Characterization of water intake and water efficiency in beef cattle

In the future, water may not be as readily available due to increases in competition from a growing human population, wildlife, and other agricultural sectors, making selection for water efficiency of beef cattle increasingly important. Substantial selection emphasis has recently been placed on feed efficiency in an effort to reduce production costs, but no emphasis has been placed on making cattle more water efficient due to lack of data. Thus, the objective of this study was to calculate water efficiency metrics for cattle and evaluate their relationship to growth, feed intake (FI), and feed efficiency. Individual daily FI and water intake (WI) records were collected on 578 crossbred steers over a 70-d test period. Animals with low water intake ate less feed, had lower gains, and were more water efficient (as defined by water to gain ratio, W/G, and residual water intake, RWI). However, the amount of water consumed by animals had minimal phenotypic relationship with feed efficiency (residual feed intake [RFI], R2 = 0.1050 and feed to gain ratio (F/G) ratio R' = 0.0726). Cattle that had low DMI consumed less water, had lower gains, had lower RFI, and had higher F/G. The level of feed consumed had minimal relationship with water efficiency. WI, W/G, RWI, and ADG had moderate heritability estimates of 0.39, 0.39, 0.37, and 0.37, respectively. High heritability estimates were observed for DMI and RFI (0.67 and 0.65, respectively). Feed to gain had a low heritability estimate of 0.16. WI had a strong positive genetic correlation with W/G (0.99) and RWI (0.88), thus selecting for decreased WI should also make cattle more water efficient. The genetic correlation between WI and ADG was 0.05; thus, selecting for low WI cattle should have little effect on growth. There is a low to moderate genetic correlation between WI and DMI (0.34). RWI has a positive genetic correlation with W/G ratio (0.89) and F/G ratio (0.42) and is negatively genetically correlated with RFI (-0.57). Water to gain and F/G had a strong positive genetic correlation (0.68). RFI has a positive genetic correlation with W/G ratio (0.37) and F/G (0.88). Minimal antagonisms seem to be present between WI and ADG, although it should be noted that standard errors were large and often not significantly different from zero due to the small sample size. However, care should be taken to ensure that unintended changes do not occur in DMI or other production traits and incorporation of WI into a selection index would likely prove to be the most effective method for selection.