Omega-6 fatty acids, long held to be a danger to early-pregnancy beef embryos, may actually improve their chances of survival, according to a team of researchers at Texas A&M University.
“Our group provided evidence that supplementing beef cows with a lipid source rich in omega-6 fatty acids during the early embryonic period increased pregnancy success by promoting conceptus development, establishment and maintenance of the pregnancy,” team lead Dr. Reinaldo Cooke said.
Now they want to find out why.
Omega-6 fatty acids act as an inflammatory and have been fed in beef cattle diets, but they need answers on how much is too much. And omega-3 fatty acids, which have the opposite effect as an anti-inflammatory, are not commonly fed to beef cattle, so there is no data.
“We want to answer questions of how much omega-6 is too much; that’s the first project,” he said. “The second project is comparing the two, using the dose of omega-6 that we know works and then see if omega-3 has complementary effects.”
He explained that the healing process in a body is mediated by inflammation – inflammation stimulates the growth of certain cells and body reactions. They are looking to determine how much is just enough to add fuel for embryo growth and positive pregnancy development.
Dairy cows inherently eat a lot of fat, so when fed high amounts of omega-6 there were negative effects on reproduction. But in beef cattle, it’s unknown how much is too much.
Cooke said reproductive failure is a key factor limiting cow-calf productivity, and pregnancy loss has been recognized as one of the main reproductive challenges in cattle.
Most pregnancy losses occur during the first 28 days of gestation, he said, and these losses are classified as early embryonic loss.
