cattle farms. Production of healthy and valuable calves by grazing is an important issue. Many public pastures contaminated by the accident of TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi NPP have been restrained of grazing because of exceeding the reference value for radioactive cesium concentration of feed.
We conduct the following research to resolve them.
(1) Evaluating the effects of BLV on nursing capacity through the analysis based on nutrition, physiology and immunology
(2) Developing of raising calf system to reduce risk of BLV infection
(3) Developing the wearable sensor to monitor some signals associated with stress in cattle
(4) Developing countermeasure for radioactive cesium contaminated pasture